FROM OUR CEO
Inspiring a New Generation of Leaders
Amy with her 91-year-old grandma Sondra Thompson.
I n preparing for this “Women of Influence” issue, I took a moment to celebrate and reflect on my journey as a woman in leadership. I am incredibly proud of my current position, working with extraordinarily talented female leaders, continuously learning from the inspiring women around me and having the privilege of raising two strong, beautiful young women.
So, what has been my path to this point? It’s been a fascinating journey, filled with valuable lessons. Reflecting on this journey evokes a mix of deep appreciation and intense emotion.
Growing up, my aspiration was to be a transformational leader who positively impacted others. I aimed to add value, connect, serve and earn a place at the table with other leaders and decision-makers. My mission was clear, but the road ahead was presented with unexpected challenges. I have regrets about certain decisions and moments when I didn’t stand up firmly for my beliefs. There were times when I felt compelled to blend in as “one of the guys,” overlooking issues and enduring with the hope that, one day, the landscape for women leaders would improve.
My leadership journey has been challenging, but I know my experiences are not unique. The collective experiences of women leaders have shaped the world in which my daughters are growing up, and for that, I am profoundly grateful.
Sondra as a young, ambitious entrepreneur in 1950.
Today, I encourage others to embrace the superpowers of authenticity, vulnerability and storytelling. I emphasize the importance of empathy and community, standing up for one’s beliefs and the significance of being a positive role model.
The woman I’ve nominated for SUCCESS® Women of Influence is my 91-year-old Grammy, Sondra Thompson. Raised during the Great Depression, her family instilled in her unwavering values, a strong work ethic, deep faith, a commitment to community and the expectation to be a good role model. Time and again, she has demonstrated the importance of doing the right and difficult things and that limiting beliefs and silence have no place in leadership. My Grammy set the standards that her children taught their children and that I am teaching mine. She has taught us to aim for greatness and embrace the incredible power of being a woman.
I am honored to be a part of this beautiful issue that pays homage to so many amazing women.
SUCCESS® magazine March/April 2024, Volume 67, Issue 2 (ISSN 0745-2489) is published bimonthly by SUCCESS Enterprises LLC, 5473 Blair Rd, Suite 100, PMB 30053, Dallas, TX 75231. Periodicals postage paid at Dallas, TX and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to SUCCESS magazine, P.O. Box 292144, Kettering, OH 45429. SUBSCRIPTIONS: U.S.A., 6 issues $24.99; Canada, 6 issues $36.99; International, 6 issues $49.99. To subscribe to SUCCESS magazine or to receive our free weekly newsletters and online exclusives, log on to SUCCESS.com. CUSTOMER SERVICE: For service on your subscription, including renewal, change of address or other customer service matters, call 800-570-6414, send an email to CustomerService@SUCCESS.com or write to SUCCESS magazine, P.O. Box 292144, Kettering, OH 45429. Please include your mailing label. ARTICLE REPRINTS: Call 866-782-2377. ARTICLE PROPOSALS and unsolicited articles can be emailed to Editor@SUCCESS.com or mailed to Editor, SUCCESS magazine, 5473 Blair Rd, Suite 100, PMB 30053, Dallas, TX 75231. Submissions specifically for SUCCESS.com should be sent to WebEditor@SUCCESS.com. SUCCESS magazine cannot process manuscripts or art material, and we assume no responsibility for their return. ©2023 SUCCESS Enterprises. All rights reserved. Material may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without prior written permission. Printed in the U.S.A.
COURTESY OF AMY SOMERVILLE
FROM THE EDITOR
STAR POWER Kerrie on set with musical icon and advocate Jewel.
Celebrating Women in Business & in Life
W elcome to a special edition of SUCCESS magazine where we dedicate our pages to celebrating the remarkable women whose stories often linger in the shadows and yet illuminate the path for future generations. In this issue, we aim to shine a spotlight on Women of Influence—those exceptional individuals who seamlessly navigate between their professional careers and personal lives, leaving an indelible mark in both spheres. By recognizing the usual stars and celebrating the unsung heroines, we hope to honor every woman who, through their exceptional efforts and determination, has carved a space for themselves in history.
To showcase our incredible community of female trailblazers, entrepreneurs, influencers, philanthropists, businesswomen, homemakers and more, we opened the doors for award nominations last fall, and now it’s time to uncover the narratives of those women who, day in and day out, tread uncharted territories—making significant strides in fields where their accomplishments may go unnoticed.
The SUCCESS® Women of Influence Awards honors those individuals who redefine leadership. In other words, their journeys are inspiring testaments to determination, courage and an unwavering commitment to their vision. These are not just success stories; they are beacons of empowerment and exemplify what it means to make a difference and leave a lasting legacy. From boardrooms to living rooms, their influence spans diverse domains, pushing boundaries and leading the charge in industries that traditionally offer them limited recognition. To learn more about our 50 finalists, turn to page 42.
We also seek to unearth stories that transcend the everyday achievements and delve into the extraordinary. We want to spotlight the women who embody the ethos of persistence and resilience, balancing the demands of career and family while shattering preconceived notions about what women can achieve. These are the uncelebrated stories of women who champion innovation, diversity and inclusivity across various industries.
Our phenomenal cover story features a profound woman who has pushed through adversity and lifelong struggles to build an illustrious music career all on her own. Multiplatinum musician, business owner, advocate and mom, Jewel is leading the charge in the mental health space to ensure there is support available no matter your age or life stage. See page 32 to read about her incredible journey.
As you will see, this issue is a canvas for all success stories—narratives of triumph, breaking barriers and navigating uncharted waters. Ultimately, we bring you the tales of women who, in the relentless pursuit of excellence, have transformed the landscapes of their industries and communities.
Our goal is to not only celebrate these remarkable women but also inspire others to challenge the status quo, to push beyond boundaries and to believe in the power of their own potential.
Congratulations to all of our Women of Influence.
Warm regards,
BEHIND THE SCENES
Jewel strikes a pose at our Women of Influence cover shoot.
We hope you enjoy this issue!
SOFT LAUNCH
Deesha Philyaw
If you aren’t already familiar with Deesha Philyaw, let us give you the rundown. The award-winning author recently scored a seven-figure book deal and is adapting her short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, into a drama series for HBO Max. But perhaps what’s most compelling about Philyaw is that her remarkable career emerged from her humble start as a determined freelance writer with one goal: to get published.
Read more online at SUCCESS.com
©VANESSA GERMAN/COURTESY OF DEESHA PHILYAW
SOFT LAUNCH
New & Noteworthy
German poster for International Women’s Day, March 8, 1914. This poster was banned in the German Empire.
MARCH 8 IS
International Women’s Day.
INSPIRE INCLUSION
Did you know that International Women’s Day dates back to the early 1900s, originating from North American and European labor movements? In 1908, women facing oppression and inequality banded together to fight for better wages, shorter work hours and voting rights; roughly 15,000 women went on strike and marched through New York City that year. The Socialist Party of America established the first National Woman’s Day in 1909. The movement took a global turn when, in 1911, IWD was initially observed in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland.
Today, the movement celebrates women’s achievements while continuing to call for gender equality and focusing on key issues such as reproductive rights and violence against women. IWD’s 2024 theme focuses on inspiring inclusion. According to IDW: “To truly include women means to openly embrace their diversity of race, age, ability, faith, body image, and how they identify. Worldwide, women must be included in all fields of endeavour.”
Female Sports Superstar
HISTORIC VAULT GETS A NEW NAME
After a two-year hiatus from gymnastics, 26-year-old phenom Simone Biles made history in October 2023 on the world stage, landing a highly difficult skill that, historically, had only been accomplished by men. As a seven-time Olympic medalist, Biles performed the move—called a Yurchenko double pike—at the 2023 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Belgium, marking the first time a woman achieved this in an international competition. The skill will now officially be called the Biles II—a fitting name honoring the most decorated gymnast (male or female) ever.
Nobel Prize Winner
HARVARD PROFESSOR WINS HONOR FOR GENDER PAY GAP RESEARCH
As only the third woman to ever win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, Claudia Goldin—the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University—earned this distinction for her pioneering research investigating the history of the gender pay gap. Goldin, 2023’s economic sciences laureate and the first woman to be tenured in Harvard’s Department of Economics, dug into data and sifted through archives spanning 200 years of women’s earnings and the role they played in the labor market. At the heart of her research? The profound impact of women’s choices, often constrained by the weighty responsibilities of marriage and home. Balancing career and family—sound familiar?—Goldin’s research extends beyond U.S. borders (similar patterns were found in many countries) and helps us better understand the past, present and future of the labor market.
MARCH IS
National Nutrition Month.
CHAMPIONING HEALTHY WEIGHT IN WOMEN
According to the Office on Women’s Health, over two-thirds of U.S. women are either overweight or obese, which poses significant health risks. Not maintaining a healthy weight can contribute to various health issues affecting women, including heart disease, diabetes and several types of cancer. Plus, women may experience fertility problems and complications during pregnancy, reports the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. In the workplace, obesity can translate to increased absenteeism (which affects productivity) and discrimination (which affects advancement).
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; ©LAUREN OWENS LAMBERT/GETTY IMAGES; ©MATTHIAS HANGST/GETTY IMAGES
SOFT LAUNCH | SUCCESS INTERVIEW
Culinary Queens
Nikki Guard leads the charge at Denver’s premier steakhouse Guard and Grace with her female-majority team at the helm.
I n the heart of downtown Denver’s business center stands Guard and Grace, a culinary gem that has been redefining the steakhouse experience for nearly a decade. At the helm is Nikki Guard, a seasoned veteran in the restaurant industry and the co-owner and beverage director of TAG Restaurant Group, which she operates alongside her husband, co-owner and executive chef Troy Guard.
Guard and Grace, named after chef Troy’s daughter, is a modern steakhouse that marries the traditional charm of a steakhouse with a bright and airy playfulness. Boasting fiery grills, an oyster bar, and an impressive walk-in wine cellar, this 9,000-square-foot space in the Brookfield Building has earned the title of Denver’s Best Steakhouse for an impressive nine consecutive years. Recently recommended by the MICHELIN Guide, Guard and Grace continues to captivate diners with its prime, certified Angus and local grass-fed and wagyu cuts, along with a diverse array of seafood, charcuterie, artisanal cheeses and a variety of vegetarian options.
A FORCE BEHIND THE SUCCESS
Nikki’s journey in the restaurant industry began at age 15, starting at an expo during a summer job. From there, she worked her way up to becoming a server, bartender, and cocktail waitress in Las Vegas. Her dedication to learning the art of the trade led her to prestigious sommelier courses and eventually into a managerial role.
Nikki’s 13-year tenure with TAG Restaurant Group is a testament to the respect and recognition she has garnered within the organization. Being a respected leader in the male-dominated culinary world is not just inspiring—it’s a testament to her power of passion, hard work and resilience.
CHAMPIONING CHANGE
Throughout her career, Nikki faced challenges common to many women in the industry—mistreatment, sexual harassment and stereotypes about her capabilities. Yet, she credits these experiences with shaping her into the tough, resilient leader she is today. She emphasizes the importance of empowering those around her and creating a workplace where everyone feels valued and capable.
In reflecting on her extensive experience, Nikki notes a significant shift in the industry’s culture. The era of chefs and managers berating their staff is fading, replaced by a more collaborative and respectful approach. Nikki also observes a transformation in beverage trends, with a shift toward fresh ingredients and a focus on the art of crafting cocktails.
Today, Nikki sees success in the restaurant business as more than just financial gains. A happy workplace, aligned with passion, is the key to long-term success. Balancing work and life is the secret sauce that ensures sustained fulfillment in the industry.
“Most people can’t fathom why anyone would choose the career path I did, but I have met and worked with so many amazing people over the years and experienced so many rewarding moments that I know wouldn’t have happened if I became a doctor or something else.”
Nikki Guard
Owner
LEADING WITH PURPOSE
As a female leader in a predominantly male industry, Nikki finds strength in her team, a group of female managers in the front of the house alongside two male general managers. Her goal is not just personal success but fostering an environment where her team can thrive and grow. Nikki believes in empowering others, working hard alongside them and expressing unwavering belief in their capabilities.
Looking ahead, Nikki envisions continued growth for TAG Restaurant Group. However, her ultimate measure of success lies in the happiness and growth of those working alongside her in the place she loves most.
Food Boss
According to a 2022 National Restaurant Association report, women dominate the food service industry—except at the top. Thirty-six percent are entry-level front-of-house staff, and 34% are back-of-house workers, while 34% of executives are women. Nikki is paving the way for female entrepreneurs, particularly in the hospitality industry, to build a business they love and manage like-minded team members who share a desire to hone their craft.
SUCCESS: How do you stay motivated as a restaurateur in such a competitive market?
NIKKI GUARD: “My team, hands down. Seeing them grow and be fulfilled is what drives me. Knowing I play a big part in their success makes it feel like we’re all in this together.”
S: What piece of advice would you give someone who wants to follow in your footsteps and become a success in the culinary world?
NG: “You are going to run into challenges, no doubt. Stick to your path, work hard, speak up for what’s right and, most importantly, don’t give up. Long story short, be persistent, stay tough and never lose sight of your commitment to hard work.”
S: What are your future aspirations as an entrepreneur?
NG: “I would love to continue to grow our talented group [at Guard and Grace], but as long as the people working next to me are happy then I feel like I’ve accomplished something positive.”
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF GUARD AND GRACE/TAG RESTAURANT GROUP; FOOD: JASON SINN PHOTOGRAPHY; INTERIOR: DANIEL O’CONNOR
SOFT LAUNCH | HOW TO
How to Be a Venture Capitalist
IN THE MALE-DOMINATED VENTURE CAPITAL WORLD, ONE FEMALE IS PAVING THE WAY FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS.
F or venture capitalist and angel investor Brianne Kimmel, what started as a genuine interest in bringing people together and deepening communities ultimately turned into a full-fledged career.
Today, Kimmel serves as founder and managing partner of Worklife Ventures, a venture capital firm “designed for the new era” that invests in tools that power flexible, joyful and creative work. To date, Kimmel has backed nine unicorns (startups valued at more than $1 billion), including Deel, Webflow and Hopin. In 2022, she launched Worklife Studios in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood. It’s a “first-of-its-kind community space designed in collaboration with artists, chefs, designers and remote workers,” according to Worklife’s website.
THE CURRENT LANDSCAPE OF FEMALE VENTURE CAPITALISTS
When looking at the current landscape of venture capital, there’s not a whole lot of diversity, particularly in terms of gender. Women make up around 11% of investing partners at VC firms in the United States, with approximately 13% of VC funds allocated to startups with a woman on the founding team, according to the Women and Public Policy Program of Harvard Kennedy School.
“BEING A WOMAN IN THE INDUSTRY JUST GIVES ME A VERY DIFFERENT OUTLOOK, AND THE SKILLS THAT I’M ABLE TO PROVIDE ARE VERY DIFFERENT AS WELL.”
Kimmel has faced her fair share of criticism on her ascent to founding Worklife. She says it’s not uncommon to be mistaken for somebody’s assistant or an intern at conferences—people have asked her to get them coffee. And yet, her numbers speak for themselves. At the time of publication, Worklife Venture’s $12 million fund is now valued at $54.9 million, returning the fund in less than four years in business.
Looking back on her own journey, Kimmel sees five ways other aspiring female VCs can pave their way.
1.
LEAN INTO YOUR SUPER SKILLS
In adulthood, women are told to “trust their gut,” but the reality is that many girls are raised to be compliant, compromising and pleasant. For Kimmel, she experienced firsthand how important it is to embody a true sense of self and to be grounded in your vision.
Instead of trying to fit in among other male VCs, Kimmel carved her own path. “Being a woman in the industry just gives me a very different outlook, and the skills that I’m able to provide are very different as well,” she says. In Kimmel’s case, she’s an expert at community-building and great at connecting people. Aside from the traditional cold email and the less traditional direct message through X, formerly known as Twitter, Kimmel became a pro at hosting founder dinners early in her career. “If you pull together a dinner or if you make an intro, those sort of things go really far because, when you’re busy building a company, it’s hard to find your tribe and meet new people who can be helpful,” she explains.
2.
VIEW VENTURE CAPITAL THROUGH THE LENS OF HOSPITALITY
Most of Kimmel’s inspiration for how she works doesn’t come from Wall Street or any sort of books on investing; it comes from studying the hospitality industry. “There’s a reason why companies want more female investors involved in the company,” she says. “We bring a different perspective to the conversation, and I’m personally committed to hiring, mentoring and retaining women at the company.”
In all of her interactions with founders, Kimmel looks for ways in which she can help. “Starting a company is incredibly stressful, especially for the primary caregiver at home,” Kimmel says. “I make an intentional effort to invite spouses to dinners and host kid-friendly activities throughout the year.”
3.
TALK OPENLY (AND OFTEN) ABOUT MONEY
Money can be a tricky topic to broach, and Kimmel has seen that, while many women are great at managing their own finances, they don’t talk as openly about money as their male counterparts. “Having the discussion about money is really important,” she says. “I always encourage women to talk about how much you’re making; ask your friends who are in similar roles how much they’re making. I think we all need to help each other out.”
That said, Kimmel hints at an uptick in financial literacy among Gen Z and future generations. There are people on TikTok sharing their money advice, and there are new apps and ways for people to start investing. “I think that we’re trending towards a more equitable future,” Kimmel says. “But, you know, I think being on the front lines and really helping companies shape that culture is really important, too.”
4.
EMPOWER OTHER WOMEN TO FEEL SEEN
Instead of fighting for seats at the table, Kimmel takes a more collaborative approach. She has seen many women ultimately leave the industry because company culture wasn’t supportive enough for them, in particular women who are planning for families and looking at maternity leave policies. “We’ve also seen women go work on other stuff and work in other spaces where there’s more women, and so, I think step one is helping every woman feel seen, and then find ways to build that into your company’s culture,” she says.
As part of her mission to make tech more welcoming and equitable for women, Kimmel makes a commitment to help her portfolio companies attract and retain female engineer talent. “Women breaking into tech are coming from college campuses where they had a ton of female friends, lived in the girls’ dorm and many were involved in campus groups where they had a community…. There’s just all of these different scenarios where it’s kind of a culture shock when you enter into a mostly male world,” she says.
5.
EMBRACE AI TO FOCUS YOUR EFFORTS
In order to lean into your super skills, you need to start saying “no” more and automating manual tasks with AI. “In the corporate world, one of the challenges that women always face is we want to be seen, and we do want to be recognized for the quality of our work,” Kimmel says, adding that, many times, women end up picking up even more projects like planning the company off-sites or almost operating as admin for teams. “There are ways we’re starting to see automation take shape where it’s actually helping women,” she says. “We’re not responsible for taking notes in a meeting and all of the other mundane tasks that somehow always fall on the plate of the woman in the room.” ◆
MCDONOUGH IS AN AWARD-WINNING TRAVEL WRITER BASED BETWEEN BARCELONA AND WASHINGTON, D.C.
