Thoughts ahead of Fearless Focus event on leadership By Emily Kestel Representation matters – especially in leadership. The latest data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission shows that in Iowa’s private sector, women held 30% of executive-level leadership positions and 40% of midlevel management positions. Furthermore, women of color made Read more…
By Suzanna de Baca, president and CEO, Business Publications Corp. For many years, I worked on Wall Street in the financial industry. One day, I received an invitation to be interviewed on national television about a topic in my area of expertise. I was excited and confident until I got Read more…
By Emily Kestel Say you’re in an all-staff meeting the day after a poor quarterly sales earning report comes out. The mood in the room is tense, but nobody’s mentioning it, preferring instead to focus on the sales team’s wins in hopes of boosting morale. Or maybe you’ve got a Read more…
By Suzanna de Baca, president and CEO, Business Publications Corp. Recently, someone asked me to be a part of a very worthwhile civic project and I heard the word “yes” coming out of my mouth even though the words going through my head were: “You don’t have time right now.” Read more…
By Emily Kestel Since the beginning of the Fearless initiative, we’ve been adamant about connection being one of its core values. Women are often seen as the glue that holds communities together – but women often lack opportunities to sit at tables where decisions are made about how the communities Read more…
By Suzanna de Baca, president and CEO, Business Publications Corp. What have you said yes to? Once I said yes to a job that paid much less than I had been making, required relocation from a city I loved, and involved personal danger. Why? I believed so deeply in the Read more…
By Emily Kestel, Fearless editor I have to believe that one of the most common questions professional athletes get asked is what advice they’d give to others. Retired professional soccer player Mia Hamm doled out several words of wisdom at the annual Greater Des Moines Partnership Dinner, all of which Read more…
As told to Emily Kestel Teresa Zilk is a mental health advocate and the founder of Stories To Tell My Daughter, which is a storytelling experience dedicated to centering the voices and experiences of Black women and other women of color. She is also the owner of Teresa Zilk Creative Read more…
As told to Emily Kestel Mary Kramer made history as the first woman to be independently elected as the president of the Iowa Senate in 1997. In 2003, she was sworn in as ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, where she served until 2006. She and her late husband, Read more…
As told to Emily Kestel Dalia Kyi is the founder and owner of Unuhe, an interpreting business that specializes in Karen, Karenni, Burmese and Chin languages. She was born in Myanmar (Burma) and moved with her family to the Mae La refugee camp in Thailand to flee the war. Kyi Read more…