This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kristina Bouweiri, owner of Reston Limousine. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I never planned on being in the limousine industry. I thought I’d follow in my father’s footsteps and join the Foreign Service. I was born in Japan and spent 20 years living overseas because of his job. I studied international affairs in college, worked on women’s empowerment projects in Somalia, and planned to make an impact in the nonprofit world.
But when I returned to the US, the only job I could find was 100% commission sales. One of my cold calls was to a man named William Bouweiri, who owned a small limousine company in Northern Virginia. That call changed my life.
We started dating, and four months later, he asked me to leave my job and join him in his business. I did, and within a year, we were married.
Reston Limousine was a small operation when I came on board
My husband focused on corporate clients — he had only five cars and made $200,000 in yearly revenue. But I saw potential elsewhere. I pushed for proms, weddings, and eventually government contracts. I cold-called brides from purchased lists, and within a year, we were doing 100 weddings every weekend.
In the ’90s, we were in the right place at the right time. We landed government shuttle contracts, and tech companies like AOL became clients. Revenue soared to $5 million. Eventually, we grew to 240 vehicles with contracts across the region.
I struggled with infertility for five years. As hard as it was, it gave me time to work 16-hour days during those early startup years. When my twins were born, I had a business that could support maternity leave and a team to run operations.
He stayed home with the kids while I ran the company
After 9/11, everything stopped. Corporate travel froze, events were canceled, and contracts paused. One of the biggest blows came when our bank dropped us, saying our 50 buses in D.C. were a potential terrorist target. We’d never missed a payment, but we lost financing overnight. It took six months to find a new bank and five years to return to profitability.
During that time, my husband and I decided he’d stay home with our four kids while I ran the business. That’s when I fully stepped into the CEO role.
We were tested again during the 2008 recession, and when the pandemic hit. That was the hardest. We laid off 300 of our 450 employees. I refunded $1 million in deposits with no revenue coming in, and I didn’t know if we’d survive.
The PPP loan saved us. During that downtime, I brought in consultants, eliminated redundancies, cut unnecessary software, and streamlined operations. Coming out of the pandemic, we were leaner, more profitable, and better prepared.
Despite our growth, I still faced challenges as a woman in a male-dominated industry. I’ve walked into meetings where no one would look me in the eye or speak directly to me, even though I was the CEO. But it didn’t faze me, I knew my worth.
Over the years, I paid for three of my children to attend college and watched my son grow into an exceptional sales director at Reston Limousine. He even landed our Major League Soccer account, leading to a major transportation opportunity in 2024.
I sold my company
And after more than 30 years, I sold Reston Limousine this April for $32.9 million.
I’ll stay on for three years to support the transition, but I’m proud to say I paid off the loan I used to buy out my ex-husband and built one of the top limousine companies in the country.
My biggest accomplishment isn’t just the size of the company. It’s that I had the courage to leave a marriage, buy the company on my own, and run it while raising four kids. I proved women can lead — and succeed — in any industry.
Read the full article here
