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Lexis Serot: A Thought-Provoking Leader, Humanitarian, and a Doting Mother Setting New Benchmarks

A path-breaking leader, Lexis Serot is driven by a passion for transforming lives and providing life-changing experiences. She is spearheading the motto of Collaborating, Empowering, Supporting, and Protecting others through her organization, LittleWins.

She is the Founder and a model leader at a young, rapidly growing organization. Her vision of leadership is about setting an example and leading a unique path to achieve desired purposes and goals.

“The reason I started LittleWins is a huge part of who I am today. I wanted to tell my daughter that when life presented an “at-bat” I swung like hell. With my daughter, I saw firsthand how difficult it was to access the proper care and equipment that could enable her to reach her fullest potential. Every detail of LittleWins has been carefully designed, with compassion, respect, and love for this community.”

A Ground-Breaking Leader

Lexis is well versed in the care, therapies, and equipment that help her daughter – and people with a range of abilities. She has navigated a frustratingly complex system that leaves people with disabilities and their families feeling isolated and alone. Understanding the need of the hour and being shocked by the disparities that, limit many people’s access to durable medical equipment, she decided to address this problem by founding her company.

Based on her experiences, interactions, and an “unrelenting desire to make a change,” Lexis began laying the groundwork for LittleWins in 2018. The name is personal and relatable to her community because every progress milestone for a person with disabilities is a little win for them and their family.

All About LittleWins

One in six children and one in four adults in the U.S. have a physical, developmental, behavioral, or sensory impairment. Most can’t afford the durable medical equipment they need or wait months for insurance companies to approve it.

Lexis believes that access to equipment and supplies should be simple. The mom of four, including a daughter who has cerebral palsy, founded LittleWins.com to connect and support people with disabilities and individuals who actively work to provide a better quality of life for others.

LittleWins.com harnesses the power of the community to help its members buy, sell or donate medical equipment, get information, and connect with others. Members list and browse equipment by category and location on the company’s website. They connect directly with buyers and sellers through the site’s app. They share tips, experiences, and advice on LittleWins’ social pages.

“People with disabilities deserve to say, ‘there is nothing I’m not worthy of.’ LittleWins goes to bat for every one of them,” says Lexis.

Since 2018, Lexis has continually adapted the LittleWins.com website with web and e-commerce developers. She directs a marketing assistant and marketing communications agency. She works closely with her legal and financial advisors. She collaborates with regional and national organizations that support people with disabilities. She partners with other entrepreneurs, who offer products and services to her community. She created and posts regularly on LittleWins’ online support forum, receiving and providing feedback to help people with disabilities and the families that support them live their best lives.

Coming Together for fulfilling a Bigger Purpose

Lexis is a passionate advocate and cheerleader of the work of national and local organizations that serve people with disabilities. She works with durable medical equipment suppliers such as NuMotion to identify used equipment that can fulfill the needs of LittleWins community members. She connects regularly with other entrepreneurs – such as Communikind founder Cimeran Kapur– and promotes their services on LittleWins.

She joined forces with another woman entrepreneur, Hotsy Totsy Haus CEO Christi Leonardi, a deaf single mother, to create LittleWins-branded, natural ingredient bath bombs, that are now being sold, on the LittleWins website.

Lexis regularly works with NuMotion, National Seating & Mobility, the Cerebral Palsy Foundation, and Clearbrook.org, which empowers adults and children with intellectual and developmental disabilities to live their fullest lives possible.

Building a Resourceful Community

Lexis’s relentless efforts to build an online community of people with disabilities have paid huge dividends. More than 6,000 followers now visit LittleWins.Facebook and Instagram pages; and 800+ visitors go to the LittleWins website every week. To date, LittleWins.com’s 7,500 + community members have donated, purchased, or exchanged more than 200 pieces of equipment. They also exchange experiences and advice daily on the site’s secure messaging app.

The Team LittleWins “Empowering Communities and Smashing Stereotypes” Private Facebook Group. Now 400 members strong, the Group, led by Lexis, is a platform for families and people with disabilities to share their stories, provide advice and experiences on products and services and provide mutual encouragement.

After launching LittleWins.com in 2019, Lexis began to explore how the site could serve her community’s needs beyond durable medical equipment. To build the LittleWins brand, she launched a line of LittleWins apparel – beanies, trucker hats, and t-shirts.

The LittleWins blog and podcast feature educational posts, stories about her clients, inspirational leaders in the disability movement, interviews with durable medical equipment and adaptive technology experts, and more.

Lexis continually mines feedback from the company’s surveys and emails that can inform how it can create (or support) solutions to common challenges for people with disabilities. She is preparing to launch a medical supply subscription box program that will provide people with disabilities and their families exactly the right supplies they need, when and how they need them.

Combined, these initiatives are raising awareness of LittleWins’ mutually-supportive community, and the used durable medical equipment items that are available on LittleWins.com

The Big Wins of LittleWins

During the past year, Lexis launched two new projects, with a third about to launch. LittleWins teamed up with Dine-It-4ward to raise money for the Cerebral Palsy Foundation.

LittleWins sponsors events that, support services for people with disabilities, such as the abilities Expo, Virtual Run/Walk of Clearbrook, a leader in creating innovative opportunities, services, and support for people with disabilities; Farm Fresh Food Bank, The Kids Equipment Network, and front line responders. She also put together the first-ever music festival to accommodate people with disabilities this past summer.

She’s donated hospital beds to people who needed them during the start of stay-at-home orders. For this effort, Lexis Serot took out an ad to reach people who had hospital beds but no longer needed them. She picked the beds up from each donor’s home, disinfected them, and delivered them to people who needed them.

Lexis Serot gives virtual shout-outs to companies that actively support people with disabilities through their product marketing and hiring practices. She shares stories of LittleWins community members and their loved ones.

In 2021, Lexis Serot was named a Top 100 Healthcare Visionaries by the International Forum on Advancements in Healthcare, previously known as the Smart Health Conference. She has been asked to be a keynote speaker at this year’s conference, to be held in Dubai. LittleWins was also awarded honorable mentions, by Fast Company’s 2021 World-Changing Ideas.

