One Tree Hill and Chicago P.D., becoming a professional multihyphenate along the way. The women are activists, entrepreneurs and advisers—and growing names in the angel-investing scene. And people have discounted their expertise and experience every step of the way.“Especially as an actor, I’m accustomed to being underestimated, and I find it to be incredibly humorous,” Bush says, a wry smirk tugging at her lips.
“I think being underestimated can be incredible fuel.”After launching an inclusive salon and accompanying philanthropic organization in Detroit in 2017, their next big project (they’re two of the advisers for First Women’s Bank) combines their decades of philanthropic and entrepreneurial experience. Located in Chicago, it is, quite literally, the first women’s bank in the U.S.: women-founded, women-owned, women-operated.Because it’s tough to be a woman in the entertainment business, and it’s tough, too, to be a woman in finance. Sophia Bush and Nia Batts know that all too well.So go ahead.
Underestimate them.They’re battle-tested. And they’re ready to prove you wrong.Nia Batts grew up in Detroit. Her grandmother was a teacher, her grandfather a postal carrier.
Her father, a professional investor and money manager, had a union business managing pension funds, which got her thinking from an early age about how to secure the futures of families all over—not just their own.“I learned that money is certainly power; ; it’s also options,” Batts says. “And my parents were always about making sure that I was able to live a full life by preserving as many options for me as possible.”Bush was raised in Los Angeles, where we’re gathered today, sitting across from each other in a sun-dappled industrial loft. She’s the
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Nia Batts
