Up Your Creative Genius

A native of Raleigh, North Carolina, Joni Wickham and her indisputable southern accent arrived in Kansas City almost 10 years ago after leading initiatives within state and federal government as well as advocacy organizations. In her eight years with the mayor’s office—the majority of them spent as Chief of Staff—Joni has proven herself as an accomplished political strategist, communications expert, and organizational leader. She directed public policy initiatives, communications tactics, and administrative decision-making during her tenure, all while promoting women’s leadership and empowerment issues. An artful negotiator, Joni helped steer Sly’s major development projects in Kansas City while raising the city’s profile at the national and international levels. Her front-row seat at city hall shed light on how local government is still very much a man’s world, and this motivated her to create a first-of-its-kind women’s empowerment initiative, which has been implemented in several major cities.

Prior to her time at city hall, Joni worked with the American Federation of Teachers, the Missouri Department of Transportation, and in the office of Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan. While a student at Meredith College, where Joni received her Bachelor of Arts in political studies, she studied abroad in St. Petersburg, Russia. An accomplished alumnus of University of Missouri where she earned her Masters of Arts in political science, Joni was the recipient of the 2019 University of Missouri Truman School of Public Affairs Mel Carnahan Public Service Award.

Joni is the author of the best-selling book titled, “The Thin Line Between Cupcake and Bitch: Taking Action, Driving Change and Getting Results.”

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2:12 How Joni started her life and her journey into education

7:26 Writing a speech, feeling like an imposter and receiving life changing advice

10:36 Working with Secretary Carnahan and mayor elect Sly James

12:16 Leadership styles and becoming Chief of Staff

14:28 Importance of emotional intelligence

17:38 Using his power and voice to let other know it was unacceptable behavior

20:31 Wickham James Strategies and Solutions

22:57 What inspires Joni

23:51 Joni’s StrengthsFinder qualities

27:36 Being results oriented

39:15 Joni’s fun and personal future

Social Media

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

Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/joniwickham/

Website https://wickhamjames.com/

Books - The Thin Line Between Cupcake and Bitch

https://wickhamjames.com/what-we-do/books/

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Up Your Creative Genius

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Hoyin is a serial entrepreneur, his core passions lie in helping businesses to grow in a scalable way with software tools. Hoyin has over 7+ years of experience building remote teams and has worked with Fortune 100 companies like Nike, Best Buy, TJ Maxx, SunGard, Cardinal Health, and Kaiser Permanente. He is currently passionate about creating authentic conversations that drive meaningful relationships in the most human way possible with the help of technology.

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1:42 Backstory of Hoyin Cheung

3:53 The background of how Remo got started

8:13 The ups and downs in journey of building up Remo

14:37 Hoyin shares why he is excited about Remo

17:11 The challenges Hoyin faced while creating Remo

20:07 Hoyin’s vision and mission

23:36 Tips on pivoting a business and the importance of being open minded

Social Media

Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/hoyincheung/

Remo https://remo.co/

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Up Your Creative Genius

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Moe Carrick is on a mission to restore humanity to work one magnificent people leader at a time. She believes that people can and should thrive at work, and that when they do, organizations succeed. With over 30+ years of work in organizations on issues of partnership, leadership, inclusion, strategy and culture.

Moe believes that rigorous self-awareness, courage, honest dialogue, curiosity, compassion, accountability, and empathy are fundamentals to building full and inclusive partnerships based on trust and generosity.

Moe is Founder of Moementum, Inc. and holds a Master’s Degree in OD, is a Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator, a Coach, and is administrator of a variety of tools in her trade. She is author of two bestselling books, FIT Matters: How to Love Your Job and Bravespace Workplace: Making Your Company Fit for Human Life. As a white, US-born, heterosexual woman, Moe strives to use her privilege with grace to surface assumptions that interfere with teams and to explore systemic patterns.

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1:32 How Patti and Moe met

2:09 Moe’s background and her life journey

11:14 Moe shares her perspective in Dare to Lead training

15:37 Explanation on fragility of the white woman

19:52 How did COVID-19 effected Moe’s life

24:47 Things that Moe finds most fascinating to her

27:30 What does Moe sees as bright lights that shine in the future world

Social Media

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

Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/moecarrick/

Website https://moecarrick.com/

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Up Your Creative Genius

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Mark Tippin is a published author, internationally-recognized keynote speaker and instructor in remote collaboration, human-centered design and visual facilitation. He is currently the Director, Strategic Next Practices at MURAL and a certified Lead Instructor at LUMA Institute. He brings over two decades of experience helping teams unlock their potential to lead powerful conversations in their organizations.