Lexis’s Ultimate Vision

In addition to her day-to-day leadership of LittleWins.com and full-time care of her four young children, Lexis’s entrepreneurial spirit, drive, and relentless pursuit of growth for LittleWins.com are rooted in her desire to help others. Her deep belief in the unique service she’s created, her ability to tell her personal story, and her talent for connecting with people who share her vision and journey.

She believes that community-based models – supportive online villages like LittleWins – can re-unite everyone to solve shared challenges, reach common goals, and make sure everyone has an equal shot at success. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, she has used the power of online communication to tell the stories of her customers and her community.

The Road Ahead

Lexis Serot envisions a world that values people of all abilities – a world that actively supports their right to the help, equipment, and services that help them achieve their full potential. She reckons that everyone’s attitudes toward people with disabilities are improving, she believes – pointing to companies whose policies and practices support workplace equality. “But we still have a long way to go,” she notes. “We must celebrate and tap into our differences on a much broader level.”

Lexis Serot exemplifies leadership in 2022 – an entrepreneur in evolution who derives satisfaction from helping others – and continually finds new ways to serve them a better and brighter future. She has even launched version 3 of the LittleWins website at the beginning of this year. This version update was spearheaded by the community and what they wanted to see from LittleWins and how it could be better. The latest update includes a premium membership which allows members a fixed shipping rate through FedEx and the ability to print their labels at home.

Kevin MacRitchie: Helping The Men And Women In Uniform

Meet the Executive Team of Tactical Rehabilitation, which works to deliver the best possible service, solutions, and healthcare to the biomechanical needs of the world’s greatest heroes- the men and women of the United States Military. All of Tactical Rehabilitation’s products are battle-tested having been used by service members deployed across the planet. The organization’s staff is trained to provide the highest quality care and fit for patients and to be a resource for providers.

The organization was founded by David Marr in 2013. As the founder of Tactical Rehabilitation, David surveyed the providers and solutions offered before laying the foundation stone of the company in 2013. While surveying, David saw a need for healthcare that is entirely focused on healing patients with the best possible solutions and less focused on maximizing profits at the expense of those that ensure the freedom of every citizen of the United States and its allies.

The Leadership Team

David Marr is the founder and CEO of Tactical Rehabilitation. He leads the oversight of Compliance and Financial oversight with the CFO. He founded the company in a modest 640 square foot storefront in 2013 with a simple mission to ‘Serve those that serve’ and honor those who protected our nation with the best solutions available. As the founder of the organization, David spearheads the diligent research of new products and is the core of Tactical Rehabilitation’s knowledge and compliance base. He continually seeks innovations in technology and has made available a superior line of products that the organization makes available to its patients to ensure the best possible healing process creating one patient at a time-serving their individual needs. He says; “It is an honor to serve the world’s greatest heroes and lead the way to Service Readiness for those that ensure freedom around the globe.”

David prides himself on maintaining a family atmosphere and a caring culture for the employees and their families of Tactical Rehabilitation. With David’s long-standing commitment to serving others in law enforcement, as a Game Warden, and for other pioneering DME providers growing their patient success each year, it is easy to see why the military and industry welcomes David and Tactical Rehabilitation’s down to earth approach to ensure the best in healthcare to the servicemen and women.

With over thirty years of experience working in the healthcare and IT industry, Kevin MacRitchie currently serves as the Chief Operations Officer of Tactical Rehabilitation. As a leader in the healthcare sector, Kevin MacRitchie has worked tirelessly to create the best possible patient experience. He specializes in high customer satisfaction, engineering leadership, and information technology.

Kevin says, “Maximizing patient success will always be our most critical of priorities.”

He holds a bachelor’s degree in Information Systems and Operations Management from the University of Toledo. Kevin MacRitchie has received multiple healthcare industry awards for his incredible work in transforming the organization and the industry to enable more focus time on patient care and improving business operational efficiencies of healthcare behind the scenes as not to interfere with patient care.

Karen Lyons is the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Legal Counsel for Tactical Rehabilitation. Karen has more than 30 years of experience working in healthcare, non-profit, and construction industries. As a financial professional, Karen also combines operational information with financial outcomes to enhance company performance and provide trends and analysis to meet the need of multiple stakeholders.

“Balancing the priorities of the day-to-day with the long-range financial goals and stability of our company will ensure our company can continue to “serve those that serve” for decades to come and create life-long careers for our employees.”- says Karen.

James Polka, on the other hand, serves as the Vice President of the organization. He is also the founder of many Tactical Rehabilitation early systems and policies, supports the company growth through strategic planning and property management along with optimal location and site selection/build-out of locations. James also co-leads new product solutions with Reed for inclusion in Tactical Rehabilitation’s plethora of incredible partners and solutions, works closely on CRM activities and how they positively impact sales and sales reach to new providers in order to help heal additional servicemen and women.

James says, “Understanding the community we serve through listening to our providers and partners, ensures our patients will always be provided the best possible care.”

Reed Abernathy serves as the Vice President of the company. He is the founder of the vision/mission/goals and purpose statements and the keeper of the company culture of Tactical Rehabilitation. Reed also plays a crucial role in mentoring Business Development/Sales Team members and seeks out many of the new products and solutions Tactical Rehabilitation reviews for inclusion in their plethora of incredible partners and solutions.

“Ensuring our Mission and Vision is at the heart of all we do ensures everyone in our company is working together as a team”. – Says Reed.

Also, the executive team of the organization works as a family among themselves and with their employees. It is a strong binding partnership and heartfelt responsibility to communicate well with each other and, as a result, with their employees to ensure the best solutions and vision are executed to enhance the well-being of their patients and continuously improve the quality of the Healthcare provided to their patients.

Serving the Men and Women in Uniform

David sought out the best possible brand names from Sole Supports Orthotics to Aspen, Don Joy, Intensity, and more in Orthotics, Bracing, Intramuscular Pain Management, and more to help address the most common injuries that affect 68% or more of the most common areas that prevent soldiers from a constant “Service Ready” status. Through incredible partnerships and a steadfast Mission to humbly “Serve those that Serve”, David set the initial focus for the company Tactical Rehabilitation continues to become.

Since its inception, Tactical Rehabilitation has expanded into various additional areas including Bone Stimulation, Portable Ultrasound, Para-Somnia Solutions, and more.

