Hoot Design Company's Kristen Brown on Motherhood and Branding

In the demanding world of branding agencies, Kristen Brown, founder of Hoot Design Company, has carved out a niche that not only champions effective branding but also advocates for a workplace that honors and supports working mothers.

Since the age of 12, Kristen’s dream was to build an agency that mirrored her values. Her journey started 13 years ago, with a retail paper store specializing in wedding invitations, a venture that would later pivot into an ad agency, and finally, the brand agency with proprietary processes and intellectual property that is Hoot today.

Kristen describes branding as her team’s ‘zone of genius’. And she is determined to channel that genius through her all-female team. The birth of her first child in 2011, followed by a second in 2013, showed her the stark realities and challenges of juggling motherhood with a thriving career. It was a “rude awakening,” as she puts it, navigating through a professional world that often implicitly demands a choice between career and family. “There were lots of women in the industry, but not many mothers. The pay gap between men and childless women is tiny, but between men and mothers it’s huge”, she adds.

In a society where the rise of women in leadership is gaining momentum, exemplified by cultural moments like the Barbie movie, and where pay parity discussions are becoming more prevalent, Kristen noticed a gap. While more women are indeed ascending to leadership positions, mothers are often conspicuously absent from these ranks.

Mothers still earn approximately 72 cents on the dollar compared to their male counterparts. Employers often rank mothers lower in desirability or higher risk. “This is because so many households are still traditional, where women predominantly manage household tasks and child care. For a small business without any government support or tax credits for maternity, it’s almost like they can’t be blamed for being prejudiced against mothers.”

Kristen ensured that Hoot Design Company would stand as a counter-narrative to the prevailing corporate culture. The agency has always embraced a culture that is not only women-centric but also mom-friendly. Since 2015, the company has implemented work-from-home Tuesdays and tried to establish a no-meetings day to accommodate the personal and family obligations of its employees. Kristen also created maternity packages and a unique “life support” system, which allows employees to buy-back time for family needs, ensuring that the company supports mothers in a tangible way.

In a nation where maternity benefits are scarce and there is no federal legislation mandating maternity leave, Kristen’s 12-week maternity leave policy at Hoot is a bold statement, especially for a small and growing business in a demanding industry.

“I would love to see more support for small businesses from the government in the form of subsidies or tax breaks to facilitate mom-friendly policies, especially considering the looming population crisis due to declining birth rates in the US. The kids of today are the workforce of tomorrow” says Brown.

Hoot Design Company, with its all-female team, is not only producing branding excellence but is also a testament to a business model where employees' time, the very 'product' of the agency, is valued and cared for. Kristen hopes to expand Hoot and its positive, female-friendly environment to enable more women to work in a space where “motherhood is revered and flexibility is not just a perk, it’s table stakes."