Mark believes facilitation is the quintessential 21st-century skill and that extending those talents online to distributed teams is more important than ever. He has led design teams and facilitated transformation events with enterprise brands including Autodesk, Netflix, Mayo Clinic, IBM and All Nippon Airways. Previously, he was the senior manager of UX at Autodesk overseeing its cloud platforms.

Mark has spoken at key industry events, delivering the keynote on The Future of Visual Facilitation for the International Forum of Visual Practitioners (IFVP), the keynote for Evolving Enterprise Design at Thomson Reuters and Working Visually at Autodesk’s Design X Summit.

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2:13 Mark’s journey into UX design

17:51 How Mark spends his free time

22:49 Mark sharing things that makes him excited everyday - LUMA

25:05 Mark’s future vision and mission

34:20 The figure that Mark wishes to be

39:13 Tips on pivoting in life and getting through challenges

Social Media

Mark’s Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/marktippin/

MURAL Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/company/mural.co/

MURAL Website https://www.mural.co/

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Up Your Creative Genius

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Gayle Edwards is an International, award-winning Global Impact & Personal Brand Strategist, Best-selling Author and Speaker who works with Entrepreneurial and Corporate "Square Pegs" to help them build their identity and authority within their marketplace!

More than that though, Gayle is a power-full and intuitive Teacher and Healer who uses her gift of recognising ‘stuck energy’ to help her clients release it so they are able to communicate with confidence, clarity and conviction!

If you do nothing, things stay exactly the same as they are! Gayle shows you how to become THE EXPERT in your industry rather than just another expert!

Timestamp

1:47 Gayle’s journey into Brand You Consultancy

15:10 Gayle shares her opinion on how technology has changed the world

16:37 Shaping the collaboration

18:24 People who influenced Gayle in her life

23:48 Gayle’s definition of intuitive impact entrepreneurs

31:08 Daily routine that Gayle practices

35:00 Gayle’s favorite book and tips on pivoting in life and getting through challenges

Social Media

Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandyouconsultancy/

Website https://brandyouconsultancy.com/

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Up Your Creative Genius

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Bhavana Bartholf is an award-winning transformational leader and sought-after expert in the field of providing vision and accelerating Digital Transformation for corporations across industries worldwide. Throughout her career, she has served as a transformational leader, innovative technologist, STEM advocate, and ally for women and racial/ethnical minorities (REM). She has a proven track record for growing female/REM workforce while promoting diversity and inclusion and is dedicated to driving systemic systems to create inclusive work environments.

In this episode Bhavana shares how she used her creative genius to become Microsoft's head of digital sales and strategies. It started with Bhavana trusting and being her authentic self. Bhavana explains how she was transparent with Microsoft about the work she wanted to pursue. Her secret to success was taking on projects that no one else wanted to take on, explaining it can only go up from here.

1:37 The story of Bhavana Bartholf

6:08 Moving to the US and her journey in Microsoft

13:25 How Bhavana manage stressful situations

19:13 Bhavana shares her duties on the boards

23:26 Changes that are moving in the right directions

24:12 Bhavana’s life’s vision

26:41 Tips on pivoting in life and getting through challenges

Social Media

Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhavanabartholf/

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SPEAKERS

Bhavana Bartholf, Patti Dobrowolski

Patti Dobrowolski  00:03

Hello superstars. Welcome to the Up Your Creative Genius podcast, where you will gain insight and tips to stomp on the accelerator and blast off to transform your business and your life. I'm your host, Patti Dobrowolski. And if this is your first time tuning in, then strap in because this is serious rocket fuel. Each week, I interview fellow creative geniuses to help you learn how easy it is to Up Your Creative Genius in any part of your life. Hey, everybody, it's Patti Dobrowolski. And here we are with Bhavana Bartholf, the transformational leader and Chief Digital Officer of the commercial areas solution for Microsoft. I mean, I'm sure I didn't get that quite right, in terms of what it is that you do, but you build and land the sales strategy for $101 billion across the globe. So I am so excited to have you here. Because you're just incredible. I downloaded the bio, and I was reading it to myself. And this year alone, you received these awards from the Charlotte Business Journal, you know, the top 25 women in business, you are on the National Diversity Council, you've been doing so much as a stem advocate and advocate for women and people of colour. I just am so in awe of you. So welcome to the podcast.

Bhavana Bartholf  01:32

Thanks, Patti, excited to be here. And I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to connect with you as well, again.

Patti Dobrowolski  01:37

I know I know. Well, it's really amazing to me, that you are in such an incredible position, and you're so dang smart. I think this is part of it that I loved. When I read through everything that you've done, you really embodied the idea of leader because to me, a leader is all about community and serving your community that once you serve other people and lift them up, which is what you're known for, then everything happens all doors open. But I'm sure it wasn't easy. You coming into where you are. So tell our listeners about you tell us your story. How did you get here.