EVAN MULLING/COURTESY OF BRIANNE KIMMEL
SOFT LAUNCH | ENTREPRENEUR
Orion Brown Is Changing Self-Care for Black Travelers
HER BRAND BLACKTRAVELBOX —A TRAVEL-FIRST LINE OF LUXURY HAIR AND SKIN CARE PRODUCTS FOR PEOPLE OF COLOR—IS HELPING PEOPLE FEEL SEEN WHILE THEY SEE THE WORLD.
O rion Brown was on a trip to Japan, looking at photos of herself in front of stunning backdrops when she realized something was off—and it wasn’t the scenery. It was her hair. She had miscalculated the extent of the humidity, and her tiny travel bottle of conditioner wasn’t cutting it when it came to taming her tresses.
This experience, and many others throughout her life’s travels, made her wonder why finding appropriate beauty and self-care products when traveling as a Black woman was so difficult. Each trip she took, she had to meticulously plan for the right products in the right amounts because, chances were, she wouldn’t be able to find products that worked for her skin and hair texture in hotels or shops.
“I’m not an alien,” Brown says. “There’s no reason that… I shouldn’t be able to go to a Ritz-Carlton and still not be able to use the products.”
With a corporate background and an MBA, Denver-based Brown wanted to dream up a solution to this problem. She had led brand and marketing at the likes of Kraft, Hasbro and Oracle—and her eclectic experience in internal consulting, project management, process improvement and consumer packaged goods helped give her the tools to strike out on her own as a n entrepreneur. She wanted to develop a travel-specific beauty and personal care brand that women of color could rely on when visiting different places—and she did that in 2017 with the idea for BlackTravelBox®, TSA-compliant luxury hair and skin care products, including shampoo, conditioner, body balm, lip balm and hair balm, for travelers of color.
“Travel can be so, so powerful,” she says. “It’s my self-care outlet…. It gives that feeling of connectedness and really helps me to see that the world is a lot bigger than what’s in front of my nose. And it provides a lot of gratitude… that I get to be on a planet that is beautiful; I get to interact with humans I’ve never met before…. I can just be me.”
LAUNCHING THE BRAND
After securing funding and working to build out the brand’s infrastructure, Brown originally planned to launch BlackTravelBox® in April 2020. Of course, the pandemic had different plans, which quickly became apparent in March of that year. She saw two choices in front of her: pivot away from the brand’s travel niche and make part of the concept relevant to consumers, or lean into her purpose and find ways to make the travel-focused product relevant despite the circumstances.
“I went for the latter because I really do believe that, as a brand and business, it has legs,” she says. “And being the consumer and being a part of that group, I know it needs to exist. So, I made the decision to lean into that we’re about travel…. I wasn’t about to tell people to go on vacation; I’m not going to contribute to an already-disproportionate set of negative outcomes for the community. But I did say, ‘This is what we are.’ So, it became all about sharing content and about the missing of travel and connecting with community.”
In true entrepreneur fashion, Brown indeed pivoted for her launch but stayed true to herself and, in doing so, built community. BlackTravelBox® gained 10,000 Instagram followers during a time when people were connecting online and commiserating about the fact that they missed seeing the world. She went live on the app every Wednesday for two years straight, interviewing up to 90 people about their travel experiences and beauty. She also created a staycation collection of candles to fuel nostalgia. Her goal was to double down on her brand positioning and drive localized relevance that would create demand when people could travel again. And when people of color began to book trips again, that’s exactly what happened.
BLACKTRAVELBOX IN ACTION
Brown’s company is revolutionary because it is the first of its kind for Black travelers. There are beauty and self-care products on shelves for people of color, but none that were specifically formulated to make travel easier for a population that often gets overlooked in this space. With pioneering a concept comes its own set of challenges.
“Everything has to be inclusive,” she says. “We have to think about the different permutations of hair and skin and make sure everyone can use everything…. There is not a single brand out there that is solely for out-of-home use and convenience. When I don’t have access to the accoutrement of my bathroom, how do I make this product work?”
Brown decided she would simplify BlackTravelBox’s shampoo and conditioner into solid bars, which didn’t exist much in the American marketplace. All of the brand’s products are also eco-friendly, cruelty-free and made with clean ingredients, unlike hotel lotions that often have fillers.
“Our body balm replaces the dusty lotion that comes in hotels,” she says. “When they make [hotel lotion], they put different things [in it to] make it feel creamier than it is…. Those are essentially powders, so when the liquid evaporates and you put that on skin that has any kind of melanin in it, you end up with Casper the Friendly Ghost. When my skin is dry, it looks dusty, and when my skin is moisturized, it looks dusty…. “There’s tons of great feedback on the products themselves, but I think, conceptually, everybody wants to be seen,” she says. “And you’ve got a consumer who spends nine times more than any other ethnicity on beauty and personal care, and they ’re still being ignored. So, when they’re seen, that’s a bond you can’t break.”
THE FUTURE OF BLACK TRAVEL
Right now, BlackTravelBox® is sold online and at Macy’s and shipped within the U.S. Eventually, Brown hopes to expand distribution to Europe. She’s currently focused on getting the products into hotels, which will allow travelers to sample them and will build exposure for the company. She has an upcoming collaboration with a startup and is in talks with Hyatt about partnering with them, too. Her products are available at Miraval Arizona Resort & Spa, and she’s looking to expand to more spa retail experiences.
“I can reach 200,000 new people a year just on hotels,” she says. “At the end of the day, I want us to be the No. 1 out-of-home personal care brand and beyond.”
BlackTravelBox® is already helping thousands of travelers of color feel seen and cared for, and Brown is just getting started. ◆
NIELSON STEPHENS ENJOYS TELLING THE STORIES OF INNOVATIVE FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS.
COURTESY OF ORION BROWN/THE BLACK TRAVEL BOX
SOFT LAUNCH | LEADERSHIP
Making Your Business a Blessing to Others
SHANDA SUMPTER USES HER COACHING COMPANY, HEARTCORE BUSINESS, TO HELP ENTREPRENEURS BUILD THEIR FINANCIAL FREEDOM AND THEIR LIVES.
H eartcore Business describes itself as “the premier training and coaching company for driven entrepreneurs who want to create a massive impact and generate financial freedom without sacrifice.”
Those values are embodied in Heartcore’s founder, Shanda Sumpter.
“I consider myself a trailblazer because I did everything first in my family,” Sumpter says. “Leaders forgive first. They step up first, and I think it’s really hard to make it in business today if you’re not a trailblazer.”
Heartcore is, by Sumpter’s telling, an “eight-figure company” that works with entrepreneurs at every stage of their business who find they “are not reaching enough people.” It also owns an AI-specialized virtual assistant outfit that handles everything from design and marketing to online summits, and Heartcore organizes 28 events each year to help business owners grow their companies.
Sumpter says more than 70% of her clients are “creating results each quarter.” But Heartcore is about more than just business results. The company also helps entrepreneurs drill down and define their culture—their values and identity.
“My hook is to show you how to reach more people,” Sumpter says. “I love entrepreneurs because I think they’re leaders. And what better than to train a leader to be a better human being in the world, and to be more responsible for what they see is important, and to expand that through their family and friends and help more people to change the world?”
Sumpter laughs, saying she might be “crazy enough” to believe she can change the world. Here’s how she aims to do that.
FREEDOM-BASED MINDSET
Known for advocating for work-life balance, she unabashedly works 15 days a month and then takes one week off to do whatever she wants—except work. “That’s really what it takes to be successful, so I’m intense at taking time off,” she says. During that week off, her online show, Shanda on Demand, goes dark for that week and her staff knows not to contact her except for emergencies.
“Everybody wants to know how to create the content, how to create the message, how to create the business, how to grow it,” she says. “And I say: Start with accountability first. What is the structure you want to put under your life? I take one week off a month.”
Calling workaholism, all-day multitasking and the lifestyle of “everything in moderation” until you retire “middle-class mindsets,” Sumpter preaches instead a “freedom-based mindset” centered on finding both emotional and financial success. Make your free time count and surround yourself with people who challenge you while simultaneously claiming your share of the wealth.
“It’s easier to become a millionaire than it ever has been,” she says.
BE A BLESSING TO OTHERS
In her 2015 book, Core Calling: How to Build a Business that Gives you a Freedom Lifestyle in 2 Years or Less!, Sumpter cites research showing that an income exceeding $50,000 a year doesn’t impact happiness. She writes: “Striving for more money will not necessarily give you a better life unless you put the same emphasis on building your life as you do on building your financial freedom.”
“The way through to success is who you spend your time with and how you lead yourself on a daily basis,” she says. “I think leadership is more important than absolutely anything you can study on the entire planet.”
And it’s about more than financial success. Sumpter says there are a myriad of ways to get to the top, “but income is a great measuring stick because it tells you how much you have contributed,” she says. “As it goes up, I’m telling you, you see the contribution in the human being and the heart of the person. They don’t need another car. They don’t need another house.”
Sumpter says a trigger for her is when people make enough money and then say, “I’m good. I don’t need anymore.” Considering all the problems in the world, she notes, that mindset is limiting. “There are places in the world that need you right now,” she says. “At what point does humanity just say your money isn’t about you?”
Heartcore’s website says Sumpter has “given over $400,000 in the last 24 months to meaningful causes like ending human trafficking,” and the company is “tithing 10% a month as our stand to make the world a better place.”
Inspired by Scripture, Sumpter advises: “Make enough money to be a blessing to others.”
START CHANGING THINGS
Sumpter is Christian, and her website mentions God frequently, though she is clear that she coaches and trains people of any faith or background and resists the idea of eschewing dialogue out of fear over differences. “My value system is to provide a platform where everybody has a voice,” she says.
“If we could just stimulate that in people: to be a safe place for people to have their value systems and to be OK if other people are not a safe place for them, to still walk in their value systems,” Sumpter says. “That’s really the underlying core of what we do really well in the world.”
“Generosity” is the first word Sumpter uses to describe her business. Heartcore offers much of its training content online for free. “I get that it’s generosity and contribution that actually unhooks me from my small thinking, and I want that blessing for everybody,” she says.
“Yes, I teach business, but I’m in a humanitarian project because I just think the world’s better if there are stronger leaders in the world,” Sumpter says. “They stop pointing fingers, and they start contributing. They start changing things.”
RECOMMIT
While she describes her childhood as difficult, including some emotional and physical abuse by a stepfather figure, she doesn’t believe her battle has been different from anyone else’s.
“Heartcore Business is called Heartcore Business, not Shanda Sumpter, because I always wanted to be behind the scenes,” Sumpter says. “I knew that I wanted to be rich, and I’m not going to apologize for that. I knew God had a reason for me to be successful, but I never had a desire to work harder. I’ve had to hack the system. I’ve had to put myself into triathlons to mentally strengthen myself. I’ve had to hire coaches.”
If she hadn’t experienced getting back up after being knocked down, Sumpter’s not sure she’d be here. She tells people, “Don’t hire me because I’ve been successful. Hire me because of the amount of times I’ve gotten up off the middle of the living room floor and was successful despite the odds.”
GREEN IS A FREELANCE WRITER BASED BETWEEN THE U.S. AND SPAIN.
COURTESY OF SHANDA SUMPTER
SOFT LAUNCH | WELL-BEING
Trusting Your Gut
BOARD-CERTIFIED NATUROPATHIC PHYSICIAN AND HEALTH AND NUTRITION EXPERT DR. KELLYANN PETRUCCI, M.S., N.D., TALKS ABOUT BUILDING HER COMPANY ON CURIOSITY AND LITERALLY LISTENING TO HER GUT.
D r. Kellyann Petrucci didn’t discover the powers of bone broth in a lab. She discovered it in life, by asking questions, learning lessons and mixing everything she knew into the very first batch of bone broth she made in her kitchen at home. That was almost 10 years ago, and now, Petrucci—a board-certified naturopathic physician—is considered one of the most prominent trailblazers in the well-being space and a front-runner in functional medicine.
Long before she created the bone broth diet and wrote a tall stack of New York Times bestselling books on nutrition, Petrucci was a teenager suffering through the pains of adolescence. What she thought was just monthly bouts of menstrual cramps turned out to be endometriosis, which left her with more questions than answers. “I’ve always had this investigative curiosity within me. That was innate,” Petrucci says. “What else was innate is that, any time I was in a bookstore, I would always go to the health and wellness section. I was never interested in anything else. My friends were reading bridal magazines and Cosmo, and I had never had any interest. I would literally be on the beach with them reading [a] diabetes journal.”
GOODBYE TO GLUTEN
When she left for college at Temple University, Petrucci joined a local gym. It was love at first sight. She started signing up for fitness and bodybuilding competitions. Six weeks before a bodybuilding event, in an effort to help her become her leanest, her trainer at the time told her to eliminate gluten from her diet. It was the first lesson she never knew she needed.
“When I did that, during the first month, 70% of my cramps were gone. The second month, probably 90% were gone. And by the three months on a gluten-free, paleo type of diet, I had zero cramps,” she says. “So, there was this massive understanding of the power of food and what it can really do for you, or what it can do against you. I took one thing out of my diet, but it was that one thing that was causing that inflammation in my body that was really allowing this condition to flare. So, that was my aha moment.”
After graduating from college, Petrucci earned a doctor of chiropractic degree, but she really only had one thing on her mind: the functionality of food. “My mind was always on the chemistry and what happens when food enters your body,” she says. “How does it affect things? How does it affect your organs? How does it affect your nervous system? That was always where my interest lied. And that’s why, when I was done, I continued my studies in naturopathic school. I had a teacher [who] said, ‘I know that you use a lot of supplements for everything. But you’ll find that if you think about global nutrition, a lot of people don’t have those resources, so they heal with food.’ That just really clicked with me.”
THE FIRST BATCH OF BONE BROTH
As she started digging deeper into the food-as-medicine well, Petrucci discovered that one of the very first champions of bone broth was Mother Teresa. Petrucci says that when she was researching her series of paleo health books, she started down a path of ancestral medicines. That’s when she first learned about how the missionary nun was bringing the broth to hospitals to care for the sick. “As I investigated further and further, I thought, ‘Whatever this is, this stuff has got to be a miracle.’ Because Mother Teresa would always talk about how it opened your gut for healing. I ended up figuring it out and making the formulation in my kitchen,” she says of her first experiments with recipes. “I could not believe what it started doing to my body. I started falling in love with it.”
Petrucci found it “pulled a ton of levers” as it began to heal her gut. “It started to reduce the inflammation in my body, and it started to teach my body to become what I call a natural fat burner,” she says. “That gut lining is super, super, super thin. And you’ve got 25 feet-plus wrapped up in your body in this long, narrow tube. You have to keep it cleansed and not clogged.”
But as much as Petrucci loved it herself, her team was not leaning into the bone broth name. “No one wanted to call it ‘bone broth.’ They thought it wasn’t sexy, and it wasn’t marketable. I had to fight to keep the brand identity,” she recalls of defending the name she’d made synonymous with losing pounds, inches and even wrinkles. Then came the growing pains of any health-based startup. Before she could hire a C-suite of leaders, Petrucci had to figure out things for herself: the best use of revenue, the smartest marketing strategy, the product’s shelf life and then, ultimately, should she reach out for funding? She did, about three years ago, and since then, her strategic partnership with Veyl Ventures has helped her scale the brand and the business much more fully than she could have on her own.
“I didn’t know anything,” Petrucci says. “So, I just learned, I learned and I learned. It is a long game. There are people out there who start their companies and then they exit very quickly. That was not the case for me. I’m still very highly involved…. My fingerprints are on pretty much everything.” Veyl Ventures now considers the Dr. Kellyann brand the category leader, whose customers keep coming back for more, making it the fastest-growing bone broth brand in the natural channel.
BE KIND TO YOUR BODY AND EVERYBODY
Even with all that Petrucci has accomplished in her professional life, she still considers how she was raised to be kind as the secret to her success. “It brings me to a quote that I love from the Dalai Lama XIV who says, ‘Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible,’” she says. “So, to achieve outstanding health, be kind to yourself, be kind to your body, be kind to everyone that you interact with because outstanding health actually doesn’t start in a doctor’s office. It starts in the heart.” ◆
BONAGURO IS A JOURNALIST WHO WISHES SHE’D DISCOVERED BONE BROTH YEARS AGO.
COURTESY OF DR. KELLYANN PETRUCCI
SOFT LAUNCH | TOP OF MIND
Women Who Empower
FEMALE CHANGEMAKERS SHARE THE WOMEN WHO HAVE INSPIRED THEM ALONG THE WAY.
Are you an industry expert with a unique message? We want to hear from you. Please get in touch with us at speakers@success.com.
©ANTHONY TUDISCO/COURTESY OF V. FERRER; COURTESY OF J. LYNN; © STACEY POTERSON/COURTESY OF C. VALENTINO; ©DANETTE PASCARELLA PHOTOGRAPHY/COURTESY OF K. ALLEN
SOFT LAUNCH | MONEY
She’s a ‘Money Boss’
FINANCIAL AND BUSINESS MENTOR JO DAVISON WANTS YOU TO OWN YOUR FINANCES.
J o Davison has long identified as someone who’s anti-spreadsheet and bad at numbers. And yet, perhaps it’s those very aversions to standard personal finance practices that make her most appealing to her clients. As the founder of a financial coaching enterprise called She’s a Money Boss, she’s not teaching people how to scrimp and save and budget their way to financial freedom. Instead, she’s teaching them how to believe they’re in control of their money—and then manifest more of it.
Davison, who lives in Essex, England, runs workshops and coaches clients individually on how to increase the gap between their spending and earnings.
She coined her “Money Boss” system after she and her husband started a brick-and-mortar chiropractic practice together. She was doing more work running their business than she had done as an associate working for someone else- and the pay wasn’t good enough to compensate for it.
One day, “I walked into our office and said, ‘Right, that’s it. I want a pay raise,’” Davison recalls. But, of course, it’s not so easy when the business is yours.
“My husband was like, ‘Well, the business can’t do that for you,’” Davison says. “And I was like, ‘Well, then I must resign.’ And he was like, ‘Well, you can’t resign. It’s your business.’”
That’s when she decided to try managing the money for a change. Armed with memories of elementary school teachers telling her she was bad with numbers, she aimed to disprove expectations that she would fail. She made a game out of running the business more efficiently, saving for growth and taxes, and earning more money. When it became clear the business was thriving under her watch, she started to teach other people how to manage and think about their money, too. Now, she runs courses and individual mentoring programs to teach clients how to stop fearing their finances, release shame around money habits and prosper by making their assets work harder than they do.
“The first thing I say to people is, ‘You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be right now. So, don’t get stressed about that,’” she says.
But, once you know the basics, it’s up to you how to continue.
STOP EQUATING WEALTH WITH GREED
One of the key beliefs Davison tries to change for her clients is that money doesn’t make you a bad person. People often worry that it’s greedy to want more money, but she says that’s a limiting belief that’s not helping anyone.
