Description

What is the Featured Panelists Spotlight?

Our Featured Panelists Spotlight will be held every first Wednesday of each month. During the Featured Panelists Spotlight, we invite guest panelists to share their experiences, insights, tips and strategies that they have found to be effective in their professional or personal lives when tackling the featured topic for the month.

October Featured Topic – What to Expect When Quitting Your Corporate Job to Become an Entrepreneur? 

This is a topic we had previously tackled but we are bringing this topic back due to popular demand.

According to a recent Inc. Magazine article, women start about 849 new businesses on a daily basis in the US and over the past 20 years, the number of women-owned firms has increased 114%, bringing women owned businesses to their largest market share.  Oftentimes, a person may decide to start their own business because of necessity, such as layoffs and looking for extra income.  So, if someone has a well-paying corporate job and is on the right path to move up the corporate ladder, why would she choose to her corporate job with the guaranteed salary for an uncertain future of starting her own business? Is it the desire to create something of her own, be the one calling the shots, have more flexibility in her schedule, or something else? We have the pleasure of speaking with a few incredible women who have chosen to take the bold step of leaving their corporate job to embark on their own adventure of being an entrepreneur. We want to hear what made them choose their new path, how do they decide it was the right path for them, how they made that transition and what insights they want to share about making that major career change.

There is no easy path to succeeding as an entrepreneur, it takes a lot of hard work but the rewards can be incredibly gratifying, as you will hear from our panelists.  As a woman entrepreneur, it is even harder, as women continue to struggle with gaining respect in the entrepreneurial community. According to an article in Fortune Magazine, female-founded companies only received 2 percent of venture capital funding in 2017. We will also hear from our panelists on how they continue to make strides in their entrepreneurial pursuits despite this and other challenges.

Panelists

Leigh Allen-Arredondo is a certified life and leadership coach where she supports UX leaders at all levels to maximize their potential & create their ideal future, align to their values, and lead with their strengths. She is also the founder & host of the UX Cake podcast, amplifying voices and ideas that strengthen the UX community around the globe. Before becoming a coach full-time in her own business, Leigh has spent over 20 years leading teams and driving product design & research at companies large and small, from Amazon, to start-ups and agencies, and was most recently, the head of UX at Brooks Running.

Sonja Kassebaum, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of North Shore Distillery, LLC.  Sonja started out as an attorney in a law firm, then became Global Human Resource Director for a publicly held, multinational consulting technology firm for several years, before deciding to take the big leap away from the corporate world to become a co-founder of the first craft distillery in Illinois (and now the oldest craft distillery in Illinois, est. 2004), a thriving small business selling beautifully crafted spirits across the Midwest. She is an innovative leader with a penchant for problem solving, navigating through regulations and other complexities, and achieving business goals. And, she’s a die-hard cocktail nerd and an avid learner, still discovering new aspects of running a small business as the competitive landscape continues to evolve and change.

Who Can Attend & Fee

Public Event – Open to all members and non-members of The Koa Club

Location/ Date & Time

Online via Zoom only:

us02web.zoom.us/j/83100990792

ID: 83100990792

Date:  Wednesday, October 5, 2022

Time: 12pm – 1:00pmPT/2pm-3pmCT/3pm-4pmET