[Women Presidents’ Organization Series] Bring It to Life

Lara Nikola

Lara Nikola is the Founder and President of Smart Sips Coffee, an exciting brand of unique flavored coffees, decaf, lattes, cappuccinos, and hot chocolate. She is an award-winning entrepreneur who has been featured on Good Morning America, where she swam with the sharks from Shark Tank. She has been interviewed on Fox and Friends, Money Magazine, and iHeartRadio. Lara was featured on the cover of NJBIZ and in ROI-NJ. Her products have been featured in US Weekly and Reader’s Digest.

Lara left her corporate advertising career eight years ago to start Smart Sips Coffee and has grown the company into a successful national brand. Her diverse marketing expertise helped her level the digital playing field and compete in the highly competitive coffee space. She created a niche building a brand based on creativity, innovation, and products that insert excitement into the daily coffee drinking routine. She is a member of the WPO, Women Presidents’ Organization, and a Women’s Business Enterprise National Council certified company. Through her exemplary leadership, exceptional community advocacy work, and sustainable competitive edge, Lara has received numerous outstanding accolades and recognition. She is a New Jersey native, wife, and mother of two.

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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

  • Lara Nikola talks about her drive to become an entrepreneur and start Smart Sips Coffee
  • Lara discusses working with her husband, her coffee flavors, the value of listening to customers, and what she is currently working on
  • How Lara leads like a woman — and how Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO) has impacted her life and business
  • The most impactful piece of advice Lara has received from a mentor
  • What is the most challenging part of growing and scaling a business?
  • Lara’s advice for young females going into entrepreneurship
  • What Lara loves most about her work and where to find her flavored coffee products
  • Lara talks about her superpower and shares her contact details

In this episode…

Building a new business can be very challenging for first-time women entrepreneurs, especially if they don’t have a supportive community of fellow business owners. Some people may not understand what the entrepreneur is trying to build and may even try to discourage them from pursuing their dreams.

Having gone through this same challenge and learning from experience, Lara Nikola empowers other women and helps provide the resources they need to build successful businesses. She advises and encourages them to keep moving forward despite all the obstacles they face in their entrepreneurial journey. She also encourages them to embrace failure, pivot when things hit a wall, and pay attention to what their customers say.

Lara Nikola, the Founder and President of Smart Sips Coffee, joins Andrea Heuston in this episode of the Lead Like A Woman Show, where she talks about building a flavored coffee brand and empowering women leaders. Lara also explains why she became an entrepreneur and talks about some of the challenges she has faced scaling her business. Stay tuned for more!

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Artitudes Design by Andrea Heuston. Artitudes Design is an award-winning creative agency that has been creating visual communication for Fortune 500 companies for over 25 years. They have worked with notable companies such as Microsoft, Starbucks, Expedia, and have also served startups and nonprofit organizations.

They specialize in connecting speakers with audiences by creating visual value with presentations and through the creation of motion graphics, video, and content.

To learn more about Artitudes Design, visit their website today. Checkout their portfolio to see their previous projects, and contact them today to find out how they can help you bring your business a cut above the rest.

Just Start

Suzie Yorke

Suzie Yorke is the Founder and CEO of Love Good Fats and is on a mission to bring healthy fats back. A mom, 11-time Ironman competitor, and yoga enthusiast, Suzie spent years adhering to a low-fat diet only to hit a wall in her mid-40s. After reading Nina Teicholz’s best-seller, The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet, she immediately shifted to a high-fat, low-carb diet and felt better right away. While she loved the benefits of her new lifestyle, she found it challenging to find convenient good-fat snacks. Seeing a gap in the marketplace and a huge opportunity to help others through food, she developed Love Good Fats, a company that produces high-fat, low-carb, and low-sugar products. Today, she leads the brand’s expansion as it quickly becomes one of the fastest-growing bar brands in North America.

As a 30 year veteran of the CPG industry, Suzie has worked at high-profile companies such as Procter and Gamble, PepsiCo, Kraft, Heinz, and Weight Watchers. Utilizing her accomplished marketing background, personal journey, and deep devotion and passion for health, Suzie is on a mission to spread the word that fat is back — and sugar is out. She has been recognized several times since launching Love Good Fats including the 2019 Mumpreneur Startup Award, 2019 WXN Top 100 BMO Entrepreneur Award, and 2020 RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Ones to Watch Award.

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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

  • What drove Suzie Yorke into the food industry?
  • How Suzie started taking part in Ironman athletics, marathons, and triathlons
  • How changing jobs affected Suzie’s health — and how changing her diet helped solve the problem
  • What led to the success of Love Good Fats, and what are the most popular products from the brand?
  • How winning many awards has impacted Love Good Fats
  • The most impactful piece of advice Suzie has received from a mentor
  • Suzie’s advice to women looking to go into entrepreneurship
  • Suzie talks about her superpower and shares her contact details

In this episode…

Starting and building a successful business is similar to athletics; you have to start by taking small, directed steps every day and improve as you go along. The most important thing? Just start!