“I think it’s the opposite,” she says. “It’s very selfish to only have enough money for yourself or your very close-knit family, because then we can’t make a difference with wider impact. We can’t help other people. We can’t donate to good causes.”
KEEP YOUR MONEY IN DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS
Davison advocates having many different “pots” for your money, so that you can save in separate accounts for distinct needs. An emergency fund, for example, should be a separate reserve from your main checking account. If you’re a freelancer or you own your own business, you won’t have taxes taken out of your paycheck automatically, so you’ll need to manually save for tax day. Davison said she keeps her estimated tax payments in a bank account that’s literally far away from all her others. She doesn’t access it via online banking channels, so she has to physically drive to the bank to manage the account and can’t accidentally spend the money. This method has worked for her for years and takes the stress out of large or unexpected expenses.
DIVERSIFY YOUR INCOME
People often grow up believing that the only way for them to make money is to go to work for someone else and get paid for their time—and that belief is holding us back, Davison says. So, one of the main tenets of her programs is teaching her clients how to diversify their income. She teaches five primary ways of doing this: creating a leveraged business model so that you can use savings from your job to buy assets; creating products like an online workshop to monetize your intellectual property; affiliate marketing to earn commission for selling others’ products or programs; investing in index funds and stocks (for which she brings in her own mentor, who has more expertise); and buying property.
TAKEAWAY OR FREEDOM? THE NOT-A-BUDGET BUDGET
Creating a strict budget that limits how much money you spend on certain categories each month can take the fun out of finances, Davison says. Instead, she plays a sort of game that reverses scarcity notions around budgeting and going without.
“There are a lot of financial gurus out there who will tell us it all starts with the budget and that we should stop drinking our lattes because, actually, that should be invested in our future,” Davison says. “To be honest, I feel like life is short, and if you like drinking lattes, go for it.”
Rather than deny themselves small luxuries because they “should” save money, Davison recommends weighing those individual choices against bigger goals. Maybe you’re saving to start your own business or you want a house down payment, retirement fund, college fund, or you’re itching to get debt-free. Each time you consider a nonessential purchase, you can decide what you want more: that latte, that pizza delivery, that extra pair of jeans- or getting, say, $50 closer to the goal you’ve set.
“There’s nothing wrong with budgeting—we do need to budget,” Davison says. “But I just found it restrictive. I don’t want a budget, actually. I just want to sensibly use my money but not in a way that feels restrictive, which I know goes against what a lot of money teachers might say.”
CONTROL YOUR MONEY, CONTROL YOUR LIFE
Davison talks a lot about the “gap,” by which she means the difference between your income and your monthly essential expenditures. Her clients often don’t know how much they actually need for survival until Davison helps them add it all up. Sometimes, people are worrying about needing to make an exorbitant amount of money, when in reality, they only need $5,000 to cover their expenses, she says.
The bigger the gap is, the better your money can work for you—the more able you’ll be to invest wisely, get on the property ladder, take a much-needed sabbatical from your job or become financially independent.
“This gap could make you very wealthy if you want it to,” she says. “Or, it could just make you very secure.” ◆
CLOOS IS A TRAVEL AND PERSONAL FINANCE WRITER.
©AMANDA CLARKE PHOTOGRAPHY/COURTESY OF JO DAVISON
SOFT LAUNCH | A DAY IN THE LIFE
Renée Marino
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A BROADWAY STAR TURNED MASTER COMMUNICATOR.
W hen Renée Marino looked onto the crowd during a 2013 Broadway performance of Jersey Boys, she found herself staring at legendary filmmaker Clint Eastwood, who had shown up to scout actors for a film adaptation of the musical. For weeks, she worked with her agent to get an audition but was invited to audition for a less prominent role than she’d played on stage.
As she began, she heard an inner voice tell her: You have to do this; it feels too right.
“I was really hoping to come in and read for the role of Mary Delgado,” she says. Surprisingly, the casting director was thinking the same thing. She got the part.
Marino with filmmaker Clint Eastwood.
The first day on set, Eastwood told her he’d been all over, checking out different casts, but that nobody was of her caliber. Turns out, Marino had almost missed the chance to audition for her dream role due to a miscommunication via a casting associate.
She credits that “quiet voice of her soul” for giving her the push to speak up. With that story as proof, she now helps others find their voice as a communications and connection expert, TEDx speaker and bestselling author of Become a Master Communicator: Balancing New School Technology with Ol’ School Simplicity.
6 A.M. – MEDITATE
Some days, you want to crawl back into bed. Others, you want to grab life by the horns and get rolling. Marino chooses her type of morning meditation based on her mood. Sometimes her husband, Michael Lopez-Calleja, meditates alongside her in their New Jersey home.
She practices Transcendental Meditation, the Devi Prayer and Tony Robbins’ Priming exercise. But, sometimes, she just slows her brain. Selfconnection, or listening to your inner voice, is the first step of the communication method she teaches others. Going inward helps her stay balanced.
8 A.M. – MOVE
After meditation comes movement. One day, she’ll run on the treadmill; another, she’ll dance her way through “Let’s Get Loud” by Jennifer Lopez. Multiple meditation types and exercise options give her flexibility.
“Three years ago when I started my business, I went from dancing eight shows per week on Broadway… to then [plopping] myself in front of a computer.” Getting endorphins flowing means her mind starts moving, too. As she puts it: “That’s when the creative ideas are flowing.” After a post-workout tea or protein shake, it’s time to get to work.
10 A.M. – RESEARCH
Becoming a master communicator doesn’t just happen—Marino constantly studies the way people communicate. Her current research focuses on the power of storytelling. For example, instead of introducing yourself with a verbal resume, you might start with an engaging anecdote. That way, you present yourself as a real person, not a bullet-point list.
Marino helps others develop their “signature talk,” which they can use as their go-to keynote speech. She engages business owners and entrepreneurs, from millionaires to startup CEOs, on how to craft their stories.
10:30 A.M. – OUTREACH
Marino is more excited to get on the phone than your average person. Before a keynote or collaboration, she initiates several calls to determine a client’s biggest pain point, plan breakout sessions and, especially, to learn more about their company. Step three of her communication program, nailing down information, involves deeper research before an event or meeting—learning a client or colleague’s likes, dislikes, past work and more.
11 A.M. – COACH
Marino started a coaching call with an owner of a solar power company, who found himself shying away from being on camera because of a scar on his face. She coaches him and others one-on-one as a part of a community coaching program.
After working together, he told her, “My business is thriving. My confidence is thriving, first and foremost.” She taught him the value of vulnerability: “The parts of ourselves we want to hide the most are the parts of ourselves that connect with others the most,” she says.
NOON – VIDEO JOURNAL
Sometimes, entrepreneurship can be overwhelming, even for Marino. So, she records video journals on her phone to verbalize swirling thoughts. “When we verbalize, we magnify and maximize what we are saying, allowing us to hear it back.” Another benefit: “You can delete it right after.”
3 P.M. – SPEAK
Just this week, Marino gave four keynote speeches. One was in Italy, where she addressed people at a “beautiful retreat” through a company called The Happy Healthy Guys. Her message was simple: “In order to live your happiest and healthiest life, you must prioritize authentic communication and connection.”
5 P.M. – EAT
Marino goes to dinner with her husband and publicity team at Porter House Bar and Grill in NYC, where she orders filet mignon. Speaking of mealtime: Marino trains her own team on communication best practices at monthly lunch-and-learns. Recently, two of her colleagues came to an understanding that when one sends brisk emails, it isn’t yelling. Rather, it’s her instinct to shoot off emails like a to-do list. That realization wouldn’t have happened without the opportunity to communicate openly as a team—in person, instead of behind emails.
Marino with her husband, Michael.
7 P.M. – BOND
Marino uses screens selectively and on purpose, such as watching Succession with her husband after dinner. What she doesn’t do is miss opportunities to engage because of technology. In fact, she knew she had to write her book after witnessing a family of five spend an entire restaurant dinner on tablets. “No one spoke…. It broke my heart. I said, ‘Nope, this needs to be a book.’”
8 P.M. – CHALLENGE
This week, Marino challenged her 6,000-plus newsletter subscribers with a writing exercise: Note a few things that motivate you, with a vow to do one thing per day, and something that keeps you stuck, with a vow to disengage from it. Also, name a superpower you possess, and remind yourself of it every day.
Next up on her bucket list: hosting a television talk show that’s “a cross between The Ellen [DeGeneres] Show… [and] Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday.” Until then, she leaves people with one challenge—the power of asking. “If you don’t ask, the answer will be no.” ◆
FROST IS A CAREER, LIFESTYLE AND HEALTH JOURNALIST BASED OUT OF CINCINNATI.
THESE EVENTS WERE TAKEN FROM A TYPICAL DAY AND SOME ILLUSTRATE THE HIGHLIGHTS OF MARINO’S LIFE.
©DAG PHOTOGRAPHY/COURTESY OF RENÉE MARINO (2); MICHAEL LOPEZ-CALLEJA; BRENDA DIAZ/COURTESY OF RENÉE MARINO; COURTESY OF RENÉE MARINO
The crowd cheered wildly as a giant red heart covered in glitter and gold moved confidently across The Masked Singer stage. No one knew whose sparkly red leggings were popping out from under the Queen of Hearts costume, but the voice inside commanded the room, transforming Sia’s “Bird Set Free” into a deeply emotional piece of art that brought tears to the judges’ eyes. The lyrics about having clipped wings, feeling broken and not having a voice belonged to someone else—yet seemed incredibly personal to the singer. The audience was visibly moved as raw anguish transmuted into confident self-awareness when she sang, “I don’t care if I sing off key, I find myself in this melody, I sing for love, I sing for me, I shout it out like a bird set free.”
Despite being famous enough to make it to that stage—with a slew of prestigious music awards under her belt and over 30 million albums sold worldwide—the singer under that mask had plenty of experience moving a crowd to tears with deeply vulnerable lyrics focused on finding the strength to change your life circumstances.
When Jewel revealed her identity as the winner of season six of the show, she told the audience how being anonymous reminded her of the early days of singing in coffee shops, where she could be her true self and not be judged by anything other than her voice.
“I’m not a cool person,” she admitted to the judges and audience. “I never have been, but I have a lot of heart. And that’s why I wanted to be the heart. And to be able to win on that meant the world to me.”
It’s not a stretch to say Jewel’s heart may be one of the most authentically beautiful things about her, but it’s her soul—and the souls of others—she has dedicated her life to understanding. While some believe the journey of a soul is predetermined, she believes it’s malleable, and we can change its course through the power of our thoughts and actions.
So, when she posed such a heady question in her 1995 breakout song, “Who Will Save Your Soul,” it was because she had been pondering the answers far too long for someone so young.
It’s hard to imagine Jewel—full name Jewel Kilcher—wrote it when she was just 17—two years after leaving an unstable home environment, moving into her own cabin and then leaving Alaska to study operatic voice at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan. After school, she moved to San Diego and, when she refused a boss who propositioned her, lost her job and began living in her car. When her car was stolen, she became homeless for a year, living in a van and singing in coffee shops to earn rent money. It was during this time that she was discovered by an agent and got her first record deal.
Jewel says she wrote the song as a way of taking accountability for her life—knowing that, even though she didn’t have a good upbringing or a support system to guide her, she had to decide: “Was I willing to be accountable for saving myself, or did somebody else owe me that? Did a religion owe me that? Who did owe me that?”
In times of great challenge, many people default to telling themselves stories that match their circumstances, but Jewel was able to stop herself from believing that her life course was predetermined because of the trauma she experienced. She started developing systems that allowed her to discover who she really was, ultimately building herself from the inside out rather than thinking things from the outside would fix her.
She says her songwriting was the soundtrack of her own life, becoming her diary of “grappling with these questions around nature versus nurture. How do I have agency? How do I not be a victim, even though I had a crappy childhood? What can I do about it? What am I willing to do about it? Because I didn’t have anybody willing to help me. And, for me, one of the most empowering moments of my life was realizing nobody’s coming for me.”
Though she could not have known it at the time, the song would ultimately change the course of her life and allow her to become a catalyst of change for others. And the powerful questions she learned to ask, as well as the tools she developed because of them, would provide a framework for the advocacy and education she would do outside her music.
“I NEVER HAD TO LIVE A LIE IN THE PUBLIC EYE. I ALWAYS GOT TO BE WHO I WAS.”
She reflects on the fact that when she moved out of her house as a 15-year-old, even if she knew how to find a therapist, she wouldn’t have had the money for one. As a result, terms like “mental health,” “advocate” and “trauma” were not a part of her lexicon. Instead, she studied philosophers, poets and writers who, she says, “wrote during times of great upheaval—[who] fought through tremendous darkness—to fight for their humanity.” Reading helped her better understand the world, so when she came across a quote that said, “Happiness does not depend on who you are or what you have—it depends on what you think,” she began to understand the role thoughts have in changing our actions.
When she was homeless, it was remembering that quote that gave her the fortitude to say, “OK, I don’t have anything else. Can I turn my life around one thought at a time?’”
She decided to focus on shoplifting—one of her most painful behaviors—knowing that if she didn’t, she would likely end up in jail, becoming a statistic instead of a success story. After that, she worked on the root of her panic attacks and agoraphobia, asking more questions of herself along the way.
“I started to tackle them one pain point at a time,” she recalls, “and not only get in touch with what thoughts were driving that behavior, but now that I was aware of what thought it was, how could I change the behavior? Because, unless my behavior changed, it didn’t matter. Philosophy is dead unless we can figure out how to act on it.”
In 2002, after many years of putting what she learned to action, Jewel co-founded the Inspiring Children Foundation, which provides mental health programming to youth whose financial circumstances are a barrier to access. Today, the foundation serves more than 2,500 children in person and millions online, using sports, mentorship, mental health counseling and cognitive tools to help them succeed in their daily lives.
Because of her own experiences with poverty, she thought a lot about the obstacles and pathways to success when creating the foundation. She wanted something that would impact as many children as possible and not cost them anything to participate, with teachings and tools that could work with or without therapy, as she recognizes that therapy is a resource many aren’t able to access.
With the Association of American Medical Colleges reporting that more than 150 million people are living in federally designated mental health professional shortage areas, accessibility is a topic that needs to be discussed. This year, it’s estimated that the U.S. will be short between 14,280 and 31,109 psychiatrists, with psychologists, social workers and others in the mental health space being overextended.
This reality is one of the biggest reasons Jewel uses her platform to raise awareness of the obstacles so many children face when it comes to accessing the mental health resources they need, but she is quick to point out that the goal of life shouldn’t be avoiding pain. Choosing how we respond to pain, she says, is what’s most important.
“Sometimes, bad things happen,” she says. “So, how can I invest in myself to make sure I have enough skills and tools? That helps me know I’ll weather anything.”
“HOW DO I HAVE AGENCY? HOW DO I NOT BE A VICTIM, EVEN THOUGH I HAD A CRAPPY CHILDHOOD? WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT IT? WHAT AM I WILLING TO DO ABOUT IT? BECAUSE I DIDN’T HAVE ANYBODY WILLING TO HELP ME. AND, FOR ME, ONE OF THE MOST EMPOWERING MOMENTS OF MY LIFE WAS REALIZING NOBODY’S COMING FOR ME.”
She says she loves seeing those aha moments when a kid really makes the connection in their brain, becoming sensitive to the fact that what they feel, think, act and who they surround themselves with matters. She sees the power that comes when they use this realization to make shifts in their lives that may seem small to others, but are, in many cases, life-altering.
“Watching them show up for themselves,” she says, “watching them show up for their own lives, is constantly awe-inspiring.”
She calls her kids “high-performing humans” and is so proud that, in the last five years, 100% of the students who take part in the foundation’s Leadership Development Program have earned college scholarships—74% of which are from Ivy League schools.
As a complement to the foundation, she launched the #NotAloneChallenge in 2022 to remind youth they’re not alone during the holidays and give them access to free mental health resources. In its first year, the challenge garnered 1.4 billion social media impressions and became one of the largest mental health campaigns in history. Auction items from celebrities like Cyndi Lauper, Billie Eilish, Kelly Clarkson and Deepak Chopra have brought in over $1.5 million—the proceeds from which support the foundation’s continued work.
And after three years of beta-testing, Innerworld, the virtual mental health platform Jewel co-founded with Noah Robinson, MSc, launched in 2022 with the purpose of providing 24/7 access to free, anonymous peer-to-peer support via self-created avatars. While a premium subscription has a cost attached to it, Jewel offers teens aged 13-18 who sign up for the #NotAloneChallenge a free premium subscription. Once inside the virtual world, avatars are led by guides trained in Cognitive Behavioral Immersion (CBI), which the National Institutes of Health (NIH) describes as “a cognitive-behavioral skills program delivered by lay coaches in the metaverse through immersive virtual technology.” She is proud of the fact that Innerworld received a $2 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct a randomized control trial at the University of Southern California to continue testing the effects of CBI on depression.
Though a new frontier in the mental health space, Innerworld is built on existing forms of therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). According to the online therapy service, Talkspace, CBT focuses on changing and improving the relationship between your thoughts and behaviors, while DBT uses mindfulness skills to help develop constructive thought patterns that help you learn how to validate yourself, others, and the world.
“DBT and CBT tools have been around [for] decades,” she says. “They’ve been studied. We know they work, and you can teach them in group settings. Peers can teach one another in a safe environment by our trained guides, and so it’s kind of really picking up this space that exists between meditation and therapy, or along with them. It’s not exclusionary.”
In addition to her work in the mental health space—she also created JewelNeverBroken.com, a free mental health community available to anyone who needs it—Jewel is a two-time New York Times bestselling author, a poet, children’s book writer and jewelry designer for Songlines by Jewel. Last November, she released the 25th-anniversary edition of her multiplatinum album, Spirit.
With a music career spanning almost 30 years, it would be more than enough to point to the success Jewel has had as a singer, but it’s the success she has had with the things she built because of her music that bring her full circle to the moment she started asking herself the question that would change so many lives: Who will save your soul?
A question that would one day make her a Masked Singer, shimmering boldly under the stage lights as the embodiment of heart—the one constant that has served as a guiding force in her career, no matter how many circumstances threatened to break it along the way.
“I knew me leading with a lot of sincerity and heart would be really difficult, and it was,” she says, “but I’m glad that I did it, and it ended up being the right answer for me and my career. And I never had to live a lie in the public eye. I always got to be who I was.”
And though Jewel’s personal process has centered around asking questions and working to find the answers within, she doesn’t think it’s the job of any artist to tell people what to believe.
“I don’t think we can change people’s minds,” she says, “but I do think we can change people’s hearts. Or we can at least help them ask questions that are provocative enough that they might answer them for themselves.” ◆
ELLIS IS A WRITER WHO BELIEVES IN FINDING THE HEART IN EVERYONE’S STORY, SO FINDING JEWEL’S WAS ESPECIALLY INSPIRING.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY NICK ONKEN
YASMINE ARRINGTON
Founder, Executive Director
ScholarCHIPS, Inc.
