The Power of Partnering (POP) is a half-day event where women entrepreneurs, business leaders, corporations and procurement professionals come together to train, network and create matchmaker opportunities to help create and reach procurement and business goals.
Each agenda includes educational resources from thought leadership and subject matter experts and the opportunity to showcase your capabilities statements in a meet the buyer setting or matchmaker sessions.
Lynn Cowart’s career spans multiple industries working with senior leaders in support of their long term strategic goals in talent management and learning and development.
Through the lens of retention, engagement and career development, her corporate experience with GE, Martin Marietta and Lockheed Martin has helped propel her clients to consistently achieve operational success through value creation.
In her role as Chief Operations Officer of Talent Dimensions, Lynn is responsible for global delivery and solutions development, along with ensuring organizational excellence for Talent Dimensions and its clients.
Lynn recently co-authored the book, ‘Up is Not the Only Way – Rethinking Career Mobility’ with Bev Kaye and Lindy Williams, challenging leaders and employees to re-imagine what it takes to achieve ultimate career success through a true mobility mindset.
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: 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: Lee Kantor here broadcasting live at the GWBC Power of Partnering event at Georgia Power Headquarters. So excited to be talking to Lynn Cowart with Talent Dimensions. Welcome.
Lynn Cowart: Hey, thank you. Great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Lee Kantor: Well, I am excited to learn about Talent Dimensions. How are you serving folks?
Lynn Cowart: Well, we first serve in a number of different ways. Talent Dimensions is a talent management company and we serve the continuum of engagement, retention, belonging, career development, diversity, equity, and inclusion. So our goal or our vision is to be the company that serves and partners with organizations to help them bring their best and brightest people to work and have their people bring all of themselves to the workplace.
Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? Have you always been involved in this line of work?
Lynn Cowart: Pretty much. So, yeah. My corporate background was in GE, human resources, and came – did a number of consulting gigs in the Atlanta area after closing shop in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and have always been in the talent management field in some way, shape or form. And this is the epitome of being able to do our best and highest work.
Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for you and your firm to get involved with GWBC?
Lynn Cowart: Gosh, this has been a goal of ours. We’ve been in existence for six and a half years as an organization, and this has been a goal of ours for the entire time. It was just a matter of getting to it. It’s a great partnering organization, great networking. We’ve received tremendous support from GWBC as well as with WBENC. And this is – we’re just thrilled to be here.
Lee Kantor: Now, how are you going to kind of attack this kind of an event? This Power Partnering event is so important for the community as well as the organization. So how does an attendee like yourself kind of take advantage of all that’s offered here?
Lynn Cowart: Gosh, that’s a great question. That’s a loaded question. I’m here just to be a sponge. This is actually the first formal event that we’ve attended since we were just certified earlier this year, and I’m just looking to understand more about others, how we can partner with others, but also how we can support each other in this, in this event.
Lee Kantor: Now, in your career, how have you been able to kind of take advantage of education like this here? Are you going for the speakers? Are you going to the networking opportunities with other kind of firms like yours, or looking at it as a business opportunity where, “hey, there’s some corporates here that I might be able to get onto their radar”?
Lynn Cowart: Yes, yes and yes all the way across. Now, we’re looking to just just like I say, partner in any way, shape or form, certainly provide any services that are needed or that would be helpful, ability to speak, hear speakers. You know, the business climate is changing so quickly. The way that we work, how we work, where we work, that it’s really, really important for individuals to keep on top of it and keep ahead of the curve.
Lee Kantor: Now, who is kind of the avatar, the ideal client profile for your firm?
Lynn Cowart: Anybody who’s got people working as their employees.
Lee Kantor: And so they could be in office, remote, it doesn’t matter?
Lynn Cowart: Yeah. Remote, in office. Global. Yeah. We have large clients. I mean, you know, Fortune 100 companies as well as smaller companies that are less than 500 people. But they’re just looking to strengthen their highest resource, which is their people, in ways that they hadn’t thought about before. So we offer creative ideas.
Lee Kantor: Now, any advice for the candidates out there? How do they kind of rise above the, you know, the masses? How do they kind of distinguish themselves when they’re looking?
Lynn Cowart: That’s a great – that’s a great question, too. I think it’s just being curious. I think the big word is being curious, understand more about who you’re talking to, what the need is and most specifically, how you can fill the need based on your experience. It’s not so much jobs or skill sets, but your experiences. It’s all about experiential base.
Lee Kantor: Now, is LinkedIn, is that a must have kind of resource or is it a nice to have resource?
Lynn Cowart: It’s a must have. Yeah. Just to keep on top of what’s going on in the industry to read the daily postings, understand who’s who in the community, and most importantly, show, you know, show the – or show the world what you have to offer to by virtue of thought leadership, content, solutions, things like that.
Lee Kantor: So that’s something that if you’re a candidate and you’re looking, you should be kind of investing some time on creating thought leadership things and posting things so that you can be found by people like you.
Lynn Cowart: Yes, exactly. And really show your interest in and, again, it goes back to curiosity. Right? Going back and understanding what’s – what the others are looking for and how you could really do your research to be more present in the organization, present in the conversation.
Lee Kantor: So if somebody wanted to connect with you and have more substantive conversation, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?
Lynn Cowart: Probably a couple of different ways. Talent – and talent-dimensions.com is our website. My personal email is lynn.cowart, C-O-W-A-R-T, @talent-dimensions.com. LinkedIn. You know, Lynn dot Cowart or Lynn Cowart would be a way or Talent Dimensions website. A LinkedIn post is a place to go as well. We’re constantly posting things. We’ve got a great webinar coming up tomorrow about choosing respect in the workplace. So if anybody would like to join that, you can find that on LinkedIn and our Talent Dimension space.
Lee Kantor: And then if there’s a potential client out there, that’s a way to kind of ease into a relationship with you. Maybe, have you host a lunch and learn or some sort of a webinar or something along those lines?
Lynn Cowart: Absolutely. We’d love to hear more about what’s going on in the community and use our marketing database to provide webinars that kind of shed some light on what’s going on in the community.
Lee Kantor: Well, Lynn, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.
Lynn Cowart: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll be back in a few at GWBC’s Power of Partnering event.
