Blogs

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Wonder Woman in Business, Suzanne Brown

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Suzanne Brown

CEO, Mompowerment

Suzanne Brown is a strategic marketing and business consultant and work-life balance speaker, strategist, and award-winning author. Tapping into her 20+ years of experience, she helps entrepreneurs and large companies overcome their strategic marketing challenges. And Suzanne empowers working moms and companies to think differently about balance and take action, using her own experience and research as well as tips, insights, and advice from interviews with more than 110 working moms. Find out more about her strategic marketing services at www.oksuzi.com and her work-life balance books and services at www.mompowerment.com. Suzanne and her family live in Austin, TX. 

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Mompowerment: Insights from Professional Part-Time Working Moms Who Balance Career and Family

When moms consider their career options, they traditionally consider working full-time or stay-at-home. What about the huge area in between? How can you be the mom you want to be without walking away from your career and all you’ve worked so hard for? What if you could work part-time, continuing down your professional path, and actually spend quality time with family? Suzanne Brown interviewed more than 110 professional part-time working moms as research for her book, Mompowerment: Insights from Successful Professional Part-time Working Moms Who Balance Career and Family. She shares their stories, advice, and insights to:

• empower you to think differently about career and work-life balance

• provide a guide for transitioning your career model

By the end of this book, you’ll be able to see if the professional part-time option is right for you, think through mindset shifts, make changes at home and at work, and set yourself up for success in your new career approach. This book will help moms who are interested in transitioning to this new career approach or those who have recently made the transition.

Buy the Book
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Mompowerment: Insights from Successful Professional Part-Time Working Moms Who Balance Career and Family

You had a picture in your mind of what work-life balance would look like before you had kids, but real life is not quite what you imagined. What if you could be more efficient with the things you must do so that you have more time to do what you want to do?

In The Mompowerment Guide to Work-life Balance: Insights from Working Moms on Balancing Career and Family, Suzanne Brown shares her own experience and thoughts combined with detailed research and tips, insights, and advice from more than 110 other professional working moms to help you:
•shift from feeling overwhelmed to more in control
•become more intentional and efficient with your time at work and at home
•overcome challenges in your work-life balance

Whether you’re a new mom or you’ve been at it for a while, after reading this book you’ll have practical ideas you can implement or adjust to fit your needs. And you’ll feel more empowered to create the work-life balance you crave.

Buy the Book
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Enjoy the podcast.

Suzanne Brown

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Wonder Woman in Business, Grace Futrell

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Grace Futrell

Grace Futrell grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and attended Louisiana State University. Following university she joined the Peace Corps and spent two and half years in Ukraine. After Peace Corps Grace began her employment with the federal government and now lives in Washington, DC with her wife and cat. 

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Enjoy the podcast.

Grace Futrell

Connect with Grace

 Photo blog from Ukraine: https://gracefutrell.blogspot.com

Instagram: @futrellgrace

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-f-2a677b77/

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Wonder Woman in Business, Karen Walker

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Karen Walker

Karen Walker is an executive coach and consultant who advises CEOs and senior leaders on thriving in hyper-growth. She has worked with clients including Aetna, AWS, Pfizer, JPMorganChase, and BMC Software, as well as many Inc. 5000 startups. 

Karen is also a board advisor, keynote speaker, and the author of No Dumbing Down: A Guide for CEOs on Organization Growth. As employee 104 and a global VP at Compaq, Karen helped lead the then-fastest growing company in American history, growing it from $0 to $15 billion in revenue.

Karen has been published in Harvard Business Review’s Ascend, and quoted in publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The San Francisco Chronicle.

Karen has a B.S. degree in engineering from Texas A&M University and graduated from the ODHRM program at Columbia University. She has served in an advisory capacity to startups, Rice University, Texas A&M University, and on the executive board of The Alley Theatre. 

She resides in Jupiter, FL, although (until recently!), she was most often be found aloft in seat 2C.

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No Dumbing Down: A No-Nonsense Guide for CEOs on Organization Growth is a book for a company's senior-most leaders looking to make improvements when aligning the organization's internal and external strategies for fast, profitable, and sustainable growth.

This book combines the author's impactful and formative experience with leadership and strategy best practices, helping the reader master the counterintuitive art of actually delivering on the promise made to customers. Readers will learn how and why to put these strategies to work-taking direct aim at pitfalls that can trip up even the most stellar companies.

BUY THE BOOK
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Enjoy the podcast.

Karen Walker

Connect with Karen:

Email: karen@karenwalker.us

All social media:  karenwalkerus

Website: www.karenwalker.us

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Wonder Woman in Business, Renee Branson

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Renee Branson

Resilience.Bounty

Combining 20 years in education, counseling and non-profit management, Renee Branson's passion and purpose is helping individuals, teams, and organizations cultivate resilience. After years of working with survivors of trauma and the caregivers who help heal them, she became enthralled with what it is that allowed people to not only survive, but thrive through their greatest crisis. The answer is resilience. The more valuable lesson is that resilience can be taught, strengthened, and cultivated.

As a Certified Resilience Coach (CReC), Renee provides clients with immediately usable tools to increase resilience, well-being, and optimism in the workplace. She works with lawyers, legal marketers, business professionals, non-profit leaders, and others to help them understand and incorporate resilience in their own professional lives and in the teams they lead."

Featured Contributor, BIZCATALYST360.COM

Administer the PR6™ resilience assessments, presentations, and workshops on the six domains of resilience for professionals and business organizations. These include law firms, practice groups, non-profits, and business teams within an organization. This allows leaders to address organizational strengths and weaknesses and to implement growth plans through coaching, consultation, and the Driven™ app-based tools.

