angishields, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

Christine Chmura with Chmura

September 22, 2022 by angishields

BRX National

Christine Chmura with Chmura

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Business RadioX® was live at the 2022 GEDA Annual Conference in Savannah, GA. The conference is designed to give you a glimpse of what is here now, what the future looks like and the tools to help you implement strategies and tactics now to pay off years down the road.

Chris Chmura, Ph.D., is the Founder and CEO of Chmura.

Chmura provides labor market software, consulting, and data, so you can make informed decisions that grow your community.

Our PhD economists, data scientists, and strategic planners are your guide to your local labor market.

Connect with Chris on LinkedIn.

Christabel Ghansah with City of Norcross

September 22, 2022 by angishields

BRX National

Christabel Ghansah with City of Norcross

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Whether it’s leading business retention and expansion efforts at the City of Norcross or building a hairtech startup (Curlnalyzer.com), the goal is always community building & impact – creating equitable and accessible opportunities.

Born in Ghana, Christabel Ghansah has a heart for African agency and representation in world affairs. She is a self-proclaimed multipotentialite whose interests transcend disciplines. She has worked in different sectors and disciplines, notably developing sustainable financial and business development strategies for both nonprofit and for-profit organizations.

Currently, Christabel works in economic development for the City of Norcross where she lends her expertise in business strategy and development to the retention and expansion of businesses in the City. Within the context of this role, she serves on the advisory board at the Southwest Gwinnett Chamber and Summerour Middle School. In her spare time, she volunteers with the Global Shapers, Atlanta Hub as the Partnerships Lead and sits on the Young Leaders Board at the World Affairs Council of Atlanta.

Christabel is a two-time graduate of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies and recently graduated from the Robinson College of Business, earning her MBA in International Business. She considers herself a xenophile and enjoys learning about new cultures through language and food. She is currently enrolled in Chinese and Korean language and culture classes, and is open to remote or hybrid roles (with an emphasis on social impact/community & economic development) in a multicultural environment.

Follow City of Norcross on LinkedIn.

Aysha Treadwell with Virtual Properties Realty

September 22, 2022 by angishields

BRX National

Aysha Treadwell with Virtual Properties Realty

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Aysha Treadwell with Virtual Properties Realty is a creative leader with demonstrated skills in directing organizations to success, with strong community involvement, a passion for exceeding excellence and an innate drive for knowledge and excellence.

Connect with Aysha on LinkedIn.

Ansley Rowe with Samet Corporation

September 22, 2022 by angishields

BRX National

Ansley Rowe with Samet Corporation

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Ansley Rowe is Marketing Coordinator at Samet Corporation.

Samet Corporation provides the experience, resources and structure of a large firm with the responsiveness, accessibility and service of a small business.

Connect with Ansley on LinkedIn.

Al Hodge with Hodge Consulting Services, LLC

September 22, 2022 by angishields

BRX National

Al Hodge with Hodge Consulting Services, LLC

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As founder of Hodge Consulting Services, LLC, Al Hodge brings more than 40 years of economic and community development experience to clients. Globally recognized for his achievements in the industry, Al’s vision, leadership, and deep knowledge of public policy have developed communities that thrive. His insights into business and the countless factors required for lasting success ensure that his clients are adapted for a global marketplace.

Al is chair of the Japan America Society of Georgia and serves on the board of directors for the Georgia Department of Community Affairs and the board of Georgia Northwestern Technical College. He is also an active member of the Society of International Business Fellows.

During his 41 years of Chamber work in Charleston, South Carolina, and in Rome and Augusta, Georgia, Al has served in local, state and national capacities. He was one of a group of 12 specialty external advisers to the U.S. Department of Energy and on the American Chamber of Commerce Executives Association Board. Al has also served as chair of both the Georgia Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives and the Georgia Economic Developers Association.

Al has taught economic development, leadership and democracy with the U.S. Army War College; with the University of Georgia Center for Democratic Governance in both Beijing and Xining, China; in San Francisco, California; with the Kettering Foundation of Dayton, Ohio, and in cities across the Southern United States. He has also spoken at economic development engagements in England and Germany.

