by Eva Glassman | Nov 7, 2023 | Blog, Featured
Georgia Rittenberg is CEO and owner of ComputerCare, an IT service provider, and certified Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) Woman Owned Business that specializes in unconventionally thoughtful repair and logistic services specifically tailored to unique needs of each organization. With a background in Community Studies and women’s health, Georgia took an extremely unconventional path that landed her at ComputerCare, first as a part-time customer service representative. Georgia loves to travel, spend time with her community, and complete 1000-piece puzzles every week. She lives in California with her husband, Alan (the previous owner of ComputerCare), and daughter, Penny. Georgia has been a C200 member since July 2023.
Eva Glassman: Can you please introduce yourself and describe what you do?
Georgia Rittenberg: I’m the CEO and owner of ComputerCare. We’re an IT hardware services provider, so we do repair and IT logistics, which consists of warehousing, onboarding, and offboarding on a global scale. We’re based in the US, Ireland, Singapore, and India.
The company was founded in 2004; I joined in 2012 as a part-time customer service rep. One of my favorite stories about my experience with the company is that my now-husband, Alan, was the head of ComputerCare when I had first applied, and he conducted my interview (he was not my husband at the time). He asked me where I saw myself in five years, to which my reply was, “Not working here!” [laughs] At the time, I was going back to school to get my master’s degree in public health—my background is in women’s healthcare policy. Almost five years later, my husband stepped down and I took over running the company… so the exact opposite of what I had told him in my interview!
The privilege of running a privately held company is the major impact you can make as an employer in communities. That’s what drives me day after day: to grow the company, to know that the more people we hire, the more global reach we have, and the more that we can do for the communities that support our growth.
EG: Tell me more about your career journey! I heard that you studied “Community Studies” in college. What is a Community Studies degree, and how did you use your background to get to where you are today?
GR: I got to where I am now by taking the most unusual path! Community Studies is a program at UC Santa Cruz that isn’t around anymore. It was focused on community activism, so a lot of the people who joined that program ended up working for government agencies, Planned Parenthood, or legal organizations that work toward creating equity around the United States. I did an internship with Planned Parenthood while in school, and when I graduated in 2005, it was a conservative administration, so I couldn’t find work. Instead, I went down the traditional customer service and sales path. For a while, I worked at Klutz, which was owned by Scholastic, in customer service.
Then, I went through a divorce and decided to go back to school for my master’s in public health, because I realized that I wanted to make an impact on the world and make it a better place. My daughter was two years old at the time, so I thought that was an important thing to do.
I wanted to work while I was in school, so I went on Craigslist—because I’ve always had a job since I was thirteen—and applied for a job at the company that I now own and run. Back when you applied for jobs on Craigslist, you could set a job radius, and I set mine within 15 miles of home because I had to take care of my daughter.
I started my job and my master’s program, the latter of which I quickly realized wasn’t a good fit. Meanwhile, at ComputerCare, Alan had lost his account manager. So, he asked me if I wanted to join full-time, and I said yes; it felt like the right thing to do. Little did I know all the other things that would happen over the next several years!
Alan and I got married a year and nine months after I joined the company—a quick romance, but we figured out really quickly how connected we were. When we got married, we lived together—obviously—but we also commuted together and shared an office. We were constantly together, 24/7! People always ask me, “How on earth did you do that?” Honestly? I really can’t imagine anything else. Not only that, but I also got this incredible, hands-on lesson in business. I didn’t get my master’s or MBA, but because Alan and I shared an office (our desks touched in an “L” shape), I could always lean over to look at what he was doing, overhear his conversations, and ask him a million questions. I was curious about it all because it was such a big part of our lives.
In 2016, Alan recognized that he was ready to retire, which is when I stepped in. A year into the global pandemic, we realized that the business had changed so much under my leadership; I had grown the business by 250%. Because of that, Alan gave me the opportunity to become majority shareholder. That’s when we became a woman-owned business. Now, Alan is Chairman of the Board and gets financial updates while supporting me and what I want to do with the business, which is just awesome.
