“It doesn’t matter that I didn’t study film or come from a film background… What matters is my voice. My voice as a black woman in this industry…”

Teanne Andrews has been nominated for a PRECIOUS Award, a finalist of the ‘Creative Business of the Year’ category which highlights the creative and financial achievements of a creative business in the creative sector, as well as the considered approach to its future success.

The PRECIOUS Awards were launched in 2007 to recognise and acknowledge the achievements of women in colour in business and enterprise.

To celebrate, we interviewed Teanne, asking her questions about her career, her thoughts on leadership and her advice for other black entrepreneurs.

How does it feel to be a finalist of the Creative Business category of the Precious Awards? What does that mean to you?

I feel really proud. Next year, we're celebrating our 10th anniversary of the business and starting the business. It’s been such a remarkable journey in terms of how we started our company, you know. The idea of putting on a film screening, showing a film that we were too young to see in the cinema and then wanting to bring audiences together, which we thought was just going to be one night only. That’s now turned into a full time career for not only myself, but my husband as well, Anthony.

And there's just an immense sense of pride that I feel. It’s a company we have grown and hopefully it will continue to grow. This year in particular, we really set ourselves a big task in the sense that we wanted to become known as an international company. During COVID in 2020, it gave us a lot of time to reflect about our business and where we could see our business going. So we said to ourselves, before we turn 10 in 2023, we want to venture into international territories. And I’m so proud that we were able to do that this year in 2022. We produced two amazing events and projects, both funded by the British Council.

The first one was called The Shot List, which saw us putting together a one night event in Kingston and working with amazing partners such as JAFTA and New Wave, showcasing black British talent as well as Jamaican and Trinidadian filmmakers. The second event, Love Letters to Cinema, was a collaborative project between us and Manyatta Screenings. Over the course of a few months, we co-produced and delivered events in Nairobi. It was the first time for me, visiting that country, and it was just a phenomenal opportunity to be able to to work with, you know, the diaspora and other black creatives from all around the world.

So, yeah, we're hoping to do more of that work. To become a finalist for the Creative Business category this year, particularly when we’ve launched those projects in addition to the rest of our work, that fills me with a huge sense of pride. It means a lot. The recognition is really deeply appreciated. I think within the sector that we work in - film exhibition - very rarely does it give flowers or highlights organisations working within it. It’s still very new and on the rise, a lot of people don’t know what film exhibition is. So with that growing awareness, we’re still finding our feet in terms of pushing boundaries and finding new creative ways to showcase events and to host events.

Teanne setting up at **Love Letters to Cinema**

If you could go back to 2013 and give that Teanne some business advice, what would it be?

I think it would be to have confidence. To know that the work that we’re doing has importance within the industry. It doesn't matter that I didn't come from a film background. It doesn't matter that I didn't study film. It doesn’t matter that I haven’t had friends within the film industry giving me a leg up. None of that matters. What matters is my voice. My voice as a black woman within the industry, that matters. The work matters. Our ethos at We Are Parable and what we’re creating, that matters. If you stand firm with all those beliefs, everything else will come. So yeah, it would be to have a lot more confidence and that’s something that I’m working on on a daily basis.

Have there been hard choices you've had to make to get to where you are, now?

One of the hard choices is a hard choice we continuously make, to be honest. Being a husband and wife duo, we have two very young children (8 and 10 years old) and obviously being an events company and primarily running events in the evening, there’s a lot of sacrifice in terms of spending family time with our children. It’s hard given that we’re having to go to work, this is our job, this is what we do. But at the same time, it’s having that understanding of why we’re doing the work and our children understand that this is something that mummy and daddy do because we’re business owners. And that’s something that we’ve always wanted to instil in our children, that you can work for yourselves and you can have a successful business. So yeah, although there have been hard choices and we’re not always able to bring our children along, they’re choices that we stand by because we firmly believe in the business and the work that we’re doing. It’s about creating something, a legacy for our children as well.

Teanne instructing volunteers at **Spike is 60**

What’s been the most rewarding moment for you in your career so far?

I’ve had so many rewarding moments within We Are Parable as a career… From when we did our first event back in 2013 to when Spike Lee approached us to collaborate, off the back of another event we did, the Spike is 60 festival that we were organising in his honour… to the opening of Black Panther, the first world preview screening, which we were a part of in terms of its creative delivery to… oh gosh… touring the Barber Shop across the UK, paying respect to the TV show, Desmond’s. There's just been so many rewarding moments, but I think if I had to think about all of them, the most rewarding moment for me was actually being able to take the leap in 2020 and join the company full time, becoming a full acting Director and not having to take on other work or freelance jobs.

2020 changed a lot for a lot of people. But for me, it made me reassess my why and what I wanted to do, especially knowing the company’s potential and how far it could go in future. To be able to do that is a huge, huge reward for me.

Teanne Andrews at 2022 EE British Film Academy Awards

When things get difficult, what motivates you to keep going?

