Andy Risvold is the owner and founder of Forgotten Star Brewing. He is a serial entrepreneur and shares his leadership lessons and how he focuses on the new leaders to ensure they have the space and support to learn as they transition to leading others. So many organizations and leaders don’t take the time to train and mentor leaders in their organization to build the skills they need to be successful leaders and managers.
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Alyza Bohbot James, Owner and CEO
Alakef Coffee Roasters and City Girl Coffee
As owner and CEO of Alakef Coffee Roasters, Alyza leads the specialty coffee roasting company that her family founded in 1990 in Duluth, Minnesota. Alakef Coffee Roasters today provides responsibly sourced and produced coffee to grocery stores, co-ops, coffee shops, Universities, and restaurants throughout the Midwest, and online to retailers and consumers.
Shortly after taking over company reins in 2014, she launched an entirely new brand, City Girl Coffee, in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market, featuring USDA Organic Certified blends. She is keeping Alakef’s longstanding support of the coffee industry alive – with a special focus on women. City Girl Coffee empowers women by sourcing as many beans as possible from women coffee farmers throughout the world. A portion of every sale goes to organizations that work to provide these women access to funding, education, resources, and more. In January of 2021, Alyza launched The City Girl Empower Hour, an inspiring new podcast serving up grounded advice and whole bean wisdom on how listeners can succeed in both their personal and professional lives.
Alyza takes an active role in the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and its Women in Leadership program. She is a member of the Minnesota Leadership class of 2017, and currently sits on the Minnesota Chamber’s Board of Directors. She was recognized by the Minneapolis Business Journal as a recipient of its 2017 40 under 40 award, and by Minnesota Business Magazine as one its Women Who Lead. Awarded the Future Forward award from the WBDC for her business acumen, marketing savvy and entrepreneurial spirit. Most recently, she was awarded the Wavemaker award by Team MN Women for making waves in her community, profession, and for her demonstration of outstanding achievement, entrepreneurial spirit and initiative through leadership within her profession and community.
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Kelly Aronson
Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer
Kelly is responsible for enterprise information technology strategy and implementation and providing strategic partner support to each of Andersen’s divisions and functions. Previously, she was vice president of information technology (IT) responsible for Andersen enterprise customer experience technology (marketing, sales, quote & order, service, and portal). She was also director of technology for Renewal by Andersen where she was responsible for all aspects of IT, including manufacturing technology and retail technology teams.
Kelly joined Andersen in the fall of 2014. Prior to Andersen, Kelly held a variety of IT leadership positions at Target, Thomson Reuters and Accenture. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in from Saint Olaf College. She is a board of trustee member for the Science Museum of Minnesota.
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David is the founder and CEO of multiple businesses. Most prominent among them is his longest-running company, ISU Corp. ISU is a custom software solutions company with clients ranging from start-ups to multi-million-dollar conglomerates like General Electric and Heinz. Located in Canada’s Silicon Valley, ISU Corp increases entrepreneurs’ net profits with exceptional custom software solutions. We have been granted awards like the “Best Innovative High-Tech Enterprise Software Company of the Year” from Global 100, and ACQ5’s “Game Changer of the Year” to attest to our excellence. Most recently, ISU Corp has been chosen as a recipient of the Canadian Business Excellence Award for the fifth year in a row as a recognition of our outstanding company culture and effective process (2018-2022). David Mansilla is passionate about inspiring others. A priority in his life is sharing his experiences in hopes of encouraging a new generation of entrepreneurs to reach their full potential. David is the host of The Break Free Podcast, where he invites a diverse set of guests to bring audiences valuable knowledge on living life on their own terms, whether it’s professionally or personally. David is also a #1 international bestselling author for his book, Breaking Out of Corporate Jail.
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Michael W Kithcart is a high-performance leadership and business coach, speaker, and creator of the Wynning Your Way method.
She helps business leaders and sales teams redefine success, re-engineer thinking and re-align actions so they can elevate their wellbeing AND deliver next level results.
Her 25-year career of leading, coaching and developing people and businesses is incorporated into her team workshops and executive coaching sessions to expand perspective as well as deliver proven, researched options for better results.
Her own experience battling achievement overload while juggling personal and external expectations influences how she helps leaders move from stuck to unstoppable so they are wynning their way in business and life.
Michael Kithcart
High Performance Leadership Coach
917-207-7009
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| Jen Tregarthen is a military veteran, purple heart recipient, huge supporter of veterans and one of the most vulnerable leaders I know. She brings a sense of logic and vulnerability to her leadership approach and through her work is able to help bring those same skillsets to her clients.
