Joyce Durst CEO and Co-Founder of Growth Acceleration Partners WPO Austin & Platinum II Member How has being a WPO member helped your business? WPO has been instrumental in challenging my strategic business thinking on all levels. The difficult questions, the great and open support system, resources, and educational information offered by WPO has elevated my leadership skills and helped me accelerate the growth of my values-led, tech company. What challenges have you faced as a woman in business? The key challenge faced by most women business owners is limited access to capital. Startup an ..read more

Charissa W. Durst President of Hardlines Design Company WPO Columbus II Member How has being a WPO member helped your business? It has brought clarity to multiple issues that have worried or irked me. What challenges have you faced as a woman in business? People who just feel safer/more secure with hiring a larger (white male) managed architectural firm for their project, especially if it is their organization’s first or only project. What inspired you to start your business? My first recession, when no one was hiring. What’s your favorite WPO event you’ve attended? Why? Our chapter’s annual ..read more

As pandemic restrictions ease, employers must prepare for an increasingly competitive talent market as workers rethink their careers and their expectations of work, says a new survey from Prudential Financial. According to findings from the latest Pulse of the American Worker Survey: Post-Pandemic Work & Life – Expectations from the American Workforce fielded in late May, a quarter of workers still plan to look for a new job once the pandemic is over. Half of those surveyed say the pandemic has given them more control in deciding the direction of their career, and 48% are rethinking the t ..read more

The Women Presidents’ Organization, a peer advisory group for women entrepreneurs leading multi-million-dollar businesses, presented three awards to outstanding women business leaders with at its 2021 Conference: Sounds of Success. The Mary Lehman MacLachlan Economic Empowerment Award: Bea Stotzer This Award is named for the esteemed WPO advisory board member who provided the seed capital to fund the start of the organization. Mary Lehman MacLachlan cared deeply about women in positions of leadership and business ownership, and strongly believed women need to support other women in their commu ..read more

Brought to you by HeelzFirst, a proud sponsor of the WPO Photo by Amina Filkins on Pexels.com Any time you launch a new business or a new product, you’re going to encounter problems and challenges. For over three decades I have worked as a professional engineer and CEO of Excellence Engineering LLC where my day job is to solve the problems. Despite my background as a problem solver, I faced one of my biggest challenges yet this past year when I decided to turn a passion of mine into a new business. If you’re thinking of starting this journey, here are some tips. Follow your passion I consider ..read more

Brought to you by PNC, a proud sponsor of the WPO Photo by picjumbo.com on Pexels.com If civilians can fly themselves into space — as happened twice this summer — just 60 years after the first NASA astronaut accomplished this feat, should it really take another two-and-a-half centuries to close the economic gender gap? Not if PNC can help it! When the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Gender Equity Gap Report revealed that it would take a jaw-dropping 257 more years for women to economically catch up to men unless the pace of progress significantly accelerated, we took it on as a challenge. O ..read more

Brought to you by Women in Business, a proud sponsor of the WPO To be an entrepreneur is to discover and capitalize on opportunity; These uncertain times have created opportunity in abundance. Though not without risk, this is the time for bold transformation so that our businesses are relevant, timely, and exciting. Francine Farkas Sears What’s it like running a women-owned business during a global pandemic? Even maintaining a positive outlook at times can sometimes feel impossible. The most optimistic and business-savvy leaders are bound for a challenge. We’re in uncharted territory with ..read more

Brought to you by Dragonfly Editorial, a proud sponsor of the WPO Photo by Katerina Holmes on Pexels.com If you’re a business owner, I bet you know the feeling of being overwhelmed. Too many appointments, an overflowing inbox, an endless to-do list. Some tasks are small, some are big … but somehow, you never get around to tackling the big ones. Sound familiar? There are many ways to eliminate overwhelm, from setting strategic priorities and time-boxing your day to forcing yourself to eat the frog—that is, your most dreaded task of the day—first thing in the morning. Adding delegation to any of ..read more

When to say yes—and how to say no—if family members turn to you for financial support. Brought to you by The Evelo|Singer|Sullivan Group, a proud sponsor of the WPO Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Almost every family has one: the person family members call on when money is tight and they need a helping hand. The more financially responsible you are, the more likely you are to be considered “the family bank.” If you’re that person, have you ever wished you could just say no, even if you feel helping out financially is the right thing to do? Maybe you have other priorities to deal with or you dou ..read more

Brought to you by Jazzercise, a proud sponsor of the WPO As we begin to put the challenges of the past eighteen months behind us, I’m considering how insights gained during our COVID-forced downtime can improve our performance moving forward. Less time in the office, for instance, enabled me to spend more time in my at-home dance studio thinking and creating. In the process of choreographing dozens of new dances for our franchisee instructors and Jazzercise On-Demand channel, it occurred to me there are real parallels between the process of choreographing a dance and launching a new business ..read more