LeadingShe

Janice Ellig is CEO of the Ellig group, known as "The Closer", she is one of the top recruiters in the country specializing in the placement of executive women in C-suites and on corporate boards. She says that though there has been gender parity progress, it is still an issue at the top corporate levels and on corporate boards. Janice points out that statistics prove out that better decision-maki...

Nicole Eckels is a highly-focused and driven entrepreneur as Co-Founder and CEO at Sapphire Group and Glasshouse Fragrances. She moved to Australia in 2005 from New York City and when she could not find a good candle, she decided to start her business. In this episode she talks accepting that rejection is simply part of life and how being decisive is critical when leading in business. In the fickl...

Audrey Talkington is the COO of BridgePact International, Inc. a Minneapolis-based company, where she has worked in various capacities since 2006.  In 2021, the company launched the next phase of development and introduced TrendEvity, the exclusive marketing arm for BridgePact.  These companies support businesses by offering the MyBPX Business System to support business owners to grow by focusing...

Teri Arvesu is a top executive with Univision Communications, Inc. where she has had a wonderful career for 19 years including being an Executive Producer. Univision with its 4000 employees entertains, informs and empowers U.S. Hispanics with news, sports content across broadcast and cable television, audio and digital platforms. As children, Teri’s parents immigrated from Cuba and she is the four...

Dr. Sheryl Kingsberg is a Clinical Psychologist and Chief of the Division of Behavioral Medicine, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center. She cites four FSDs, female sexual disorders women could experience during their lifetimes. Dr. Kingsberg says there are gender inequities around the treatment of HSDD, Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder. She says tha...

Kim Stevenson is a top executive in information technology having worked with IBM, Intel, EDS and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. She says our personal core values must match those of the company and when we find that fit, we will excel. Kim believes women should proactively manage their own performance review processes through scheduling quarterly meetings and preparing to review their accomplishment...

Janis Smith-Gomez is an executive with Johnson & Johnson, Vice President of Global Brand Experience for Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices Companies. She is resilient and believes resilience can be taught by considering self-care through looking at our emotional, physical, spiritual and mental energy. Janis believes it is important for us to really take our vacations to restore and refresh. She rec...

Danielle DiMartino Booth is Founder and CEO of Quill Intelligence and worked for years on Wall Street and for the Federal Reserve. She wrote the book, Fed Up, An Insider's Take on Why the Federal Reserve is Bad for America. In the book she reports on how the Fed focuses on mathematical models to predict markets versus truly understanding what’s going on, thereby missing the prediction of the Great...

Emily Barr is the President and CEO of Graham Media Group and oversees seven local market media hubs/television stations in six cities including 1000 employees. Her experience with male-dominated environments started early as she attended the prestigious boarding school Phillips Exeter Academy during the early days of allowing young women to attend. Emily shares several stories of her career exper...

Kate Curran’s mother’s last words to her were, "I’ve had a good life". After a successful corporate career at GE, and year-long sabbatical, Kate Curran decided she wanted to wanted to make a difference and so founded Schooltheworld.org in 2009. Since founding the organization she has helped transform education for children in rural Central America by building 106 schools. Her program involving U.S...

Ivy Zelman, CEO of Zelman & Associates was an atypical Wall Street investment banker. There were few women on Wall Street in the early 1990s and she was not educated at an Ivy League school. Nonetheless, her determination, curiosity and ambition all helped her to build a successful career in her specialty of residential housing industry research. Ivy began Zelman & Associates in October, 2007 and...

Judy Toland is Vice President and Head of Scaled Solutions for the Global Business Marketing team at Facebook in Chicago and oversees a team of 450 people. She has played sports, loves to follow sports and has found this to be a way to make strong connection in building business relationships. Judy has the ability to synthesize and simplify complex topics so that her audience can easily understand...

Dr. Holly Pederson is Director, Medical Breast Services at the Cleveland Clinic where she has worked for 24 years. Dr. Pederson is passionate about women’s health and is a highly recognized leader in her field. She knows that mammograms save lives and believes these tests should begin when women are in their 40s. She is a big proponent of three dimensional mammograms which have shown a 15 percent...