Understanding that a strong community requires quality opportunities for education and a trained and developed workforce, Al has also lent his talents to this field. In addition to mentoring countless students and young professionals, Al was vice chair of the Georgia Board of Education where he served as a member for more than eight years. He was chair of the Liaison Committee for the Georgia Joint Education Boards consisting of the University System of Georgia, Technical College System of Georgia, Georgia Board of Education (K-12) and the four allied education agencies. He was also an officer and board member of the Professional Association of Georgia Educators Foundation.

A graduate of the University of Georgia and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Organization Management, Al has also completed a other state, regional and national economic and leadership development programs, including Leadership Georgia. His accomplishments have earned him numerous professional awards and highlighted his business and public policy expertise.

Al lives in Rome, Georgia, and is married to artist and Hodge Consulting Services, LLC partner Cheryl Riner Hodge. They have one daughter, a son-in-law, and two grandchildren.

Al’s ability to cultivate a driven team and build lasting communities has been proven time and again. The results Al delivers are indeed “Good stuff that!”

Aaron Edewards with Evergreen Engineering

September 22, 2022 by angishields

BRX National

Aaron Edewards with Evergreen Engineering

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Aaron Edewards is the Business Development Director at Evergreen Engineering. We serve our industrial clients with complete multi-discipline engineering for the development of new production facilities, process improvement projects, field services, and maintenance project engineering.

We work in the forestry products industry, pulp and paper, alternative energy, recycling, specialty chemical, and investment casting. “Our mission is to provide customized support to move our client’s vision to reality by delivering practical engineering solutions, displaying project leadership and contributing technical expertise.”

Responsible for growing revenue opportunities through new and ongoing business development engagements and negotiations. Skilled at identifying potential business collaborations and partnerships fitting within the overall corporate strategy, business plan and product portfolio. Lead business development engagements and lead negotiations focusing on Evergreen’s multi-discipline engineering offerings with an emphasis in industrial facility development.

Manages and coordinates cross-functional team through evaluation of opportunities and interactions with potential partners. Develops and negotiates term sheets and identifies solutions when needed to reach agreement on key deal terms. Identification, communication and management of opportunities with new and existing partnerships, clients, and strategic alliances.

Key contributor to all aspects of business development and strategy.Aaron is responsible for growing revenue opportunities through new and ongoing business development engagements and negotiations. He is skilled at identifying potential business collaborations and partnerships fitting within the overall corporate strategy, business plan and product portfolio.

Connect with Aaron on LinkedIn.

BRX Pro Tip: Break That Big Goal Down

September 22, 2022 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Break That Big Goal Down

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BRX Pro Tip: Break That Big Goal Down

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with BRX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you this morning. Lee, we have to consistently set the mark, establish goals. Sometimes they’re really big, as they should be. But if we’re getting stuck, if we’re having a challenge, your advice is, often, break that big goal down into smaller ones. Yeah?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:22] Absolutely. I think, a lot of times, you get stuck on the big goal because it just is too overwhelming and you don’t know where to begin. I think it’s worth the time to kind of look at that big goal, and then just break it down into smaller goals. And then, once you do that and have these smaller goals, then you can create the action steps to just solve that first step. What does it take to kind of achieve that first step? And then, just slowly and methodically create the movement you need to keep that ball rolling. That will get you eventually to your big goal.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:57] But sometimes, big goals are just too big in the sense that you don’t know where to begin. So, the best thing is break it down into smaller goals, create the movement that begets more movement, start doing something, see where that goes, what you learned, where can we adjust, where can we take one more action. Then, you’ll find that easier path. And then, by taking that path, then you’re going to get to where you want to go.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:21] But make sure you’re checking to see if you’re making progress every day on that goal once you get some momentum because momentum is the key. You cannot just, every day, have this big goal on the wall and not do anything towards it. It’s going to frustrate your team; it’s going to frustrate you. So, break the goal down, take some action, and move the ball a little bit each day and you’ll eventually get there.

