“Would you be able to pick Gloria Steinem up from the airport?” was one of the more memorable questions Peg Lonnquist asked me when I was a college student at Iowa State University. As executive director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Women’s Center, Lonnquist (“Peg,” as we called her) was Read more…
I recently interviewed Jerrica Marshall, executive director of the Directors Council, for a Closer Look feature in the Business Record. The Des Moines-based organization she leads strives to address inequities affecting Black community members in Polk County. In a previous role, she noticed the Des Moines Downtown Farmers Market vendors did Read more…
I never dreamed I would someday be a CEO until a man suggested it. In a summer job during my MBA program, my boss asked me what roles I aspired to in the future. I told him I could see myself as the head of marketing or sales somewhere. “You Read more…
As the new year approached, I reviewed my resolutions from last year and was shocked to realize I’d met the personal and professional goals I had set for myself. Why the surprise? Over the last year I experienced a great deal of change and loss, and in the midst of Read more…
April Schmaltz has been named CEO and president of Delta Dental of Iowa, the company announced. The announcement comes after the completion of a national search. Schmaltz replaces Jeff Russell, who left the company in May to become president and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska. Schmaltz was Delta Read more…
At a previous job, I supervised a talented leader who struggled to provide constructive feedback to her team members because she worried that pointing out performance issues would hurt her employees’ feelings. One day, I asked her how she would feel if she was doing something wrong at work and Read more…
One of the most memorable scenes in the recent blockbuster “Barbie” movie is the monologue on the impossible double standards of being a woman delivered by Gloria, the character played by America Ferrera. Gloria addresses a despondent Barbie with these words: “It is literally impossible to be a woman. You Read more…
Love is not just romantic. Love is the source of everything – the relationships that we build, the reason we get up every morning, why we do what we do for the people who are closest to us. There’s risk with love because you always know that you could get Read more…
I was 6 years old [when I started gymnastics], which is actually a little bit older than you hear from a lot of athletes. They’re like, “I started when I was 2 and did the mommy-and-me classes.” But for me, I saw a rerun of the 1984 Olympics. Mary Lou Read more…
When I was a child, my English professor aunt and my book-loving mom gave my sister and me their own set of Nancy Drew mysteries. As we turned the dog-eared pages of these books, we were mesmerized by Nancy’s ability to solve crimes that stumped adults and marveled at her Read more…