Penny Font

1 week ago | businessreport.com | Kelli Bozeman |Penny Font

It’s a moment Paige Carter remembers well. In her role as a project manager with Louisiana Economic Development more than a decade ago, she was conducting a site visit at IBM’s temporary Essen Lane location while its downtown Client Innovation Center was under construction, and a young employee walked in “just glowing.”Asked why his spirits were so high, he explained that thanks to this job, he had been able to purchase his first car the previous evening.

1 week ago | businessreport.com | Penny Font

2025 Influential Women in Business honoree Michelle Hardy, vice president of public affairs and community development for Turner Industries, shares her insights. Read her profile here. What’s the most important leadership lesson you’ve learned in your career—and how did you learn it? Learning to accept setbacks should not be viewed as failure. Setbacks are opportunities to reassess both from a team and individual standpoint and make changes that will lead to greater success.

1 week ago | businessreport.com | Penny Font

2025 Influential Women in Business honoree Meghan Parrish, vice president of marketing and communications, shares her insights. Read her profile here. What’s one risk you took that changed your trajectory, either professionally or personally? Moving to Colorado after college was a big risk! I didn’t have any connections and finding a job was rough. Living there was a great experience, though, and it all worked out in the end.

1 week ago | businessreport.com | Penny Font

2025 Influential Women in Business honoree Kodi Guillory, owner and president of Sustainable Design Solutions, shares her insights. Read her profile here. What’s the most important leadership lesson you’ve learned in your career—and how did you learn it? The most important leadership lesson I learned is the importance of adaptability.

1 week ago | businessreport.com | Maggie Heyn Richardson |Penny Font

She didn’t know it at the time, but Keli Zinn’s persistence on a youth baseball team foreshadowed her future as one of the nation’s top executives in college athletics. An exceptional youth athlete, Zinn was the first girl in rural Grant County, West Virginia, to compete on a boys’ baseball team when there were no options for girls. She went on to letter in three varsity sports and earned the sole Athlete of the Year award at her high school—the first female to do so.