These areas are similarly critical to ensuring the “Service Ready” of freedom. Tactical Rehabilitation is not a typical DME with solutions in every DME category, rather a highly specialized and trained team servicing the very specific needs of their patients and ensuring they can return to “Service Ready Status” as quickly as possible.

Tackling Challenges

As the COO Kevin MacRitchie believes, growth brings change, and change brings new challenges and acceptance to change itself. As the company grew, so did its awareness to bring in new skills from outside the company in critical roles like CFO and COO. The very same growth created new leadership and promotional opportunities from within the company allowing team members to rise to new challenges and lead their peers while developing new employees in new markets. The Executive Team works tirelessly to create the delicate balance of internal and external employee growth which has been a crucial part of ensuring the longevity of Tactical Rehabilitation’s culture to serve those in uniform.

Also, Covid was everyone’s nemesis, but the executive team invested in and grew the company and never once shut, paused, or closed their doors. All this ensured providers and patients that Tactical is there to serve the needs of its patients. During the pandemic, Tactical grew and nearly doubled as others closed their doors to the needs of their patients and providers. Tactical Rehabilitation grew in their current locations and opened doors in new locations where patients no longer had services available. Throughout the pandemic, the organization ensured employee safety and its presence for patients and providers.

Giving it Back to the Society

CSR plays a crucial role in understanding the partnerships between Tactical Rehabilitation and the providers that entrust their patient care to Tactical Rehabilitation. Understanding who Tactical Rehabilitation serves ensures the company to better align itself with the needs of the providers and ultimately the patients served.

According to Vice President James Polka, “The most crucial step in understanding the business of Tactical Rehabilitation is understanding the needs of those we serve.” He also adds, “This is best accomplished through constantly ensuring our business development and sales reps have the tools and information critical to know and support our providers”.

Mission and Vision

Kevin MacRitchie believes in the foundations set by Vice President Reed Abernathy, with core values like patient care to die for, profound level of respect for one another, and to make a positive difference in the lives of employees, patients, and providers, Tactical Rehabilitation can continue to provide highest quality products and the highest level of service to active-duty service members, veterans, and their family members.

Advice for Upcoming Entrepreneurs

When we requested Kevin MacRitchie to provide any advice for young upcoming entrepreneurs, he said, “Know your strengths and leverage them. Know better your weaknesses and ensure your plans include how to garner this perspective in-house until you can hire it in-house. Allowing yourself to become blind-sided is an intentional plan… to failure.

Dr. Sam Swapn: Helping Organizations Train Their Employees

Headquartered in Fremont CA Strategism Inc offers the best online and in-class training, certification, staffing, and consulting services. Founded in 2008 by Dr. Sam Swapn, CEO, the firm currently employs more than 100 employees across the planet. The firm’s strength lies in its training courses, which are mainly geared towards obtaining accredited and industry-leading certifications in management and information technology (IT).

As the founder and CEO, Dr. Sam Swapn brings a formidable reputation of working for more than 25 years in the project management field, having worked as an entrepreneur, consultant, investor, corporate trainer, educator, and mentor to several companies and executives in the Bay Area.

Dr. Sam is a well-known figure in television debates, panelists, and keynote speaker at various events. He has also authored several books related to Project Management, FDI, etc. His latest book, ‘World War III: Corona’ is already a top seller on multiple e-commerce platforms.

Tackling Professional Failures

Dr. Sam believes failure is a must, risk-taking is a must, and learning from failure is very important. Twice in his career, he felt this thing is coming to an end in 2016 and 2019 but he came out of them successfully as the biggest mantra is- ‘keep trying’, ‘do not give up, ‘there is something you are missing’. Failure and crisis are the best opportunities that cannot be wasted. Dr. Sam has learned most from his failures and tries not to make the same mistakes tough it is a constantly changing landscape. He is a lifelong learner and wants to learn from everyone including a ‘kid’.

Dr. Sam loves challenges and enjoys the uncertainty and complexity of decision-making. He thinks the biggest asset leaders should have, is to be a person who does not get afraid of any situation, applies his intellect to find solutions consistently. The ability to stand quiet and calm and find answers for an ever-changing environment is the key to success, and he is ready to face that challenge.

Handling Success

According to Dr. Sam, business success is achieving numbers, making an impact on larger numbers, and building a positive cash flow in the business. On his side, success is creating constant ‘happiness’ for him. He believes money and power do not bring success, it facilitates it, beyond that is how we nurture relationships and personal friends.

Dr. Sam believes the greatest achievement for him and the entire team of Strategism in the training business has been to understand the pulse of the market and design training courses suited to that specific need of the employers because at the end of the day companies want to hire people who have the right skills.

Associating with Good Guys

When we asked Dr. Sam Swapn, about his leadership style, he says “Well, the bad news is that you cannot please everyone.” He also adds, “In the corporate world, there are some good guys and some bad guys. Bad guys create a negative culture. Good guys want to create a change. I want to associate with good guys and build on their energy.”

As the CEO and founder of the firm, Dr. Sam wants to try and engage the bad guys if he cannot let them go from the company. His leadership style is to be open to change and constant learning. Learning from anyone is the key.

He says, “I do make a lot of mistakes but I am willing to always say ‘sorry’ and ‘thank you to people who help me learn and grow.”

Also, when it comes to the attributes of a good leader, Dr. Sam Swapn believes a good leader is a good listener and a problem solver. It is also someone, who tries to take everyone along, and creates a positive & happy atmosphere where everyone feels welcome and open to learn and contribute.

The Vision

Dr. Sam’s vision in life is to move into the non-profit world in the next few years. He has already created a non-profit, Dr. Sam Foundation that will work on educating girls all over the world from 5 years of age, till they start earning. It is called “Sabla”. Dr. Sam wants to serve humanity and make a bigger impact on the lives of people globally. He wants to give back to society. Manavta and University are two pieces of his plan.

Future Roadmap

Currently, Strategism has a training arm that teaches people Project Management, Agile, Data Science, AI, ML, Blockchain, etc. The firm also has a consulting arm where it works with its clients and provides the latest and most equipped human capital. Dr. Sam says, “Our plan is to grow the business to 100 people on consulting side in 2022 and make it a 10-million-dollar business.”

