AWL Alumni Spotlight

Describe the six months you spent in the Bloombase experience for Advanced Women Leaders.
The experience for me was a great way to take a step back from the corporate culture I had been immersed in for a decade. My job was my life. I felt like the AWL experience was a great opportunity to step back from what was overall a positive corporate culture, to get some perspectives from different people outside of my organization. It allowed me to broaden my perspective of what leadership could look like as well as form relationships with people from different industries and from different types of backgrounds.
 
Describe the benefits of being a part of the post AWL community.
I’ve seen the benefit of having a community of women to build relationships with over time. Traditional “networking” to me is not appealing at all. But, knowing this is a group of women who have gone through the same AWL experience, and we have that foundation in common, is powerful. 

What would you say to someone else considering this experience?
This is a great experience for someone who recognizes that they need the space to step away from the day to day and look inward, at themselves. Before my AWL experience I spent most of my time thinking about my direct reports and their development, and didn’t take the time to think about my own. I had the chance to be very introspective during AWL and get clear about what I needed to work on as a leader. I know a lot of other women have this tendency too - to focus on others. AWL is a chance, one a month, to completely focus on your own goals and not those of others.

What is the greatest ROI for this investment you made in yourself?
Having the confidence and courage to take the next steps. The immediate next steps, in my case, were having some difficult conversations inside my organization to influence the change that I knew needed to happen. And then longer term, a year or two down the road, it was the courage to recognize, ‘okay I wasn’t able to influence to the extent that I wanted to, so now it’s time for me to make a change.’ And I don’t know that, without AWL, I would have found the clarity or taken the time to map out what I wanted to accomplish. AWL gave me a process to do it and the courage to act.

I feel like I am fulfilling my purpose when I am… helping people make sense of their feelings about money.

My favorite way to spend an afternoon by myself is… running on a quiet trail.

To me, leadership is… being authentic in one’s desire to help others.

What gets you out of bed in the morning? A new podcast in my feed to listen to during my sunrise run gets me out of bed in the morning.

The legacy that I want to leave is… Improving my profession and workplace so that more women enter the field of financial planning. A bonus legacy would be if I were able to successfully raise kids who are decent human beings!

The values/behaviors that are most important to me are… integrity and sincerity.

Something that makes my life ridiculously fun is… amazing girlfriends who are always willing to do something wild and crazy.