Marianne Butler, Kala Wetzel, Nicole Thomas and Michael McNeely

September 21, 2022 by angishields

Cherokee-BRX-Homeless-Coalition-of-Cherokee-County-feature

Cherokee Business Radio

Marianne Butler, Kala Wetzel, Nicole Thomas and Michael McNeely

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WBENC 2022: Teresa Williams and Re’Nauta Bell with Cushman & Wakefield

September 21, 2022 by angishields

Re-Nauta-Bell-Teresa-Williams-GWBC-WBENC-National-Conference

GWBC Radio

WBENC 2022: Teresa Williams and Re'Nauta Bell with Cushman & Wakefield

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Teresa Williams and Re’Nauta Bell, Cushman & Wakefield

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for GWBC Radio’s Open for Business. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Lee Kantor here. Here we are live at WBENC’s National Conference and we’re inside the booth of GWBC, at booth 1812, if you want to come by and check us out. Right now, we have Re’Nauta Bell and Teresa Williams with Cushman Wakefield. Welcome, ladies.

Teresa Williams: [00:00:33] Thank you.

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:00:34] Thank you for having us.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:35] Well, I’m so excited. For the one person out there who doesn’t know about Cushman Wakefield, why don’t one of you give a little bit of an elevator pitch of how you’re serving folks?

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:00:44] We are a commercial real estate company and we are here to support the Greater Women’s Business Council with finding diverse vendors.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:53] And how did you guys get into this line of work? Were you always working in diversity or HR, or how did that come about?

Teresa Williams: [00:01:02] Well, I’ll dive in. I kind of fell into the industry. Maybe more appropriately, I think I kicked my way into the industry. I basically took a leap of faith. I sold my business and I decided that I wanted to do commercial real estate after being exposed to it. And I have had my husband set up some meetings for me and I basically crashed a couple of them, and this is where I landed. And it’s been a beautiful, beautiful experience. And I’m here today, because of an amazing woman, Kayla Dang, who is the CEO of GMI Group, who’s also a member of the Greater Women’s Business Council. So, so happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:39] So, now, did you start in residential real estate and move to commercial or?

Teresa Williams: [00:01:44] So, actually, I started—I was in the residential sector, but on the finance side, so I was doing home mortgages, and then we ventured off into commercial mortgages, and that’s when things got interesting.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:57] It’s a different world, right?

Teresa Williams: [00:01:58] Yeah. Yeah. I really loved it. And it was just—it made sense to me. So, doing what I do today, representing occupiers who are looking for office space made a lot of sense.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:09] Now, in residential, a lot of women are involved in that. Is that the same in commercial or is that a more male-dominated industry?

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:02:18] Very, very good call out. It is at some point in time, so that’s why we would like to change that footprint, right? So, we’re here at this conference and we’re looking for diverse suppliers, not just women, but all genres, of course.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:33] Well, because it’s such an opportunity for folks. I would think that this is something that there’s a lot of people that if they would just open their mind to it and become aware of the opportunity, there would be a lot of people flocking to you.

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:02:44] Very much so. And actually, that’s why we’re here. So, with Cushman & Wakefield, we want to expand our diversity within all of our—sorry, with all of our business lines. So, if there are companies out there that do any type of roofing, electrical maintenance, anything within that building envelope, we need those suppliers.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:06] Right. And you have to become aware of them and they have to become aware of you. Now, it’s fascinating to me because people may not be aware of all the different kind of ways that Cushman Wakefield serves a market. Can you talk about, like you mentioned, some of the services, but there’s a whole plethora of services that address this market, right? It’s not the obvious ones. oh, I’m going to rent somebody’s space. There are lots of people that touch a building.

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:03:30] Like janitorial services. Move and change, so that’s like moving services. We also janitorial, already said that, landscape and snow removal. Anybody who does any HVAC, we have so many different categories and we need the diversity throughout. And it can even be a sub. They don’t have to be the first tier.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:57] So, any service that touches any of the work done in the building is somebody you want to get to know, right?

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:04:05] Exactly.

Teresa Williams: [00:04:06] Inside and outside the building.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:07] Right. It’s not just the person, like I said, that rents the space.

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:04:11] Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:12] And I think that people—I think some small businesses sell themselves short. They think too small. They’re not kind of expanding their mindset of, well, I do this one thing, but there’s lots and lots of people that might benefit from knowing that I do that.

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:04:26] Exactly. And I don’t know how this is going to be broadcast, but if they can find us as we’re walking through this conference today, what they can do is we’ll allow them, we’ll scan our barcode, and then they can go into our database.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:44] And so, they can add their name to a directory, so that-

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:04:46] Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:48] And then, let people know that Cushman Wakefield’s all over the place. There’s not just one office right there.

