Women Of Influence

Today we are joined by the Founder and Owner of Third Street Digital, Helen Speiser, to chat about her career journey, what inspired her to launch an agency of her own, and how she walks the walk as a people-first employer. Learn more at https://columbusbusinessfirst.com Produced by Crate Media .

Today's featured business leader is Heather Hiller, General Counsel and Senior Vice President at The Daimler Group. Heather illustrates her experience as a woman in a male-dominated field, surveys the shifting landscape of remote vs. office working, shares some great career advice and transports us to the new Downtown Columbus district that's earning favorable comparisons to the city that never sl...

Today we're joined by Brooke Minto, the Columbus Museum of Art's new Executive Director and CEO. With over 20 years of curatorial, educational, and fundraising experience all around the world, Brooke brings a fresh approach and big goals to the 145-year-old museum on East Broad Street. We talk about her early experiences in the city and in her role, what's in store for the future of the museum, an...

Today's guest, Leah McDougald, works in the field of design research, studying our world and people in it on behalf of Columbus's biggest brands, to innovate better experiences, products, and services. It's wide-reaching work: even as she now runs her own business, Leah remains closely involved in the firm's projects, working on her business, and working in it, at the same time. She's also a newly...

Rehgan Avon felt the time had come to start her own company. She had been thinking about it for a while, reflecting on the ways artificial intelligence was impacting businesses and the unsolved issues she saw across industries. So she made the jump, putting in her notice and readying for her next phase in February of 2020. Of course, that's when the world changed. The arrival of the COVID-19 pande...

Julie Granillo didn't expect to take the top job at Paul Werth Associates when she did. Her aunt and mentor, Sandy Harbrecht Ratchford, died this summer after decades running the family business. Just four years earlier, she'd suggested Julie, then living in Nashville, come back to Ohio and join her at Paul Werth. The Western native took her up on the offer and spent the ensuing years settling int...

For nearly five years, our Women of Influence podcast has featured conversations with some of the most influential female executives in Central Ohio. This year, Columbus Business First decided to take things a step further with the launch of our inaugural Women of Influence Awards. We fielded 126 nominations, ultimately honoring 27 outstanding women in six categories: nonprofit leaders, community...

When Lisa Shuneson talks about accounting, it makes you want to be an accountant. Her passion for the industry is all the more notable given her path to it — while she studied accounting in school, she took a long break to have a couple kids before finally taking the CPA exam. But in the years since she’s risen quickly, and now leads Whalen CPAs as its CEO. Lisa recently visited our office to chat...

Christy Farnbauch serves as executive director of the Contemporary Theatre of Ohio. If that name's not familiar to you, perhaps you might know the organization by its former brand: CATCO. The just-completed and revealed rebranding is one of the first major projects undertaken by Farnbaugh since she joined amid the uncertainty of Spring 2020. She recently visited our office to talk about that exper...

Melody Birmingham was a bit of a “unicorn” early in her career. There weren’t many young Black women from the Midwest in management at the Rochester, New York car factory she started her career at after college. But while she did stand out during her time there and later in the utilities industry, that didn’t change anything about the way she approached her work. Today, Melody serves as executive...

Sarah Perez thinks people should be lawyers, if that’s what they really want to do with their lives.  That might seem obvious, but talk to enough lawyers and you’ll hear plenty that discourage following in their footsteps. But Perez, who today leads Columbus law firm Perez Morris, says law school is the right path for someone who actually wants to practice law. But for those who go into the f...

For the first time in more than 31 years, Darci Congrove isn’t spending this tax season doing taxes. The longtime Columbus CPA and managing director of GBQ Partners retired from the firm’s tax department at the end of last year. That doesn’t mean she’s not busy, of course; there’s still plenty to fill her schedule as managing director of Central Ohio’s sixth-largest accounting firm. But she’s no l...

Courtney Falato was used to being on the side of the table asking for money. She had spent much of her career in education research, often seeking out dollars to fund that work.  But in early 2020, just as the world changed, she made her way to the other side of the table. She joined JPMorgan Chase as vice president and program officer for global philanthropy, a role in which she oversees gra...