Mohammed Mubin Mallick: Transforming the Robotics Industry

Robotics was merely a fairy-tale/fiction when it was first introduced to the world. With technological evolution, we have witnessed a plethora degree disruption in the traditional business sphere. Though robotics has not grown as it was depicted two or three decades prior, it has shown tremendous/note-worthy development in disrupting traditional businesses. Very few in the industry have contributed to this, and one such revolutionary personality is Mohammed Mubin Mallick, the CEO and the Founder of Kiran Smart.

Mubin discovered the potential of robotics during an international summit GITEX, 2018 in Dubai. He was surprised by the technology and developed a curiosity about its possible applications. As automation and robotics have shown a promising future, Mubin decided to blend his newly developed interest into his company’s product portfolio. “I have always thought about robot but it came in reality,” he adds. Since then, he carried out research programs and held interactive campaigns with various robot manufacturers around the world. He started acquiring robots to understand its technical factors and what services he can offer to the market with robots. Currently, Kiran Smart is signed up with many Robotics companies and manufacturers around the world to be the most innovative robotics Technology Company in Kuwait and GCC. He strives to make his company one of the best robotics service and solution providers globally.

He and his team focus on adapting innovative technologies to solve the problems of their customers and help them to be abreast with the latest advancements. The company is continuously investing in its research on the new trend of products and solutions that are coming into the market. “We adopt it and also educate our customers too so that they could have the knowledge of it,” he mentions. He claims his company is an out-of-the-box thinking entity that stays ahead of its competition with its ability to bring authenticity to the robotics industry. He considers his KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE has been the biggest failures of his professional life. He understood the power of knowledge and started to acquire as much as he can to prevail in the revolutionary industry of robotics. “So, to acquire knowledge I have invested my personal life and time in it to know more and more,” he asserts. He is proud of his endeavors on how he went the extra mile to fabricate himself as a pioneer in the field achieving milestones in his pathway. As per a say ‘it doesn’t come easy’, Mubin also faced various challenges and obstacles while paving his journey.

Most primary obstacles for him were focused on how to face the challenge in terms of competition, handling the employees, maintaining the best customer relationships, and customers satisfaction. To overcome these challenges, he follows a different approach strategy for every specific challenge faced. “Sometimes it cannot be defined because it comes within, which is inner self instinct,” he adds. He relies on his leadership principles which are driven by being Kind Hearted. Before a business leader, he is a humanitarian at heart. He prefers to be kind towards people and recommends others to do so. “Because kindness can win anything,” he asserts. “According to me any Leader must have certain skills and it could vary leaders to leaders. As of me, what I would say about my leadership’s skills: kindness, problem solver, supportive, forecaster, innovator, and giver,” he mentions. Kindness and compassion have always been key ingredients behind Mubin’s success. According to his experience, he has learned that kindness is even more powerful than love. “The reason is that Love you cannot show to everyone but one can be kind to any person,” he adds. “I would say that you cannot love mankind but you can be kind to mankind.”

Moreover, he always provides guidance to his team and resolves problems immediately with his decisiveness. As a visionary, he prefers an optimistic approach while dealing with new innovative ideas and provides creative space for his team to contribute to the better growth of the company. “Reason when I am leading the team, I am learning how to treat the team members, I am understanding the psychology of the team member and many more,” he emphasizes.

Marching with Compassion and Conviction

Mubin defines success as a journey and not a destination. He says, “one’s journey ends when death comes. Therefore, till then the journey will be on with more achievements and success which means success is non-stoppable achievements in life.” He equips many innovative ideas but looking at the current situation he desires that we all must cumulatively take measures to tackle the biggest dilemma—COVID 19. He paraphrases his mother advice, Live up to others expectation. Don’t be in luxury but give to others who cannot afford in their Life. He considers it as the best life-leading advice one can ever receive as it teaches the true essence of compassion. “I do not make people feel their position whether they are rich or poor or in higher position or in lower position and I treat everyone equally with love and respect all,” he adds. He firmly believes in God and the notion of helping others through his endeavors. “The more I am giving to the world then more blessing I have from GOD. Factor which give me immense pleasure is the Love that I am getting from people for my work,” he mentions.

Moreover, he envisions achieving the successful stature of a World-Renowned Robotics Solutions and Services Company. He claims his success journey differently than many as he started his business to help others to prevail rather than for his benefit. Professionally, he still believes that he has not reached the ultimate goal and considers his accomplishments as mere steps of the ladder aiming towards success. He will not his achievements hammer his persistence and will continue to strive in building brand trust across the globe.

Quote

“LIFE IS LIKE A WAVE OF OCEAN THAT GOES UP AND THEN COMES DOWN. SAME WAY WE HAVE HAPPINESS AND SADNESS IN LIFE. IN BUSINESS WE DO HAVE PROFIT AND LOSSES AS WELL.”

Susan Semmelmann: An Exemplary Woman in Design

Our homes are our sanctuaries; our comfort zones, a place where we can acquire a sense of belonging. We personalize this place to meet and suit our preferences. However, with all of the intricacies, options, and decisions to consider, the decorating process can become daunting. In such cases, seeking advice from interior designers help us bring balance and elegance to our space. They adapt to our tastes in creating environments that make us happy to reside, under the banner of interior design.

Interior design is a space that is equally dominated by both men and women, but one must acknowledge the extra creativity that women bring to the table. From extending their finesse and artistic skills to creating brands that are loved by people all over the world, women interior designers are carving a niche for themselves. One such young and inspiring Interior Designer is Susan Semmelmann. Susan has worked tirelessly over the years to build her design firm — Susan Semmelmann Interiors. Susan designs amazing one-of-a-kind feature elements that can be included in the home throughout the construction phase. Her brand is known for catering to various lifestyles and having a blend of contemporary, modern, vintage and bold vibes. the inception in March 2019, she has expanded by leaps and bounds in merely three years. Currently, the company has 70 projects in the pipeline, and Susan’s expertise is in high demand.