As business owners, we are constantly learning every single day. For me, no day is the same at We Are Parable. From finance to accounts to pensions… there are so many different things as a business owner that you’re responsible for. So, it’s about having an amazing team around you. I think we’re very blessed to know so many good advisors who are in our corner, you know, wanting our business to succeed. And so when times get difficult, I ask for help. You shouldn’t be too proud to ask for help because we can’t do everything on our own. But it’s also about remembering the ‘why’ we started our company… when I think about the events that we've done and the projects that we've created, they've all been very different in their own right. What motivates me is wanting to see the change in the industry. When it comes to diversity within the film industry or within the arts, there's still a lot of work to be done. So that also motivates me, our audiences and the fact that we’re working towards a bigger purpose.

**An Evening of Purpose**, first event as Creatives in Residence at the Barbican

Work/life balance - how do you do it? What do you recommend?

I wear a lot of hats within the business and as I mentioned, I’m a mum with two children, co-parenting with Anthony… So, I’m a person that likes to make sure we’re prioritising our boundaries. Sometimes it’s not always possible to shut down our laptops because we’ve got work coming in that we need to get back to… But I try and have boundaries where I know that there are certain times when it’s family time, work time and social time; and we try our hardest not to mix all three.

It’s not easy but there are a few things that have really helped me, like having a business diary and a personal diary. That way we’re making sure we’re putting in time for ourselves; for me and Anthony, as husband and wife to spend time together, for our children as a family, the wider family that we have and friends… and then obviously, the business side of things.

It’s about having that kind of balance. It’s also about understanding that my self-care is paramount. That's something I learnt, you know, in 2020, 2021 that if I'm not well within myself, you know, mentally and physically, then I'm not going to be able to be a good mum or wife or business owner.

And it took a long time for that to sink in. This idea that we should all be superwomen… But being a superwoman.. is that even sustainable? That's the thing for me, I don’t want to burn out. I’ve been burnt out before and it’s not a great place to be.

So I think it’s really important that if you’re thinking of becoming a business owner or running a business, you need to put time aside for yourself. That’s one of the reasons I set up my own florist company in 2021, called Shirley Blossoms. I was becoming really frustrated and depressed by the fact that we weren’t able to put on We Are Parable events due to lockdown. So, I started flower arranging as a way of to keep my mind busy and keep up that creativity and now it’s kind of grown into a second business. However, it's one that I manage very tightly in the sense that I won’t just take on loads of jobs. I’m very selective with the jobs I take on and actually it has to be something that’s giving me joy. If it’s a pressure or it’s a stress, then I tend to walk away from it because that’s my creative outlet, that’s the thing that’s giving me the balance and self care.

Anthony Andrews, Sheila Atim, Lashana Lynch & Teanne Andrews, stood in front of a **Shirley Blossoms** flower display

We all have our insecurities… what’s yours and how do you rise above it?

So yeah, insecurities. Kind of like I was saying earlier, for me it’s confidence. There have been a few times in my professional career (not related to We Are Parable work) where my confidence has been knocked so much so that you almost feel like you have imposter syndrome: Am I good enough? Is the work I’m doing, good enough? Those were the insecurities that would come into my mind all the time in other work.

However, when we started We Are Parable.. I didn’t really get that insecurity. It was a confidence thing, but I didn’t really feel like I couldn’t do something… It was more about how I might be perceived by the industry, not coming from a film background. But then actually I come from an arts background and I realised that the transferable skills that I had gained would put me in good stead for film.

I had a short course of mentoring with Stella Kanu (Executive Director, London International Festival of Theatre LIFT) as part of #AllofUs Redundancy Care programme, which was a professional lifeline for me. I even went on to do a few courses by organisations such as Clore Leadership, The Space To Come’s Brilliant Routes programme and the ICO’s women leadership course, which were great, all about leadership within the arts and film. So, when people comment and speak about We Are Parable, and me specifically as co-founder, they see something completely different to what I see or what I feel. So I kind of lean into the fact that we are doing good work and that’s something that’s helped me rise above the insecurities.

Teanne and Anthony Andrews at the Jonas Gwangwa Music Composition Initiative at Abbey Road Studios

What advice do you have for other aspiring black entrepreneurs?

If you have an idea, follow through with it. Just start it and do it. Even if it’s a side hustle and you have a full time job that’s paying you, start building your company in the background. I feel that, you know, had we not done that with We Are Parable, perhaps we wouldn’t be in the situation where we are now as a company and where I’m a finalist for the Precious Awards, for Creative Business of the year.

We had an idea which originally wasn't meant to be a business in the sense that it was paying us immediately. It was a passion project. For a long time, we weren’t making money in a way that we could pay ourselves. However, what we did do is make sure that the company was investing in itself, because we didn't have, you know, any funding or an investor. We bootstrapped our company until we got to a point where Anthony could start working part time to full time.

So yeah, I just kind of feel like these ideas are valid. It’s about believing in yourselves, believing that you can do this, believing in your ideas. And if you're not going to do it, then who's going to do it? And ask for help. If there's things you come across as stumbling blocks and barriers, then ask for help to overcome them.

Congratulations to Teanne, who won the award for
Creative Business of the Year at Precious Awards 2022!