When she was a junior in high school, Arrington founded the nonprofit ScholarCHIPS, an organization that provides college scholarships, mentoring, mental health support and a peer support network to children of incarcerated parents. To date, ScholarCHIPS has awarded more than $500,000 in college scholarships to 88 scholars, resulting in 40 college graduates to date. Through her work, Arrington is breaking cycles of incarceration and creating pathways to college education and careers for historically underserved communities. She is a 2023 CNN Hero, a 2022 Soros Justice Fellow and a 2019 JustLeadershipUSA Leading with Conviction Fellow Alumna. Arrington has been featured in TeenVogue, Essence, Black Enterprise, Forbes , The Washington Post, Baltimore Times and on the Black Girls Rock! Network for her community work with ScholarCHIPS. She’s received several awards, including the Washington Business Journal’s Top 40 Under 40, the Peace First Prize, the Samuel Huntington Public Service Award and several others.
JASMINE ASHTON-LEIGH
CEO
Abundant Health and Energy Pty Ltd
Ashton-Leigh, a revered life coach for women and a distinguished women’s business coach, has become an instrumental force in transforming the lives of women worldwide. Her profound influence extends beyond conventional empowerment, guiding women to conquer their fears, overcome self-doubt and unlock their true wealth potential. As the founder and CEO of Abundant Health and Energy Pty Ltd, Ashton-Leigh is recognized as an authority in women’s empowerment and business growth. Moreover, Ashton-Leigh has introduced a groundbreaking therapy known as NeuroEconomic Transformation Therapy™. Influenced by psychology, NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), neuroplasticity, hypnotherapy and neuroscience, this revolutionary therapy is making significant strides, delivering profound results by reprogramming the subconscious mind, empowering women to transform their relationship with money, elevating their self-worth and confidently communicating their value to create seven-figure success.
DR. RAJINDER ATWAL
Medical Director, CEO, Founder, Family Physician, M.D., C.C.F.P.
Bathurst Walk-in Clinic and Family Practice
Atwal is a trailblazer in the health care industry. She is the founder, CEO and medical director of Bathurst Walk-in Clinic and Family Practice, which serves marginalized communities. She’s also involved in educating the next generation of women entering the medical field through her role as the CEO and founder of Women STEM Mentorship. During the pandemic, Atwal founded Covid Kids Canada, offering free mental health services to children facing the unique challenges brought about by the global crisis. Additionally, Covid 24-7 Canada, a 24-hour virtual advice and treatment service staffed by top-tier medical professionals, was established under her leadership. She recently won the 2023 Waterfront Award for Science and Technology and was recognized as one of White Page International’s Top 100 Asian Women Power Leaders.
LEIGH BURGESS
CEO, Founder
Bold Industries Group
Burgess is a thought leader, game-changer and powerhouse connector determined to ignite and support the bold journeys of others. She has built a platform for uniting, inspiring and empowering women that brings together a unique global network via her Bold events, the Bold Leaders Collective membership, Mindset Gym, The Bold Lounge podcast and through her dynamic speaking engagements. With a focus on the intersection of mindset, strategy and wellness, her Believe-Own-Learn-Design (B.O.L.D.) Framework is your map to the “bold” life. Her forthcoming book, which is all about how to apply the framework to your own life, will be distributed by Simon & Schuster in fall 2024. Burgess is also a songwriter with work available on Spotify and iTunes.
KIM CARSON
CEO, Founder
Parallax Futures
With more than 15 years of leadership experience in research, operations, strategy, finance and business development, Carson’s track record stands out for clients. She’s passionate about enabling teams of creatives, technology leaders and innovators with the skills, mindset and network to tackle the complex and evolving challenges of tomorrow. She believes the best teams have fun, laughter and optimism for the future. Prior to Parallax Futures, Carson enjoyed leadership positions in both academia and the technology sector. She served as the director of University of California San Francisco’s first-ever strategic planning process, a program executive for a $60 million higher education analytics engagement, the go-to-market leader for IBM’s Watson Education and a top business development executive for intellectual property licensing at IBM’s 12 global research labs. She holds dual bachelor’s degrees in political science and German from Susquehanna University.
DIELLE CHARON
CEO, Sales Coach
Dielle Charon Coaching
Charon is the first Black millionaire of The Life Coach School and a sales and money mindset coach. She is passionate about helping women boost their sales skills without the money mindset drama and bringing together a community of women who are building their businesses. She started as a social worker who could barely pay her student loans, then became a coach as a side hustle. Today, Charon is a seven-figure coach with a community of women of color.
LATOYA CHRISTIAN
Managing Partner and Executive Director of Inclusive Strategy & Innovation
GroupM
Christian is the executive director of inclusive strategy and innovation at GroupM in New York City. As a conscious marketer, she infuses data and creativity into areas of strategy and innovation to drive representation and social impact within advertising. At GroupM, she oversees a team of strategists working with clients to unlock audience growth opportunities through data and leads special projects that support the development of new products aimed at cultivating responsible media investments. Committed to ensuring all communities have a voice, Christian regularly contributes to industry trades such as Forbes, Think with Google and MediaPost. She has also delivered presentations during NYC Advertising Week, the 4A’s StratFest, YouTube Black FanFest and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, solidifying her as a thought leader within the industry. Christian holds a bachelor’s in marketing from Hampton University and a master’s degree in integrated marketing from New York University.
KELLEY CORNISH
President, CEO
The T.D. Jakes Foundation
Cornish is the president and CEO of the T.D. Jakes Foundation, a workforce development and community-building foundation fostering opportunity globally through corporate partnerships, workforce readiness, STEAM programming for youth and community and housing engagement. Prior to this role, she served as a senior executive for diverse segments, representation and inclusion at Wells Fargo & Company. In 2022, Cornish received the Woman of the Year Award from iHeartMedia radio for her work in the community and in corporate America. She’s also been recognized as one of the Most Influential Women in Corporate America by Savoy magazine and as one of the Top 25 Influential Black Women in Business by The Network Journal. She received the Sojourner Truth Award by the National Congress of Black Women. Cornish is the co-author of It’s Work! How Will You Show Up?, in which she shares practical tips for navigating the workplace.
TOYIN CRANDELL
CEO
Toyin Crandell Coaching
Crandell is a pioneer and global authority in using neuroscience principles to multiply business top-line revenue and profits. The host of the Millionaire Money Podcast, founder of Money Mindset SHIFT. and a bestselling author, Crandell is an international speaker and master financial and neuroscience coach and consultant. She has been featured on more than 73 platforms, sharing the power of the human brain in creating behavior that drives monetary increase. Business owners, executives, sales teams and rev ops teams hire her when they want to boost mental stamina and increase sales through neuroscience-based mindset training. With an inspirational personal journey of going from having no food or home for her family to 11 streams of income, multiple real estate properties and running a multimillion-dollar organization within four years, she demonstrates what is possible when your brain is in line with your goals.
TATIA DAVENPORT
CEO
California Association of School Business Officials
Davenport is the CEO of the California Association of School Business Officials (CASBO), the foremost authority on business driving for the nation’s largest public education system. With an estimated $108 billion annual budget across California schools, Davenport’s work as a steward for public education is significant. CASBO represents more than 25,000 professionals across 1,100 school districts and 58 counties statewide and supports facilities and management of approximately 125,000 acres of land, 475 million square feet of real estate, an estimated 630 million student meals and snacks served annually at 22,000 sites and 115 million miles of busing and student transportation annually. Davenport is a member of the Forbes Business Council, and under her leadership, CASBO was named the winner of a Bronze Stevie Award in the Organization of the Year for a nonprofit or government organization in the 20th Annual International Business Awards .
MIKESHAYA EDWARDS
Health Care Executive—Hospital Operations & CEO of M.Edwards Legacy
HCA Healthcare, Tenet Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente Healthcare
A charismatic leader, skilled communicator, mentor and community advocate and CEO of M.Edwards Legacy, Edwards is an experienced and confident health care professional with an infectious enthusiasm for helping others. With the U.S. health care system rapidly improving and evolving, she has developed a focus centered on strengthening the effectiveness of health care institutions through positive diverse relationships, continued learning and competent leadership. Edwards has provided guidance and expertise for several dominant health care systems, including HCA Healthcare and Tenet Healthcare, and works closely with executives on organizational and operational assignments, such as compliance issues, operation strategies, policy changes, capital funding, patient safety and administrative procedures. She has also served on several boards including the American College of Healthcare & Technology and Riverside Downtown Partnerships.
MARIE FEAGINS, ED.D.
Chief of Leadership & High Schools
Detroit Public Schools
Feagins is an award-winning educator, author and community advocate with a career spanning two decades. From roles as a teacher, counselor and coach to positions as an assistant principal, principal and senior district administrator, Feagins guided students from historically underestimated communities to remarkable success at top universities, Fortune 500 companies and various branches of the United States military. Feagins’ societal advancement is accentuated by the founding of F.A.M.E. Network Inc., an educational nonprofit providing college trips, tutoring, mentorship and service leadership programs to ensure success for every child. Beyond education, Feagins graced the media landscape as a news anchor, co-host alongside Katie Couric and a film extra in Selma, Survivor’s Remorse and With This Ring. Holding a doctorate in education from Samford University and a bachelor’s in business administration from The University of Alabama, Feagins blends her academic accolades and leadership skills to passionately serve others.
ELAYNA FERNÁNDEZ
Storyteller, Story Strategist, Student of Pain
The Positive MOM
A four-time TEDx speaker, Fernández is a bestselling author, international keynote speaker and award-winning storyteller. She’s best known for her award-winning blog, which has inspired millions of moms in more than 160 countries. Her passion is to help entrepreneurs craft, tell and turn their painful stories into passive streams of income, so they can break cycles, find peace and feel whole. As a multiple-trauma survivor, her encouraging coaching style is focused on clarity, compassion and connection. She brings more than 20 years of experience in web design, digital content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) to create meaningful and easy-to-monetize content on every platform. Fernández holds a Marriage, Family, and Human Relations certificate from Brigham Young University-Idaho, as well as numerous certifications in the areas of neuroscience, personal development and positive psychology.
CRYSTAL FOOTE
CEO, Founder
Digital Culture Group, LLC
Foote is an award-winning marketing professional and entrepreneur with a career spanning almost two decades in the marketing industry. As the visionary founder of Digital Culture Group, she leads a forward-thinking digital marketing and advertising technology company deeply committed to inclusivity and diversity. She strives to propel her clients to the forefront of their industries, enabling them to achieve their objectives while nurturing relationships with consumers. Foote’s company is the sole woman-owned and Black-owned advertising technology company in her field. Actively involved with organizations like ColorVision and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), she tirelessly advocates for equity within the marketing and advertising sector. Her lineage as the great-great-niece of Sgt. Alfred B. Hilton, an African American Union Army soldier and Medal of Honor recipient during the American Civil War, further fuels her commitment to diversity and inclusion in the business world.
KIMBERLY FORD
Founder, President, CEO
BRND Marketing Group LLC
Ford is a high-performing brand marketing strategist with 29 years of experience. Often called a “brand whisperer,” she is known as an innovative thought leader who asks “Why not?” Ten years ago, Ford founded and operationalized a boutique integrated marketing agency, BRND Marketing Group LLC, the lead agency of record for Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District (LPCCD), a nonprofit that is building a comprehensive cultural and arts district in historic Lincoln Park, Newark, New Jersey. She’s successfully fundraised upward of $3.5 million for LPCCD. BRND Marketing Group LLC produced Leadership Newark’s Public Policy Summits featuring keynotes from U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Van Jones (CNN host) and was the festival production company for Newark Arts Festival (2017 and 2018). Formerly, she held the position of associate director, multicultural marketing at CoActive Marketing Group (US Concepts/Urban Concepts Agency).
CHRISTINE GANNON
Founder, CEO
Brightworks Consulting
Gannon, the founder and CEO of Brightworks Consulting, is dedicated to fostering positive change through leadership, collaboration and a strong commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Her commitment to DE&I is evident in her groundbreaking research, focused on creating tangible change at the community level for women and girls. In addition to her role at Brightworks Consulting, Gannon is co-founder and president of The Foundation for Female Equity and Inclusion, a 501(c)(3) organization. This foundation embodies her vision to empower women and organizations with the resources, education and best practices needed to foster inclusion and equity in the workplace. Under her guidance, the foundation has become a beacon of hope and a catalyst for transformative change.
JING GAO
Founder, CEO
Fly By Jing
Gao, the founder and CEO of Fly By Jing, is a chef, entrepreneur and renowned expert on Chinese cuisine on a mission to bring uncensored Chinese flavors to the table. She was born in Chengdu but grew up everywhere. She uses her experience as a chef to share meaningful flavors that open people up to new ideas and conversations. She was the founder of an award-winning, modern-Chinese fast casual restaurant in Shanghai, and her work has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Fortune and more.
AURELIA GOODEN
Engineer, Composer, Pianist, Public Speaker, Inventor
Stellantis
Gooden is an engineer and manufacturing specialist at Stellantis in Michigan, with specialties in industrial engineering, process engineering, process improvement, engineering design, plastics and polymers, as well as some laboratory work experience and maintenance management. She is also a Ph.D. student at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology and Wayne State University. Gooden worked as a subject matter expert at General Motors and took on several industrial engineering roles at Honda. She has been designated a Fellow of the Women’s Engineering Society and was selected for prestigious awards of membership in IOM3 (Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining) and the Institution of Engineering Designers (IED). In addition to her corporate ambitions, Gooden is a freelance pianist and chamber music composer. She is a summa cum laude graduate of Jacksonville State University with a bachelor’s in music, a master’s in music and another master’s in manufacturing systems.
DEMETRIA L. GRAVES
Certified Family Law Specialist & Founding Partner
The Graves Law Firm
Graves, a certified family law specialist, opened her own family law practice, The Graves Law Firm, at age 25—just six months out of law school. Considered a leading family law attorney, Graves was honored at the 2023 Cultural Inclusion Foundation for making a difference in 2023. The Graves Law Firm will be recognized in the upcoming list of Top Boutique Law Firms in California 2023 in the Daily Journal. Graves was featured in the January/ February 2023 issue of Super Lawyers magazine, and in 2022, she was named as a Top Family Lawyer by the Daily Journal and included in the Top 100 Lawyers list in the Los Angeles Business Journal. In 2021, Graves was named in the Top Women Lawyers list in the Daily Journal and as a minority leader of influence in the Los Angeles Business Journal. She’s also been featured in Authority magazine, Pasadena magazine and Voyage LA .
LAKECIA GUNTER
Chief Technology Officer, Fortune 50 Tech Executive, Podcast Host
Microsoft Corporation
Gunter’s career started with a deep passion for science, technology, engineering and math. Her natural curiosity, intellect and instinct for helping others opened the door to the possibility that she could become a trusted leader and role model who blazes trails for Fortune 500 global technology companies. Throughout her career in both the private and public sectors, Gunter has been at the forefront of innovation in the tech industry, spearheading the creation and development of multibillion-dollar businesses, developing new channels and markets, driving M&A initiatives and leading global organizations. She’s currently the chief technology officer for Global Partner Solutions at Microsoft, where she defines the technical vision and strategy to help ecosystem partners build innovative solutions and leverage AI advancements. She also serves as an independent director for IDEX Corporation and is a member of the Executive Leadership Council (ELC), an organization committed to increasing the number of Black executives.
CLAUDIENNE HIBBERT-SMITH
President
TRU Prep Academy/ TRU Real Estate Exchange
Hibbert-Smith became a mom at the age of 14 and obtained her bachelor’s degree in 2001 from the University of Florida. Shortly after landing her first job out of college, she transitioned into a real estate professional and partnered with a real estate company for 20 years, where she excelled. Hibbert-Smith recently partnered with eXp Realty and has expanded her team to more than 250 Realtors within 19 states. Throughout the last 22 years, she has received various educational and real estate industry credentials. She owns multiple businesses, including TRU Real Estate Exchange, which services Realtors, and TRU Global Title Company, which services real estate transactions in the state of Florida. She and her husband, Mario Smith, own and operate an all-boys K-12 school after seeing a need for change in their community.
KARWANNA D. IRVING
CEO
She’s Got Goals, LLC
Irving is an award-winning small business expert, the founder of She’s Got Goals, LLC, and the author of Don’t Duck The Government, They’ve Got Your Money. As a 20-plus-year business veteran who has successfully built small businesses of her own, Irving teaches entrepreneurs to create generational wealth by scaling government contracts. To date, she has helped more than 300 business owners generate upward of $4 million combined in revenue. As an international speaker, Irving has been featured on CBS, NBC, FOX, Star Tribune Business, Best Business Digest, Ticker News and The LIST TV Show. She’s been highlighted in several magazines, including SwagHer, Empower and SHEEN, and has shared the stage with major leaders including Les Brown, Trent Shelton, Stacia Pierce and others.
LISA JACOBSON
President, CEO, Influencer, Life Purpose & Positivity Coach
Sila Development
Jacobson is president and CEO of Sila Development, a national coaching firm specializing in the areas of life purpose and positivity. She is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences and panel discussions. Jacobson has created the Life Is So Amazing movement as a changemaker and thought leader for women who want to build lives they only dream about. In addition, Jacobson works as the CEO of the Saint Paul Festival & Heritage Foundation, which produces of the Saint Paul Winter Carnival, the oldest winter festival in the country. She also sits on the Community Advisory Board for the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office and serves as a Rotarian in her community. She was also a professional dancer with the NBA as a Timberwolves Senior Dancer for the past six years.
MISSY JOHNSON
Screenwriter, Speaker, Author, Coach
Fearless Women Rock LLC
Johnson is the founder and CEO of Fearless Women Rock LLC, a powerful platform created for women to share their stories of transformation. She is also an award-winning speaker, coach and bestselling author. In addition, she shows women how to become authors and speakers by teaching them how to book, brand and bank their business. She is a screenwriter and made her television debut for a film she co-wrote for a BET Her breast cancer health initiative. Johnson is also the founder of CTC Personal Development Institute. This organization collaborates with women in corporate America who seek support as they transition from corporations to entrepreneurship. Johnson is available to speak in the corporate arena and offers executive coaching.
MOIRA KUCABA
High Performance Coach, Keynote Speaker
Together Rising LLC
As a struggling addict-turned-seven-figure CEO, Kucaba is here to show you that you can achieve anything you desire through the power of vision, manifestation and a solid dose of action. Her Rise Up: Book of Proof journal and VPM Method combines manifestation techniques rooted in neuroscience with actionable goals. It’s the process she credits to helping her achieve the No. 1 spot in a billion-dollar company and mentoring many others to massive success. Today, she teaches people how to amplify their lives and transform their minds through her courses, speaking engagements, podcast and coaching business.