I feel incredibly privileged. I always say that running a company, especially a privately held company—and especially where your only other business partner is your husband—is both the biggest privilege and biggest stress of my entire life, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s a story I love telling, because I think there are these rigid ideas about how to get into the world of running a company that don’t fit everyone’s destiny. So much of life is the willingness to open yourself up to learning and opportunities, and I think my story is a good example of that. My company has nothing to do with public health—where I thought I’d be—but I genuinely believe I have more impact in what I do now than in what I ever would have done in that field.
EG: Of course, your husband has had the most integral role in where you are today, both personally and professionally, which is an incredibly rare situation. I am curious about your female mentors, though, if you had any. Who are the women who inspire you and why?
GR: Sheryl Brunell was the VP of Sales at Klutz when I worked there. She was one of those people who only needed a few seconds to come up with an incredible solution to any issue in her way. I joined Klutz in customer service, but eventually, I was able to move to a sales coordinator role where I reported directly to her. The way that she balanced life, family, and work was really inspiring. She was probably the first person who made me realize you don’t have to make sacrifices to do great things.
Then, when she left Klutz for a privately held company called TableTopics, she told me, “If you ever get the opportunity to work at a privately held company, take it, because it’s a very unique experience.” Two months later, she called to offer me a job, so I went over to TableTopics to work with her for a couple of years before I applied for school. In a roundabout way, she was the reason I found ComputerCare; when I was going back to school, I asked her if I could keep working part-time, but she encouraged me to look for work elsewhere. She said it was important that I wasn’t commuting 90 minutes in a car each way to the office (which is what I was doing at the time) so that I could focus more on school.
To this day, if I am in a difficult situation, I ask myself, “What would Sheryl do?” She always had the answer. I also love that she never made people feel bad for making mistakes. She always looked at mistakes as learning opportunities, and that’s how I like to lead my own team.
EG: That leads well into my next question! How does being a woman in business impact your thinking and the way you lead others?
GR: I feel a lot of responsibility, especially as a woman in tech, to be a good leader. You’re already the minority if you’re a woman in a room of senior leadership, and this is especially true in the tech industry.
The most important thing I feel is gratitude for being a role model for my daughter Penny and her friends. My proudest moment with Penny was when I was watching her and a friend on the playground and I happened to drop my phone. My daughter’s friend said, “I hope you didn’t break it,” and I said, “Well, that’s okay, because I work at a company that can fix it.” Penny, without pause, then said, “My mom doesn’t work there; she runs the whole thing!” I was so proud to see that Penny was insistent on noting that distinction!
EG: The story is so interesting, and I love how she recognized the difference between your response and the reality. I hope the next generation of girls don’t feel as inclined to downplay their work and accomplishments. I catch myself doing it a lot; the instinct is to be modest and not fully own your accomplishments.
GR: I’ve been majority owner of ComputerCare for three years, and we were certified as woman-owned in 2022; this year might be the first year where I really emphasize the “I own and operate” part of myself and my work. The default is that I would walk into a conversation and just say, “the company” instead of “my company,” or, “I work at” instead of “I run,” and you’re right—it is an important narrative to change. We need to take credit for what we’ve earned; we’ve all worked hard for what we have. It’s speaking up and having a voice about it that will encourage future female leaders to continue the charge. It’s something I can be even better at, now that you’ve reminded me!
EG: Glad I could remind you—we all need it sometimes! This leads me to my next question: What is your advice to aspiring female business leaders to advance their own careers?
GR: Life is going to lead you down a path you probably didn’t anticipate, so it’s recognizing the opportunities in every destination you end up at. It’s not about going from A to B in a straight line; you might take some curves to get there, or go right to C! Or, maybe you did end up at B, but it wasn’t the journey you expected or wanted, and it’s okay to pivot from what you thought you loved to a new direction. That doesn’t mean you failed in getting to where you thought you wanted to be; it’s that you recalibrated and reprioritized, and that’s exciting!
To your earlier point, my biggest piece of advice is not to be so hard on yourself. I think we have a hard time acknowledging our accomplishments; women especially are quick to criticize our failures. It’s okay to fail! It’s learning from it that makes you succeed. To be a strong leader means to let go of those failures and move onto the next thing—not to forget them, but to not let them hold so much weight.
EG: The idea of getting comfortable with failure is a theme I’ve seen come up in so many conversations I’ve had with C200 members about this question. We hold ourselves to such a high standard in male-dominated spaces because we have so much to prove as women in them, but that perception comes with very little room for what we consider “failure.” But the reality is that the people we look up to and admire had plenty of fumbles.
