Shakespeare's Sister Company

Sister of the Month: Sofia Jones

By Kris Lundberg on July 7th, 2010

What’s in a name? Tell us the story behind your first and surname.
My father was in love with Sophia Loren.   That’s the long and short of it.  My mom wanted to name me either Rachel or Rebecca, but dad got to the nurses first.  Keep in mind…he completely mis-spelled the name.  Sofia Lorraine is what reads on my birth certificate.  I had been calling myself Sophia Loren my entire life.  Even my high school diploma has the wrong name on it.  It wasn’t until I was applying for college that I realized I had been using the actress name and not the one that is stated on my birth certificate.

 Describe a fond memory growing up of your parents.
Mom and dad got divorced early.  Dad would take all of us kids fishing every summer and I always loved that.  My mom helped me go to Belgium for a summer study abroad program during high school.  It was a challenge for a single mom raising four other kids.

What is your passion?
My toolbox.  I love to decorate, saw, build things.  I would love the opportunity to work in a situation where I can make things and just create.  I can look at a house and see the possibilities.  I see landscaping in my head…colors, lighting.  Real Estate, but not in the traditional sense.  What I really want to do is own luxury properties, one on each continent, decorate them and offer these properties to corporate travellers. 

When did you realize how important your passion is to you and why, as a whole, it is so important to you?
My father was a construction worker and always took me everywhere with him.  I loved doing construction.  When I moved to my current apartment, I started sewing and turned my bed into a four poster masterpiece.  My skills have evolved over the years.  I would have loved the opportunity in college to combine construction management with my love for foreign language and  traveling and somehow marry the three together.  I’ve taken French, Spanish and Japanese but haven’t been able to use either over the years as much as I would have liked.

If you could change the world with this passion, what would you do?
Build really nice quality low-income housing.  That would be the payback.

Do you feel in today’s society that modern women are able to voice their opinion?
Yes in regards to actually voicing what they have to say, however the repercussions are the same.  There are different expectations of working women versus men as to the amount of work to achieve the same level.  When a woman and a man are in the same level job, the woman is paid $.80 on the dollar and we have to do three times the work.  You have to become a senior executive just to make a comparable salary as to your male counterpart with a director title.  The number of women in senior levels are contracting.  There are more women in the workforce, but not at senior levels and within P&L.  There are more women entrepreneurs, but the imbalance is that only a tiny percentage of government contracts actually reach women and minority-owned companies.  Same is true of venture capital funding.

Who is your role model and why?
Whenever I have a decision to make, I think what would Jay Z do?  He came from the Marcy projects and now is partial owner of the NJ Nets, owns six clubs around the world, and is actively involved in other real estate deals too boot.  There’s a guy that knows how to navigate.  If I were to pick one, it would be him.

Where do you see women as a whole in the arts in the next five years?
More Kathryn Bigelows…more Kris Lundbergs.  More women are needed behind the scenes where the money is controlling the purse strings.

Do you have any advice for the feminine gene pool?
Margaret Thatcher said that there is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women – so HELP OTHER WOMEN.  Ask lots of questions.  Find mentors, early on, of all kinds, careers, levels, ages, races, genres.  I love the diversity of the people that influence my life.  Never stop learning.  Be fearless.  Oh, and congrats to my girl, Krissy, on her success!

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