RENATA LIUZZI
CEO & Founder
Axis Partners
Liuzzi is the pioneering CEO and founder of Axis Partners, a boutique consultancy specializing in business strategy, customer experience and innovation. With over 18 years of experience, an international MBA from IE Business School and a mechanical engineering degree with specialization in motorsports, Liuzzi has led transformative projects for Fortune 500 companies. She’s also a visiting lecturer at IE for MBA students. Her work goes beyond corporate success; she’s a thought leader committed to driving human progress through business excellence and personal development. With a multicultural background and a passion for human behavior and neuroscience, she’s reshaping the future of business consulting for a more collaborative and impactful approach.
TARA MCCARTHY, JAMIE TULAK & LAUREN ROCCO
Co-Founders
Girls With Grit
McCarthy, Tulak and Rocco, three professional female Realtors, founded Girls With Grit because they saw an opportunity to connect and collaborate with other incredible women in real estate. They found a way to create meaningful relationships across the globe to help others level up their own real estate business instead of looking at one another as competition. By helping every agent find their own personal grit, they have created a distinctive women’s collaborative that has blossomed into a formal business and movement. They have more than 17,000 women in their community and have led more than 6,000 women through their training and coaching programs.
NICOLE MASON
CEO
Show Up Great, LLC
Mason is a public servant with more than 25 years of service. In her role as a diversity, equity and inclusion professional, she brought systemic changes to the work environment via policy changes, training and advocacy. She has mentored and coached senior leaders on changing culture and developing confidence, boldness and executive presence. In her company, Show Up Great!, Mason empowers women to speak up with confidence and stand out with courage. She has helped women start businesses, become published authors and transition from careers to pursue their passions and callings. In 2018, she was recognized by then-governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, for her life-changing work with women. Mason, dubbed “America’s Boldness and Confidence Mentor,” is also an award-winning author, recognized by the Indie Author Legacy Awards and Black Enterprise magazine. Her work has been featured in the world-renowned Chicken Soup for the Soul® series.
DAWN MENGE, PH.D.
President
Educator, Speaker, Special Education Advocate & International Bestselling Author
Menge has won 90 international literary awards and 20 film festival awards as the published author of the Queen Vernita educational series and Dragon’s Breath, including the Special Recognition Champion Award from Conquering Disabilities with Film, Best Written Word from Miracle Makers Film, Hollywood Dreams Film and International Author Boss Award from Power Conversations Magazine. Menge writes book reviews, judges three children’s literacy contests for Story Monsters Ink magazine, and judges indie romance books for InD’tale magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in education and specializes in curriculum and instruction. She has been teaching students with severe cognitive delays for more than 27 years, and mentors/lectures graduate students.
DEBBIE MILLMAN
Podcast Host, Editorial Director, Chair
Design Matters Media
Named “one of the most creative people in business” by Fast Company and “one of the most influential designers working today” by Graphic Design USA , Millman is an illustrator, author, educator and host of the award-winning podcast Design Matters. She is the co-owner of PrintMag. com and the author of seven books. In 2010, she co-founded the graduate program in branding at the School of Visual Arts, and from 1995-2016, she served as president of Sterling Brands. She is president emeritus of AIGA and was awarded the AIGA Medal for lifetime achievement in 2019. In 2022, Harvard Business School introduced a case study on Millman, which is being taught to grad students. She is working with Law & Order: Special Victims Unit actor Mariska Hargitay’s Joyful Heart Foundation to eradicate sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse and the rape kit backlog.
ROSE NAMAYANJA
Founder, President
Rose Namayanja Foundation
Born on a banana plantation in a rural, war-ravaged town in Uganda, Namayanja was faced with debilitating poverty from a young age. Determined to escape her situation, she set her eyes on an academic qualification or an elective post at the university, village council or parliamentary election. Namayanja’s drive to succeed is reflected in her rise through the ranks of elective politics, due in part to her innovative approach to politics and social encounters. Her accounts on the political campaign trail in her constituencies are an instruction on effective political mobilization and showcase her natural ability to unite divergent forces toward a common goal. Namayanja’s story is one of humility. At the peak of her career, she left politics and founded the Rose Namayanja Foundation, which provides hope to many underprivileged children in her native community.
GABY NATALE
Triple Emmy-Winning Journalist, Bestselling Author & Speaker
AGANARmedia
As the first Latina to win 3 Daytime Emmys® back to back, the first Hispanic author to be published by HarperCollins’ Leadership division and one of the few foreign-born writers to narrate their audiobook in English, Natale has had her own share of being “the first like her” in leadership spaces. A sought-after thought leader and motivational speaker, she has shared her inspirational message with Fortune 500 corporations, the United Nations and in her own TEDx Talk encouraging underrepresented minorities to pioneer and be what they cannot (yet) see in the world. She is also the founder of AGANARmedia, a marketing company with a focus on Hispanic audiences that serves Fortune 500 companies. In the digital world, she has a thriving fan base with over 50 million subscribers on YouTube.
ARIANA PAREJA
Co-Founder, President
Pareja Family Foundation
Pareja, an immigrant child who started her first company at age 21, is co-founder of Pareja Family Foundation, which champions tech upskilling boot camps for women. She also initiated the first financial literacy program at Miami Dade College, open to all women at no cost, and her competitive spirit led her to participate on the reality TV show Billion Dollar Showdown, airing on CNBC in early 2024. As a mentor for Target Forward Founders program (2022-2023), she helped guide emerging consumer packaged goods businesses. Pareja is also an angel investor, who passionately supports minority-led startups.
LANI PHILLIPS
Vice President, Partner Sales in Americas [and] CEO, Full Circle Leadership Group
Fullcircle Leadership Group
Phillips is an award-winning leader, author, digital talk show host, transformative speaker and seasoned female executive who has served in top roles for Microsoft for more than 25 years. She has received many accolades, including CRN’s 2023 Inclusive Channel Leaders award, CRN’s 2021 The Most Powerful Women of the Channel: Power 100 award and Insights Success’ 2020 Top 10 Most Influential Women in the Cloud award. Phillips’ passion is inspiring, transforming and growing leaders. In 2019, she founded the groundbreaking Women Executive Channel Advisory Network (WECAN) to create more opportunities for women in leadership within the tech industry. Then in 2021, she launched Modern Mentoring with Lani Phillips, a digital talk show platform to share wisdom for anyone looking to thrive in corporate spaces. She’s launching a new consulting firm, Full Circle Leadership Group (FLG) and a book titled Full Circle Leadership.
HENNA PRYOR
Workplace Performance Expert, 2x TEDx Speaker, Author
Pryority Group
Pryor is a workplace performance expert and an award-winning, two-time TEDx and global keynote speaker, author and professional executive coach. She’s known for her science-backed approach to improving the performance, habits and actions of hungry high achievers to move them from their first level of success to their next one. Pryor brings her expertise to a variety of global organizations, including Google, Workday, FIS Global and Johnson & Johnson. She’s been featured in top TV, podcast, and print media, including Forbes , NBC, The Washington Post, Fast Company and more. She founded Pryority Group, a performance growth firm, to expand on her belief that the key to most people’s success is leaning into awkwardness to skyrocket strategic risk-taking and bravery in the work we do. Her bestselling book, Good Awkward: How to Embrace the Embarrassing and Celebrate the Cringe to Become the Bravest You, received the Kirkus Star for excellence in writing and has been endorsed by NFL quarterback Russell Wilson and former Harvard Business Review editor Karen Dillon.
VALERIE RAINFORD
CEO, Founder
Elloree Talent Strategies
Rainford is a business executive with more than 30 years of experience driving business transformations. During her tenure as the senior vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Rainford launched the first employee resource group and hired the first chief diversity officer. She spent 12 years at JPMorgan Chase, leading business transformations and serving as head of Advancing Black Leaders, where she focused on hiring and advancing Black talent. Her efforts resulted in historic increases in Black senior executive talent, with a growth rate exceeding 70%. As founder and CEO of Elloree Talent Strategies, Rainford brings her transformative approach and strategies to organizations across corporate America. She has been recognized with numerous awards, including 2023 Diversity & Inclusion Hall of Fame, Most Powerful Women in Business by Black Enterprise and 25 Most Influential Black Women in Business by The Network Journal.
SARA ROSS
Chief Vitality Officer, Keynote Speaker, Bestselling Author
BrainAMPED
As the founder and chief vitality officer at the leadership research firm, BrainAMPED, an international keynote speaker, and bestselling author of Dear Work: Something Has to Change, Ross is at the forefront of the human energy revolution. As a leadership expert, Ross uses brain science-based strategies to help people amplify their “Work Vitality Quotient” to fuel their success without feeding burnout. These ideas and research have positioned her as a fresh and thought-provoking voice in discussions shaping the future of work and combatting burnout. Her groundbreaking work in the areas of emotional intelligence, resilience and well-being have earned her recognition as a go-to expert for world-class organizations, including Microsoft, PepsiCo, Cisco, Wells Fargo, T-Mobile, FedEx, Bell Media, Stanford University and the U.S. Navy. She has a Master of Science from the University of Waterloo, Canada.
BRIANNA RUSSELL
CEO, Founder
Girls Leading Goals and FemThrive
Russell is the founder and CEO of Girls Leading Goals. She played soccer her whole life, competitively through college at Sacramento State University, where she played collegiate soccer on the NCAA Division I women’s soccer team. While serving in the U.S. Peace Corps in Vanuatu in the South Pacific, she launched the area’s first women’s regional soccer team. Russell started Girls Leading Girls in 2014, and four years later, she started her own executive coaching agency for women founders called FemThrive. She is also an executive coach for The Grand coaching company, a member of the Wise Women’s Council, a grant adviser for The Pollination Project Foundation, a mentor for the Women’s Collective and a member of the Filipina Women’s Network.
MIKA SHINO
Founder, CEO
The Stardust Company/Issei
Shino’s experience lies at the intersection of culture, diplomacy and business. She is a writer, director, producer and entrepreneur bridging disconnected ideas to forge collaborations with meaningful, value-driven impact. Her career began at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, where she conceptualized and directed UNESCO International Jazz Day, UNESCO World Philosophy Day and other programs. She worked at UNESCO for 15 years, leading programs in multiple countries, including Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, India and France. Shino earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from New York University, a master’s degree from L’Université de Paris I - Sorbonne, a second master’s degree from the London School of Economics and her doctorate degree from L’Université de Paris VIII - St.Denis (Paris). She’s also a Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef and author of Smart Bites for Baby: 300+ Recipes, a cookbook with recipes for children.
JANICE SKOREYKO
Author, Keynote Speaker, Integrative Health & Performance Expert, International Social Impact Business Mentor
Janice Speaks
Skoreyko, an integrative health expert, international social impact mentor and speaker, brings more than two decades of coaching experience to her transformative work. This bestselling author and member of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine defied conventional medical predictions, revitalizing her health through a global journey studying medicine in seven countries. Skoreyko has become the catalyst for peak performance among leaders, executives and athletes. Known for heroically overcoming “incurable” conditions, Skoreyko’s journey fueled her mission to mentor thousands of leaders from 18 countries. She specializes in empowering her clients to tackle their most significant personal and professional challenges, disseminating methodologies to create positive social change. With a portfolio encompassing leadership retreats, compelling keynotes, education and TV, radio and print media appearances, Skoreyko is a consultant with collaborations that extend globally.
SHAMECA TANKERSON
CEO
Shameca International
Tankerson is a trailblazer and phenom in the field of business revenue acceleration. She is on a mission to empower entrepreneurial giants to experience massive wealth fast and become self-made millionaires who build dynasties and enduring generational wealth. Celebrated as one of the world’s most trusted leaders and advisers, her clients create six- and seven-figure months even in the most challenging economies. She is an award-winning business strategist, international speaker, bestselling author and CEO of Shameca International. Tankerson helps women own their worth, claim their confidence and become high-performing power players who create massive wealth with no apologies. She has been featured in major media like Forbes , CNN, The Wall Street Journal and more.
JULIE THOMAS
President & CEO
ValueSelling Associates, Inc.
Thomas is an author, speaker and CEO of ValueSelling Associates, Inc. She works with revenue leaders across industries to help them realize sales results they never thought would be possible. A former Gartner sales executive, Thomas is a longtime industry leader who is passionate about guiding revenue organizations through uncertainty and helping them build resilient, engaged teams that drive predictable, sustainable results and create customers for life. In a career spanning 25 years, she credits her mastery of the ValueSelling Framework® for her own meteoric rise through the ranks of sales, sales management and corporate leadership positions. Her latest book is The Power of Value Selling: The Gold Standard to Drive Revenue and Create Customers for Life.
MICHELLE S. THOMAS
Founder, CEO
The Exceptional Woman Enterprise
Thomas has leveraged her years of collective firsthand experiences with growing profitable businesses to become an 11-time internationally bestselling author, motivational speaker, owner of multiple minority businesses and a certified life, relationship and business coach. She is the executive founder and CEO of The Exceptional Woman Enterprise, which was created to remove the barriers of sustainable growth that often interrupt the potential of success for many women entrepreneurs, especially women of color. The company’s results—driven entities focuses on providing mastery-level tools of business principles for a clear understanding of each complex level of their entrepreneurial journey. Thomas offers vetted, executable solutions that are formed from real-life experiences.
AURORA THREATS
Writer, Creator, Executive Producer
Borealis Entertainment
Writer, creator, producer and award-winning filmmaker Threats began her artistic journey in her youth. She now holds a Bachelor of Science in speech & theatre education from Grambling State University and a Master of Science in human relations & business from Amberton University. As a stage actress, Threats mesmerized audiences with her captivating theatrical performances from coast to coast. Gracing iconic stages across the country, her presence has left an indelible impression on all fortunate enough to witness her remarkable talents. Her commitment to humanitarian efforts and her desire to give back to the community was evident even during her formative years. Her passion for helping others, combined with her artistic talents, has led to a journey where she not only achieves artistic milestones but also transforms lives through her philanthropic work.
KYLIE VAN LUYN
Founder
Elevated Coaching & Consulting Global
Van Luyn is an experienced coach, human services and workforce development consultant, and nonprofit executive with more than 14 years of experience working with people from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds. Her coaching areas of expertise include emotional intelligence; leadership development; fostering workplace diversity, equity, inclusion and psychological safety; shifting mindset; building confidence; and empowering individuals to reach their full potential. She was a 2019 Australian State Business Women’s Awards Finalist in the For Purpose & Social Enterprise category for her work supporting the inclusion and economic empowerment of women from refugee backgrounds across Australia. In March 2023, she was named one of the Top 10 Influential Female Entrepreneurs in the United States. Van Luyn and her teams at Elevated Coaching & Consulting Global work with leaders and employees across the public, private and nonprofit worlds to maximize social impact and achieve “doing well by doing good.”
JACQUELINE VAZQUEZ
Entrepreneur, Bestselling Author, Speaker, Podcast Host, Woman’s Wellness Advocate
Lifetime Events by Jacqueline
As the founder and CEO of Lifetime Events by Jacqueline, Vazquez is an award-winning master wedding and event planner with 25 years of experience, an educator and mentor of more than 15 years, a bestselling author and an international speaker. Her goal is to assist the event industry by helping professionals define their purpose and build confidence—and by helping develop a more supportive community of leaders in the event industry. Vazquez created a community platform called Inspired by Jacqueline that offers life-changing tools and resources for women struggling with entrepreneurship, faith or infertility. She has taken on the role as a woman’s wellness advocate, spreading awareness and resources via her platform and recently by sharing her story in two bestselling anthology books, Breaking the Glass Ceiling and Becoming An Unstoppable Woman.
MADONA WAMBUA
Founder & CTO
Jibu Labs
Named one of Women Who Code’s 100 Technologists to Watch in 2023, Wambua is the founder and chief technology officer at Jibu Labs. With a career spanning more than a decade, she excels as an author, keynote speaker and Android expert. Wambua has honed her skills in crafting consumer-centric applications and software development kits for developers. During her tenure with a startup venture at a neuroscience tech company, she worked on the Google Glass technology. Wambua is also the host and founder of the podcast Tech Talks with Madona, a platform that underscores her advocacy for gender diversity and inclusivity in the technology sector. The podcast offers a panoramic exposition of the tech industry and inspires women to stay in the tech field. Wambua’s journey is a testament to her unwavering dedication to fostering innovation and diversity and sharing knowledge within the technology realm.
KATHERINE WARNOCK
Vice President of Original Content, The Chosen TV series
The Chosen
Warnock is vice president of original content for the groundbreaking global phenomenon television series The Chosen. What started as a crowd-funded project has now garnered over 600 million episode views and more than 10 million social media followers. Warnock’s background is in strategic content, marketing and branding-based leadership spanning media, fashion and social enterprise. Previously head of faith and family content at MGM Studios, Warnock helped to steer exponential growth by 985% to a 24 million-plus audience, averaging 1.4 billion organic video views yearly. A dual resident of America and the U.K., she has worked with elite brands, from Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. and Sony to Ford, Aerie and Gillette, with a goal of positively affecting culture through purposeful, anchored, community-driven media.
CRISTINA WILSON
Author, Speaker, Combat Veteran, Business Strategist
Entrepreneur Power Network
Wilson, a distinguished command sergeant major with more than 24 years in the U.S. Army Reserve, exemplifies a life dedicated to service, leadership and empowerment. Her journey includes five deployments and numerous achievements, embodying values of discipline and courage. As the chief strategy officer of Entrepreneur Power Network, Wilson’s dynamic approach to leadership and her ability to draw from her military experience and real-life examples make her a sought-after keynote speaker, business strategist and mentor. An accomplished author, her book, Finding Your Why: A Path Towards Finding Your True Purpose in Life and Your Journey of Self-Discovery, offers invaluable insights and practical tools to help individuals discover their true purpose in life. Wilson’s commitment to giving back extends to her active involvement in supporting various local organizations and volunteering to mentor the next generation of women. Her journey, marked by resilience and continuous improvement, showcases her leadership, mentorship and advocacy for women and veterans.
DR. JUDY WRIGHT
Founder
JW Health Consulting, LLC
Wright is an authority in the field of health and wellness, stress management, and life balance and is the founder of JW Health Consulting, LLC. With more than 20 years of experience as a family physician, instructor, author and international speaker, Wright is committed to helping leaders and other professionals achieve optimal health and well-being by prioritizing life balance and resilience. Her passion for promoting health and wellness and her own personal experiences ultimately led her to focus on helping high-performing professionals understand their individual needs, manage their stress, shift their mindset and achieve life balance to thrive consistently. Through her inspiring speaking engagements, panel discussions and tailored organizational workshops, Wright’s work not only benefits the individual on a personal and professional level but also has a significant positive impact on the companies and institutions that employ them.
