Real Leaders

Menu
SUBSCRIBE

Category: Storytelling

If This Was Your Company, Would You Do It?

Here’s why I approach everything with an owner mentality. Several years ago in my career, I was the chief information officer for a large, family-owned business. This business had a very significant technology infrastructure and a large engineering department. It became clear to me that our network wasn’t built to handle the demand that engineering […]

My Refining Fire

I thought my business expansion failed, but then I rebuilt stronger. When I decided to expand Left-handesign from Singapore to Australia, it felt like the natural next step. Our purpose-driven, plantable stationery created waves in Singapore. We found our niche, built a loyal community, and made a measurable impact in our mission to replace single-use […]

We Need to Tell 2,000 People Before the World Finds Out

Tragically losing our CEO led us to build something that will outlast all of us.  It was a sunny Saturday morning. My wife, Julie, and I had just finished breakfast at home. The windows were open, letting in that soft hum of summer — birds, a breeze, kids’ laughter as families rode by on their […]

A Moment of Truth

I closed my successful PR firm of a decade to start over in the name of impact. The novelist Chimamanda Adichie was the first to warn me about the danger of a single story. In her 2010 TED Talk, she says, “We are more than a single story… If we hear only a single story […]

No One Looked at Me

Here’s what being the only woman at the table taught me about respect. I was in my early 30s when I became president of Syms Corp., a publicly traded company pioneering the off-price retail model. The term “glass ceiling” hadn’t even gone mainstream. I didn’t think of myself as a trailblazer. I thought of myself […]

Necessity: The Father of Invention

Sometimes the best ideas are born on the flipside of frustration. It was 3 a.m. in 2017 when everything shifted. I was half-asleep, shuffling into the kitchen in a T-shirt and shorts, trying to mix formula for my hungry baby boy. He’d been waking often from casein intolerance, and I was beyond exhausted. In the […]

The (New) Heartbeat of Our Business

One defining moment led me to add purpose to every purchase. It started in a conference room packed with entrepreneurs in Radio City Music Hall, New York. Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS, walked on stage. He talked about his one-for-one model: Buy a pair of shoes, and a child in need gets a pair too. […]

Real Leaders UNITE 2024 – Day 3: Shine

At UNITE, a Star is Born By Day 3, everyone had decided to stay at Kona Kai and form an independent nation of impact businesses. Just kidding, but what if, right? All jokes aside, Day 3 started with a surf session for the daring and a cacao ceremony for the contemplative. A cozy breakfast led […]

unite-popup