GR: Nobody is perfect, that’s for sure. Perfect is boring, anyway.
EG: Outside of work, what do you like to do for fun?
GR: I love traveling. When I was growing up, I made a goal to visit all 7 continents before 25. This year, I got to my sixth, so I’ve officially started planning when I’ll go to Antarctica to hit all 7—I’m determined to do it! It might be before I turn 45 instead, but better late than never!
I love being with our community, our friends. It brings me a lot of joy to do nice things for people that I love and who have encouraged me along the way. Otherwise, if you can’t see what you’re working towards, what’s all the stress for?
I do love puzzles, too; I probably do a 1000-piece puzzle every week. I’ve always loved puzzles, and I discovered during COVID, when there was so much I couldn’t control with the business, that I took a lot of satisfaction in completing them. It’s a scientific fact that the chemicals released in your brain when you put puzzle pieces together is like microdosing on dopamine. Doing puzzles during COVID helped me find rhyme and reason in something when everything else around me felt so out of control. My love of puzzles is even deeper now!
EG: What are you most excited about as a new C200 member?
GR: It was super exciting to attend the Annual Conference in San Diego and meet everyone in person! The thing that feels special to me about C200 is the sense that everyone truly wants to help one another. That is something that I had never experienced before, and it feels very special.
I’m so excited to get even more involved with C200 through Councils. I’ve met a lot of members in the Silicon Valley area where I live, so I’m looking forward to meeting more women who aren’t in my area. So many of them have grown extremely large businesses, so I’m excited to talk about that with them and learn what drives these amazing women! Making more friends who understand the challenges of being a woman CEO or senior executive is a huge perk; we all want and deserve more of a village behind us.
by Eva Glassman | Nov 2, 2023 | Blog, Featured
By Myla Skinner, CEO, C200
Embracing vulnerability and offering support to one another is what enables us as women leaders to thrive in a complicated and often unpredictable professional landscape. Vulnerability, once misinterpreted as a weakness, is now celebrated as a source of strength—allowing today’s leaders to navigate complex business challenges with authenticity and resilience.
In her recent Forbes article, Myla Skinner, C200’s new CEO, shares her perspective; in a world where vulnerability can often be perceived as a liability, female executives are reframing the narrative by recognizing the power of their beautiful soft underbellies as a force to be reckoned with.
You can read the full article here.
by Eva Glassman | Oct 3, 2023 | Blog, Featured
By Sophia Velastegui, Chief Product Officer of Aptiv, C200 Member since 2023.
AI is transforming industries, and corporate boards need to keep pace.
C200 member Sophia Velastegui outlines the strategic imperative of AI for business growth and innovation in this recent Forbes article. Drawing on her experience in launching multiple scaled AI products from tech giants like Microsoft, Google, and Apple, Sophia details real-world AI applications, strategies to overcome challenges, and how boards can empower themselves with AI expertise.
You can read the full article here.
by Eva Glassman | Sep 13, 2023 | Blog, Featured
Ashley Black is the Founder of Ashley Black, Inc. and the inventor and developer of a line of beauty and health products that aid in tissue regeneration all over the body. Most notably, Ashley is the inventor of the FasciaBlaster, a line of fascia care tools that are designed to treat and prevent a variety of issues from cellulite to chronic pain. Having dealt with chronic pain in her own life, Ashley believes her experience gave her the purpose to develop her products and share them with the public via her online following in the millions. Ashley describes herself as a “mermaid” with a love for surfing, free-diving, and everything to do with the ocean; she lives in Costa Rica with her partner, Jordi. Ashley has been a member of C200 since April 2023.
Eva Glassman: Hi, Ashley! So, tell me about yourself. What do you do?
Ashley Black: At the heart of what I do, I’m an inventor. I love pushing the boundaries in health and beauty and try to look at them from a different perspective. I see myself as a wacky, “should-be-locked-away-in-a-lab-somewhere-to-blow-things-up” kind of inventor. I ran my business as the CEO until a few years ago, but now I focus on just being the face and founder, and I’m hoping to sell the business and retire soon.