Susan brought her 23 years of design and construction knowledge to the table. She stepped out in faith, armed with vast experience and a crystal-clear vision, to start her new venture with no clients and only a few willing staff. Her customer list swiftly grew, and she now needs to hire more designers and critical personnel to keep up with Demand. Her key goal in growing her company is to retain loyalty, relationships, and connections among her employees. She believes, that if fundamental values are prioritized, work will always reflect a high degree of excellence, resulting in a trusted brand. “The quality of life lies in how you choose to see it. It’s all about perspective,” she adds.

Transforming Styles into Spaces that Rejoice Living

Susan has remarkably carved her journey to attain her current stature. With the help of her team at her design firm, she continued to work with her clients to create inspiring and innovative designs that meet their tastes and styles. Through networking, word-of-mouth, and recognition from peers and contemporaries, Susan Semmelmann Interiors has become a hot topic. Much like Susan’s firecracker personality, she and her team’s designs are utterly unique. “We are a turn-key design firm that can walk our clients from construction through completion. Soup to nuts. We provide many levels of custom consultation and design options, as well as hundreds of top-quality vendor lines offering art, décor, and furnishings,” she asserts.

She states that every project uniquely identifies itself as each space has its own identity and feel. While designing a project, endless factors are incorporated together. Almost everything in the environment, including what lurks deep within the senses, acts as a stimulus; be it a piece of music, a painting, enticing objects, nature, culture, and most importantly people and their stories. Susan’s competitive advantage is her ability to build a home that is truly theirs, integrating elegance, comfort, and function while remaining within their means and budget. Aside from having a thorough understanding of their requirements, she was able to save time and make the entire process fun and painless.

If you can dream it, she can Build it!

Keeping supply-chain constraints into consideration, the company focuses on broadening product access and availability to satisfy clients’ needs. Her clients undoubtedly agree to the fact that Susan Semmelmann Interiors puts the ‘custom’ in custom-made. The firm’s construction detailing options include floor-to-ceiling feature walls, fireplace surrounds, ceiling details, cabinetry, tile design, and integrated lighting, to name a few. Semmelmann Interiors also has an in-house collection of beautiful custom drapes, bedding, and upholstered furniture made from quality fabrics sourced directly from mills. Their exclusive offerings also include custom-crafted mattresses, seats, ottomans, mirrors, and headboards. Momentarily, the designed pieces chosen for projects are not found in retail, so it intends to customize the desired items.

‘The Spirit of Living is in the Giving’ is the motto that encapsulates Susan’s purpose for doing what she does. “I have the amazing privilege to use the vehicle of top-notch client service and fabulous design to invest back into my community and make a difference,” she says. Susan Semmelmann’s star is blazing across the interior design landscape of Dallas-Fort Worth and beyond. She thrives on giving stellar service to her clients and also shines a light on charitable pursuits near and dear to her heart.

Future Endeavours

Susan and her team are developing something spectacular in Fort Worth in an attempt to build dreams for their clients. She mentions, “What started as a cautious commitment to take on 2,500 square feet of office space has grown into a 10,000-square-foot firm with aspirations for an online presence and off-site storage to retain items and merchandise.” The Vickery location will house the firm’s office as well as Fort Worth Drapery and Fort Worth Design Studio. The concept is to open these resources to the public and give other designers more options to offer their clients. Moreover, being a compassionate personality, Susan is committed to sharing and desires to enlighten others with her insights.

“Susan Semmelmann Interiors is 100% invested in making our clients’ dreams a reality. They are trusting us with their hearts’ desire for their homes. It’s an honor to be part of that process, and we don’t take it lightly. We simply partner with them by bringing our resources and expertise to the table to build something beautiful!” one of her clients emphasizes.

Lona Alia: Helping Distributed Companies & Remote Workers

With the pandemic wreaking havoc, organizations across the globe moved to work from home otherwise known as working remotely, which helped people move out of their comfort zone and work from anywhere. Those that were part of the first wave before the pandemic started were called digital nomads and their numbers were growing exponentially each year. However, the pandemic and more remote working opportunities are making this lifestyle much more common than ever before. So, SafetyWing, headquartered in San Francisco was founded to build the first global safety net for remote companies, remote workers, and nomads worldwide. It offers medical insurance for nomads and remote companies around the world. It is also developing other insurance products such as retirement, income protection insurance, life insurance and more. Its products are built and designed by a fully remote team of nomads distributed across three continents.

Meet Lona Alia, who is a venture-backed Y Combinator Founder at StyleLend, and Head of Revenue at SafetyWing. Lona is also an advisor to start-ups and EU for innovation, remote work advocate, and expert at building fully remote teams. The avid traveller in her has taken her to more than 80 countries. She is interested in building things that people want, teams that employees want to be a part of, and companies with a mission, that is greater than making money.

Be Insured

As an insurance company SafetyWing provides multiple insurance services for its clients;

Nomad Insurance: Nomad insurance is a global travel medical insurance that covers people across the planet, while outside their home country. This policy is specifically made for digital nomads. It can be purchased while already aboard, covers home trip visits, and operates as a monthly subscription.
Remote Health: Remote health insurance is fully-fledged health insurance for those who are working as remote teams. It provides a flexible solution that no other company offers.

Through Remote health insurance, full-time nomads can stay safely abroad, no matter where they go or how long they stay.

Influencing Factors

Freedom is the biggest factor that influenced Lona. She always wanted freedom over her time and location. She wanted to be able to live the best life possible under her terms and not have to follow orders, which eventually drove Lona to start her first company.

Lona believes freedom is the only condition for happiness. And she has found that independence in the flexibility that SafetyWing affords it’s team to work from anywhere in the world.

The Best Company Culture

Lona says, “We have created the best company culture in my opinion that exists out there.” SafetyWing’s team members are happy to be given the freedom and flexibility to work from any location and most times zones that are in line with the Americas and Europe. They have the freedom to be creative and be entrepreneurial within their positions in the company.

Authenticity is one of the ingredients the organization values very highly. “Be the same on the outside as you are on the inside. Be brave enough to say what you think is true instead of what other people want to hear.”- adds Lona.

Tackling Challenges

Lona Alia believes, keeping the company’s culture intact while growing rapidly is very important to the success of the company, their customers and their team members. The entire team of SafetyWing values it’s culture so dearly that every team member makes sure to have regular brainstorming sessions quarterly as a team to come up with tactical steps that are necessary to implement in order to preserve the organization’s culture.