NOMINEES
FARIDA ABJANI
Richmond, TX
TERRY BELL
DeSoto, TX
KATHLEEN BLACK
Ontario, Canada
DR. MARIANNA BLYUMIN-KARASIK
Davie, FL
GABRIELLE BOSCHÉ
Dallas, TX
LAUREN BOWEN
Ocala, FL
JACQUELINE BUCKINGHAM
New York, NY
ELBIA CABRAL
Bronx, NY
GITI CARAVAN
Saskatoon, Canada
LAURA CASSELMAN
Myrtle Beach, SC
ZAI CHANDLER
Glen Burnie, MD
MAGGIE CHU
Sacramento, CA
LAURA CLARK
Naperville, IL
ROBERTA COCCO
St. Johns, MI
ELLY CUMMINGS
Miami Shores, FL
HELEN CUMMINGS-HENRY
Fort Mill, SC
LAQUANZA DOCKERY
San Leandro, CA
TRISH DOLL
Narvon, PA
FALON FATEMI
Napa, CA
GAIL FEDERICI
Wilton, CT
EVVA FENISON
Tarpon Springs, FL
VERONICA FIGUEROA
Orlando, FL
TERRI GAUTHIER
Bridge City, TX
JULIA GIACOBONI
West Chester, PA
DEBORAH HARRISON
Montgomery, NY
DENA JALBERT
Winter Park, FL
DR. GAIL JAMES
Jacksonville, FL
JENNIFER JONES
Ontario, Canada
TAMMY KLING
Bedford, VA
KIM LANGELAAR
Parker, CO
TONYAH LEE
Meridian, ID
DR. TINA D LEWIS
Santa Monica, CA
KRISTI LING SPENCER
Seabrook, TX
DR. MARIA MALAYTER
Aurora, IL
KRISTIN MARQUET
Scarsdale, NY
MORGAN LEIGH MILLER
Spencer, IN
JOANN MITCHELL
Rio Rancho, NM
JANE MUKAMI
Atlanta, GA
KORTNEY MURRAY
Sarasota, FL
MICHELLE O’NEIL
Dallas, TX
CAT OSHMAN
Eastvale, CA
MARIET OSTOS
Orlando, FL
HOLLY PASCAL
Fort Wayne, IN
KATIE RUCKER & JENNY DINNEN
Aliso Viejo, CA
WENDY SCHAUER
Olympia, WA
ELLIE SHEFI
Laguna Niguel, CA
SHANNON SPOTSWOOD
Vestavia Hills, AL
APRIL STEPHENS
Garner, NC
SONDRA THOMPSON
Parker, CO
SARAH THRONE
West Chester, PA
JESA TOWNSEND
Long Beach, CA
LAURA WILLIAMS ARGILLA
Seattle, WA
ANGIE WISDOM
Newport Beach, CA
Kiersten Saunders
Kiersten Saunders is co-creator of the award-winning blog and podcast, rich & REGULAR, and author of the bestselling book, Cashing Out: Win the Wealth Game By Walking Away. Kiersten and her husband Julien found the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement in 2017 and started sharing all of the exciting things they were learning about money.
“It was all met with crickets,” Kiersten says. “No one was interested in the message; they just felt like it was all out of reach.”
Kiersten and Julien noticed that most of the people who were sharing information about financial independence were high earners who could afford to squirrel away large chunks of their income. So they started rich & REGULAR and simply documented their path to achieving financial independence, which included paying off $200,000 in debt. Their story has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, CBS This Morning, MarketWatch and more.
According to Kiersten, their success came from redefining what it means to win.
“People were still defining winning as getting the big job, the big promotion, the big raise,” Kiersten says. “No one was defining winning as the ability to walk away on your own terms for any reason whatsoever.”
She thinks the recipe that makes a woman influential boils down to how they measure progress.
“I think women of influence measure progress not based on where we’ve been but based on what’s possible,” Kiersten says.
Kris Carr
A wellness entrepreneur and bestselling author, Carr was motivated to change her life after being diagnosed with stage IV sarcoma, a rare vascular cancer in the cells that line the inside of blood vessels. A “cancer thriver,” she has been living with the disease for 20 years and is a member of Oprah’s SuperSoul 100, a roundup of the most influential thought leaders of today.
Carr cares for herself with a blend of conventional medicine as well as holistic healing, eschewing the notion that survivors must embrace one or the other.
Her most recent book, I’m Not a Mourning Person, shares observations about what to expect when you’re not expecting your world to fall apart. The book paints a picture of Carr’s journey leading up to her dad’s passing.
Helping people share their stories is how Carr cultivates the influence of other women through Thrive Mastermind, a 12-month experience for women in the wellness industry that helps grow their business, and she also works with thought leaders and women running wellness business to find support to get them to scale.
Carr brings her wisdom and self-awareness into her role as a judge of the Women of Influence awards. Featured in the SUCCESS’ September/October 2023 cover story, she reflected on the role of self-awareness in all endeavors—in leadership, creativity, team cultures and how we treat customers.
“A woman of influence opens doors for other women—especially the ones they fought hard to walk through,” Carr says.
Carolyn Merchant
Merchant is the chief marketing officer of eXp Realty and has nearly 20 years of marketing, brand and communications experience with a proven track record of driving business growth. Merchant comes from a public relations background and brings that to her marketing strategy that fuses rich storytelling with branding and consumer loyalty.
Merchant believes women in business are positioned to bring a unique type of leadership that sees problems from a different angle. Women’s leadership, according to Merchant, collaborates and consults differently.
“As women of influence, it’s the women who are seeing opportunities in their lives,” Merchant says. “[They put] strong strategies together to create a solution… and [bring] the right people in to help make it a reality.”
Merchant is excited to judge the Women of Influence awards because she sees it as an opportunity for women to uplift other women.
“A really interesting juxtaposition in some ways is that, a lot of times, women are seen to be judgemental of each other and take each other down. I think this is the opposite of that. It really flips that on the head where it’s women supporting women and celebrating women.… It’s a really special opportunity to be part of that and to be a part of building what the next generation of women in leadership can look like.”
Ritu Bhasin
Bhasin is an award-winning speaker, author and the founder and CEO of bhasin consulting inc. (bci), a leading global diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) consulting firm.
In her book We’ve Got This: Unlocking the Beauty of Belonging, Bhasin gets vulnerable about her experience with bullying and unconscious bias, as well as the struggle of finding self in a multicultural identity. The book is a guide to cultivating belonging without losing yourself in the process.
“We all come into the world with an inherent sense of our brilliance,” Bhasin says. “But along the way, we start to internalize messaging that something is wrong with us. That messaging that we internalize starts to erode our confidence and our self-esteem.”
To become a good leader, according to Bhasin, is to acknowledge your own hurt so that it does not have an adverse effect on how you lead. This can impact whether you advocate or sabotage other peoples’ development.
“Paying attention to our hurt as an adult is really important as a leader,” Bhasin says.
Bhasin defines a woman of influence as one who is anchored to values-based living and who has their values in alignment. They should be involved in their communities, and they should also have overcome adversity.
“It develops a grit and a resilience that is really powerful, but it can also help to develop a growth mindset. The idea of, ‘I can be the captain of my ship, and I can be in the driver’s seat.’”
Erin King
King is all about helping people unlock their “Big Deal Energy.” The bestselling author, keynote speaker and one of the world’s leading energy management experts was named by one of SUCCESS magazine’s “Top 10 Must-See Motivational Speakers of 2023” and she has continued to deliver. King’s book, You’re Kind of a Big Deal, challenges you to unlock your audacity and channel your Big Deal Energy to bring out “your most unstoppable self.”
To watch King speak is like watching a hurricane in motion as she dispenses truth with a vibrant force. Yet, King is kind and approachable when you speak to her, offering words of encouragement wherever she can.
Currently, she is working on a study where she has commissioned Ph.D.s to do a deeper dive on human energy by interviewing 10,000 people to create a system around the type of energy people have to answer the question, “How do we categorize some key vibes people put out there?” She expects to publish a book describing this study later this year.
King is excited to be judging the Women of Influence awards and says that she knows some people she admires have been nominated for the award.
“The women [who] really influenced me are the ones [who] inspire me to think differently about the meaning of impact,” King says.
So, what is King’s own Big Deal Energy? She is very inspired by her grandmother.
“There are certain situations where you feel too small; you feel like you don’t have what it takes. I will literally imagine, ‘What would Nana do right now?’” King says. “She would roll up her sleeves, and she would get in there.
Anne Grady
Grady knows that resilience is more than getting back up after you’ve been knocked down. It’s also about making meaning out of difficult experiences and using these experiences of trauma, challenge and discomfort as a way to get stronger and smarter.
Grady goes into different types of companies, ranging from nonprofits to Fortune 50 companies, to help them create a culture of resilience.
“I either go in more of a training and development capacity—so, more professional development—or a keynote-type address,” Grady says. “For example, I was with a senior leadership team last week talking about how to create a culture of resilience starting with the leaders. How can you create a culture of psychological safety? You have to be intentional about creating an environment where people thrive.”
Grady works with leaders and teams to help them learn these skills, habits and practices that will allow them to navigate change and uncertainty while continuing to build team engagement.
For Grady, a woman of influence is also someone who appreciates the work of others and is willing to put their ego to the side.
“To me, a woman of influence is someone who takes ego out of the equation and focuses on whether it’s building community involvement or creating a workplace that’s a good place to be,” Grady says. “Developing other people and clearing a path for others to do well. Somebody who’s quick to take blame, but not quick to take credit.”
MEET OUR I-LEAD SPEAKERS
Highlighting the achievements of female leaders not only acknowledges their accomplishments but also offers role models for others. Moreover, witnessing women like themselves achieve greatness fuels the aspirations of young women and reinforces their belief that they can succeed in any field.
Kudos to our amazing speakers, panelists and special guests* who will be joining our exclusive event on March 12-13, 2024. You won’t want to miss this event!
More surprises, panelists and amazing speakers will be announced at SUCCESS.com.
*Subject to change
Entrepreneur Jess Mah Is Building Businesses Her Way
THE 33-YEAR-OLD FOUNDER OF INDINERO AND MAHWAY, AMONG OTHER STARTUPS, IS TAKING THE ENTREPRENEURIAL WORLD BY STORM—AND HAS HER SIGHTS SET ON AI AND BIOTECH IN THE FUTURE.
I n middle school, when all of her friends were raking leaves or shoveling snow for a few bucks, Jess Mah was starting her first company: a server-hosting business that brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars—much more than her teachers were making. She never told her friends about her penchant for entrepreneurship at the time, but it wouldn’t be long before Mah, and her success, became undeniable.
Before entering the startup world, Mah dropped out of high school at age 15 and attended an early college program before studying computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was president of the computer science undergrad club. One of many speakers she brought to the club was “this pretty young kid who seemed really smart.” That kid turned out to be Sam Altman, long before he started ChatGPT creator OpenAI. Altman convinced Mah, as an aspiring entrepreneur, to apply to startup accelerator Y Combinator—and that ultimately jump-started her career. At age 19, she founded the business accounting and tax services company inDinero.
Although inDinero would eventually see considerable success, Mah struggled with imposter syndrome while learning how to be a CEO and run a business at a young age. She received media attention, earning a spot on Forbes 30 Under 30 and landing the cover of Inc. Magazine, while trying to make sure her company didn’t go bankrupt and fielding negative employee feedback.
“It took me 10 years of building that company, and now it’s great,” says Mah, who is now 33. “It’s profitable, and it makes millions of dollars. But I realized that I really hated being a CEO…. And the problem is, you get enough public and social validation that reinforces it, and it’s so unconscious. So, I just kind of woke up a few years ago and realized, ‘Wow, I just really absolutely don’t want to do this anymore.’ And so, now what I do today is [run] a firm called Mahway that I started with the proceeds I made from some of the other companies I’ve started. Now, I get to help start cool, bold companies and partner with other people who want to be a CEO, and it’s the best thing ever.”
With venture capital firm Mahway, Mah is able to stick to her entrepreneurial roots and help get companies off the ground, bringing in others who handle the day-to-day operations. She and her team of 12 partner with CEOs and help them with product prototypes, marketing and fundraising. Mah works with the CEOs on strategy and vision, and her team handles daily execution. Mahway now has 10 companies under its umbrella, and it’s just getting started.
“Creating a business is the ultimate way to manifest something really cool,” Mah says.
“Otherwise, I worry that I would just be a one-off artist, where I’m doing one thing by myself and then… it can’t exist without me. A business is a really effective mechanism to have something that blossoms and grows, even if you’re dead, right?”
In addition to inDinero and Mahway, Mah has founded a stealth legal tech company as well as biotech venture creation vehicle Astonishing Labs that’s building bold biotech companies. One thing she’s learned since the early inDinero days is that the work has to be fun. “If you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong,” she says. “I think there’s a better way to do it and a less stressful way to do it. And the more you have good people around you, the less stressful it is.”
Having a close group of female founder friends has become an integral part of Mah’s life—and those relationships help to make the work fun. They also help inspire ways to stand out in a traditionally male-dominated field. As a female in business, Mah has always attempted to do things in unique ways, and she doesn’t shy away from making her presence known.
“So, this idea of ‘I’ll have made it’ may or may not ever come—and I have comfort with that.”
“I think a lot of women are super down-to-earth and humble, and they kind of knock themselves down more than they should…. Over the past two years, I just stopped giving a sh-t. I’ll drive my Lamborghini to an investor meeting. I’ll take my jet to go meet an investor for coffee,” says Mah, who is herself a pilot and personally flies her aircraft. “I’ll do ridiculous things like that just because I can. I don’t really care what anyone thinks. I think people are more likely to do deals with people who have that authenticity and… who are trying to have more fun along the way.”
Someone who modeled those qualities for Mah was her hero and friend, the late Tony Hsieh, Zappos founder. “Just the way he lived, he was always like, ‘How do we make work fun?’ That’s rule No. 1,” Mah says. “And then, how do we create higher-vibration feelings, which leads to more magic and serendipitous encounters happening? He always talked about serendipity and magic, and he created that through the culture of everything he did in work and personal life…. So, I picked up on that, and I do all that today.”
Mah aims to create magic in the AI and biotech spaces in particular over the next decade. She says that she and her Mahway team have an overwhelming number of ideas and are trying to stay focused on a few new companies per year. She doesn’t have a target number but foresees forming at least 20 new startups in the next 10 years. Her advice to women aspiring to do the same thing is simple: be yourself and ask questions.
“With women in business, I think the No. 1 thing is authenticity,” Mah says. “It is counterintuitive, but I think the more yourself you are, the easier it is to bring in great talents and attract capital. And two, I was pretty unapologetic about calling random people for help and advice when I started…. Most people ignored me, but I’d say a third of the people replied,” including the co-founder of PayPal and the founders of Reddit.
Now, Mah continues to seek out intelligent, successful people—but this time it’s to help her run her companies. She says in the world of entrepreneurship, it’s about who, not how.
“Who is the best person in the world to do this, and how would I reach those people first to get their advice?” she says. “The best people aren’t money motivated. The best people are mission and vision motivated, so you can inspire them with what you’re trying to create.”
Although Mah has already seen significant success in the business world, she has the desire to keep creating, over and over again, with like-minded people who support each other.
“I think the goalposts do move and that even people who you think have made it are still hunting because they love it,” Mah says. “So, this idea of ‘I’ll have made it’ may or may not ever come—and I have comfort with that. And I think having great women communities is important…. It’s really important to build that sisterhood early. I don’t know where I’d be without that.” ◆
NIELSON STEPHENS ENJOYS TELLING THE STORIES OF INNOVATIVE FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS.
COURTESY OF JESS MAH
WORDS OF WISDOM: “As a leader, you don’t have to be the smartest person in the room, nor do you need to know everything. But you must have a clear vision and surround yourself with people who know how to get the job done and who can manifest your vision.” —Salandra Benton, Convener of Florida Coalition on Black Civic Participation
SHEENA MEADE
CEO OF THE CLEAN SLATE INITIATIVE
Meade “leads a national bipartisan organization to advance policy that automatically clears all eligible arrest and conviction records across the US,” according to CSI’s website. Through grassroots organizing, she unites politicians to address critical justice issues and organizes national voter registration drives, where she’s worked with artists such as Lady Gaga and John Legend. Her own journey of resilience started from teenage motherhood and surviving domestic violence to becoming an to executive and mom of five.
IMPACT: CSI has helped pass legislation providing a path for 6 million people to receive full or partial record clearance, which can allow people to have a fresh start. This can lead to future employment opportunities, the right to vote again or simply the feeling of a clean slate.
INTERESTING FACT: Meade’s TED2023 Talk, titled “How ‘second chance’ laws could transform the U.S. justice system,” has over a million views.
WORDS OF WISDOM:“If you ask for something and the answer’s ‘no,’ that’s just a great place to start.” —her mother
ELIZABETH CHAMBERS
OWNER OF BIRD BAKERY
The founder and CEO of BIRD bakery, TV host and journalist is slated to produce and host a new Investigation Discovery show about toxic and traumatic relationships. (She divorced actor Armie Hammer in 2023 after 10 years of marriage.) Chambers has also served as a guest judge on various Food Network shows, including Cupcake Wars: Celebrity, and appears regularly on TODAY.
IMPACT: Her San Antonio bakery has expanded to four locations across the country and in Grand Cayman. At the end of the day, remaining treats go to local nonprofits.
INTERESTING FACT: Chambers received a lifetime achievement award from the Moody School of Communication at her alma mater, The University of Texas at Austin. “It was presented to me by Dan Rather, which basically made my entire life. I have so much respect for that man.”
WORDS OF WISDOM:“It looks like it’s a man’s world, but women really run it.” —her mother
DR. WHITNEY CASARES
PEDIATRICIAN AND FOUNDER OF MODERN MOMMY DOC
Maternal child health care expert Dr. Casares founded Modern Mommy Doc, where she teaches career-minded moms to prioritize what matters most to them and to stop letting their to-do lists define them. She leads workshops for working mom groups and is the author of Doing It All: Stop Over-Functioning and Become the Mom and Person You’re Meant to Be.
IMPACT: She serves over 31,000 moms on her virtual platform, sees thousands of moms each year in her clinical practice and has sold over 17,000 copies of her last two books. Casares is leading the charge into a new type of work-life balance, including boundary setting and creating workplaces that serve parents—not the other way around.
INTERESTING FACT: Though her new book is about not doing it all, she herself has done quite a bit. She’s been to a concert on each Beyoncé tour since 2004, has a personal record of reading seven novels on a four-day vacation, has lived in 10 places in 10 years and completed five half-marathons.
WORDS OF WISDOM:“One of my first female competitive swim coaches told me: ‘You are stronger than you know, and you can do anything if you put your mind to it.’ I believed I could beat my disease and be a survivor from the moment I was diagnosed. I know this is one of the reasons I am still here today.”
LAURA HENDRICKS
CANCER SURVIVOR AND NONPROFIT CO-FOUNDER OF LUMINARIES
Hendricks survived acute myeloid leukemia, an aggressive form of blood cancer with a survival rate of only 10%. Now, she helps other cancer survivors through her nonprofit survivorship program delivering science-backed, self-care kits to cancer survivors’ doorsteps.
