Women in Business
This page stores digital copies of the "Women in Business" gallery show presented at various colleges. In order to have a member come to your organization or school to present this gallery, please use the Contact button to get in touch with us. If you would like a video or another form of digital presentation, please use the Contact button to inform us.
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Daniela Medina
Kristi G's Cupcakes
As the Head of the Front Staff at Kristi G’s Cupcakes, Daniela has learned how to work harder and quicker to replace the more experienced staff members after being recommended by a friend. In her work life, she fears not satisfying her customers and her boss with the work she does. She battles this by being her kindest self and working as hard as possible. Daniela majors in psychology and aims to go to medical school after finishing her bachelor’s at community college. Her biggest fear is disappointing her parents by not making it into medical school, as they worked really hard to come to America. Her dad immigrated from Peru and her mom came from Cuba. In order to fight this fear, she has worked really hard in school and tried to maintain a 3.7 GPA in all her classes. Before, she had been taking the easy way out and quit anything remotely hard. After starting to push herself, she found that she began testing her boundaries and forgot about giving up. In her personal life, she experienced body image issues as a flyer in cheerleading since she was the one being tossed up in the air. She had to make sure that she was as small and lightweight as possible. Daniela decided to take the healthy way out and started to work out and run to be in the best shape achievable. This made her more self-confident she started to be able to post pictures online without worrying about what others think. Over time, Daniela has faced work problems, filial challenges, and body image issues, however she overcame every obstacle through hard work and determination to become a beautiful, confident young woman.
George Coffee Shop
Alyssa Lockhart
Alyssa Lockhart is a barista at George, a coffee shop in Coppell, TX. She has gained a community of friends through her hands-on job. Although she is still not certain about what she wants to do when she’s older, she certainly wouldn’t mind being a coffee shop owner. She got a job as a barista in high school and really enjoyed it so she continued to get barista jobs. When Alyssa saw the application online to be an employee at George, she jumped at the chance as she was a long-time customer and loved and employees. She went through a pretty bad breakup after high school and decided to get through it by going to church more regularly and developing a good support system. After getting the job, she faced some scheduling problems so she had to figure out how to manage her time better. Alyssa had a little bit of a hard time with body image but she would say positive things to herself and would talk to her friends about it so that they could support her. She’s worked through it and hasn’t let it impact her work life.
Shioneia Ryerson
Dallas Pre-School
Nineteen years ago, Shioneia decided to be a Pre-K teacher in Dallas. By working with kids, she has become more aware of how childhood experiences affect overall life decisions. Her career choice was based off of her creativity and her view of herself as a big kid which helps her connect with children. Shioneia’s biggest challenge was balancing her work and home life, but it has been a gradual process that she has countered through prayers and having a consistent schedule. By doing so, Shioneia has become more reflective and has worked on her prioritizing abilities. In her work, she has had to face tough stakeholders and decided that she can only control certain things and should pick and choose her battles. After having a child, Shioneia decided to counter body image problems by working out and having a more healthy lifestyle which has led her to becoming an overall happier individual.
Redding Pairett
Massage Envy
Working at the front desk at Massage Envy has given Redding Pairett better social skills. She is also a licensed aesthetician and goes back and forth between the two jobs as she also appreciates the cozy spa environment provided by Massage Envy. Being interested in makeup during high school, Redding graduated without knowing what the future held for her but started looking into cosmetology schools and found that her passion lies in aesthetics. Redding struggled with learning how to communicate with others but after realizing that everybody has a different way of conveying ideas, she started adapting to other people’s speaking techniques and found her voice. Just like many other service workers, Redding finds herself facing pushy clientele on a daily basis and targets this by keeping a smile on her face and tries to establish a good rapport with customers. Being an aesthetician, Redding is no stranger to issues with body image and finds that working on establishing good self-esteem slowly over the course of several days is helpful. In her words, once someone hits their lowest point, they fight tooth and nail to get back to a healthy place so that they never have to go back to the hard times again.
Anamia's
Rocio Esparza
As a cashier that takes care of the to-go orders, Rocio Esparza has to allay many people’s worries or anger. She started working at Anamia’s as a server, but was promoted to the job of cashier. Rocio took this job to earn some more money that she aims to save in order to become a personal trainer, her dream job that she decided on three years ago after competing in bodybuilding. The hours Anamia’s offered were also workable with her schooling. Along with working a food-service job while attending school, Rocio has three kids and works out every morning except for Sunday. In order to maintain this lifestyle, Rocio had to work on time management and create a good schedule. The biggest challenge she faced in her personal life was being a single mom, which she overcame by working hard. The reason why she is able to do what she does is her kids, her primary motivation. Rocio also comes to work positive every day in order to get along with everyone and deal with customers of all moods. She says that you never know if the other person is having a bad day and you can’t possibly figure out what’s going on in their life, so being kind to everyone makes her job much easier.
Sireesha Soma
JP Morgan Chase
As a senior business and reporting analyst at JP Morgan Chase, Sireesha has been provided the opportunity to successfully navigate a healthy balance between work and home life as a mother. Her career has also heightened her abilities of time management and collaboration. Sireesha decided on this career path after finding out information technology, her previous aspiration, wasn’t for her. Her decision of working at Chase was simple as it is one of the biggest banks and reputed firms in the nation and offered a wide range of career opportunities. While building her career, Sireesha had to face the loss of her mother as well as health issues such as migraines and headaches which complicated the efficiency of her daily work. In order to deal with these issues, she attended her health by getting proper treatment and medication as well as getting support from her family, friends, and colleagues. Although it was tough, these events showed Sireesha the value of life and the importance of taking care of her health. Along with these problems, Sireesha worked hard to maintain a positive body image by losing weight, working out, and eating healthily which has boosted her confidence levels and helps her tackle any other obstacles that come her way.
Indira Garapati
Parkway Communities
As the CFO of Parkway Communities, Indira’s main focus is in finance, accounting, compliance, audit, and investor communication functions. She is fulfilled to see the immediate impact of her actions/decisions, which was much harder when she played a small role in large organizations. She takes pride in the steady growth of her business and gets excited about evaluating new deals as well as new ideas to increase efficiencies and business profitability. Indira also enjoys the flexibility to work from home and take care of her family, both obtainable by owning her own business. Although these benefits are gratifying, Indira has to work harder than at her previous jobs and has received a lot of work related stress from constantly training employees as well as legal issues. She hopes that she can write a book in the future and take her company public if the growth continues over the next decade. Indira decided to create her own business 5 years ago with the help of her husband and when the opportunity came, they jumped on it and followed through. Whilst creating her own business, she has had to take care of her mother’s health issues and is doing everything she can to help. Indira also completed an MBA at Chicago Booth while taking care of her family. In order to find a balance, she settled for a career that did not require her to sacrifice her time with her daughters and her relationship with her husband. Along with all of these issues, Indira kept up her diet and exercise regimen and maintained great energy in order to continue working on her business.
Altair
Vital Anne
Vital has worked at Altair, an engineering consulting and software company, for 25 years and has worked her way up to the prestigious position of Vice President of Software Integrity and Testing. Vital joined Altair because it was a good opportunity and a gradual transition from her engineering major in college. Altair had also been very accommodating when Vital had to face taking care of her children when they were young while working full time. Along with Altair’s help, Vital leaned on her family and allowed her mother to help take care of her daughters while she was at work. Her biggest challenge has been getting development teams to take software quality seriously, but she had been able to target this by gradually making them realize that a poor quality product will impact customer satisfaction.
