‘Challange Accepted’ | Knoxville’s female leaders shared tips for success
In the first event of its kind in Knoxville, women from various industries gathered to learn leadership skills.
A large portion of Knoxville’s women in leadership gathered under the protection of the pavilion at Dara’s Garden during the torrential downpour on Wednesday morning. Despite the less-than-ideal weather, humidity, and driving conditions, every woman showed up with a spirit of energy and attentiveness for the Gallagher Knoxville Women in Leadership breakfast.
Maria Mchale, the former Director of Communications for MoxCar, was the first to engage Knoxville’s leaders with a discussion on personal branding.
“Who are you outside of what you do for business,” she asked the attendees to ponder. “What is your favorite thing about yourself, and what value do you believe you add to the community?”
McHale has spent the last decade building her personal brand in the Knoxville business community. Additionally, she has represented and provided communications for dozens of brands in the Knoxville area.
After McHale’s icebreaker, Sandy Michelet took the stage for a moving keynote address. She is the Vice President of Human Resources for Sparkhound‘s growing team of 250+ employees and four regional offices. However, she didn’t speak with the women in the room about IT Services, or even human resources, instead, she spoke about the very personal journey she had discovering her brand, purpose, and life calling.
She opened up with the story of her pregnancy journey. Michelet shared that one in eight women struggle with infertility and getting pregnant and that she was one of those women.
“There was so much pain and shame with that,” she said. “The longer I went through this journey, the greater the hole in my heart became.”
Unfortunately, Michelet was never able to get pregnant, after ten years of trying. Heartbroken and hurting, she didn’t know where to turn. At that time, nobody was talking about infertility.
So, Michelet created the community she needed.
She launched The Childless Life community both through a website and on Facebook, and today has connected with more than 3,000 women all over the country who have gone through the same battle.
“Shared experiences build relationships,” she said. “But, it takes vulnerability to find those shared experiences.”
Michelet went on to share with attendees the importance of building relationships, networking, and leaning on those connections. She emphasized the value of asking others for help and accepting help when it is offered.
After the keynote, attendees discussed how they could help and empower other budding leaders in their places of work.
Like what you've read?
Forward to a friend!