Today's guest is Jasmine de Gaia, Head of Customer Data Strategy for Wells Fargo. We talked about what her role entails, how she views working in male-dominated fields and how she cultivates vital mentorship relationships. Mentioned in this episode: Let Crate Media help uncover your company's story and amplify your messaging with a branded podcast. Get a free one-hour casting session at crate.medi...

Jane Higgins Marx didn't spend her childhood dreaming of being a lawyer, but as she wrapped up college with an English degree in hand, she found herself searching for a way to apply it. An LSAT, law school and two decades with the same firm later, she now leads Carlile Patchen & Murphy LLP as its managing partner, a job she started in early 2021. Mentioned in this episode: Let Crate Media help...

In some ways Kristina Johnson feels like she's just getting started at Ohio State University. She became president of the school–one of the largest in the country and the economic engine that drives central Ohio–in 2020. But the pandemic was still in full force back then, and its later waves and impacts have forced pivot after pivot in her brief tenure. But now a few months into the 2022-2023 scho...

Megan Wood knows her Ohio history. She's been with Ohio History Connection for years, working in a variety of positions across the organization.  This summer, she ascended to the top job at the nonprofit becoming the first female CEO in its history. She's overseeing the organization as it kicks off construction of a long awaited $17 million Collection Care Cear near the Ohio History Centers’s...

You probably remember Amy Acton from her daily press conferences back in the spring of 2020, when she used colorful language metaphors and a general sense of compassion to guide Ohioans through one of the most uncertain times in our history. But it was a challenging job for Acton, who left the role in June, 2020, and returned to her previous employer, The Columbus Foundation. Then, like many in th...

Ola Snow is plenty comfortable in front of a microphone. As chief human resources officer of Cardinal Health, Ohio's largest public company, she regularly has to communicate with an audience of tens of thousands of employees. It's a big job, one that got more demanding when the pandemic shook up all of our work lives. Snow joined me in our Columbus Business First studio recently to discuss how the...

Alison Marker didn’t grow up dreaming up working in construction. While that’s her family business, Marker herself was more interested in people than buildings. So she pursued degrees in women’s studies and psychology, starting her career as a social worker and later a psychotherapist. But eventually, the family business called. Alison visited our Women of Influence podcast to tell that story. Men...

Amy Taylor has had an eventful couple of years. That’s true for most of us, pandemic and all, but Taylor’s list is likely longer. The Columbus Downtown Development Corp., where she serves as president, embarked on one of its most ambitious projects ever, the $500 million multi-phase redevelopment of the Scioto Peninsula. Then Covid-19 struck, sending workers home and raising questions about the fu...

Freedom a la Cart just celebrated a big birthday. The nonprofit, which helps victims of sex trafficking build job skills and start new chapters in their lives, opened a downtown café in April 2021. This April, I sat down with CEO Paul Haines. She talked about the work of the organization, its goals, and her own unique career path. We also chatted about ways community members can get involved with...

From Columbus Business First, it's Women of Influence, an interview series showcasing some of the most inspiring women in the central Ohio business community.  Today, we're talking to Michelle Yeager-Thornton, Co-Owner and Chief Operating Officer of The Champion Companies. Michelle leads operational efforts and day-to-day actions of the company's portfolio of communities, which includes 5,000...

Work looks a lot different today than it did three years ago. So, too, does mentoring. Traci Martinez, managing partner at Squire Patton Boggs' Columbus office, shared her thoughts on the evolving nature of mentoring relationships during our recent Mentoring Monday event. She also talked about her own unusual path to a legal career, taking on a new role amid an unprecedented global crisis, and how...

Mary Auch, PNC's regional president for Central Ohio, ascended to her now top local job at the Pittsburgh-based bank following a nearly 30-year career with the organization. That's not necessarily what Mary thought things would look like when she was in high school. Mary shares how she got into banking, as well as PNC’s billion-dollar investment to help end systemic racism at the community level....