The Story Behind Her Success

Are you ready for a masterclass in entrepreneurship?  Meet Sharon Kan.  She has spent the last 20 years incubating and launching successful businesses in high potential markets.  And we’re not talking about the small stuff.  Sharon has nurtured and developed ideas that have been acquired by giants like Barnes & Noble, Microsoft, SSA Global, and Oracle. Born and raised in Israel, Sharon&#...

Are you a mentor?  Have you ever been mentored by someone?  Passing on what we know for the betterment of someone else is a gift and this week’s guest is a big believer in the power of mentorship.  Meet Shannon O’Mara, Vice President & Associate Director of credit research at Loomis Sayles and Founder of UWIN:  the Undergraduate Women’s Investment Network.   Raised in Upstate...

This episode is for the dreamers and the doers.  And most of all, it is a life lesson, because sometimes dreams come true in ways we never could have imagined.  Meet Jacy Dawn Valeras, singer/songwriter and CEO & Founder of Platinum Circle Media in Nashville, Tennessee.  Raised in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, Jacy started making money by singing at funerals when she was 13 and by the time she hi...

Meet a woman who’s outstanding career has had three chapters:  one in finance/banking, one in real estate development and one as an independent director, executive and business builder.   In this candid interview, Roberta Sydney shares her belief that relationships in business and in our personal lives are everything.  Now the CEO of Sydney Associates , Roberta’s rise to the top has of...

In this episode, we traveled to ArtsEmerson’s gorgeous Paramount Theatre in Boston to meet Kim Weild , director of American Moor written and performed by Keith Hamilton Cobb .  Described as an “urgent solo work that examines the experience of black men in America” American Moor is the kind of play that asks the kinds of questions that jar the soul and make us think. Raised in Wes...

Meet a woman who started showing the business community what she was made of in high school when she won her regional newspaper’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award!  Lisa Nickerson has been steadily climbing the ladder toward success ever since and is now the CEO and Founder of Nickerson PR and Nickerson Real Estate Partners . Recently recognized as one of Boston’s most powerful women in...

Meet a woman who has taken her skills and talents in the healthcare field and married them to her lifetime love of the arts and the fight against cancer. Dana Siegal is a wife, a mother, an RN, the Director of Patient Safety for CRICO Strategies and the Artistic Director for a non-profit called Voices of Hope . Founded in 2009, Voices of Hope is made up of 200 cast members who have all been impact...

Senate Majority leader Cynthia Stone Creem has spent over 30 years in public service.  The daughter of two attorneys, she grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts deciding early on that she wanted to follow in her parent’s footsteps.  The road to the seat she now occupies has been long and in this very candid interview, Cindy Creem recalls knocking on doors to raise money for her first campaign a...

Welcome to the success story of Denise Hajjar, one of Boston’s most loved and respected fashion designers.   The grandchild of a designer from Syria and a pattern maker from Lebanon, Denise started making clothes for her Barbie Dolls when she was a little girl. By the time she was ready to go to fashion design school, she had an entire wardrobe created for herself and for her mother. Known f...

Raised in the backwoods of Montana, completely off the grid, Heather Anne Cook learned the necessary skills to keep herself alive. In this interview, she shares the details of her adventurous life, including the many times she took 3 matches into the woods to see how long she could survive.  Now a wife and the mother of twins, Heather is a pastor, a survivalist, a long distance runner, a bee-keepe...

Have you ever heard the expression:  “love will find a way?” Meet Nancy Gaudet-Aittaniemi.  A very successful senior vice president for a commercial real estate company, Nancy’s success story is not just about climbing the ladder to take on a leadership role in a male-dominated industry.  It is about the power of a mother’s love for her child. You see, Nancy’s only ch...

Meet a woman with a fantastic second chapter.  For decades Lauren Birmingham has been well known as a top-notch PR pro in the Boston area and beyond. But one day, on a whim, she had an idea.  Lauren convinced a friend to fly to Italy with her, just for the weekend.  What started as a one-time adventure turned into a love affair with the Amalfi Coast, a unique new business venture called Cooking Va...