My most successful invention is a line of beauty and health devices called the FasciaBlaster tools. FasciaBlasters are remarkably simple and almost silly to look at, but my crowning achievement to date is conducting and publishing a peer-reviewed research project on the tools that proved they do remodel fascia tissue. We’ve sold over 2 million FasciaBlasters—there’s a lot of women and men out there that use them and constantly post pictures of their results. We don’t even have to say anything anymore—we let our users do the talking at this point!
EG: Talk me through your career journey. Where did you start? How did you end up where you are and what do you think are the biggest factors that led to your success?
AB: The core of my business is very personal and authentic to who I am. This was never a team of investors; one of the things I’m most proud of—and slightly annoyed by—is that I’ve never taken a dollar of funding. This is something that was a passion from my heart and what I think is a “true American success story.” It’s all based on my own need, solving a problem for myself, and extending that into helping millions of people.
The journey started young for me, when I was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis (JRA) in the fourth grade. At that time, I was a competitive gymnast; JRA didn’t go well with my plans. [laughs] I went to the doctor often and took medications, but nothing was working. By the time I was 18, I discovered that I could manage the pain of my JRA if I was extremely fit all the time, but I knew there had to be a better way, that there was a bigger picture we weren’t looking at.
After giving birth to my daughter at 29, I had a huge arthritic flare-up. I was in horrible pain and couldn’t be a mother at all. After two weeks, I went back to the hospital to get my hip and lower back drained. That was how I dealt with my pain as a kid before gymnastic meets, so it was a semi-normal procedure for me. This time, however, there was a complication; a bacteria spread from my bone marrow to my entire nervous system, and I went from being in blinding pain to fighting for my life. My entire body was septic. I spent four months in the hospital and had a total near-death experience—you know, the tunnel, the visions, the connection with the universe. I received the message that I had to go back to my children and that there was something I needed to bring to the world, but I had to be patient for it to reveal itself.
That event made all my history make sense; I was in school for engineering at the time, but I was more interested in fitness, nutrition, and how to optimize the body. I decided to leave engineering school and met a Chinese medical doctor who taught me about meridians and the fascia. In Chinese medicine, the fascia is the chi—the energy source. I became fascinated with it, so I took a dissection course and started studying the fascia, getting papers shipped over from China to translate. By learning how to manipulate the fascia system on my own body, I got to a point of healing where I was and still am almost fully functional. I started applying the same methods I used for myself on my friends and family, and at one point my local chiropractor was like, “What’s that you’re doing?” That’s what set off my career.
I do believe I’m an amazing businesswoman, but none of this started from that belief. It came from a place of: “This was put on me by the universe, and I’m going to force it to happen one way or another.” I still feel that way, and it’s 22 years since that event.
EG: That is an incredible story, and I think it’s so interesting that you were in school for engineering before switching gears to fitness and nutrition, because physical health has been so important in your life. Your passion and purpose for your business comes from a very personal and lived experience.
AB: I recently told my partner, Jordi, that I hardly feel injured anymore. However, on our recent trip to Europe, I’m walking around Barcelona, carrying bags up hills, eating gluten and whatnot, and I had a couple of arthritic flare-ups. I wouldn’t say it was nice, but it was a reminder of all the things I do to keep myself pain-free. Everybody has some kind of pain they deal with every day. My professional journey is getting my tools, techniques, and knowledge into the hands of as many people as possible, both consumers and health professionals.
EG: At C200, we’re all about Success Shared and women supporting women, so I’d love to know if you’ve had any female mentors over the course of your career, or if there are any women you’ve admired and taken inspiration from.
AB: It’s so funny you’re asking that because I really didn’t have any mentors! I wish I had been more open to that and sought it out sooner; I’ve always been the wacky person on their own little island.
Right now, I’m at a point in my business where I’ve done all that I can do for it, and we need to take it to the next level. If you talk to a lot of business mentors, they will tell you that the team—including yourself—that gets you from zero to $100 million is not the same team that will take you from $100 million to $1 billion. That’s where I stand financially with my business, and when I realized this, I also realized that being without mentors was the worst thing I could have possibly done; I didn’t have the network of those higher-level people who could help me. That’s where Alexandra Lebenthal comes in; she is the only business mentor I’ve had and has been key in helping me understand what it’s going to take to get my business to the next phase of its success.
