Lisa Ingram doesn’t have a desk anymore.

The company she leads, White Castle System Inc., is about four months into its tenure at its brand-new headquarters, part of the $65 million Reach on Goodale headquarters. The new building is completely open-concept, with even Ingram and her fellow executives sitting out on the floor without an office door to hide behind.

“I figured … if I’m going to going to say, ‘No, nobody’s having an office,’ I have to lead,” Ingram said, while hosting the Women of Influence team for our first remote podcast recording at that new building.

(For purposes of the interview, we made use of the building’s library, one of a few spaces in the building that do allow for private conversations and meetings.)

Check out the preview episode of the podcast to hear more from Ingram on how she’s adjusting to the new environment and for her reflections on the move and redevelopment as a whole.

Also, you’ll hear some of my thoughts on some of the most powerful women in music, including a Netflix documentary recommendation and a hot take on that Super Bowl halftime show.

After she graduated from high school, Debbie Penzone came to Columbus with one dream in mind: to work at a Penzone hair salon.

Of course she wasn't yet Debbie Penzone at that point, she was just a girl from Springfield with a talent for making people look beautiful. When she expressed her dream to one of her teachers at cosmetology school, though, she was surprised at the reaction she got.

“Debbie, you’re a small-town girl," Penzone remembered her teacher telling her. "And I really don’t think you’d fit in there.”

It was a blow to the young stylist, who put that dream on the shelf and instead took a job at a place called Tangles on Bethel Road. Luckily for Penzone (and for her future husband and colleague, Charles Penzone), that's not where her journey ended.

Check out our latest Women of Influence podcast to hear how that "small-town girl" wound up running and ultimately rebranding the very salon chain her teacher didn't think would be a fit for her – and what the experience taught her about the importance of finding the right mentor.

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Columbus Business First reporter Hayleigh Colombo got her haircut last weekend. She went to Great Clips. And when she returned to the office Tuesday morning and mentioned the cut, she was quick to defend that choice.

Why? Because she feels women are unfairly expected to pay high prices for salon haircuts from a stylist they loyally visit every six weeks. Having just booked my own high-priced salon haircut for early February, I felt personally affronted by Hayleigh's critique, even as I agreed with it.

That's why I decided to shake things up a bit on this week's episode of Women of Influence. Check out the episode, embedded below, to hear Hayleigh and I debate – or at least discuss – the expectations and judgements that plague professional women and their haircare regimens, why we make the choices we do and whether or not this all relates to the patriarchy and the so-called pink tax.

Fittingly, our next guest on the podcast is Debbie Penzone, president and CEO of Penzone Salons + Spas. I interviewed Penzone before Hayleigh made her Great Clips confession, but Penzone's commentary about her career in the beauty industry is still thematically relevant.

Our full interview with Penzone will air next week, but for now, we're sharing her comments about the pros and cons of working closely with her husband and what it was like to take over and, ultimately, rebrand the business he founded.

You might know Donna James from her time at Columbus financial and insurance giant Nationwide. Or maybe you or someone you know have been a member of the African American Leadership Academy, which she co-founded. Or perhaps you've served on a board with her, or worked for a nonprofit she's helped shepherd, or encountered her through her advisory work at her firm, Lardon & Associates.

In short, James has a long resume and a lot of demands on her time. So when she came in for our Women of Influence podcast, I asked her how she keeps her plate from overflowing: How does she know when it's time to say no to something, and how does she say it?

Her answer? That's something she's still figuring out herself.

“I probably don’t say no very well," James said. "But I’m still learning. Because my preference is to say yes, and I if I have to say no, say, ‘No, not me, but here’s someone, or here are two or three people, that I think might be interested in doing this. Can I introduce you to them?’ And that has worked out very well.”

For more from James, check out the full interview

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Donna James was doing work she loved, leading several financial services subsidiaries of Columbus-based insurance giant Nationwide.

Then she had a stroke.

"It was what the doctors would technically call a mini-stroke, but it didn't feel mini to me," James said during a recent taping of our Women of Influence podcast.

James, who was only 49 at the time of her stroke, recovered, but she saw the medical scare as a reason to think about what the shape of her career should look like.

“It caused me to rethink. It was a moment for pause, and to say, ‘Ok, what is it I really want to be doing? What else do I want to do?’" James said. "And I knew I wouldn’t be able to figure that out if I kept doing what I was doing.”

Check out our biweekly podcast preview episode to hear more from James on her decision to leave Nationwide and ultimately launch her own business, Lardon & Associates.

You'll also hear some thoughts from me on one of the biggest stories of the week (think British royals) and how its relates to the question we ponder on this podcast.

Don't use the word "spin" when talking to Hinda Mitchell about her career in public relations.

"That's … the sort of thing that really just gets my ire up," Mitchell, president of Inspire PR Group, said during a recent taping of our Women of Influence podcast.

In Mitchell's view, her line of work does involve working with reporters to share stories, but she can't "snap (her) fingers" and make a negative story go away, nor can she immediately place any positive one. The idea that she can is "frustrating," and something she works to educate her clients and others about regularly.

"There's no silver bullet," Mitchell said. "Marketing can't fix operations. … You can’t just fix something away with PR. You have to work through it."

In our interview for the podcast, Mitchell talked about the ways she helps clients work through crises, as well as how an internship got her into the field as a college student and still continues to impact her today. Check out the full conversation to hear more on those topics and more.

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