The Executives’ Club of Chicago: "Women in Leadership"

I recently had the honor of speaking at The Executives’ Club of Chicago’s Senior Women in Leadership dinner. The event’s focus was: “How to take a passion and hobby and turn it into a business”. We had very dynamic, energetic and humorous discussions on how we started our businesses, and as it turned out, both myself and the second speaker turned a true childhood passion into a business concept later in life. 

The event's second speaker - founder of Vosges Haut-Chocolat, Katrina Markoff, shared her story about how her passion for spices and traveling fulfilled a market niche by creating unique and unexpected flavored chocolates. Long nights mixing and experimenting with flavors resulted in a unique chocolate pallet, and Vosges Haut-Chocolat was born!

I was excited to share my story about how a passion for dance and excitement to build my own business in America led me to Russian Pointe, as well. It’s amazing how, though many challenges and struggles were faced along the way, my passion and a strong team grew a business into the global, very successful business it is today.

From discussions about finding financing, to the desire to give up, to how we both came up with purple as our choice of packaging color; we had a wonderful time sharing our stories with the Executives’ Club of Chicago audience. If you have a passion or hobby, there is definitely an opportunity to turn it into a successful and profitable business!