Before this inflection point in my business, the influential people in my life were those who offered me spiritual guidance. I’ve been a yogi for 30 years and had a strong mentor in yoga who was a big help in strengthening me emotionally. I’ve had more mentors in my spiritual life than in my business life. Hopefully, because I’m a C200 Member now, I’ll have a better answer in a few years. I think that’s why Alexandra wanted to bring me into C200—I need mentorship and colleagues who are at my professional level.
EG: What does being a “woman in business” mean to you and how do you apply that thinking to your entrepreneurial work?
AB: I don’t feel like a “classic feminist.” I’ve never felt like being a woman was ever a disadvantage to me along my career journey; in fact, I felt like it was an advantage. For example, I would walk into the Yankees training room with confidence—despite all the mayhem happening around me—and still felt like the star, because I knew that what I had to bring was something they couldn’t get anywhere else.
However, once I started fundraising, I realized that my business has been growing since day one and growing fast every year—why weren’t people lining up to fund me? That’s when I started hearing statistics about less than 2% of professional capital going to women. I was honestly shocked. Now that I’ve been fundraising for three years, although no one has treated me as less-than because I’m a woman, I understand that it’s a real experience for most women in business—that’s the reality. The statistics don’t lie; they aren’t someone’s opinion.
I’ve become so much more of an advocate for women in business now. I’d love to start some kind of fund after I retire, because women are extraordinary, and we just don’t have access to the capital! When I exit my business, I won’t be giving any money to men! [laughs] Not because they aren’t worthy, but because they have so many other avenues!
EG: Outside of work, what do you like to do for fun?
AB: I am basically a mermaid. I can’t not live on the water—we live in Costa Rica on the water and any day that I get to surf is a good day for me. It has a combination of so many things that we need: it’s fun, a little scary, and gives you all those life lessons about riding the waves—there’s a reason why people use those sayings! I like to free-dive, spearfish, lay on the beach—anything that goes with beach. I understand why people drop out of society altogether and become beachbums!
I also love self-development and spiritual development. I watched Goop Lab on Netflix and thought, “I’ve already done all of that!” [laughs] People always ask me what I’m doing all the way out in Costa Rica, and I tell them, “I just get weird out in the jungle.” Life is about the connection to the planet and the universe, whether that’s done through ceremony, surfing, charity, meditation, sound baths—whatever it is. That’s the lane I live in.
EG: What is your advice to aspiring female entrepreneurs to advance their own careers?
AB: I recently co-wrote the #1 bestselling book BE… From Passion and Purpose to Product and Prosperity with Korie Minkus and Lisa Vrancken, two of my girlfriends who are powerhouses in consumer goods products. When we started writing, we thought we could write a female business blueprint—don’t fall into these landmines, here’s how to deal with these kinds of difficult people, etc.—but then we realized: that’s not how we became successful. We found success by being authentic to ourselves as women and not confining ourselves to the “girlboss” stereotypes. You don’t need to assimilate to “business culture” (i.e., a typically masculine space) to be respected as a woman. In short, the book is about success being ultimately self-defined. It’s about being honest with yourself, not just accepting the societal ideas of what success looks like, and building your business from a place of—and I know this sounds hokey—authenticity, love, genuineness, and not stepping on people. You want to sleep well at night!
We place so much emphasis on women achieving financial milestones as success, but I think women should design their ideal lifestyles (i.e., what success is to them) and work their way backwards to determine how to achieve that. It’s important to have clarity around what you want, not just the dollar amount. Otherwise, you’re overworking yourself for things that don’t matter to you. You must be authentic, clear in what you want and what it’s going to take, and manifest that. Ten years ago, I didn’t realize I had a choice; it’s society and generational beliefs that tell us to be workhorses. The reality is that we must work in ways that build teams and support systems around you.
EG: It’s important to have people who you trust, who have your vision in their minds, and who will work with you to achieve it.
AB: No one ever loves your company as much as you, and no one is ever going to do it as best as you, but would you rather have a team of B- players that get you to the goal, or would you rather be the A+ person that does everything yourself? You have to be okay with trusting others for the greater good because that’s how amazing things get done, and those things are still amazing even if you didn’t do it by yourself.
