Welcome back everyone to the Mona Lisa Monologues, Today’s Women Shaping History. I am Lisa Ross Faust, your host for this powerful new series. Our focus is on women who have broken the glass ceiling, have worked in a man’s world, or simply climbed their way to the very top, in any industry. Real stories – real conversations; conversations that will empower and encourage women to embrace their inner strength and recognize the masterpiece, that they already are.

Joining us today we have Joy Jarrett, Partner, and the Chief Marketing Officer of Guidehouse, and I think she has checked off ALL those categories by the way. If you are not familiar, Guidehouse, was formerly the U.S. public sector arm of PwC -PricewaterhouseCoopers, (a pretty big name).  Last year they acquired Navigant Consulting. The company is 8,000+ people strong, and $1.4 billion and growing! 

Just so you have a better understanding of what she does, Joy oversees marketing for their commercial and public sector and if you aren’t familiar with the term public sector, it includes public goods and government services such as the military, law enforcement, defense, energy, infrastructure, public transit, education, national security, along with public healthcare so it is quite complex.  The way I envision it, (it’s just how my brain works), from a marketing perspective, it’s as if you’d have to learn to speak multiple languages to understand so many government operations.  So, let that sink in.

I’ve worked with Joy for many years and it has amazed me how she transforms, much like a chameleon when it comes to adapting to the various industries, she has worked in. She always shows up to the meeting with an idea or vision and proceeds to collaborate with those involved.  She listens. AND she won’t tell you this, but she has rolled out some major global marketing campaigns for major brands. She uses her female intuitive thinking, and that has worked for her. She’s a brave one.

First, Joy shares what her company has been doing during the pandemic, she details her corporate climb and the challenges she faced, along with what has helped her move forward.  She is a working woman and working mom like so many of us and has had to reinvent often.  We can all learn a lot from Joy, so here we go.

Welcome, everyone to the Mona Lisa Monologues, Today’s Women Shaping History. I am Lisa Ross Faust, your host for this powerful new series. Our focus is, women who have broken the glass ceiling, have worked in a man’s world, or simply climbed their way to the very top, in any industry. Real stories, real-life conversations. It’s all about finding the masterpiece within.

Today we have Dee Patel joining us and she is the first female Managing Director of the iconic Hermitage Hotel in Nashville Tennessee. Everyone in Nashville knows Dee; she's been awarded the Woman of Influence by the Nashville Business Journal and the Outstanding Woman Hotelier of the Year. She’s also a stakeholder within her community and serves on several boards: The Tennessee Hospitality & Tourism Association, Historic Hotels of America, the Nashville Downtown Partnership, the Nashville Chapter of the Les Dames d’Escoffier International, which mentors and supports women in hospitality just to name a few and she is most proud of the hotel’s 10-year partnership with The Land Trust for Tennessee.

Dee recently took on an important role in organizing the Centennial Celebration of Women’s Suffrage in Nashville where it all happened 100 years ago. I bet you didn’t know Tennessee was the swing vote back then. Dee will give us a little history lesson, we’ll hear about the hotel, what they have been doing during this pandemic, of course, the women’s suffrage celebration and we’ll find out what it was like moving from England to Mississippi as a young girl, and how an independent Indian woman from the UK, figured out how to land a seat at the table. We’ll even get a little celebrity juice, some girls chat, and a very moving narrative of what she is teaching her children. She does it all, while at the helm of such a majestic property, and as far as I’m concerned – she is the queen.   A lady of distinction, let’s roll out the red carpet for Dee Patel….

Episode 4, Winning, the Whaley Way! 

Welcome, everyone to the Mona Lisa Monologues, Today’s Women Shaping History. I am Lisa Ross Faust, your host for this powerful new series. Our focus is on women who have broken the glass ceiling, have worked in a man’s world, or simply climbed their way to the very top, in any industry.

These trailblazing women will interpret their personal stories of courage, resilience, and triumph… full of passion, persistence, and fearless dedication. Real-life, real conversations.

Today I’d like to introduce you, to someone who has successfully done all of the above, and I’ve had the opportunity to work AND learn from her, a true leader of women supporting women; she teaches us what it’s like to be fearless. I don’t know where she gets her energy from, but I seem to feed off it, and so do those around her. I’m speaking of Dawn Whaley. Dawn is the President of Sharecare, the digital health company founded to help each person, no matter where they are in their health journey. Dawn oversees corporate strategy and scaling operational execution; she’s also directly responsible for marketing, strategic partnerships, and business development. She and her company are thriving!

Previously, Dawn was the Executive Vice President of marketing and strategic relationships for HowStuffWorks, a leading, non-fiction website that was acquired by Discovery. 

Even though I have known Dawn for 20 years, this conversation presented many personal stories of her career life that I had never heard and that is what I am loving about this series. We talk about the things we usually don’t talk about. I truly enjoyed our conversation, and it also brought back some great memories. Dawn Whaley is a trailblazer - simply put - she is that. Let’s allow Dawn to SHARE her story.