Contestant's Case to Win

This is based on the number of votes received.

In my pre-mom career, I held key positions at a global advertising agency and top ten public relations firm, and founded and grew my own market research company. In all of these posts, my clients were corporate giants with names like McDonald’s, Hilton, MCI and Nissan. No question, I learned a lot from these experiences. But it wasn’t until I took a break from the workforce and entered the parallel universe of carrot-stained t-shirts and endless renditions of “The Wheels on the Bus,” that I witnessed something that began to put everything that had come before, into perspective.

One afternoon, my nine-month-old daughter, Isabel, and her friend, George, were playing with a little plastic telephone. Isabel carefully pressed the tiny buttons and lit up when the toy spoke to her and made music. Then it was George’s turn. He picked up the phone and, mustering all his nine-month-old might, smashed it against the floor. That made him grin from ear to ear. And it was in that moment, that everything I knew about the business world and the way men and women “play” in it, started to come into focus.

When I re-entered the workforce, it was with the priority of being a “there” mom (there for International Dance Day, long-division homework, selling Girl Scout cookies...) and with a commitment to making a real difference in the lives of individuals.

I launched thinkBIG in order to help women acquire the strategies, skills and confidence they need to succeed at starting and growing their own businesses or climbing someone else’s ladder. Now, with the foundational elements of my business in place, my mission is to find ways to make the tools, products and services I provide, as accessible as possible (affordable! convenient!), to as many women as possible. That starts with spreading the word. Please help me in my quest to equip, inspire and empower women to get off the bench and into the game, to be wildly successful at "Doing Business While Female." Thanks, in advance, for your vote!