Hong Tran is the Operations Services Director for the Baptist Heart & Vascular Institute of Baptist Health Care. She is involved in the development and implementation of growth and operational strategies for the cardiovascular service line. She has been in the health care industry for over 12 years. In addition, she is a co-lead of the Team Member Engagement culture team, who focuses on efforts to retain top talent in the organization.
Born in Hong Kong and raised in Pensacola, Florida, Hong is an active member of the community. She has a passion for mentorship and community advocacy. Hong serves on numerous boards, most recently as President of the Pensacola Young Professionals, a dynamic and driving force in the area. During her tenure, Mentor Pensacola, a mentorship program dedicated to connecting young professionals and community leaders, was implemented. In addition, she is a volunteer and Chair-Elect of the Northwest Florida Big Brothers Big Sisters Board. Hong is a graduate of Leadership Pensacola and Leadership Florida’s Connect Florida Class VI. She currently serves as the Co-Chair of Connect Florida’s Institute Program and on the Connect Florida Board of Directors.
Hong holds a BS in Business Administration from the University of Central Florida and dual Masters (MBA and MA) from the University of West Florida. Hong is a foodie and enjoys traveling and spending time with family and friends.
Kolleen Edwards Chesley has 25 years of experience in the financial services industry and spent the majority of her career as a financial advisor. In that role, Kolleen was responsible for finding her own clients and quickly learned the value of networking, networking, and even more networking. It was in 2004 and during her sales career that she, along with two other professional business women met for lunch with the purpose of helping to motivate each other after Hurricane Ivan had blown through our area and changed not only the physical landscape of the area, but also impacted the business landscape as well. Out of that lunch was born what is now a thriving not-for-profit organization for business women.
Kolleen currently serves full-time as the Founding Director of what was originally called Women’s Business Lunch and is now known as Powerful Women of the Gulf Coast. The organization advocates a culture of confidence building, lifelong learning, collaboration, empowering others and a spirit of charitable giving. The mission of Powerful Women of the Gulf Coast is to promote, advance and improve women in business and the organization accomplishes these in a number of different ways.
– Monthly networking meetings in Pensacola and Gulf Breeze. These are open to all women and free to attend. We run a structured meeting with open networking, an educational segment, a sponsor presentation, an opportunity to hear about the businesses of all attendees, and a whole lot of fun. We frequently hear from attendees that these meeting are chock full of value and a great way to build new relationships to help support their businesses.
– Powerful Women of the Gulf Coast Magazine. We are in our third year of production of the magazine and our goal is for this to be a quarterly publication. Each edition features interviewees of local successful leaders in business who share their honest thoughts on leadership, success, obstacles, and inspiration as it relates to women in business. We also include other articles on leadership, networking, and other skill development. It is geared for anyone in business or looking for business motivation and tips.
– Annual Pursue Your Passion Women’s conference. To help celebrate National Business Women’s Week, we hold a full day conference during the third week of October along with several other events leading up to the conference. We feature a national keynote speaker, several local successful leaders in business, along with Speed Networking, an Experience Hall, structured and unstructured networking exercises and plenty of laughter, relationship building and excitement. Our attendees are not only motivated by the conference but they leave with tangible tips they can take back and implement in their businesses to lead them to success.
– Power Up Challenge is a 12 week educational series where we hold classes once a week for an hour and a half focused around four main areas of business: Networking, Marketing, Business Efficiency, and Sales Skills. Open to men and women and all classmates (whether they attend in person or not) receive the full audio recording of each class along with class notes, expanded notes, and extra resources. Classes are affordable and attendees are elated with the amount and quality of the information that is shared.
– Women in Leadership radio podcast show – sponsored by Pensacola Business Radio X. We hold shows twice a month and bring in mostly women but some men for in-depth interviews. Interviewees share their advice on topics such as mentoring, keys to success, time management tools, personal mantras and favorite inspirations, and what men can do to help support women in business.
Membership in Powerful Women of the Gulf Coast is also available. Contact kolleen@powerfulwomengulfcoast.com for more information or visit our website at powerfulwomengulfcoast.com or Facebook at Powerful Women of the Gulf Coast.
