#WI 51 and Counting. . .

An entrepreneur professor once told me that to find out if you have a viable concept, you need to interview 100 people. So far, we’ve been able to meet and talk with fifty one, from corporate leaders, diversity & inclusion specialists, our fantastic mentors, recruiters and talented professionals. Here were some of the highlights from last week:

Leadership Austin BCE ’17 @ Wal-Mart

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Sneak Peek showcase last week. It was amazing to get to share #WI with so many people. We are especially grateful to Stacey Sheridan and Sareta Davis, friends from our Leadership Austin class. Stacey for her continued connecting to us in the community and Sareta for putting her prosecutorial skills to use helping practice for all the questions we get about #WI.

Grateful to Wal-Mart for hosting the event. Paula & Desmond have been incredible in their hospitality, insight and opening up networks for us. We were encouraged at the event to ‘think bigger’ and Wal-Mart is doing big things.

Holly Tachovsky and her BuildFax team have been awesome. One introduction may lead us to a way to connect military veterans more easily to Austin’s innovative companies. Veterans resumes don’t easily translate to civilian ones, so really talented people can be missed. We are excited to explore that prospect and keep collaborating with BuildFax.

Dazzie McKelvey for connecting us to her brilliant sister Victoria Musa-Lyons of HRMatters and Victoria to coming to the showcase to connect even further.

Ikechi Nwabuisi and Rachelle Orbio for sharing their work with Tribl and Design Thinking Social. They are doing super innovative things and we look forward to collaborating.

Monica Williams and Paulina Artienda of The New Philanthropists for the work they’ve been doing building a diverse and inclusive leadership pipeline for non-profits. We are looking for ways to partner and learn from each other.

Finally, thanks to all the staff and other cohort members. It’s inspiring being around you and seeing all the breakthroughs we are making in the community.