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:04:54] We’re national. We’re actually global.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:55] Global, right.

Teresa Williams: [00:04:56] Yes. We have over 450 employees. Shoot, I can’t remember how many offices we have, but we are located in 60 different countries. Actually, that was 450 offices, 53,000 employees, 60 countries.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:12] Yeah. So, you have—the world is really your oyster when it comes to this. And if I—like say I’m a janitorial service provider, and I partner with Cushman Wakefield, and say I’m in Minneapolis, is that something that, now, I’m in the database, so if somebody needs me in an adjoining market, they might call me as well, right?

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:05:31] They will search for that region, they’ll search for that service, and it’ll connect us to the right folks, the managers that lead that.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:39] Right. So, there’s really no reason not to put your name in the hat.

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:05:43] Exactly.

Teresa Williams: [00:05:44] It’s a great opportunity for you to expand your business as well. Say you serve just the Atlanta market, you’re interested in expanding, contracts can afford you that opportunities.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:54] Now, how do you attack an event like this WBENC National Conference? Are you just kind of walking around meeting people? Are you doing those kind of things?

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:06:04] Actually, we have clients here.

Teresa Williams: [00:06:04] Yeah, it’s very targeted.

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:06:06] Very targeted, right. So, it is speed dating. If someone sees our brand or our name on our-

Lee Kantor: [00:06:12] You want to meet people.

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:06:13] Exactly, we do, right? But we also have clients here that we are working with. And so, we’ll be at their booth and we’ll speak to people as they come up as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:23] Right. So, are you divide and conquer, or you are a team here?

Teresa Williams: [00:06:27] We divide, we conquer, we come back together, and then we do it all over again, so yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:33] Now, it’s been a minute since these conferences have happened. Everything’s been virtual. How has that been for you to kind of go around? And I’m sure there’s been a lot more hugging today there’s been in probably months.

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:06:43] I know.

Teresa Williams: [00:06:44] Yeah. I saw some people I haven’t seen since before the pandemic, and it’s been a huge love fest, so I’m so happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:52] Right. It’s like the world has opened up. It’s wild. So, if somebody wants to learn more about Cushman Wakefield, what’s the website, what’s the best coordinates to kind of learn about this program?

Teresa Williams: [00:07:03] You can reach us at www.cushmanwakefield.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:08] And then, kind of drill down to supplier diversity, where would they go in the website, do you know?

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:07:12] I would say supplier diversity or category management. That will lead you to our category managers for each category that I named earlier in the program, janitorial services.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:25] Right. So, you can put your information in the appropriate place?

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:07:29] Exactly.

Teresa Williams: [00:07:30] And we do have champions for our partners, so it’s not a situation where our partners sign up and-

Lee Kantor: [00:07:37] I know, forgotten, right?

Teresa Williams: [00:07:38] Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:38] There’s somebody on the team that’s going to come back behind there and really help them be successful.

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:07:43] Absolutely. Exactly.

Teresa Williams: [00:07:44] And that’s the whole point.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:46] Well, thank you both for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Teresa Williams: [00:07:50] Thank you.

Re’Nauta Bell: [00:07:50] Thank you for having us. We appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:52] Alright. This is Lee Kantor. We’re broadcasting live from the WBENC National Conference 2022 inside the GWBC booth. We’ll be back in a few.

About WBENC

The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) is a leading non-profit organization dedicated to helping women-owned businesses thrive.

We believe diversity promotes innovation, opens doors, and creates partnerships that fuel the economy. That’s why we not only provide the most relied upon certification standard for women-owned businesses, but we also offer the tools to help them succeed.

About GWBC

The Greater Women’s Business Council (GWBC®) is at the forefront of redefining women business enterprises (WBEs). An increasing focus on supplier diversity means major corporations are viewing our WBEs as innovative, flexible and competitive solutions. The number of women-owned businesses is rising to reflect an increasingly diverse consumer base of women making a majority of buying decision for herself, her family and her business.

GWBC^® has partnered with dozens of major companies who are committed to providing a sustainable foundation through our guiding principles to bring education, training and the standardization of national certification to women businesses in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.