Common Use Case Scenarios:
-On-boarding new associates
-Newly formed teams/divisions
-Management training programs
-Organizational restructuring, mergers, large-scale organizational change
-Crisis recovery
-Underperforming/dysfunctional teams

Photos in Renee’s Words…

Photo 1:

Branson Beach Photo: The entire Branson tribe. We don't all get together in one place very often, so this was pretty special. 

Photo 2:

Buckeyes: I am a born and bred Buckeye. I grew up in Ohio and graduated from Ohio State. Fall would not be complete without at least one trip to the Horseshoe to see my Buckeyes play football. This photo is of me, Tim and the boys along with my brother and his family. 

Photo 3:

With Tim Corcoran at COLPM: This is proof we can still get fancy. :) 

Photo 4:

Parent's Weekend: While my oldest didn't choose OSU for school, we love to spend Parent's Weekend with him and his fraternity. 

Photo 5:

Sydney Opera House: I have always been passionate about travel. The only place tied with Sydney as my favorite place is Barcelona. I took a week long solo trip there and the experience was life-changing. There are so many places still left on my bucket list! 

Photo 6:

Tough Mudder: I talk about grit being a domain of resilience. I've done 5 Tough Mudders, 2 marathons, and over 20 half marathons. I learned grit from the physical limits that I've pushed. 

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Enjoy the podcast.

Renee Branson

Connect with Renee:

Website: https://reneebranson.blog/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/resilience.bounty/?tn-str=k*F

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reneebransonmancc/

Email: rb@reneebranson.blog

Phone: 434.326.6620

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Wonder Woman in Business — and Politics — Joni Wickham

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Chief of Staff, Kansas City

Joni Wickham

Joni is all about grit, grace, and getting things done. A native of Raleigh, North Carolina, Joni and her indisputable southern accent arrived in Kansas City almost 10 years ago after leading initiatives within state and federal government as well as advocacy organizations. In her eight years with the mayor’s office—the majority of them spent as Chief of Staff—Joni has proven herself as an accomplished political strategist, communications expert, and organizational leader. She directed public policy initiatives, communications tactics, and administrative decision-making during her tenure, all while promoting women’s leadership and empowerment issues. An artful negotiator, Joni helped steer Sly’s major development projects in Kansas City while raising the city’s profile at the national and international levels. Her front-row seat at City Hall shed light on how local government is still very much a man’s world, and this motivated her to create a first-of-its-kind women’s empowerment initiative, which has been implemented in several major cities.

Prior to her time at city hall, Joni worked with the American Federation of Teachers, the Missouri Department of Transportation, and in the office of Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan. While a student at Meredith College, where Joni received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Studies, she studied abroad in St. Petersburg, Russia. An accomplished alumnus of University of Missouri where she earned her Masters of Arts in Political Science, Joni was the recipient of the 2019 University of Missouri Truman School of Public Affairs Mel Carnahan Public Service Award.  

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“New study shows lack of women in local government.”

Read article here.

Connect with Joni Wickham:

Email:

joniwickham@gmail.com

Twitter:

@jonismithkcmo

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/joni-wickham-5ba08a156/

 

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FreemanMeansBusiness.com

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Wonder Woman in Business -- and Wine -- Christine Clair of Willamette Valley Vineyards

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Christine Clair, Winery Director

Willamette Valley Vineyards

Christine's love for Oregon wine began at an early age looking up at Willamette Valley Vineyards out the window of her room as the vineyard and winery took shape on the slope of the Salem hills. Christine has always been a familiar face at the winery; as a young girl she would sell her friendship bracelets in the tasting room and run through the vine rows as training for her school’s soccer team.

Christine worked at the winery as a college intern and started making wine while she was a senior to launch her own brand based in Southern Oregon. She also worked as the Director of Troon Vineyard, which earned the accolade Top 10 Hottest Small Brands by Wine Business Monthly under her leadership.

Her life-long connection and passion to fulfill the founders' dream of making world-class Pinot Noir led her back to the winery where she now leads winemaking and vineyard operations, as well as direct sales and marketing. She is training to replace the Founder/CEO upon his retirement.

Christine's effort to establish a national presence for the winery's Pinot Noir was featured in the article "America's Best Value Pinot Noirs" by Wine Enthusiast (November, 2015).

Christine was also honored with Portland Business Journal's 2017 Forty Under 40 Award.

In 2015, Christine co-founded a new company division, Oregon Estate Vineyards, with Jim Bernau, dedicated to building boutique wineries on some of Oregon's most intriguing vineyard sites to continue to create and share the Oregon wine story. The wineries include Elton in the Eola-Amity Hills focused on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, Pambrun in the Walla Walla Valley with Cabernet Sauvignon and Bordeaux-based varietals, Maison Bleue in the Rocks District of Milton-Freewater with Syrah and Rhone-based varietals and Bernau Estate in the Dundee Hills focused on producing méthode champenoise sparkling wine from biodynamically-grown grapes.

In 2018, Christine helped coordinate the Oregon Solidarity wines to help Southern Oregon winegrowers who had their contracts canceled just days before harvest. We team up with other Oregon wineries to collaboratively make and sell the wines with the net proceeds benefiting the  Rogue Valley Vintners to support vineyards in the region.

Christine is a graduate of Oregon State University and holds numerous wine certifications from the Wine & Spirits Educational Trust. 

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Click here for more on Christine.

Christine Clair, Winery Director

My conversation with Christine was quite robust and all that was missing was a goblet of the good grape in hand. You too will certainly enjoy the conversation we had in the podcast below:

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Enjoy the podcast.

Christine Clair, Winery Director

Willamette Valley Vineyards

Contact Christine

Email: christine.clair@wvv.com

LinkedIn: in/christine-collier-clair-5b378b15

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