Future Roadmap

SafetyWing currently offers 2 products to its customers. However, the organization is planning to launch at least two more services for its clients in the coming year;

Remote Doctor: This service will help SafetyWing’s clients to consult with a doctor remotely. No matter where the clients are, they will be able to get premium medical care from the comfort of their homes.
Remote Retirement: This is a retirement product that prepares SafetyWing’s clients for their future when they are ready to leave work.

Advice for Leaders in Organizations during the Great Resignation

When asked about suggestions for organizations on contributing to a balanced industry, Lona Alia says, “Listen to your team members the same way you listen to your customers.

Your team is creating tremendous value for your company and they should be treated with care, respect, and appreciation. Implement the things they want and you will be surprised how much your bottom line will benefit.”

Also, when it comes to advise for female entrepreneurs, Lona Alia says, “You live in the best possible time to be alive in terms of global opportunity. No matter where you come from if you have an internet connection you can learn the skills needed to get the position that you want by standing out from the crowd.” She adds, “Put a presentation together of what you can do for the company you want to work for and reach out to the hiring manager and present it. You will be surprised with how few people go above and beyond.”

Christine Stoffel-Moffet: Helping Companies to Succeed

Everyone in this world has a story. Now it is up to us how we acknowledge the learnings along the journey of life. Christine Stoffel-Moffet is one such person who acknowledges all the learnings during her journey. She has enjoyed a wonderful career of more than 30 years in technology. Additionally, she also excelled in the areas of operations, sales, and marketing, which enabled her to become a multidimensional transformational leader.

Many people in the arena of global sports know Christine as the Founder and CEO of one of the most iconic sporting consortiums and annual conferences in the world S.E.A.T.

She leveraged her collaborative leadership style by building SEAT to be known across the Globe as a “Community” of like-minded professionals creating life-long relationships through sharing experiences, sharing projects, lessons learned, and the true essence of thought-leadership. Over the last two years, she served as the Interim Head of Enterprise Technology at NASCAR.

With her massive experience of driving transformation across the organization, as well as for 15 years through SEAT transforming leaders and global industry, she decided to take 30+ years of technology, operations, and business experiences and her entrepreneurial mindset to launch her new consulting company, Christine Moffett LLC to help as many organizations embrace evolution and transformation as possible!

Innovative Solutions

Thanks to the encouragement of several of Christine’s global sports colleagues and friends, the offerings of Christine Moffett, LLC are complementary to each other and leverage her core specialties as an executive leader.

Christine’s business consulting offerings are:

Mentoring & Coaching: Through coaching and mentoring, Christine provides individuals an opportunity to be heard. Through this process, Christine provides unique perspectives and insights giving them the tools to become the very best version of themselves with the ultimate goal of finding success in life through happiness, confidence, and empowerment.
Virtual CIO/CXO: Christine provides fractional, interim, or temporary executive-level strategy, guidance, advisory services, and supports HOW and WHEN businesses want it. From technology, data strategy, digital transformation, business operational optimization, network, and data security, staff coaching, mentoring, training, and optimization to leading your organization to embrace innovation and strategy for business growth.
Interim CIO- Transform IT Organizations: Through this service, Christine looks to guide under-performing and culturally-broken technology organizations to evolve into confident, service-oriented, strategic, collaborative, and innovative organizations becoming trusted advisors across their company through compassionate leadership, mentoring, skill assessments; enabling empowerment to deliver a well-defined strategic technology roadmap alongside the business and reducing technical debt to increase the operational bottom-line.
Board and Advisory Roles, including Start-ups: With 30+ years of expertise, she welcomes opportunities to leverage her multi-dimensional, executive, and global perspective, with unique insights in a collaborative format through Board positions or Executive Advisory roles.
Event Consulting: Christine believes a conference event should not be treated just as an event but as an adventure and a journey that everyone in attendance has the amazing opportunity to experience something special and feel proud that they attended. While creating successful, exciting, and engaging events for the global sports and entertainment industry, she has developed various unique methodologies that, if followed, will take an event from ordinary to extraordinary

Tackling Challenges

As a business leader, Christine faces multiple challenges. However, the biggest challenge she faces as a business owner is continuing to create new and creative ways to market her services enabling business visibility and growth. While the other challenge is to continue finding those ‘gem’ clients. For Christine, gem clients are those who are willing to change, willing to listen and have a deep desire to be the best company they can be for their employees.

Christine’s motivation comes from reading. She is an advocate of Audible, so she can listen to books while driving, working out, and doing daily chores. Once she used to tell people that she is a great multi-tasker. However, with growing experiences, she now looks to continue learning every day, which will eventually grow her experiences and knowledge.

Motivating People at Work

Christine believes keeping people around her motivated in order to be innovative and productive is a mindset and it’s all about attitude. She always keeps a positive mindset and constantly inspires creativity by involving people to be a part of the journey.

During her long leadership career and being a parent Christine has discovered that motivating people can be accomplished by trusting, showing appreciation, rewarding, and showing belief. So, she always suggests finding unique ways to inspire them every day!

A Business Leader’s Journey

As a business leader, Christine’s journey has been filled with heartbreaks, joy, fun loss, failures, excitements, successes, and basically everything that has made her who she is today. She has no regrets of mistakes along the way, only lessons learned along this journey and Christine is striving to continue being the best version of herself, every day.

For her there’s nothing more thrilling than mentoring and coaching professionals at all levels, helping them to look at their own situations through a completely different lens. Christine believes her journey as a business leader provides her the opportunity to share her life experiences with others in a hope that they are not alone, there are people to support them and listen to them.

Helping People to Succeed

Success to Christine is helping people to move beyond their current vision of themselves and be able to provide them mentoring and support to evolve as an individual and as a professional beyond what they ever believed could be possible.

Success to Christine is being able to use her 30 years of technology, operational, sales, and marketing experiences through her business consulting and advisory services, in order to enable organizations to transform their company or organizational culture, business processes, and strategy to embrace innovation, employee empowerment, increased operational optimization and renewed excitement in their business mission and visions for the future.

