Women Empowering Women And Telling Their Stories

Merrilee Buchanan and Carol Storey working to empower women around the globe. Merrilee runs Villa Leadership Group, working to consult, train and coach women to successfully take on greater leadership roles. Carol writes their stores on the Villa Blog.

Interview with Carol Storey, the Co-founder/blogger of The Villa blog.

The following is the pre-interview with Carol Storey. Be sure to watch the recorded interview above.

What is the problem you solve and how do you solve it?

Many women feel isolated today and do not have a community to connect with or realistic relatable role models to turn to for inspiration and guidance. The Villa blog provides a forum for all women who are looking for answers and direction to support their goals and needs.

More about The Villa blog:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ourvillanetwork/

Website: https://www.ourvillanetwork.com/

The Villa is our blog, designed to bring women from all countries and cultures to our community to enrich their collective experience through shared stories about inspiring, real women who are authentic, who’ve taken risks, and who have experienced as many failures as successes and possess the courage to keep moving forward in spite of the fear. Our readers may not find women we feature on the covers of business magazines as the most powerful or the most celebrated, but they will find in their stories something that will help them see that they aren’t alone in their own big dreams and self-doubts.

For-profit/Nonprofit: For-profit

Revenue model: It doesn’t….yet. But it will someday

Scale: The Villa blog is a joint venture between Carol Storey L.C.S.W. and Merrilee Buchanan, L.C.S.W.. While separate from Villa Leadership Group, the blog addresses important and salient issues that all women face, and The Villa blog and Villa Leadership Group interface with each other. Our group also includes Meagan Nielsen, Business Manager, and Haley Fields, owner of Orenda Marketing, who does our digital and social media marketing.

Photo Credit: Purple Moss Photography

Carol Storey’s bio:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carol-storey-b48aa98/

Carol is a clinical social worker and mom of three grown kids (two sons, one daughter). Her favorite kid at the moment is her 2 year old grandson, Win. Her second favorite kid is Mollie the pug and she won’t say who her least favorite kid is because it changes daily.

Here’s what she likes:

Yoga, hiking, golf, photography, biking, travel (especially in Europe), reading, vacationing with her family, hanging out in her meditation garden reading and playing with Win, eating, cooking, babies, animals, especially elephants and monkeys, peanut butter, wearing shorts, t-shirts and flip flops.

Here’s what she doesn’t like:

Cleaning her house, especially bathrooms and kitchens, running as exercise, scary movies, ghosts (even though she thinks her 100 year-old house has a friendly one), spiders, snakes or zoos (even though she takes Win once in a while).

Interview with Merrilee Buchanan, the Founder and Principal Consultant of Villa Leadership Group LLC.

The following is the pre-interview with Merrilee Buchanan. Be sure to watch the recorded interview above.

What is the problem you solve and how do you solve it?

Women make up approximately 50% of today’s workforce worldwide, but only 15-24% of senior leaders across corporate, non-profit, and government organizations are female. Research repeatedly demonstrates that balanced numbers of male and female leaders in decision-making positions produces better business results and more sustainable outcomes. We help organizations build their talent pipelines with capable women leaders, promote cultures of diversity, balance and inclusion, and build environments in which everyone can thrive.

More about Villa Leadership Group LLC:

Facebook: facebook.com/VillaLeadership

Website: www.villaleadership.com

Villa Leadership Group provides consulting and development services to individuals, companies and organizations to help them build cultures of diverse and inclusive leadership. Primarily, we promote and facilitate women’s leadership and career development programs to prepare more women for senior leadership and influence. We do this through multi-day workshops, strategic consulting, executive coaching, presentations, team sessions and public speaking.

For-profit/Nonprofit: For-profit

Revenue model: Our revenue comes primarily through fee-for-service contracts and engagements for our consulting and development services. We work with large, medium and small companies, as well as individuals who seek executive coaching. A small portion of our income is generated through the sale of profile assessments; however, we generally package assessments as part of our coaching and development services.

Scale: We are a small boutique consulting operation with two full-time employees and a handful of contract facilitators who work for us on specific engagements. We typically provide 6-8 national and international multi-day programs per year (which include follow-up virtual coaching), 10-12 academy-style leadership development programs (one group working together monthly), 8-10 local/national workshops each year, as well as a variety of individual coaching contracts and public speaking engagements. We average gross sales of approximately $350k each year.

Merrilee Buchanan’s bio:

Twitter: @merrileeb

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/merrileebuchanan/

As a seasoned executive coach, organizational strategist and transformational leadership consultant, Merrilee brings more than 20 years of experience in helping individuals and companies move from “Point A to Point B”—in leadership, culture, career management, and business success.

Skilled in strengths-based talent and leadership development, Merrilee has worked at all levels of organizations from senior executive teams to new manager development. She has specialized expertise in designing and implementing women’s leadership and career development programs, and developing strategies within organizations to build cultures of inclusive leadership. She has extensive international experience working with rising women leaders from diverse cultures, ethnicities and backgrounds, and in enhancing collective intelligence in organizations for collaborative business success.

Merrilee’s experience includes work with organizations such as Unilever, the United Nations World Food Programme, Mars/Wrigley, FedEx, GE, National Cinemedia, UNS Energy, TSMC North America, MediaTek, Lee Enterprises, Myriad Genetics, Avalon Healthcare, Sklar-Wilton, vivid connections, Sheplers, The Smuin Ballet Company, and many individual executives from a variety of other organizations. She also served as part-time faculty consultant for the European Business Technology Office for McKinsey Consulting. She is the founder and principal of Villa Leadership and Chocolate Villa, organizations dedicated to developing women for senior leadership and improving gender-balanced leadership for business success.

Merrilee has a BS in Communications and a Masters in Social Work from the University of Utah. She holds certifications in the EQi 2.0, the 16PF, Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI), and the DiSC.

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Devin is a journalist, author and corporate social responsibility speaker who calls himself a champion of social good. With a goal to help solve some of the world’s biggest problems by 2045, he focuses on telling the stories of those who are leading the way! Learn more at DevinThorpe.com!

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