Influential Woman · Nonprofit

Makissa Lewis

Founder, My Seester, Inc.

Greenacres, FL

Her Story

About Makissa

I own a nonprofit organization called SEESTER (S-E-E-S-T-E-R, which means 'I see you') that provides advocacy, services, and resources to female veterans in the South Florida area. I started this organization because when I came out of the military from Iraq in 2000, there were not a lot of resources for us females - it was more catered to the male veteran coming back. I found that social media had a lot of resources, but nothing in person, or if they were in person, you had to know somebody who knew somebody. Rather than keep asking why this wasn't happening, I figured, why not do it yourself and see what happens? My military background was in logistics, where I ordered parts and made sure vehicles got where they needed to go. I'm very into structure from start to finish and I can see the big picture. However, I decided I didn't want to do logistics when I got out of the military because that's very lonely - you don't see people when they're on the way out or coming back in, you don't see them in between. I found that kind of impersonal, so I wanted to be where the people are. Now, I'm focused on making sure the ones who come after me have it better, and I'm working on helping female veterans recognize that their service did matter and building up their identity as veterans.

Her Interview

Ten minutes with Makissa

01What do you attribute your success to?

First off, I don't consider myself successful - I always consider myself a work in progress. It keeps me humble, and it keeps me wanting to keep on doing this, because once you get success, it seems like you plateau. I just think of the person who's coming after me. Whoever's coming after me, I want to leave it better. So whatever I can do to be better for them, or coming after me, that's what I'm working on, that's the task. I know I started the organization for female veterans, but I recognize the ones who are coming after me. It's not a problem of being a female veteran, it's identifying that your service did matter as a veteran. So I'm now into this wave of identity. I find our identity as female, sometimes it gets brushed away. You don't want to say you're a female, or it looks like you're weak, or a victim. So building up that. To me, success is always thinking about who's coming after me, and how can I leave it better for them.

02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?

Have some mentors. Don't do it by yourself, because you go further with a group with you, backing you. So whether you're trying to go back to school, whether you're trying to have a business, whatever you're doing, just have some mentors that you can rely on. And lean on them, and be able to be leaned on when your time comes. I had the nonprofit, the idea, but I needed a whole village behind me to help me find information. And I found that helped. And I found that once I was able to, they could lean on me, so that's what I would recommend.

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