IMPACT: Alongside her husband and co-founder, Brock, she has supported survivors by delivering over 4,000 kits to their doorsteps in addition to forming partnerships with like-minded brands such as Instacart.
INTERESTING FACT: The nonprofit has assisted over 1,500 survivors across North America who are financially burdened or living in communities underserved by the health care system.
WORDS OF WISDOM: “Not everyone will like you or what you’re doing. It is more important to be respected than liked, and one must be careful not to confuse the two.” —her mother
LAUREN SANCHEZ GILBERT, ED.D.
CEO OF BELLXCEL
As CEO of nonprofit BellXcel, Sanchez Gilbert helps schools and organizations with solutions and resources to advance the quality of youth experiences outside of the school day. It provides everything needed to start a youth program from scratch, or improve a current one, from software upgrades to online enrollment to family communication apps, through a software program called Arly. YMCAs, Boys and Girls Clubs and libraries are often Arly users, but it can work for other programs too.
IMPACT: Through her leadership, BellXcel has reached nearly a half-million children in 35+ states by making after-school programming accessible.
INTERESTING FACT: As a single mom, Sanchez Gilbert learned to prioritize time with her daughter by being present in her active sports life.
WORDS OF WISDOM:“Every day, my mom has shown me the power of small routines—start early, eat a healthy breakfast, respond quickly, break complex problems down, be resilient and brave in pursuing things that matter—to navigate life’s chaotic moments and to move forward even in times of doubt or uncertainty.”
SOFIE ROUX
CEO OF BLOOMBOX DESIGN LABS
A sophomore at Stanford University, 19-year-old Roux is transforming education accessibility for girls and women across the globe. BloomBoxes, crafted from repurposed shipping containers, provide solar power access to computers in Malawi.
IMPACT: Through strategic collaborations with government ministries, nongovernmental organizations, private sector partners and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, BloomBox Design Labs is on a path to scale their impact by installing 70 additional BloomBoxes across Malawi. So far, three BloomBoxes have been installed, serving over 5,000 students.
INTERESTING FACT: As a freshman, Roux presented at Stanford’s BASES’ $100,000 Startup Challenge. She made a case for girls’ education and off-grid architecture and was selected as the winner in the sustainability category.
WORDS OF WISDOM:“If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it.” —her mother
DAVIELLE JACKSON
FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF FEMI SECRETS
As a scientist and CEO, Jackson created a patented disposable sanitary panty and a new health app (set to release later this year) that allows women to help track and find a preventative cure for fibroids. By age 50, 80% of U.S. women will have experienced uterine fibroids at some point, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Fibroids can push against the uterine lining, leading to a host of difficult symptoms. For some, this time can be exceptionally disruptive to daily life. A disposable, noninvasive, chemical-free panty helps ease the discomfort of fibroids and other medical conditions, such as infections.
IMPACT: With the possibility of a Nobel Peace Prize for her continued work in women’s health, Fem Tech is slated to reach $1 billion by 2025, according to company revenues and predicted growth.
INTERESTING FACT: Jackson is from a small Louisiana town where she spent her days riding horses and catching chickens, she says.
WORDS OF WISDOM:“My late grandmother was my greatest source of inspiration. Though she passed away just two weeks after I opened the shop, her life served as a vivid example of resilience, self-prioritization and personal style.… She made me believe anything was possible.... and not in the married, children and picket fence kind of way.”
MELINDA ALEXANDER
MOM, STYLIST, SHOP OWNER, BODY POSITIVITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE ACTIVIST
Alexander owns the size-inclusive vintage shop MuMu Mansion in Los Angeles. She used to work as a stylist where she helped launch plus-size brands and also did personal wardrobe consulting for people during life transitions. She believes in the “transformative power” of clothing and also in increasing access to plus-size clothes in an otherwise hard-to-find market (especially if it’s vintage).
IMPACT: As a plus-size woman, Alexander understands the common struggle of finding clothing that fits and inspires confidence. Her greatest reward has been seeing the delight on shoppers’ faces when they discover clothing that not only fits but is cute.
INTERESTING FACT: The name MuMu Mansion came from Melinda’s shared love of beautiful things with her grandmother. The shop is an embodiment of their relationship with a little bit of magic and a lot of style.
WORDS OF WISDOM:“Don’t wait until you achieve a certain status, a certain position or you have a certain amount of money. Live NOW!” —her mother
TRACEE PERRYMAN, PH.D.
AUTHOR, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER OF CENTER OF HOPE FAMILY SERVICES INC.
Perryman, author of Elevating Women Leaders: Stories of Strength, Survival and Success, is helping women flourish through her leadership as CEO and co-founder of Center of Hope Family Services, an organization working to improve outcomes for families living in urban areas.
IMPACT: Perryman’s leadership has led Toledo, Ohio’s ELEVATE! after-school program to win statewide awards for literacy enrichment. The program helped quadruple the number of students reading at grade level in one of the city’s lowest-performing schools.
INTERESTING FACT: Perryman is a songwriter and musical performer who has written and recorded over 20 songs.
WORDS OF WISDOM:“My friend, Lisa Sun, taught me to always ask people: ‘What do you really want to be doing?’ She asked me that very question years ago, and within days, I had trademarked ‘the fifth trimester’ and started dreaming up ways for a book to grow into my next career.”
LAUREN SMITH BRODY
CEO OF THE FIFTH TRIMESTER AND CO-FOUNDER OF THE CHAMBER OF MOTHERS
As a journalist, advocate, entrepreneur and author, Smith Brody works to bridge the private and public sectors for working moms and caregivers through public policy solutions and gender equality.
IMPACT: Smith Brody’s business grew out of her book, The Fifth Trimester: The Working Mom’s Guide to Style, Sanity, and Success After Baby, which has empowered women to negotiate the support they need to stay in the workforce. She has given women a community, and the ripple effect has been instrumental in keeping women in the pipeline to leadership, decreasing gender discrimination and improving the gender wage gap.
INTERESTING FACT: As a recovering “girlboss,” Brody is an advocate for gender equity and transparency at work.
FROST IS A CAREER, LIFESTYLE AND HEALTH JOURNALIST BASED IN CINCINNATI.
COURTESY OF THE CLEAN SLATE INITIATIVE; LILIANNA STORY/COURTESY OF ELIZABETH CHAMBERS; ASHLIE BEHM PHOTOGRAPHY/COURTESY OF DR. WHITNEY CASARES; ABEL ARCINIEGA/COURTESY OF LAURA HENDRICKS; COURTESY OF LAUREN SANCHEZ GILBERT; COURTESY OF SOPHIE ROUX; COURTESY OF DAVIELLE JACKSON; ERIC ALLEN/COURTESY OF MELINDA ALEXANDER; JOSHUA BALL/THE VANITY STUDIOS/COURTESY OF TRACEE PERRYMAN; MICHELLE ROSE/COURTESY OF LAUREN SMITH BRODY
GROUP CHAT
Rita Wilson
Rita Wilson has regularly graced our TV screens, starring in films such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Sleepless in Seattle and appearing in countless others. But she’s outgrown Hollywood in some ways, relishing new—even scary—challenges, and has peeled away from acting to begin singing, producing movies, playing the piano and learning watercolor painting. If stepping into a new creative endeavor feels intimidating, let Wilson’s experience set your mind at ease: “If you do something consistently, you do not get worse at it. You really learn.”
Read more online at SUCCESS.com
©HARPER SMITH/COURTESY OF RITA WILSON
GROUP CHAT | MY WAY
Diana Flores
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
Diana Flores moves so quickly you could miss her—but that would be a mistake. Flores is the captain and quarterback of the Mexico National Flag Football team, and the sport’s global ambassador in partnership with the NFL and the International Federation of American Football. She’s competed in several national and international tournaments, winning a flurry of awards, including four National Titles since 2017 and the Most Valuable Player Award at the 2022 World Games. Flores’ passions run the gamut from advocating for flag football to be more widely recognized as a professional sport to empowering millions of young girls with a desire to defy expectations.
I ALWAYS START MY DAY WITH…
music! I like to start my day listening to one of my favorite songs. For example, “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen or “Color Esperanza” by Diego Torres. I also like to start my day with a protein banana shake.
ONE THING I DO EVERY DAY IS…
say “goodnight” to my family.
MY MANTRA IS…
“To be successful, you must not lose focus.”
WHEN IT COMES TO FLAG FOOTBALL, I WISH MORE PEOPLE KNEW THAT…
it is one of the fastest-growing sports in the world and that it’s more than just “football without contact.” Flag football is a creative and inclusive sport that requires not just athleticism and speed but also mental toughness.
MY BIGGEST SOURCE OF INSPIRATION…
is my family and all of the little girls I’ve been able to meet on this journey all around the world! I want to empower them to have a voice and to have opportunities I wish I had when I was a young athlete starting out.
ONE THING THAT’S DIFFICULT FOR ME BUT THAT I ENJOY IS…
being away from home. I’m blessed that my career allows me to travel the world, but I’m very close with my family and it’s hard to be away from them.
I HANDLE NEGATIVITY BY…
focusing on being grateful for what I have and the opportunities life has given me and being aware that life has a bigger purpose for me as it does for each of us.
ONE WAY I STAY STRONG IS BY…
exercising every day, taking supplements to help my body recover and spending quality time with my loved ones to make sure my mind is as calm and happy as possible.
I’M CURRENTLY LOOKING FORWARD TO…
being a part of the Super Bowl coverage with Univision, playing at the Flag Football World Championship in Finland this year and representing my country at the Olympic Games in 2028!
THE MOST SURPRISING THING ABOUT ME IS…
I play the piano and I’m really good at it!
I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW ME FOR…
being a good person who is passionate and represents women in sports and loves celebrating the greatness of my Latino community worldwide.
IN 10 YEARS, I HOPE TO…
help make flag football a professional sport and give women all over the world the opportunity to make a living while playing the sport we love so much.
I DEFINE SUCCESS AS…
“To me, success is making a positive impact on the people around you—and in the world.”
HUMBERTO MUNDO/COURTESY OF DIANA FLORES; GRASIELA GONZAGA/COURTESY OF DIANA FLORES
GROUP CHAT | CALENDAR
Who, What, Where
DON’T MISS THESE IN-PERSON AND VIRTUAL INDUSTRY EVENTS HAPPENING SOON.
THE MONTGOMERY SUMMIT
MARCH 5 – 6
Santa Monica, Calif.
PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT SUMMIT
MARCH 13 – 15
Madrid, Spain
WBENC NATIONAL CONFERENCE
MARCH 19 – 22
Denver, Colorado
THE WORKPLACE EVENT
APRIL 30 – MAY 2
Birmingham, England
TED2024
APRIL 15 – 19
Vancouver, Canada
BRANDSMART
APRIL 25
Chicago, Illinois
PEOPLEIMAGES.COM-YURI A/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM; PAUL IJSENDOORN/PEXELS.COM
GROUP CHAT | ROUNDUP
Claiming Space
Eliza VanCort’s book, podcast and content teach women how to live ‘unapologetically.’
If there is one message that author, survivor and speaker Eliza Van-Cort wants women who follow her to take away, it is to claim their own space. In her 2018 TEDx Talk, VanCort argued that, “The tools of this [new feminist] revolution are women telling their truths, saying their opinions and demanding change through their words. The most powerful tool in this revolution is communication.”
VanCort survived multiple kidnappings by her mother who had a mental illness, a #MeToo moment at 16 and a traumatic brain injury in 2014. Her response was to channel her energy into helping women rewrite their stories and change the rules of what it means to be a powerful woman.
Connection is the secret to survival, VanCort says.
“I have a really wonderful group of friends around me,” VanCort says. “I surround myself with women who are just extraordinary.... And I’ve also gotten very good at getting anti-mentors out of my life. So, the people who are around me are really lifting me up, not tearing me down, and I think that makes all the difference.”
VanCort also creates content for Tik-Tok and Instagram. She says she does this for individuals who prefer to get their information in bite-sized chunks, as well as people who can’t or don’t want to spend a lot of time reading.
“I’m creating content because I want to make sure that I can democratize the information that I’m putting out there, and I know one of my kids is dyslexic,” VanCort says. “I know a lot of people aren’t as comfortable reading a book, although my son does listen to books all the time.”
VanCort’s book, A Woman’s Guide to Claiming Space: Stand Tall. Raise Your Voice. Be Heard., and her podcast, Claim Your Space, are guides to living unapologetically and making space for yourself in the world.
A WOMAN’S GUIDE TO CLAIMING SPACE: STAND TALL. RAISE YOUR VOICE. BE HEARD.
Originally published in 2021, and republished in 2023 by Berrett-Koehler Publishers, A Woman’s Guide to Claiming Space: Stand Tall. Raise Your Voice. Be Heard. identifies five key behaviors for all “Space-Claiming Queens”: use your voice and posture to project confidence and power, end self-sabotage, forge connections, neutralize unsafe spaces and unite across differences.
VanCort didn’t just rely on her own wisdom to write the book.
“I don’t believe that this book is necessarily just my book,” VanCort says. “I went and talked to experts in every area that impacts women. So, the book is full of the wisdom of women throughout the country and the world—and it’s great wisdom, and we all need it.”
“Claiming space” is a term that began to resonate with VanCort after a car crashed into her while she was riding her bike, resulting in a severe brain injury. After her accident, VanCort lost many of her communication skills, and she feared becoming “trapped in her own mind” like her mother, who developed paranoid schizophrenia in her late 20s. (The book is dedicated to VanCort’s mother, who she describes as a brilliant writer and poet.) VanCort observed women in public and noticed that the women who seemed to claim their space were the ones who also were the most successful in work and life.
“Claiming space” dissects the moves that people in power use with their body language and speech to make themselves undeniably present. This could be through posture, volume of speech or even the lack of any speech at all. In one example, VanCort describes using silence as a power move when an influential business man spoke to her dismissively. It also delves into the tactics for chasing “anti-mentors” (e.g., people who, theoretically, should be your cheerleaders but make you feel sad and/or off balance) out of your life and escaping from the binds of chasing their approval.
CLAIM YOUR SPACE PODCAST
Her Claim Your Space podcast, which launched last February, features a guest every episode who brings a different perspective to the concept of claiming space. The podcast covers a variety of topics from data privacy to how it feels to be a Black mother who has lost her unarmed child to gun violence.
VanCort chooses her guests by finding and interviewing women who are doing “extraordinary things.” At the end of each episode, each guest offers three concrete steps that listeners can internalize and act on to make the world a better place.
One standout episode (as of press time, the second season of the podcast was preparing to launch) is the March 22, 2023, episode, “A Man Is Not a Financial Plan,’’ featuring Mary Ellen Iskenderian, the president and CEO of Women’s World Banking. In her interview with VanCort, Iskenderian unpacks the damaging messages that women receive about finance and the importance of teaching our daughters about finances. VanCort notes at the beginning of the episode that, prior to doing the work she does now, she was married to a doctor. She pursued her passions without needing to think about how to monetize them until she parted ways with her husband.
Claim Your Space is available wherever you get your podcasts; there are video episodes available on VanCort’s YouTube channel, @ElizaVanCort.
SPRINGER-NORRIS IS A JOURNALIST WHO CLAIMS SPACE IN THE WORLD OF PROFILE AND TECHNOLOGY WRITING.
JEFFREY MOSIER PHOTOGRAPHY/COURTESY OF ELIZA VANCORT
GROUP CHAT | FROM THE ARCHIVES
Woman’s Widening Field
DECEMBER 1897, PREMIER ISSUE
W hen Florence Nightingale left home and friends to care for the sick and suffering, she little knew how her influence and example would lead thousands of women to become conscientious, well-trained nurses. The great good accomplished by them has gradually hushed the criticism and slander against those who pass out from home life because they wish to do good to others or to be independent of the aid and support of family or friends. Until now, even popular opinion upholds the idea that every girl should prepare for her life work wherever her lot may be cast, for the day of adversity may come to her however bright her prospects. If she makes preparations for some vocation and then is prevented from following it, nothing is lost. Knowledge, at least, is acquired: It will broaden her own life, and, although not in the way expected, it will sooner or later broaden the lives of others.
HER EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS
Until the present century, sometimes called the “Woman’s Century,” there never has been an opportunity for the equal education of men and women, although there have been exceptional cases where special opportunities were granted to daughters, wives or sisters. For a century and a half after schools were established in America, girls were not admitted to them; in the latter part of the 18th century, they were granted leave to attend from April to October. After this, the records of one town meeting say: “It is the sense of this meeting that girls should not be taught the back part of the Arithmetic.” In 1828, Massachusetts proclaimed that “girls may attend school the year round.” The first coeducational high school was established in Lowell in 1831, but there was no permanent high school for girls in Boston until 1852.
For the first quarter of this century, women were not allowed the privileges of public libraries, nor could they attend lectures and lyceums. If a woman wished for any education besides what she could obtain in school for the short period allowed and by home study, she must receive private instruction from some minister or college professor. In this way, Mary Lyon, Catherine Beecher and Emma Willard acquired such knowledge that they could go forth as pioneers, establishing those seminaries which gave the first public opportunities in America for the higher education of women.
In 1833 at Oberlin College in Ohio, braving the discussion and opposition that would follow, stood forth as the first college in the country with open doors for all. There are now fully two hundred universities, colleges and seminaries for girls, two-thirds of which confer degrees; and the older and more conservative institutions, like Harvard, Columbia, Oxford and Cambridge, have opened their side entrances for women.
It has been well said that “after the establishment of Vassar, the first college devoted exclusively to the education of the so-called weaker sex, in 1865, one can no more read the signs along the road—i.e., to the higher education of women—than he can count the telegraph poles as he is whirled along in a modern express train, and the pace of the girls themselves from that humble starting point of the back part of the Arithmetic to the goal of college president, a position now held by five American women, is like the chariot race in Ben-Hur.”
WOMEN IN THE PROFESSIONS
Besides the increase of opportunities for general education, the doors have opened to nearly every branch of scientific research—medicine, law, theology, art literature, invention and architecture. Whatever a woman craves for her life work, that can she accomplish; for if the door has not been already opened and the way made easy by others, it will swing on its creaking hinges for her, if she perseveres in the right way, as it has for other pioneers.
One of the first doors opened, besides dressmaking and millinery, which were always considered strictly feminine employments, was that of medicine. And when we consider that there are now nearly 5,000 women physicians and surgeons in the United States, many of them in the prominent positions in college, hospital, county or state, we can hardly realize how heavy the door was to open, how it stood ajar for a little, then swung backward, and again opened wider and so on for many years. Nor can we fully appreciate the struggles and rebuffs of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in America to hold a medical diploma. Scarcely 50 years ago, she applied at 12 different colleges for admission and was refused at all but finally graduated from Geneva, New York. A little later, those doors were closed against her sister, who was allowed one year only at Rush Medical College; she then finished her course in Cleveland. When these two sisters began their practice in New York City, in 1855, they were obliged to buy a house of their own, as even their most intimate friends would not be disgraced by having a woman’s doctor’s sign on their homes.