Bhavana Bartholf  02:18

Some of it, I will say a lot of it is how I was brought up. So I actually grew up in India, and actually grew up with my grandparents, my parents lived in different countries where it wasn't the greatest place for girls to grow up. And so yes, I had the opportunity to spend time with my grandparents. And I will say the biggest piece for me kind of wha

Gayle Edwards is an International, award-winning Global Impact & Personal Brand Strategist, Best-selling Author and Speaker who works with Entrepreneurial and Corporate "Square Pegs" to help them build their identity and authority within their marketplace!

More than that though, Gayle is a power-full and intuitive Teacher and Healer who uses her gift of recognising ‘stuck energy’ to help her clients release it so they are able to communicate with confidence, clarity and conviction!

If you do nothing, things stay exactly the same as they are! Gayle shows you how to become THE EXPERT in your industry rather than just another expert!

Stacey Stevenson is an experienced business leader who has worked in Defense, Technology, and Finance senior roles. She was recently Senior Managing Director at Charles Schwab and Co. in Westlake, Texas, where she oversaw major initiatives, including Voice Technology, Digital, and Talent. While at Charles Schwab, she tirelessly advocated for creating a safe and inclusive space for all in the workplace in her roles as local and National co-chair for Schwab’s Pride ERG and through the partnerships she established with multiple LGBTQ non-profits. Stacey has been active in the fight for equality in Dallas through leading community projects and non-profit board service.

She and her wife Cheralyn have been married 15 years and reside in Dallas with their 7-year old twin boys Duke and London.

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1:46 Insights of Stacey Stevenson

5:27 Challenges that Stacey faced being as a minority group in corporate environments

13:12 Stacey shares her story of the importance of family quality

19:26 Swifting from Corporate to Nonprofit

23:26 Stacey’s tip in getting into her role

28:46 Stacey’s talks about being in parenthood

31:28 Stacey’s life’s vision

36:09 Tips on pivoting in life and getting through challenges

Social Media

Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceystevenson/

Family Equality https://www.familyequality.org/

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Up Your Creative Genius

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Natalie is the executive director of Cafecita, a fair trade coffee company focused on women's empowerment and environmental sustainability. Prior to moving into the coffee world, Natalie had worked as a human rights lawyer, traveling to over 70 countries and living in 10, before returning to her hometown of Los Angeles to create a company that combined her love of coffee with her passion for social justice.

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1:21 What makes who Natalie Webbs is today

12:08 Dive deep into the background of Cafecita

13:59 The process of finding the right coffee plantations

17:57 Natalie shares her shift from Human Rights Lawyer to Entrepreneur

21:08 Natalie shares tips in team managing as a leader

23:37 Meeting her coffee growers

27:35 Walking through the day as Natalie

32:39 Accomplishing the Cafecita mission

34:38 Natalie shares her tips about pivoting businesses and the importance of support squad

Social Media

Cafecita's socials are:

Website: www.cafecitacoffee.com

Instagram: @cafecitacoffee

Facebook: @cafecitacoffee

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Up Your Creative Genius

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Marcy Willard is a CEO with a Lean and Agile mindset. A huge source of pride is her team who has a culture of empathy, cross-functional teamwork, and an environment that says loud and clear “we’ve got your back.” They commit to not only their customer’s mental health but also their own. Marcy and her team work hard while also respecting the importance of health, rest and family time. In doing so they bring a fresh and enthusiastic energy to the families they serve.

Furthermore, her background as a school psychologist and licensed Psychologist with a PhD in Child, Family, and School Psychology. Believing in the power of offering accessible and reliable mental health expertise to parents and professionals, Dr. Willard’s team has a mission to reach a million families with concerns about a child’s mental health. Rather than the random walk from professional to professional with no clear guidance or direction our tools lead parents and professionals directly to the providers needed to get help right away for their kids. By telling parents 'what's the matter’ kids can get off of the waitlist and get on with brighter futures.

Timestamp

1:27 How Marcy Willard became who she is today

10:29 Teach your kid a skill; not to avoid consequences

11:14 Marcy shares CADE - Children mental health assessment tool

12:44 Marcy shares her process of starting as an entrepreneur

15:21 Listen to your kids and let them know it’s alright

18:09 How did Marcy face her challenges?

21:27 Make a plan for the future you

26:31 Marcy’s vision in the near future

33:00 Marcy shares tips about pivoting businesses or family dynamic

Social Media

Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcy-willard-ph-d-ncsp-35a97692/

Website https://clearchildpsychology.com/

CADE https://clearchildpsychology.com/cade/

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Up Your Creative Genius

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