A good entrepreneur does not hang on to her idea for a long time, hoping to start a business someday in the future. Instead, you should start by taking small but well-directed steps towards building the kind of business you dream of. According to Suzie Yorke, you can start by creating samples of the products you envision, and then start production in small batches. This will help you launch your business on a path toward success.

Suzie Yorke, the Founder and CEO of Love Good Fats, is Andrea Heuston’s guest in this episode of the Lead Like A Woman Show where she talks about entrepreneurship and building a health-conscious food brand. Suzie also talks about her passion for athletics, her company’s most popular products, and how her marketing background helped grow and scale the brand to over $100 million in three years. Stay tuned.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Artitudes Design by Andrea Heuston. Artitudes Design is an award-winning creative agency that has been creating visual communication for Fortune 500 companies for over 25 years. They have worked with notable companies such as Microsoft, Starbucks, Expedia, and have also served startups and nonprofit organizations.

They specialize in connecting speakers with audiences by creating visual value with presentations and through the creation of motion graphics, video, and content.

To learn more about Artitudes Design, visit their website today. Checkout their portfolio to see their previous projects, and contact them today to find out how they can help you bring your business a cut above the rest.

[Women of EO] Less Thinking, More Doing

Shauna Swerland

Shauna Swerland is the Founder and CEO of Fuel Talent, a Seattle-based boutique recruiting firm. She started the company in 2013 after having been in the search industry for nearly 26 years. Prior to that, she spent two decades living in San Francisco and New York, opening eight offices, hiring, training, and managing over 100 recruiters all while building lasting relationships. When she returned home to Seattle, she realized there was a market need for a high-touch one-stop-shop that could service multiple recruiting needs within one firm.

Fuel Talent has since been recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies, largest woman-owned companies, and best workplaces in Washington State. In addition to her business, Shauna puts her energy into organizations and people that are helping serve the greater good. She is also an advisor for the University of Washington Women in Entrepreneurial Leadership Program. Outside of work, she loves to travel, spend time with her husband, David, their three beautiful children, and her dog, Marley.

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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

  • What drove Shauna Swerland to start Fuel Talent, and what has led to her success?
  • Shauna talks about her company’s culture, what fuels her, and how the idea for starting the What Fuels You podcast came about
  • What Shauna is currently doing to help people hire a strong team and scale their businesses
  • Shauna talks about delegating — and how her team develops structures for her company
  • The most impactful piece of advice Shauna has received from a mentor
  • Shauna’s recommendations for women looking to do something different with their life
  • Shauna talks about her superpower and shares her contact details

In this episode…

When running a business, some women tend to avoid taking on big projects because they don’t believe that they can get it done in the best way. However, they fail to realize that when executing a project, they don’t have to do everything themselves. This is where the power of delegation comes into play; they just need to ensure that they have the best team on board to take care of the different aspects of a given project.

Being a great leader, therefore, means that one does not have to do it all. Sometimes taking the first step is all that is needed. You don’t have to know how everything will work out, but you have to be bold enough to begin. If you have a strong conviction about your idea, then you must go for it. Once you take that first step towards your goal, you can delegate, support your team, and lead them to success.

In this episode of the Lead Like A Woman Show, Andrea Heuston is joined by Shauna Swerland, the Founder and CEO of Fuel Talent, to talk about fierce female leadership and thinking big. Shauna discusses her podcast, building her company’s culture, and how she helps other entrepreneurs in their hiring process. Stay tuned.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Artitudes Design by Andrea Heuston. Artitudes Design is an award-winning creative agency that has been creating visual communication for Fortune 500 companies for over 25 years. They have worked with notable companies such as Microsoft, Starbucks, Expedia, and have also served startups and nonprofit organizations.

They specialize in connecting speakers with audiences by creating visual value with presentations and through the creation of motion graphics, video, and content.

To learn more about Artitudes Design, visit their website today. Checkout their portfolio to see their previous projects, and contact them today to find out how they can help you bring your business a cut above the rest.

[Women of EO] There is Magic

Lou Cysewsk

Lou Cysewski is an activist, innovative strategist, and the Co-founder and CEO of the world’s first and only climate-neutral marketing and merchandise agency, Coolperx. The company was born out of her conviction to transform the corporate gifting industry from a toxic environmental polluter to a conscious connector of people and values.

Lou served as a nurse in the US Army and speaks regularly about her experiences building her business as a woman and a veteran. She has been featured in Fortune 500, Business Magazine, The Economist, Forbes, and MoneyGeek. She has also been listed as one of the top 100 trailblazing entrepreneurs of 2021. She lives in Seattle with her husband and daughter and currently serves on the board of the Kirkland Art Center. In her spare time, she loves swimming, playing tennis, and has recently begun learning to speak French.