NOTABLE TRIUMPHS
The first woman to practice law was Mrs. Mansfield, of Iowa, who began in 1869. Now, there are over 200 women lawyers in the United States. Twenty-five states and territories admit them to the bar. The bill allowing them to practice before the United States Supreme Court passed Congress in February 1879. Some women lawyers devote themselves wholly to office work, some accept salaried positions, while others prefer court practice. It is in social, purity cases and in all other cases where women appear as plaintiffs and defendants, that a woman lawyer exerts her most beneficent influence at the bar. May the day soon come when her voice shall be allowed among the jury in such cases!
One of those who have made the most rapid strides toward success is a daughter of New Hampshire, and graduate of Bates College, a rising lawyer of great prominence in Montana, and the assistant attorney-general of that state, who missed the attorney-generalship by only a few votes. She also has the reputation of being “the only woman who ever went to Washington as the accredited representative of a sovereign state on official business.”
There is scarcely a library of consequence in the United States in which there is not at least one woman in charge of a department, while one-half of the libraries that once excluded women now employ them as librarians.
The first patent granted to a woman in this country bears the date of May 5, 1809. Since then, they have obtained more than 4,000 patents, many giving a return of large sums of money for their use and sale. ◆
THIS EXCERPT HAS BEEN EDITED FOR LENGTH AND CLARITY.
The first woman in America to receive a medical degree, Elizabeth Blackwell, not only paved the way for women in the medical field, but she also opened up her own women’s medical college, making the path easier for women to follow in her footsteps.
Born near Bristol, England, in 1821, Blackwell’s family moved to America when she was 11. Originally a schoolteacher by trade, she ultimately pursued medicine after feeling inspired by a dying friend who said her situation would have been better if she’d had a female physician. Blackwell was rejected from each medical school she applied to except for one, the Geneva Medical College in New York. It took quite some time for her to be accepted by society and she faced resistance from professors, townspeople and medical colleagues for going against the grain of traditional gender roles, but she didn’t let that stop her. In the late 1860s, Blackwell opened a medical college in New York City and she later returned to London to teach gynecology at the new London School of Medicine for Women. She helped found the National Health Society and published several books throughout her career.
COURTESY OF LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
GROUP CHAT | MARKETING MEMO
How the Right Marketing Can Build a Community
DARYL-ANN DENNER TURNED HER BRAND, NUUDS, INTO A VIRAL SENSATION BY USING HER ONLINE PLATFORM TO MAKE OTHERS FEEL GOOD—INSIDE AND OUT.
W ith Daryl-Ann Denner, what you see is what you get.
She’s raw, she’s real, and she doesn’t sugarcoat things. Because of that, her 1.6 million Instagram followers—and, now, her customers—have come to see her as a voice they can trust.
In less than a decade, the 33-year-old influencer turned fashion entrepreneur has built an empire on authenticity. It’s at the heart of everything she does, whether that’s posting unscripted, unfiltered moments from her life or setting up a photoshoot for her fast-growing clothing company, nuuds.
“I don’t fix myself before I present myself,” says Denner, who lives in Dallas. “I just… am who I am, and that comes out. I am also very honest, and people have connected with that.”
Denner recently celebrated the first anniversary of nuuds, the elevated clothing basics brand she founded with her husband, Daniel. Since launching in late October 2022, the small startup has ballooned into a $50 million fashion brand with a team of roughly 30 employees. Last summer, Denner also launched tones, a kids’ spinoff of nuuds.
That success is due, in large part, to the dedicated online fans who regularly check Denner’s Instagram Stories—a feature that allows users to post photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours—to see what she’s wearing, what she’s eating and what she’s up to. They also turn out in droves whenever nuuds, an online retailer, hosts in-person pop-up events in cities like Los Angeles and Dallas. Customers come because they want to snag some of the brand’s in-demand T-shirts, bodysuits, tank tops and loungewear in neutral colors. But, as Denner sees it, they’re also connecting to something bigger than a brand.
“It’s become almost a movement,” she says. “You could buy this stuff online, but people show up and wait because they want to feel like they’re a part of it, which is really cool to me. They’re attached to the mission that much.”
In the end, whether she’s posting on Instagram or running her company, Denner’s mission is the same: to make others feel good, inside and out.
“Whatever I do—whether it’s nuuds, whether it’s family, whether it’s me presenting myself as who I am—I just want people to feel normal and good about themselves,” she says.
Daryl-Ann Denner, CEO and founder of nuuds and tones.
‘MESSY MOM LIFE’
Denner never expected to launch a clothing company. Growing up, she always dreamed of becoming a doctor and even majored in pre-med in college. But she later realized a career in medicine wasn’t the right fit.
Unsure of what to do after college, she dabbled in a few different jobs. She taught high school chemistry in the mornings, then worked in accounting for a construction company in the afternoons.
During this period, tragedy also struck when her father-in-law died by suicide. Denner’s sister-in-law was just 13 at the time, so she came to live with Denner and her husband.
That’s also when Denner started blogging. In 2015, with Daniel’s encouragement, she created a website and began posting the outfits she was wearing—to school, to work and on the weekends.
“I was juggling these two jobs, and I was also a mom figure to a 13-year-old,” she says. “Through all that, I needed some sort of creative outlet.”
The blog started as a fun side project, but over time, began gaining traction. Around 2019, it evolved into Denner’s career. She began posting regularly on Instagram Stories and her follower count continued to grow, too.
That year, she also gave birth to her first child—a boy named Rhett—and her focus shifted from curated, carefully put-together outfits and more toward scenes from her everyday life. That theme continued when she gave birth to her daughter, Remi, in December 2020.
“That is where I started feeling like I really resonated with the audience, when I just shared the real, raw, authentic, messy mom life that I was living,” she says.
‘REAL, NON-PERFECT BODIES’
Though she got her start as a fashion blogger, at her core, Denner is a jeans and a T-shirt girl, she says. And becoming a mom has only further solidified her love for neutral basics. But when she went looking for high-quality, affordable, comfortable T-shirts to wear every day, she couldn’t find exactly what she was looking for—so she decided to make some herself.
As a self-described perfectionist, Denner obsessed over every little detail when designing the nuuds collection—from the seams to how the fabric looked after being washed and dried. Early on, she also decided to use her family members to determine the garments’ different sizes.
“We tried it on real people with [unproportionate] bodies that are just… real bodies walking out in the world,” she says. “We wanted to see where the pain points were and what would make them feel better in it.”
While developing nuuds, Denner also kept her online audience top of mind. On Instagram, she gets a steady stream of insight into her followers’ likes, dislikes, struggles and insecurities, which helped inform her approach to the brand. It also made investing in the business—which Denner and her husband entirely self-funded—feel less risky. They got another boost of confidence when nuuds sold out in seven minutes on launch day.
“I knew who I was making it for the whole time,” she says. “My focus, still to this day, is very clear on who I’m making it for. I know them; I feel like I’m in it with them.”
Even as the brand grows, Denner keeps authenticity at the fore. In the spring of 2023, for example, her team asked customers to submit videos sharing why they love nuuds. From the submissions, they picked a handful of women, flew them to Dallas and made them the stars of the campaign photo-shoot for nuuds’ new spring styles.
“Moments like that keep our team grounded as to what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” she says. “It’s so intentional for us to hear and see what they have to say, to give them a voice in nuuds.” ◆
KUTA IS A WRITER AND EDITOR WHO LIVES IN LONGMONT, COLORADO.
COURTESY OF NUUDS (2)
GROUP CHAT | GIVING BACK
Positive Change Through Purposeful Living
HOW THE NATHALIE VIREM FOUNDATION CONNECTS COMMUNITY LEADERS WITH THEIR HEARTS TO MAKE MEANINGFUL CHANGE.
“IT’S THE DESIRE TO HELP PEOPLE BECOME MORE CONSCIOUS TO THE OPTION OF NOT JUST CREATING A BUSINESS THAT MAKES MONEY, BUT A BUSINESS THAT FULFILLS THEIR HEART AND ADDS VALUE AND IS SUSTAINABLE OVER TIME. IT JUST GOES BEYOND THE LEADER—IT’S MORE THE COLLECTIVE DRIVE OF CONSCIOUSNESS.”
O n the surface, everything appeared to be going wonderfully for Nathalie Virem. After growing up in Europe, she’d arrived in the U.S. with a full athletic and academic scholarship to Jacksonville University in Florida. She earned her MBA while playing NCAA Division I soccer, and then she went to work for a Fortune 500 company. It was a life many would envy, and Virem was proud of her achievements—but there was occasionally, in the back of her mind, a nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right. “I was lost,” Virem says. “I was like, ‘Well, I’m doing what society thinks I should do, but I don’t feel fulfilled.’” And then, in 2014, her mother died. It was one of those life-changing moments that makes you rethink everything.
“I felt like I had achieved the things that I had in mind when I was young, but I was like, ‘Something’s missing, and I’m not quite sure what that is,’” she says. “I started taking the time to really figure out a little bit [of] my purpose… and that was the beginning of everything else.”
In 2015, after some time spent musing over what her calling actually was, Virem started her first company, Nathalie Virem Inc. The goal was to help guide leaders who were going through the same process she was at that time: connecting with their hearts, reflecting on their desires and discovering their purpose—“and through that, being able to have a more positive impact in their community,” Virem explains. It was in helping others find their purpose that Virem, at last, felt she’d found her own. This, she realized, was her calling.
The following year, Virem published her first book, Live With Purpose: Creating Positive, Lasting Change. In 2018, she created the Nathalie Virem Foundation, a nonprofit with the same purpose as her company: to empower leaders to discover their purpose, both for themselves and to affect positive change in their communities.
The foundation donates scholarships to Virem’s workshops, a value of around $2,000 each, to leaders, social business owners and students. “Just like I had a full ride,” Virem explains, these full-ride workshop scholarships go to conscious leaders throughout the community, “which was mostly in the area of Los Angeles.” To date, the foundation has awarded more than 200 scholarships to leaders and business owners in the Los Angeles area.
Virem notes that the foundation primarily looks for people who want to have a positive impact, but the requirements aren’t strict. People of all ages and experience levels are eligible. Some go to high school students, others to college students (today, Virem teaches on several campuses in the Cal State LA system) and some even go to existing business owners or people who are otherwise leaders in the Los Angeles area.
In order to identify scholarship recipients, Virem has interested parties fill out a questionnaire and speak with her on the phone. But the things she’s looking for aren’t those that are easily outlined on a job application; what’s important to her is that the recipients want to make a difference, whether through a leadership position or with their own business.
Virem’s work continues to concentrate on the Los Angeles area, where her foundation also offers workshops and trainings for conscious leaders. The focus here is a little different than what you might expect from a typical leadership workshop—the aim is to help people develop tough-to-teach skills like insight and perception.
“What’s very unique about us is that we also help them develop their intuition [and] identify their soul and life purpose, which is vital,” Virem says. “So, really learning to connect intuitively, to become more conscious, to discern when they make business decisions.
“The specific training is three-dimensional; let’s put it that way,” she continues. “Or holistic, in a sense.”
Take someone like Pyet DeSpain of Pyet’s Plate, who started her personal chef business in 2015. In 2019, she attended the Nathalie Virem Foundation’s workshops, where she learned the ins and outs of operating a business, “but also,” she said at the time, “the purpose behind my business and kind of realigning my purpose with my business and how to correlate the two together.”
Like all foundation workshop participants, she was encouraged to consider whether her work, as it was, was really fulfilling her purpose in life. She felt empowered to honor her Native American and Mexican heritage and to weave that storytelling and culture into her experience in the kitchen. And since then, it’s been a rocket to success for DeSpain. In 2021, she was named among the 25 best private chefs in Los Angeles by Entrepreneur magazine; in 2022, she became the first winner of the Gordon Ramsay competitive cooking show Next Level Chef.
Virem has heard countless testimonials and stories like these, which is part of what continues to drive her work. “It was almost like, wow, I didn’t think that we’d have the impact we had,” she chuckles. “I think the [feeling] is: fulfilling for the soul.” This is work that comes from the heart, and it’s deeply important to her.
“It’s a desire to help others in the way [people] helped me. It’s very personal, obviously,” Virem says. “And it’s also the desire to help people become more conscious to the option of not just creating a business that makes money, but a business that fulfills their heart and adds value and is sustainable over time. It just goes beyond the leader—it’s more the collective drive of consciousness.”
It’s work that shows how just one person can make a tremendous impact in their community, uplifting new people who in turn uplift others. The empowerment and joy spread and grow—all because Virem took the time to reconsider her own purpose and realized, in doing so, how much that could be a help to others.
“It’s so important…. To me, it changes everything,” she says. “And that’s what also made the success of this mission, is it’s something that’s so important and not easily accessible to people.” ◆
CASSEL IS A WRITER AND EDITOR BASED IN MINNEAPOLIS.
©BRADFORD ROGNE/COURTESY OF NATHALIE VIREM
GROUP CHAT | FUTURE OF WORK
Branding Yourself Through Fashion
LOS ANGELES CELEBRITY STYLIST KIM APODACA SHARES HOW TO LEVEL UP YOUR ZOOM STYLE FOR PERMANENT HYBRID AND REMOTE WORK.
I n March 2020, we learned how to dress from the shoulders up for Zoom calls. In June 2020, we learned to morph that sweats uniform into summer work-casual athleisure, and in June 2021, we finally gave away most of those stuffy, in-person business suits. Now, four years after the pandemic changed how we work and dress, many people know whether they might be remote or hybrid workers—for at least the foreseeable future. It’s time to dress like it.
Researchers have tried to determine whether the “look sharp, feel sharp” motto carries any weight. Turns out, it does, giving stylists more credibility. “Fashion is your virtual business card,” says Los Angeles-based celebrity and executive stylist Kim Apodaca. And for those of us whose business cards are gathering dust, it’s time to level up.
In a 2020 Wall Street Journal article, Hajo Adam and Adam Galinsky’s 2012 research into “enclothed cognition” was examined again in the midst of work-from-home orders. It holds the test of time, showing that what we wear impacts our performance. The reason is twofold. There’s both a symbolic meaning of wearing certain clothes, such as the meaning a doctor’s white coat carries, in addition to the physical experience of wearing them, the study concludes. Participants in the study were asked to wear white coats. In one experiment, people were either told they were doctors’ or painters’ coats. The ones who thought they were wearing doctors’ coats performed better on attention tests, scoring “superior” results.
In a 2023 UK-based study published by the Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, participants felt what they wore while they worked directly impacted their overall job happiness and behavior. Additionally, in a 2020 survey by Harvard Business Review, the way you dress and the background you use on your Zoom can actually impact how your audience perceives you.
“Clothing has a scientific connection with our minds. What is going to happen to all of us if we just end up working in our sweats all day? What are we communicating and what is it doing to us,” Apodaca says.
Here’s how to be better than your sweats, at least most days.
YOUR CLOTHES HOLD A MESSAGE
If you’re grumpy, nervous or tired, you might choose sloppy clothes, comfortable clothes or even your softest clothes. But we have the power to alter our own mental state by dressing just the opposite, Apodaca says, and choosing clothes on purpose to fit the mood and presence we want to have, not the one we currently feel. It’s called “mental priming,” she says. Apodaca asks her clients, “What is your objective today? What do you want to communicate and how do you want to feel?” Other factors to consider, she says, are whether you are leading, presenting or part of a group. Are you needing to be seen? Or do you need to blend in?
For example, for those on-camera or in-person days, women may want to choose a structured top with a seam near the shoulder, rather than a droopy sweater.
Some clients notice they are missing promotions, even though they are reliably doing their best work.
“Are you showing up in black every day? Are you on the computer working so hard, up all night, turning everything in but showing up in sweats? People don’t imagine you for that leadership role unless you dress the part,” she says. In addition, getting dressed should be a moment of mental prepping, getting yourself in the right mindset, not just to look OK on Zoom minutes before your call starts.
“ARE YOU SHOWING UP IN BLACK EVERY DAY? ARE YOU ON THE COMPUTER WORKING SO HARD, UP ALL NIGHT, TURNING EVERYTHING IN BUT SHOWING UP IN SWEATS? PEOPLE DON’T IMAGINE YOU FOR THAT LEADERSHIP ROLE UNLESS YOU DRESS THE PART.”
CHOOSE YOUR COLORS ON PURPOSE
It might seem like most of your body is hidden on Zoom, but you still have a bit of an opportunity on your top half to get noticed—by the way, your virtual call window should hit around the mid-bust line, so you do see some of your outfit, Apodaca says.
Wear some color, especially if you are looking to stand out and lead a group. “Last year, we had an infusion of these dopamine colors, and this year, we are moving into more subdued hues of grays and black, but we are seeing lots of red. So, there’s this infusion of color here and there,” she says. Women can also ease into colors by choosing a neutral blazer but infuse color in a tank or T-shirt under it, or integrate a fun color into their makeup.
SWAP YOUR SWEATS AND LEGGINGS FOR SOME COMFY ‘REAL’ PANTS
Sure, nobody will see them. But you will know. Apodaca says that our drive for comfy pants comes from our stress in other areas. “People are overwhelmed; people are stressed. They can’t cope and not feel comfortable, so it’s just another level of discomfort and anxiety,” she says. So, she recommends keeping the comfort but losing the sweats. Instead, stretch and versatility are key.
She believes we are moving into a permanent state of Casual Fridays, or what they used to be. “If we can bring back work-from-home as Casual Fridays and not ‘I’m falling off the cliff and just rolled out of bed,’ that’s going to help.”
DRESS YOUR BACKGROUND AND FEET ON PURPOSE, TOO
But color doesn’t just have to be on you—it can be around you. A plant (alive or artificial) can add a sense of life and freshness to your Zoom window. In addition, you can use color in your background if you are otherwise a minimalist dresser who prefers white and black, she adds.
While she’s on the subject of items beyond the Zoom screen, she is not a fan of wearing slippers or sneakers with your work outfit. Instead, swap taller heels for kitten heels or other sturdy shoes. “These really alter your posture and make you feel different.” She recommends higher-end sneakers as an alternative to your running shoes. ◆
FROST IS A CAREER, LIFESTYLE AND HEALTH JOURNALIST BASED IN CINCINNATI.
COURTESY OF KIM APODACA (2)
GROUP CHAT
Action Plan
1 TAKE THE REINS
Take control of your finances with tips from financial and business mentor Jo Davison.
2 DEFINE YOUR WHY
Learn why business coach Shanda Sumpter uses her company to help entrepreneurs define their values and identity and build their financial freedom.
3 LEAD WITH PURPOSE
Read about one woman’s ambitious drive as she spearheads her female-majority team.
4 FIND INSPIRATION
See how these 10 women are carving their own paths.
5 MAKE ROOM FOR YOU
Author, speaker and podcast host Eliza VanCort teaches women how to “claim space.”