Lisa Knutson, president of Scripps Networks is a value-based leader, with an emphasis on respect, authenticity and empowerment. It is also important for her to understand what her employees value. Lisa has a collaborative leadership approach asking her team what she can do to lead them better. Not seeking the limelight, her competitive spirit drives her to push initiatives she believes in and says...

This Special Edition episode of LeadingShe is one in which we profile three topics which are recurring themes in the podcast: Networking, Self-Care/Balance and finally, Taking Risk. We introduce each topic in the podcast as we air clips from previous guests. These women tell stories, relate their experiences in these areas---powerful wisdom and ideas for listeners. In August we will take a break a...

Listen to this Special Edition of LeadingShe in which we address three topics which are recurring themes in the podcasts: Gender Bias, Communication and Speaking Up. We introduce each topic in the podcast as we air clips from previous guests about the topics. These are powerful insights and stories from these women leaders. Watch for another Special Edition of LeadingShe in two weeks. In August we...

Leslie Woo, CEO of Civic Action in Toronto, Canada not only sees where gender and racial equity is needed she takes action. Born in Trinidad and having immigrated to Canada to attend college, Leslie has had a career of adapting to her environment. She is optimistic about the next generation of young leaders and appreciates their values, energy and enthusiasm and enjoys leading them. The pandemic h...

Marsha McVicker’s B2B company, Errand Solutions, began as a college class white paper at University of Wisconsin. Assembling investors and taking the business plan to reality, 20 years later she has grown the company to helping over four million employees with seven billion tasks. Errand Solutions offers personal assistance and concierge services to her company clients’ employees. She talks about...

Since 2018, Amy Spiller has been president of Duke Energy’s utility operations in Ohio and Kentucky with 2300 employees. Though she was considered for the position in 2012, she believes she was more ready for the challenge later. Amy leads with a focus on diversity and Duke Energy as a company scored 100% on the 2020 Human Rights Campaign’s annual scorecard workplace equality. She talks about deal...

A fearless risk-taker, Nicole Loftus is a serial entrepreneur who started her companies based upon her passion around problem-solving through using creativity and technological savvy. After a failed marriage, she founded the company Zorch and as CEO of Zorch she grew the company to one of the fastest growing companies in the country. She began her company SkinX as a result of her bad experience wi...

Against all odds, Kathryn Bertine as CEO of Homestretch Foundation, has tirelessly and relentlessly accomplished so much for women’s equality. As a successful pro-cylist, she has published four books including her latest, STAND, A Memoir on Activism. A Manual for Progress. Kathryn was a senior editor for ESPN and also raised money through crowd-sourcing to produce the documentary Half the Road, wh...

Susan Gallagher is CEO and President of BPI Group, a leadership and executive coaching company. Her natural curiosity about people and business has benefited her career in many ways. Susan’s family of origin made a practice of having family dinners and she and her husband decided they wanted to do the same so she worked hard to be home for dinner most nights. During her time at Arthur Andersen she...

Mary Boosalis is President & CEO of Premier Health, the largest healthcare system in southwest Ohio which employees more than 15,000 employees and physicians. She is one of the few women in the U.S. which lead a large health organization and is the first woman to head Premier Health. She is highly respected in her position and within the Dayton, Ohio region and community. Mary and her husband Tom...

One of the most fascinating LeadingShe podcast guests, Julie Smolyansky was the youngest CEO of a publicly-traded firm after she took over the family company upon her father’s sudden death. Julie’s grandmother’s survival during the Holocaust, she believes drives her to be a social justice advocate.  Her company Lifeway Foods has 95 percent of the Kefir market. Kefir is a 2000-year old product and...

This very positive and high-energy leader, Marianne Lewis, is the first woman to be Dean of University of Cincinnati’s Carl H. Lindner School of Business. She knew early in her career she wanted to lead as a dean yet the number women heading business schools is low. Marianne believes with a strong confidence women can achieve more. After facing a lack of transparency when hired at Cass Business Sc...