Before someone decides to move to a city, there’s a quieter question beneath the job offer: Can I actually see a life for myself here?

In this episode of Connections, host Ebony Flake speaks with Valerie Collins Thomas, founder of The VAL Group, a Birmingham-based concierge service that curates high-touch experiences for visiting physicians, executives, and business leaders. With only a short window to make life-changing decisions, many of the recruits she works with rely on Valerie to help them move beyond perception—designing experiences that reflect what daily life in Birmingham can actually feel like.

Valerie shares her own journey to the city, arriving with hesitation shaped by history and perception—and how that experience became the foundation for her work. She also reflects on how movement—how easy it is to get around, how connected the city feels—can shape whether someone ultimately chooses to stay.

Connections is goBHM’s official podcast, produced in partnership with the Birmingham Department of Transportation (BDOT) and the Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority (BJCTA) as part of the Multimodal Transportation Plan.

Produced, written, and hosted by Ebony Flake.

Field Production by Jehme Pruitt.

Learn more about the goBHM Multimodal Transportation Project at www.letsgobhm.com