You can connect with Jen here to learn more about her and her work at Lockton Companies: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jen-tregarthen/ Here’s the video that Jen mentioned in the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWW-5Q_EzKM |
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This Minnesota professional has a history of turning small business into big business and connecting the brains of the Twin Cities community. With roles in several businesses as both an advisor and investor, co-founding a non-profit called Minneapolis HOPE, and proof of his incredible ability to grow an organization – it isn’t hard to believe that he has a knack for initiating and maintaining great relationships and great business. Aaron made his first major break-through at an office products distributor when he broke the first three years sales record that had been in place longer than he had been alive. Then, at age 29 he became Vice President of Sales leading the company into more profit and took a mediocre office furnishings division from bland to booming in 2 short years. That’s when he was noticed and recruited to join iSpace Environments as a Partner, which at the time was a medium sized office furnishings business. In 5 years, Aaron and his team led the company to 270% growth through brand awareness, strategic planning, and an unwavering commitment to excellence. He believes that his success is about being genuine in his desire to understand his client’s business with the passion to connect and to be a resource to others.
The beginning of this journey began in the summer of 2017. Aaron had just turned forty years old and found himself in a bit of a predicament. As a partner in a successful office furnishings and technology firm that had grown exponentially over the past few years, he should have been on top of the world. However, it was quite the contrary. It’s not like he was going through a mid-life crisis or anything, he was just missing something. So, Aaron took some time off to reflect and get to the root of what was causing this void. During his reflection it became abundantly clear how fortunate he was. He has lived a life filled with success and fantastic experiences, his wife is a complete rock star independent business owner, and they own a hobby farm with seven chickens. What’s not to love about that? Then it hit him. Aaron found himself asking “What am I doing to create purpose and solidify my legacy?”
After a couple years of consulting as a Revenue Strategist, the idea of Coalition9 was born. The C9 community was created around one simple premise. Bring good people together, regardless of their progress in the leadership journey, with a focus on Character First. We strive to create a community where a diversity of experiences in business and life is celebrated with a vision of Changing Business Nine Leaders at a Time.
Doing business with other Members should make life just a bit easier. Surrounding yourself with top leaders will push you to be your best. Focusing on the things that really matter – your impact on the business community and those you lead – will change you for the better. Lastly, we believe it’s highly important to make this financially accessible, yet exclusive, based on Character. We’re working hard to bring good people together to ignite a leadership revolution.
Aaron’s role as Chief Vision Officer is to ensure that we are driving the experience and community forward for the maximum positive impact on the lives of our Members. The role of the Members and facilitators is to guide this community and be a constant voice for growth, evolution, and relationship building. All Members will have access to and play a part in the well-being of the community, and their voices will be heard on how to continue providing an unmatched experience. Without the Members and their voices, we have nothing.
As someone who thrives on connection, Aaron takes great pride in building a relationship with every single Member. Together, we are building something really special here.
https://www.coalition9.com/aeggert-bio
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As a child born in a third-world country and living in four continents by the age of ten, Haydee learned not only to survive but thrive in disruption. Today, we need this ability more than ever as our world becomes more volatile and uncertain.
For twenty-two years Haydee’s high-energy, power content and practical solutions has impacted thousands of leaders and professionals globally from Government offices to Fortune 500 boardrooms. Together with her team she has also coached celebrities (even a Miss World and Miss Universe).
From being the youngest director of multinational L’Oréal to owning retail and manufacturing companies – her work and life lessons embody courage and triumph over adversity. Haydee’s book “Packaged For Success” ranked number one international Amazon bestseller in eleven categories. She is a CSP (certified speaking professional) a designation held by only 12% of professional speakers worldwide.
Not bad for a Bolivian girl who dreamed to speak English one day.
Haydee sees her biggest achievement as giving birth to twins at age 47, listens to everything ’80s, and loves her life in the Temecula wine region of SoCal.
Relevant links:
Haydee Website: http://www.haydeeantezana.comHaydee
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/haydeeantezana1
Haydee Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haydee-antezana-71500125/
Contact Haydee: haydee@haydeeantezana.com
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Barb Patterson partners with entrepreneurs and leaders across the globe to help them understand their purpose and impact and tap into their unlimited human potential. She joins us to talk about tapping into something new to solve issues and shares her own leadership journey and the pivotal points along the way. Connect with Barb to learn more about how she can support you or your team. barb@barbarapatterson.com
Connect with Barb:
Instagram: @barb_p
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbpatterson/
Facebook: Barb Patterson
Twitter: @Barb_Patterson
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