Chicago startup The Mom Project just added a new high-profile advisor to its team.
The startup, which connects employers to viable female candidates, announced Friday that Serena Williams has joined the company as a strategic advisor.
Williams joining The Mom Project is not entirely surprising as her husband Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, invested in The Mom Project through his VC firm, Initialized Capital. The firm led an $8 million round for The Mom Project in 2018, bringing its total funding to $11 million.
"It is a dream to welcome Serena to our team,” said The Mom Project Founder and CEO Allison Robinson in a statement. “She is truly the embodiment of The Mom Project's mission and what we aspire to. Serena is a role model to so many moms, reminding us that when we recognize our own strength—we are unstoppable.”
Williams has long talked about her journey in balancing motherhood with her tennis and business careers on social media and in her HBO documentary, "Being Serena." Williams and Ohanian welcomed their daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., to the world in 2017.
Founded in 2016, The Mom Project has built an online platform that helps to connect viable women candidates to employers with open positions. The startup takes a special interest in matching women who have left the job market to start a family or for other personal reasons get back into it. Robinson came up with the idea for the startup after taking her own parental leave from her post at Procter & Gamble to raise her son.
The Mom Project says it serves a community of more than 200,000 professionals and has worked with about 2,000 companies, including Facebook, Nike, Etsy and Uber to place women into jobs.
Besides matching women and mothers with jobs, The Mom Project focused on a different kind of issue last year—helping pregnant women find a seat on Chicago public transit. By distributing “Baby on Board” buttons for pregnant women to wear on the L and CTA busses, the startup aimed to encourage riders to give up their seat when an expecting mother comes aboard.