When Korie, Lisa, and I first started drafting our book, I told them, “You’re never going to feel like this book is perfect. You’re going to have to be okay with ‘good enough.’” I will reread my own books and still think, “Why did I say that? That sounds terrible!” But other people don’t see it that way; they love and resonate with it, which is the goal at the end of the day. If you’re going to build a business and be super successful, you can’t carry that level of perfectionism with you—you’ll just get exhausted. Let’s not do that, ladies! Let’s find some happiness outside of work instead!
EG: What are you most excited about as a new C200 Member?
AB: Everything, is the short answer! I’m so excited to jump in; I’ll be at the Annual Conference this October!
I’m 51 years old and just now building a network of women. I’m so happy to be a part of C200 and align with other women who are at similar places in their careers as me. I’m looking forward, for the first time ever, to having a tribe of businesswomen in my corner. I have this so beautifully in my personal life; I can’t imagine how amazing it will be to have this in my professional life! If you build your business to a place where things become complicated, you need to have people you can go to with those complicated questions.
I also look forward to being a mentor. I love to work with young people, and I believe anyone can achieve their dreams, however impossible they seem. If we get more women into positions of global power, we may finally get some stuff done around here!
I hope that as the women in C200 get to know me, they get to know me—my authentic self. I recently attended an amazing C200 webinar and loved to see that a lot of these women have known each other for years and years. I’m so excited to be at the start of that.
Find C200 on LinkedIn and Instagram!
by Eva Glassman | Aug 29, 2023 | Blog, Featured
By Teresa Carroll, CEO of Magnit; C200 Member since 2019.
The impending retirement of the baby boomer generation poses an intricate and multifaceted challenge to the labor market that businesses must acknowledge and use agility to navigate.
Offering insight from her 30+ years in the human capital industry, C200 member Teresa Carroll, CEO of Magnit and a prominent figure in the Workforce Management sector, explores the complexities of the current labor landscape in her recent article for Forbes. Emphasizing diversity and inclusion, Teresa provides a comprehensive analysis of the factors driving the talent crisis and offers strategies that businesses can adopt to navigate this current workforce disruption.
Read Teresa’s full article here.
by Eva Glassman | Aug 28, 2023 | Blog, Featured
Lynn Perenic is the President and CEO of Argent Tape & Label, specializing in manufacturing and distributing custom printed adhesive media and industrial tape products, and Argent International, a full-service custom die cutter and fabricator. Emerging as an entrepreneur from a background of teaching special ed, Lynn harnessed her fierce, can-do attitude to bring both companies significant growth and success. Outside of work, Lynn enjoys scuba diving with her husband in Key Largo, Florida and visiting art museums with her daughter. Lynn has been a C200 member since May 2023.
Eva Glassman: Can you please introduce yourself and tell me what you do?
Lynn Perenic: I’m the President and CEO of two companies, Argent Tape & Label and Argent International. The easiest way to explain what we are is “pressure-sensitive, adhesive solution providers,” or “tapes and shapes,” and we deal primarily in the automotive industry. For example, if you find that your car has a taillight that leaks, our guys will help you find a material and shape that will allow the moisture to dissipate.
My husband bought Tape & Label, the smaller company, as an investment. I had retired from my career as a special education teacher and I thought, “I think I can run this company.” When I bought it from him for a dollar in 2011, it was on the brink of disaster—the sales were a disaster, but if you flash-forward to today, we’re closing in the millions.
My husband started Argent International, the larger company, in 1979. He’s a classic entrepreneur—lots of ideas. If he tells you to do something, he expects you’ll do it. Meanwhile, for me, because of my teaching background, if I tell you to do something, it’s because I don’t think you’re going to do it! [laughs] I’m someone who circles back to things to make sure they get done.
When COVID hit, my husband didn’t want to run Argent International anymore, so he sold me 51% of the company. That’s where we are today; we’re growing the business and making it a healthy, strong, and sustainable one. I’m also proud to say that we have all female leadership at the top. Our COO, Quality Manager, and Controller are all strong and exceptional women. I feel that we’re going to new heights with this team because no one is a quitter here.
EG: I’m curious to know more about how you think your teaching background has informed your career as a businesswoman. What about teaching specifically do you think has helped your success, and what are some other things you believe have affected it?