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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

  • What drove Lou Cysewski to entrepreneurship?
  • How the name “Coolperx” came about
  • What has led to the success of Coolperx?
  • How the company promotes sustainable products and minimizes carbon emissions
  • The ways that Lou leads like a woman
  • Lou discusses her superpower and how to get in contact with her

In this episode…

For Lou Cysewski, building a value-based business is not only important but also meaningful. Her interest in entrepreneurship pulled her from nursing and took her to the merchandising industry, where she started working with her husband. However, she soon was concerned with the types of products people bought for gifting — and the toxicity found in many of those products. Lou set out to provide a solution to these issues and curate better products for people (and for the environment).

Lou founded Coolperx in a bid to promote sustainability both in her business and in the industry at large. She also created a flexible and fulfilling workplace for her employees that provided inclusivity and matched her values. Want to learn more about how Coolperx is changing the corporate gifting industry?

In this episode of the Lead Like A Woman Show, Lou Cysewski, the Co-founder and CEO of Coolperx, is interviewed by Andrea Heuston about promoting sustainability and building a value-based marketing and merchandise agency. Lou explains how her agency employs carbon offset programs, how she built a fully remote company, and her support of minority-owned businesses. Plus, Lou shares how Coolperx is positively impacting communities across the globe.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Artitudes Design by Andrea Heuston. Artitudes Design is an award-winning creative agency that has been creating visual communication for Fortune 500 companies for over 25 years. They have worked with notable companies such as Microsoft, Starbucks, Expedia, and have also served startups and nonprofit organizations.

They specialize in connecting speakers with audiences by creating visual value with presentations and through the creation of motion graphics, video, and content.

To learn more about Artitudes Design, visit their website today. Checkout their portfolio to see their previous projects, and contact them today to find out how they can help you bring your business a cut above the rest.

Something Good Will Come

Donna Childs

Donna Childs is the Founder and CEO of Prisere LLC, which she founded to develop capacity for climate and disaster risk resilience. Building on her previous experience as a senior executive in the reinsurance industry, Prisere was named one of the 50 most innovative startups by the Kauffman Foundation. Donna and Prisere have led projects for the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Asian Development Bank. She serves as the Risk Partnership Advisor to the Climate Change Group of the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery.

Donna began her career as a Research Associate at Harvard Business School, where she contributed to research and case development on insurance and risk management topics. She then worked on capital strategies and capital raising for global insurance companies as an investment banker on Wall Street. She subsequently served as a Senior Columnist for Dow Jones, where her commentary on insurance and risk were featured in The Wall Street Journal. Donna is also the author of an acclaimed book on small business disaster preparation and recovery, a past winner at the International Women’s Entrepreneurial Challenge, and recipient of the Woman Business Owner of the Year award by the National Association of Women Business Owners. She holds a BS from Yale University, an MBA from Columbia Business School, and is a graduate of the Owner/President Management Program at Harvard Business School.

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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

  • What inspired Donna Childs to start her own firm?
  • How the 9/11 tragedy impacted Donna’s life and the lessons she learned from the experience
  • How Donna picked herself up and went into disaster recovery consulting after 9/11 
  • Donna’s journey to success with Prisere — and what the name ‘Prisere’ means for her
  • Donna talks about her book and explains how she leads like a woman
  • The best piece of advice Donna has ever received from a mentor and her advice for a woman working through a major life change
  • Donna talks about her superpower and shares her contact details

In this episode…

Regardless of how much people prepare for possible future disasters, sometimes the unexpected happens and tragedy strikes. This always leads to major shifts in people’s lives, and in most cases, people experience long-term effects of the disaster.

After the 9/11 tragedy, Donna Childs’ life changed. She was left homeless and had to close her business. Her emotional and physical being were affected, and she often had nightmares months after the disaster. She, however, was able to get back on track and help other people and businesses with disaster management through her company, Prisere LLC.

Donna Childs, the Founder and CEO of Prisere LLC, is Andrea Heuston’s guest in this episode of the Lead Like A Woman Show, where she talks about her experience overcoming tragedy and helping others prepare for disaster management. Donna also explains how Prisere LLC was founded, her process of writing a book, and her advice for those working through a life change or disaster. Stay tuned.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Artitudes Design by Andrea Heuston. Artitudes Design is an award-winning creative agency that has been creating visual communication for Fortune 500 companies for over 25 years. They have worked with notable companies such as Microsoft, Starbucks, Expedia, and have also served startups and nonprofit organizations.

They specialize in connecting speakers with audiences by creating visual value with presentations and through the creation of motion graphics, video, and content.

To learn more about Artitudes Design, visit their website today. Checkout their portfolio to see their previous projects, and contact them today to find out how they can help you bring your business a cut above the rest.