Christine says, “It’s exhilarating to watch professionals as well as organizations desire to change, and then for me to be able to be a catalyst in the change, is incredibly rewarding!”

Fai Chan: Redefining the Beauty through Science

Like many of you, we too are on a hunt for clean skincare products that also goes distances with the results. Deli Aroma has long been one of our go-to brands for that exact reason. We appreciate how intentional they are with sourcing natural ingredients at the peak of freshness, and it is clear such emphasis maakes a visible difference with results.

Fai Chan, Founder and CEO of Deli Aroma LLC understands the cause and wants people to feel better about themselves, by harnessing science to deliver. With her experience in the beauty industry and passion for research and innovation, Fai founded Deli aroma LLC in the year 2014. She is focused on making effective and ethical products available in the market.

She was born in China but grew up in Hong Kong, got married, and immigrated to the United States when she was 30 years old. She applied what she had learned in her previous life and maintained a positive relationship with the citizens of the USA—who not only treated her well but also provided her with possibilities in the fields in which she was interested. One of the many reasons behind setting up the business was to increase her self-worth. She recalls a meeting with the tour guide in Hawaii who advised her to get a job to improve her self-worth. He explained to her, “those who have self-worth appear differently than those who have not.”

A Coin has Two Sides

Deli Aroma LLC is a research-oriented company that strives for its excellence in providing custom-made integrative approaches to people with health concerns. The products made are tested repeatedly for ensuring their effectiveness and safety. It came up with an approach, ‘a coin has two sides.’ It implies in researching the treatment regimens of all-natural medicines and mainstream medicine’s intervention can make things better in an inescapable way.

While skin beauty can be achieved through a skin-deep approach, a bone-deep methodology can bring customers less work and more long-term results. Deli Aroma takes concerns in both inside and outside aspects of protocols, taking part in research conferences and peer-reviewed publications. It desires not to be limited to traditional medicines but also explores pharmacology with toxicology, to keep the company abreast of time.

The foundation for this paradigm was laid by Deli Aroma in Fai’s latest publication on Alzheimer’s healing in Drug Designing Journal Open Access. She believes that it is best not to interfere with her teammate’s jobs when they are working independently. “Your teammates won’t be able to grow if you intervene too much. The most difficult thing to strike a balance on is this,” she says. She attempts to establish an environment where they are free to express themselves; backed with her knowledge and skills from her marketing degree, she is interested in targeting the market niche to ensure that her works are of market value. She believes in exemplifying the positive aspects of one’s practice and creating some pleasant encounters while maintaining company ethics, making people to returning to Deli Aroma. She feels that one must not give up on his/her dreams even though the results are not pleasing as expected. “Building people up and encouraging each other to live the ‘best’ life they can is very important than letting negative emotions take control of your life,” she mentions.

Fai Chan believes that ‘invisible hands’ have aided her in achieving many goals in life. “I am a slacker, but I believe in reciprocity in this world. You need to lend your hand to others before you can receive other people’s help to advance too. That is why I do a lot of charitable work,” she says and believes to have charitable associations to help unite and achieve a greater good in both business and non-business spheres. “I devised a five-year strategy to encourage the work of a few artists. If this world is all about money, we won’t be able to develop our greater inner calling on the spiritual side,” she implies. She understands that many artists rely on others, thus she proposes establishing a balance between materialism and spiritualism. Being a curious and hardworking individual, she spends most of her time in research expressing research as her second nature. Moreover, she is a believer of God thus she paraphrases the Bible, “There is a time for everything. When you are on bad days, you will know that this will pass away… When you are in good company, then you should cherish what you have, as this will pass away too.”

Future Endeavours

When asked about her plans regarding Deli aroma, Fai Chan responded, “In three years, I intend to open my laboratory and assemble a team to carry out further ground-breaking research. For the time being, I can only build on what others have done in terms of foundation work to build on my own. After setting up my lab, I can have more in-depth and untouched areas in science or medicine that haven’t been discovered yet. I enjoy discovering new things, and discovering new things adds excitement to my life. Although I was able to tackle some of the challenges that lead to more advanced healing in this world, it is the exploration that offers the most fulfillment.”

To conclude, being an entrepreneur, she assures to ensures maintaining the quality of the products. Fai Chan considers this as a personal responsibility to provide happiness along with benefits to the people using her products.

Karen Seror: The Disruptive CMO

Some seemingly insignificant events often say more about us than a resume…

Promised a scientific career in the family tradition, Karen Seror decided to make a 180° turn and listen to her growing professional instincts: to make a career in marketing and communication and infuse it with her taste for success and challenge.

Karen graduated with honors from her marketing school and has never regretted this choice. It is certainly her appetite for disruption, while surpassing herself, and her taste for excellence which are the two fundamental pillars of her career path. These have led her to join the sector of new technologies which promise to shape the future. She has, as a result, accompanied young startups that have revolutionized businesses, markets, and uses.

Karen first joined the web hosting company AMEN when it was created in 1999 as the marcom manager alongside the co-founders Patrick Chassany and Oleg Tscheltzoff.

AMEN was the first French company to democratize hosting and domain names. Patrick, the charismatic and bold CEO for whom everything seemed possible, instilled in her a taste for challenge and team spirit forever. With almost no marketing budget and facing an extremely large target group (individuals and SMBs), Karen took advantage of the digital revolution to make them the European leader in just two years. AMEN was sold in 2004 to Via Networks and then to the Dada Group in 2008 for $20 million.

This success led AMEN’s founders to propose a new adventure with the creation of FOTOLIA that

aimed to redraw the photography market by creating the first marketplace of royalty-free visual assets

priced at 1 Euro. By removing the price barrier, photographers could generate substantial or additional revenue from sales volume and companies could acquire affordable images to communicate more legally.

Once again, a disruptive approach in a very traditional and conservative market and the conviction that the internet was the ideal channel to democratize the use of images.

Karen also understood the importance of local specificities in a global market and the agility needed in order to keep up with market evolutions. “Think Global, Act Local” is her motto.

Since 2020, Karen Seror has led global marketing for GAMESTREAM, the world leader in Cloud Gaming solutions for the B2B market. In simple words, GAMESTREAM offers everyone the ability to play quality console games instantly and with unlimited access, on all devices (PC, tablets, SmartTVs, and set top boxes) via an internet connection, without consoles, without downloads. This has earned them the nickname, “the French Netflix of video games”.

