Heather has built a great career in the retail industry, starting out in stores and working her way up through buyer roles and merchandising teams.  She has worked for some great brands including Tommy Bahama, Nordstrom and The North Face; and has worked on both sides of the retail spectrum, with physical stores and online.  Heather has a great perspective on how to take risks and how to think about long term goals when you are starting out.

Matt is a Partner at Hall & Partners, a boutique consumer insights and analytics agency.  He has spent most of his career with H&P and talks candidly about how he found success by joining a small, but growing agency, and was able to build his career along the way.  Matt grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and received an Economics degree from Northern Michigan University.

I created this podcast as a way to share the stories of individuals and how they have navigated their careers.  Each person I talk to has taken a different path and has been faced with various decisions along the way.  They talk about where they started, what they did early on in their careers, and how they made decisions to get to where they are now and how they believe this has positioned them for the future. 

Most of the individuals in the first set of conversations are in smaller, entrepreneurial organizations today, but many have spent time in large corporations and will share how they navigated the big companies and why they find themselves in smaller companies or pursuing their own individual endeavors.

These first few episodes are certainly "prototype" conversations, so I welcome feedback and comments, as it will definitely help me understand how to make the podcast better in the future.  I appreciate your willingness to listen and I hope you enjoy.