Welcome to Palm Springs, California…home of movie stars, snow-capped mountains, palm trees, and the Palm Springs International Film Festival.  In this episode, we’re focused on women in film including Ruth Caudeli, a young director from Valencia, Spain whose movie Eva & Candela is breaking down barriers about gender, and who we choose to love.  A surprise visit from co-star Silvia...

When we tell our stories, we pass along life lessons and wisdom.  The two women you are about to meet believe that the arts provide a unique opportunity to tell stories that matter. Meet Myriam Cyr and Patricia Jamison, two of the four founders of Punctuate4Productions, Inc . on Boston’s North Shore.  With a mission to educate, entertain and promote the arts and culture in every form for all...

Meet a woman who has made it her life’s work to give. Linda Driscoll has spent her career in leadership roles for organizations like the American Red Cross, Women’s Sports Foundation, the Massachusetts Amateur Sports Foundation, and the Special Olympics.  She has also served as Past President of the Board of Directors for the New England Women’s Fund and on the NCAA Boston organi...

Meet a woman who believes that during the toughest times in our lives, there is learning, there is growth and there is always hope. I have known Julie Freeman for nearly 20 years and although I heard bits and pieces of her story, I never really knew the extent of it until we sat down for this interview in Palm Springs, California: 3000 miles away from where we first met in Wellesley, Massachusetts...

When I sing, I am in pure bliss and joy. These are the words of singer, songwriter, musician, and philanthropist Amanda Carr .   Described by the Wall Street Journal as “a true jazz singer in a time of wannabes”, Amanda’s path from the little seaside town of Hingham, MA to stages around the world has not been easy. Her passion to create a life that has always been about and for t...

Are you the mother of a child with a food allergy?  If you are, this episode is for you.  The statistics are astounding but true:  1 in 12 children in the United States has a severe food allergy.  What was once rare is now commonplace, yet the constant worry food allergy parents endure can be overwhelming, because when their children are out of their sight, they are vulnerable to foods that can ki...

Do you like having your picture taken? If the answer is no, you are not alone. Enter award-winning portrait photographer Kerry Brett.  When she takes your picture, her goal is simple:  to make you feel so comfortable, you forget that there is a camera in your face! The daughter of legendary Boston Globe photographer Bill Brett, Kerry grew up watching her father tell stories with his camera.  A sin...

If you want to kick off 2019 with a dose of inspiration, take a listen to this episode, featuring marathoner and MS survivor Dawn Schottlandt. Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1999 at only 23, the New Year marks this exceptional woman’s 20th anniversary as a survivor.  Dawn fell in love with running because it empowered her to keep on going, even though she was confused, angry and scared...

When we share our stories, we pass along something that is so precious its value cannot be measured.  Do you know what that is?  Wisdom.  When Alyssa Nelson-Kamalu heard the words “you have breast cancer” she was far from being wise.  After all, she had only been on this earth for 28 years.  Married to her college sweetheart,  the mother of a toddler, a victim advocate for the state of...

When Leslie Musser gave birth to her son, Colton, she thought about his soft, newborn skin, and decided she would do everything she could to keep that skin away from fabrics that had been treated with pesticides.  That’s when she discovered how hard affordable, organic children’s clothing was to find.    Once a PR and events pro, Leslie had an idea: to create her own children’s c...

The opioid crisis in the United States is shattering the lives of addicts and breaking the hearts of families every day.  In this episode of The Story Behind Her Success, we meet Kate Genovese, the mother of a son she called her “golden boy” Christopher “Geno” Genovese.  A gifted all-star athlete, Geno experienced 6 serious injuries on the ice as a hockey player and on the...

We all have stories to tell and that’s what The Story Behind Her Success podcast series is all about. Life has not always been kind to this week’s guest.  In fact, she has known the deep grief of losing her baby girl Sophia when she was only 13 months old.  This experience “broke her wide open” and that’s where the story begins. Welcome to the reimagined life of Maria...

This story is perfect to post for Thanksgiving because it is about courage, hope, patriotism and the healing power of love. Boston Marathon Bombing survivor Roseann Sdoia is the author of the new book Perfect Strangers which chronicles four people whose lives intersected the moment the second bomb went off in front of the Forum Restaurant at the 2013 Boston Marathon finish line.  Roseann would los...