Here again, Karen accompanies the success of a game changer that disrupts the traditional business models of gaming – much like Spotify and Netflix did for music and television – by democratizing the joys of the video game experience itself.

In these different roles, Karen has been at the forefront of several disruptions that have shaped the digital economy. Among them:

Digitalization

“Digitalization aims at transforming traditional processes, objects, tools or professions through digital technologies in order to offer new revenue and value generation opportunities on a global scale.”

As with all the start-ups Karen has worked for, this principle of empowering payments, processing numerous logistical steps online, and massive content distribution has had a real impact on the productivity of GAMESTREAM’s services, all of which have allowed her to target the international market and quickly ensure the final profitability of their offers.

The Cloud Economy

The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of the cloud by changing the way we work, making telecommuting the norm overnight. Once considered a mere technological option, it has quickly become an essential part of business-as-usual across all industries.

The second age of the machine is the cloud economy. Driven by the pandemic, the European market reached 7.3 billion euros in Q2 2021. “The whole world is going digital. And we are seeing e-commerce become commerce itself,” says Seror.

As it has developed, we have seen the creation of an ecosystem based on two pillars: the high-performance hosting of applications and the feeding of them with content to generate regular revenues. “Content is key and complements technology,” Seror states.

The Subscription Business Model

Karen Seror : “In just a few years, the distribution of services has undergone an interesting transformation. The unit purchase (pay per product/service) has given way to subscriptions allowing us to build customer loyalty and for companies to predict their annual revenues, which is very reassuring for investors! The popularity of subscription services with tacit renewal, symbolized by Spotify or Netflix or other office software, is no longer in question and Gartner has predicted that 75% of companies selling directly to consumers will offer subscription services by 2023. The challenge is to have the right approach to pricing, on boarding, and data analysis.”

Seror goes on, “This ongoing transformation of sales models provides an exciting field to explore for a Marketing Director, especially in the digital sector, and thanks to GAMESTREAM, I have the opportunity to observe many other service monetization models that are developing alongside the sacrosanct subscription model”.

“With the upcoming arrival of the Metaverse and NFT, new and exciting challenges are offered to marketing managers in all types of industries who, like me, have lived through several digital revolutions…” says Karen Seror, The Disruptive CMO.

Yoana Boyanova: Helping Organization to Make the World a Better Place

Meet Yoana Boyanova, a Senior Member of Technical Staff at VMware Bulgaria, VMware’s largest R&D office in Bulgaria.

VMware is a leading provider of multi-cloud services for all apps, enabling digital innovation with enterprise control. At the heart of everything it does lie the responsibility and the opportunity to build a sustainable, equitable, and more secure future for all.

VMware streamlines the journey for its clients to become digital businesses that deliver a better experience to its customers and empowers employees to do their best work. Since its foundation in 1998, VMware’s employees and ecosystem of over 30,000 partners have stood behind the technology innovations transforming entire industries—from banking, healthcare, and government to retail, telecommunications, manufacturing, and transportation.

Every day, VMware’s employees work to solve its customers’ toughest challenges through disruptive technologies like edge computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain, machine learning, Kubernetes, and more–to define the digital foundation that will accelerate the next wave of innovation.

With almost six years of experience as a Front-End Developer, Yoana is currently moving into a managerial role. Prior to joining VMware, Yoana worked in EPMA Systems. She completed her bachelor’s degree from Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski and her master’s degree from the New Bulgarian University. Yoana is also a part of a non-profit group named ‘Women who code”, which focuses completely on supporting women in technology.

Currently, Yoana works on a leading Cloud-Service Delivery Platform which is part of VMware’s Multi-Cloud Program. The organization has a variety of clients who are mainly service providers, and its product is critical to their business. For Yoana’s team, clients’ needs are always with high priority.

The Journey towards Leadership

While at school, Yoana was very good at maths, and the most perspective career then was to be a software developer. That’s how she moved to Sofia from her hometown to study Information technologies. It was hard at first and Yoana studied a lot, but only a year and a half later she got my first job as a junior UI developer. Meanwhile, she was studying Project Management at the university and soon realized that management is what she wanted to do. Later Yoana started working for VMware, joined Women Who Code, spoke at several conferences, and she served as a mentor in an academy and mentor to a girl intern. Yoana was performing well as a technical team lead for a small team, which helped her to get recognized, and now she is moving to a manager position. She hopes this will eventually help her try something new, which can help her gain a lot of experience.

Yoana feels the need to align her team goals to the company’s objective and, key results. She says, “We live in a very dynamic time, and I need to be very agile and at the same time to step in very fast in my new role.”

Creating a Balanced Industry

Yoana suggests that it is important to show that everything is possible and the only thing matters are who you are as a person and what are your skills. She believes, companies can make more events for diversity inclusion, take part in various initiatives, organize internal programs, and more.

She strongly believes, VMware can win the Multi-Cloud world as the company has the right portfolio and right people to do that. She is quite excited that she is a part of a one really big initiative which can bring a lot of changes to the world right now and she can do a lot with her work to support it.

Suggestions for Upcoming Entrepreneurs

When we asked Yoana to give some advice to upcoming leaders/entrepreneurs, which will help them, she says, “Don’t be afraid that you can fail and that it seems it’s a “men’s world”. We live in a modern world and anyone can achieve anything.” She also adds, “If you need some inspiration or source of strength, you can contact an already successful woman which can help you to grow. And yes, there are a lot of successful great women out there!”

Satisfied Clients

“VMware is the glue that holds our multi-cloud strategy together. It allows us to share resources, tools, and data between Amazon, Google, and our own private cloud environments.”- Salvatore Cassara, CIO, SGB-SMIT Group

“We deployed VMware SD-WAN Edge devices to extend the same level of user experience to the home as if our employees were working onsite.”– Emil Patel, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

“Hyundai AutoEver has been focused on application modernization with VMware Tanzu and heavily invested in internalized capabilities like DevSecOps and microservices.”– Jung Sik Suh, CEO, Hyundai AutoEver

Quote

“Never give up – everything is possible.”