By Suzanna de Baca, president and CEO, Business Publications Corp. I recently attended a reunion of my MBA class in October, so it seemed like a synergistic and wonderful coincidence that in the following weeks, two young women separately reached out to me for letters of recommendation to local MBA Read more…
As told to Emily Kestel Mayada Alwan is a senior at Valley High School in West Des Moines, where she is a founding member of RISE, a student club that mentors refugees and immigrants. She and her family are Sudanese, and immigrated to the United States from Lebanon. She is Read more…
By Emily Kestel, Fearless editor The Business Record’s Fearless initiative is celebrating its second birthday this year. We remain steadfast in living up to our goal of empowering Iowa women to succeed in work and life through our articles, stories and community events. At its core, Fearless aims to amplify Read more…
As told to Emily Kestel Courageous Fire is a social entrepreneur and owner of Courageous Fire LLC, a company that educates the community about domestic violence, and the founding executive director of Courageous Access, a nonprofit that provides direct services to survivors of domestic violence. The following story has been Read more…
As told to Emily Kestel Upon summiting the Vinson Massif in Antarctica on Dec. 28, 2021, Jen Loeb became the first woman from Iowa to climb the “Seven Summits,” which are the highest peaks on the seven continents. She lives near Marengo. The following story has been formatted to be Read more…
As told to Emily Kestel Denise O’Brien is an activist, organic farmer and co-founder of the Women, Food and Agriculture Network. She lives on a 17-acre farm in Cass County with her husband, Larry Harris. The following story has been formatted to be entirely in her own words, and has Read more…
As told to Emily Kestel Self-proclaimed ‘popcorneur’ Sydney Rieckhoff is the CEO of Almost Famous Popcorn, a small-batch gourmet popcorn company she started with her brother in 2012 at age 14. Now with 50 employees, the company has a factory and retail store in Cedar Rapids and a retail store Read more…
As told to Emily Kestel Patty Sneddon-Kisting is the executive director of the Urbandale Food Pantry. She and her wife, Lisa, have two children: Addi and Cooper. Another child, Hudson, died shortly after birth. They are expecting their fourth child this December. The following story has been formatted to be Read more…
By Suzanna de Baca, President and CEO, Business Publications Corp. About 20 years ago when I was working on Wall Street, a colleague who was expecting her first child asked her leader if she could move to a part-time position for a few years. Despite 16 years of tenure as Read more…
By Suzanna de Baca, President and CEO, Business Publications Corp. When I was starting out my post-MBA career in the male-dominated world of investment management, there were few women in the business. I got a lot of comments about my appearance. One of my colleagues regularly and publicly remarked on Read more…