November 06, 2025

Episode 214 with Ashanti Ordone — Fixing a Broken Culture with Intentional Leadership

49 minutes

Kris welcomes Ashanti Ordone, the Founder and CEO of Gifted & Talented Academy, and the 2025/26 Child Care Rock Star Award winner! They talk about expanding from a home daycare to three locations, transforming her school's culture, and overcoming challenges in the early childhood education landscape. Ashanti shares her powerful story of building a thriving early learning center, detailing how she developed rock-solid core values and poured into her leadership team, implemented innovative leadership strategies, and turned her school's culture into a model of excellence.

Key Takeaways:

[6:02] Ashanti shares her background, starting Gifted and Talented Academy in Indiana with her mom in 2002. They are family-owned and family-focused.

[6:21] Fun fact! They started with a home daycare and expanded to a center within three months due to high demand.

[14:31] Ashanti discusses her transition from practicing law to early childhood education, driven by her passion for working with children.

[17:07] How Ashanti's legal training and education background have been instrumental in her success in the child care industry.

[18:21] Ashanti talks more about her family and personal life, along with her love of a good beach!

[21:53] What led Ashanti to Kris and the Child Care Success family in 2018.

[23:47] Ashanti implemented strategies from the academy, focusing on core values and culture, which led to significant improvements.

[25:42] Ashanti explains how they crafted their core values: family, education, respect, excellence, and fun.

[31:30] Teachers were involved in the interview process to ensure a good cultural fit, and core values were incorporated into interview questions.

[36:19] They have a core value of the month award to recognize team members who exemplify each value.

[38:21] Ashanti gets candid about the struggles that providers are facing, and the importance of staying focused on your mission and staying on the course.

[42:30] The power of keeping a positive mindset and building with consistency and focus.

Quotes:

"I don't think there's anything more important as a cornerstone, a foundational element to your culture, than core values that you actually live and breathe." — Kris [4:55]

"She is absolutely my why. She is the reason that family and education are so important to me." — Ashanti [10:13]

"I think that that combination of just that core value of education, growing up with a mom who is an educator, and having a passion for young children, combined with the legal training, is what helps me to be successful in business." — Ashanti [17:33]

"For me, I think the biggest game changer that first year was focusing on our core values and really starting to turn our culture around." — Ashanti [26:40]

"If family is one of our core values, then you have to fit into this family." — Ashanti [35:26]

"Excellence, again, means we're a culture of continuous improvement, so we don't settle for where we are right now. Our culture is amazing, but culture is living and breathing, and so we're always working on it, and we're always striving to make it better." — Ashanti [35:47]

"When you feed yourself with a positive mindset and you really spend time working on your spirituality and your growth mindset, it helps you actually prepare for the challenges, be grateful for them, and work through them." — Ashanti [42:43]