Years ago, I was fortunate to have extraordinary mentors who opened doors for me that I could never have opened alone.
One of those mentors was the legendary entrepreneur Red McCombs.
He and other remarkable leaders taught me how business really works. How deals get done. How capital moves. How relationships are built. And how opportunities become reality.
But they also asked something of me.
Promise that you’ll give back to as many people as you can what we’ve taught you.
I made that promise.
And I’ve spent my life figuring out how to keep it.
Then came a calling.
More than 15 years ago, I felt a calling on my life to empower a billion women.
Not a million. A billion.
I didn’t know exactly how I would do it. But I knew why.
Because I had experienced firsthand what happens when someone sees potential in you, shares what they know, opens a door, and gives you a chance.
And I believed that kind of access could change the world.
I still do.
Women remain the foundation of EBW — Empowering a Billion Women.
But over the years, I realized something important: the knowledge, tools, and opportunities we were building shouldn’t be limited to any one group.
Opportunity should recognize potential, not labels.
Whether you’re a woman or a man, a founder or an employee, a student or a CEO, just starting out or starting over — if you have a dream, an ambition, or something valuable to contribute, you belong here.
Here’s what I’ve learned about opportunity.
People say, “Your network is your net worth.”
There’s truth in that.
But here’s another truth I’ve learned from spending decades working with entrepreneurs, investors, billionaires, corporate leaders, and people with extraordinary ideas:
People who create value want to work with other people who create value.
Investors want to find great opportunities. Businesses want to find great suppliers. Innovators want to find the right partners. People with resources want to put those resources to work.
So why is opportunity still so difficult to access?
Three reasons.
Time. Volume. Access.
There are simply too many people, too many possibilities, too much information, and too few ways to connect the right things at the right time.
I’ve lived this challenge every day of my career.
Even with an extraordinary network and a lifelong commitment to opening doors, I couldn’t personally connect every person to every opportunity.
And that’s when I realized:
We don’t just need bigger networks. We need a better way for opportunity to find opportunity.
The world changed when technology became personal.
Early in my career, I understood that the internet was an ocean of zeros and ones.
Information was everywhere. But without personalization, much of it wasn’t relevant to me.
The same is true of opportunity.
A billion connections mean very little if you can’t identify the ONE that matters to you.
Today, data, artificial intelligence, and personalized technology finally give us the ability to begin solving that problem at a scale that simply wasn’t possible before.
To understand where someone is.
Understand where they want to go.
Help them learn how the game is played.
And connect their capabilities, ambitions, and value to relevant opportunities.
The right people. The right time. The right opportunity.
That’s why we created EBW.ONE.
Your ONE starts with you.
We’re not here to tell you what success should look like.
We’re here to help you define it, prepare for it, and pursue it.
Through our seven-step learning system, personalized AI, and Agent ONE Badge, you can build the knowledge and capabilities to participate more confidently in the economy.
You can learn. You can build. You can sell. You can contribute. You can grow.
And you can choose how far you want to go.
Our network isn’t a promise of a shortcut or a guaranteed introduction.
It’s something more meaningful: an opportunity to learn how to create, recognize, communicate, and deliver value so that the right relationships and opportunities can develop.
And whether you use what you learn within our ecosystem or take it into your own world, that knowledge belongs to you.
A new economy of possibility.
I believe the future belongs to people who create value — wherever they live, whatever their background, and however unconventional their path.
I believe the greatest opportunities emerge when we connect knowledge, technology, capital, relationships, and human potential.
And I believe value creation should be recognized and fairly compensated.
That’s the economy we’re working to build.
One where people aren’t overlooked simply because they don’t know the right person.
One where great ideas have a better chance of finding the resources they need.
One where participation is a choice, contribution matters, and opportunity can flow in more directions.
This is my answer to a promise I made decades ago.
This is my answer to a calling that has never left me.
And this is my invitation to you.
Find your ONE in a billion.
Let’s make your possible, possible.
— Ingrid Vanderveldt
Founder, EBW.ONE