LP: Teachers need a plan; at Argent International, while they were very successful, they never had a plan. I compared the attitude to the Chevy Chase movie National Lampoon’s Vacation—they were going to Walley World and didn’t have a map. When I first started at the company and brought all the managers in for an initial meeting, I actually played them the clip from that film when they finally get to Walley World and it’s closed. I told them, “I don’t want to get to Walley World and find out it’s closed! We need to have a plan.” I wanted to solidify some long- and short-term objectives. As a special ed teacher, you have to write individual plans for each kid because each one has different needs. That experience helped me understand what I needed to do for Argent International. I took classes, read books, and went to seminars to get me up to speed about running a business. Every May, I take a week to establish next year’s plans and to reflect on where we currently are. I was thrilled that each old manager—I call them the “OGs”—were able to adapt to my new expectations and come up with plans. All those things—having actual processes in place—helped make the company stronger.
EG: It’s remarkable that you were able to come in and change the ways of these older managers so effectively!
LP: I’m not the girl who waits by the car for help, and they know that. Now, they’ve seen the success of the smaller company, which I run with an open book management approach—the idea that business is run like a game. Everyone likes to play a game and win. There are three basic rules: you must know and teach the rules—i.e., business planning—and then you keep score. You keep score via your various metrics—KPIs, income statements—and then you share a stake in the outcome. I do that through gain sharing quarterly. Since 2012, when it became profitable, Tape & Label has not missed a gain share. Again, I had to beat this company on the chest to bring it back to life. The OGs all see that success and want a share in it.
EG: Did you have any female mentors or inspirations going up in your career? Who are they and what about them do you admire?
LP: There aren’t a lot of women in the automotive space, so I had to look outside for guidance. I’m a member of the Great Lakes Women’s Business Council, so there are a lot of very strong and successful women in that group that I look to. I have a good friend named Stormi Greener who’s an award-winning photojournalist. She’s gone on assignments in Iran, Pakistan, and many other countries, and seeing how she navigates a lot of the stereotypes about women in her profession is inspiring to me.
EG: It’s interesting that you’ve found inspiration in someone who has a totally different career path than you and took those lessons over into your own life and situation.
LP: One of my first experiences in this primarily male-dominated business, I walked into the office with a ponytail and heard a man down the sales aisle say, “So who’s the blonde ponytail coming in here?” When I turned around, it looked like a game of Whack-A-Mole; all the heads shot down into their cubicles. I later went out and bought a Barbie with a big blonde ponytail and stuck her on my desk. By the end of the year, one of the guys in the office made an acrylic ceiling for me to stick her fist into. That’s the kind of person I am!
EG: That’s so awesome. Perhaps related to that point, what does being a “woman in business” mean to you, and how do you apply that thinking to your work and life?
LP: My husband started the company from scratch; he was a one-man show, selling during the day and running parts at night. I feel pressure just to keep it successful; I don’t want to drop the baby, if that makes sense.
My ideas must work. I need to be able to see the entire playing field. As Wayne Gretzky once said, “Skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.” This is how I have to think to win!
EG: What’s your idea of fun outside of work?
LP: We have a place in Key Largo that we go to in the winter where I love to fish and scuba dive. It’s a great escape from Michigan when we’re able to get down there. Since COVID brought in remote working, it’s been great to attend meetings and escape the winter all at once!
I also love to go to museums. My daughter was an art history major, so it’s always fun to go with her. She and I would go together as far back as when I pushed her in a stroller.
EG: What’s your advice to aspiring female entrepreneurs and corporate leaders as they advance their own careers?
LP: Don’t give up. Set goals for yourself. Sometimes it looks like you’re going to fail, but keep pushing forward. I have a sign outside my office that says, “If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough.”
In my early days of running the company, I became interested in the scarab. A scarab is a dung beetle, and what do dung beetles do? They push dung uphill. Backwards. That’s what I told my team members: just keep pushing.
EG: That’s a very strong image.
LP: Why was the dung beetle an important animal for the Egyptians? Inside the ball of dung is the larvae. To the Egyptians, that meant it was a renewal of life, so I was really interested in the image because, in a strange way, it’s so positive and forward-thinking.
EG: What are you most looking forward to as a new C200 member?
LP: I’m excited about meeting other women who are driven, who see something out there and want to go for it, who have ideas they’re willing to pursue, even if it scares them. I always love to hear new ideas because ideas from others sometimes spark something in you. I’m really looking forward to meeting all these women in San Diego for the Annual Conference in October!
