Making of HERstory

Kristal Diorio is a Financial Representative, taking an educational approach to finances. She is dedicated to leading trainings and conducting one-on-one meetings in an effort to help families earn more income and become debt free and financially independent. Kristal earned a Master's degree from UNH in Education and Psychology, giving her the background to understand that when people feel empowered through education they can make informed decisions that will benefit their lives in the long run. Kristal utilizes her magnetic personality and endless energy to connect and bring people together. She is a devoted mother of two and works with her husband, who shares her passion for helping families reach their goals financially.

Valeria is a connector and social entrepreneur who values building strategic relationships and bringing people together for social impact. Her multi-cultural upbringing and experience in 68 countries allows her to connect with companies and individuals to discover their personal identities, to share their stories and to use data for sustained impact. As the president and founder of Chaski Global, Valeria instills her strengths of communications, strategy, training, project management, and her love for improving people’s lives, in every project she comes across. She is also the co-founder of The She Lab, a women’s networking organization that mobilizes and empowers women to change the world. She previously spent eight years at the U.S. Government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation overseeing communications in 24 countries and creating the agency’s results portfolio. Valeria was born and raised in La Paz, Bolivia, has a Masters in Corporate Communications from Georgetown University and a Bachelors in International Development and Hispanic Studies from Trinity College. She is a board member at Amazon Aid Foundation and the Tanga Tanga Foundation. When she is away from the office, you can find her teaching at the Federal Executive Institute, or exploring the world with her husband and three-year old twins.

Charlene "Ignites" DeCesare has been a trusted advisor to executives and organizations around the world for more than two decades. As CEO of Charlene Ignites, LLC and Founder of Firewalk Sales, she specializes in helping smart, ambitious business builders accelerate growth at the intersection of sales and marketing in a way that is fun and easy. Growing a business shouldn’t be painful! ​ Before developing her personal brand into a full-time business venture, Charlene co-founded the multi-million-dollar company, EdAssist, now owned by Bright Horizons. Prior to that, she spent 10 years at Gartner, Inc. leading an international sales team, and helping the most respected technology companies in the world extend their brand message. Charlene was also a membership growth leader at the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), and the Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Boardroom Events. Throughout all stages of her career, she has become well-known for her ability to energize others while creating rapid, sustainable growth. ​ Charlene has a B.S. in Communications from Emerson College and an M.B.A. in Sales & Marketing from Rivier University. She is a Professional Member of the National Speakers Association and a Nationally Certified Brain-Based Success Coach. She lives on a lake in Salem, NH with her husband and two children.

Dr. Cortney Baker is an award-winning entrepreneur, host of the podcast Women in Business: Inspirational Stories of Women Entrepreneurs with Dr. Cortney, TEDx speaker, and a nationally recognized authority on women’s leadership. She has been featured on FOX News, Forbes, iHeart Radio, and Huffington Post, among other publications. As a leadership expert, mentor and business coach to female entrepreneurs and mother of three, she is passionate about inspiring and empowering women to close the gender gap through entrepreneurship. Dr. Cortney is the author of the best-selling book The Ten Do’s and Don’ts for Business Leadership: Lessons to Lead Effectively and her most recent book, . Dr. Cortney was named the 2016/2017 Texas Business Woman of the Year, and the Top 100 in Healthcare Unlimited: Conquering the Myth of the Glass Ceiling in America. She’s the founder and CEO of KidsCare Home Health, a multi-million dollar healthcare organization with 12 locations across Texas, Colorado, and Idaho. She earned an Ed.D. in Organizational Leadership from Pepperdine University, where She concentrated her studies on understanding and advancing women to the highest levels of leadership. Dr. Cortney resides in Dallas, Texas, with her husband, daughters, dogs, and rescue kitty. CORTNEY@CORTNEYBAKER.COM

Her Tribe Athletics began with a vision to provide affordable, comfortable workout clothing for women of all shapes and sizes. Clothing that doesn’t move around and fits the way you need it to! Everything created is limited edition, and hand designed by Meg, the owner. Her Tribe Athletics supports women who are runners, cyclists, yogis, gym rats, walkers, aerialists, spin enthusiasts, and any woman who is or wants to be active. We support women who are just starting their fitness journey, women who have been working out for a little while, and women who have been active ever since they can remember. Every woman deserves to feel beautiful and strong in her athletic apparel. We are here for that woman. We are Her Tribe. Find out more: https://www.hertribeathletics.com

Wendy Bellevue is a Brooklyn-born, Massachusetts-raised actor and software analyst. She spent 2 years teaching English in Korea and now she's back trying to balance showbiz, the tech world, and political commentary all while successfully battling negative self-talk and learning to embrace change. When she's not keying the newest software systems, you can find her on episode 6 of Castle Rock! Find more about Wendy at: https://www.facebook.com/wendy.bellevue

Margery Miller helps people think! She guides people who are ready to get out of the box and lead more productive, purposeful, meaningful lives. A seasoned business veteran, she owned and managed a manufacturer’s rep agency for 29 years before selling it to her employees in 2006 and putting her focus on coaching and consulting through PeopleBiz Inc., a side business during her rep years. She helps people master the business of life and create strategies that work for them. In addition to working with individual coaching clients, she volunteers weekly at an entrepreneurship incubator mentoring groups of budding entrepreneurs. Margery founded the Great Girls Network in 2013 to help women build more meaningful relationships and connections, her answer to the Good Ole Boys’ Network which is very much alive and well. She recently published Confessions of a Recovering Helpaholic, and Sound Business Bites, the first two books in the Great Girls Network Series.

Kristin Hardwick is the co-founder of Coworking House, as well as a branding photographer, and mother of 2 kids. Passionate about marketing and small business, she marries her love for entrepreneurship and the community in both of her professional endeavors. When not working, she can be found exploring New England with her husband and kids, chasing down a great IPA, or devouring yet another personal development book.

Emily Aborn is a Professional Assistant who helps busy and overwhelmed professionals to succeed by taking projects, tasks, and all the things that trip them up from being productive off of their plate. She previously owned a successful luxury retail store and has been working in marketing, administrative and executive support roles for over ten years. She is the Owner and co-founder of She Built This, LLC a company which is working to create the new norm in NH amongst being a female entrepreneur. She is the Chairperson of the Education Committee for the Souhegan Valley Chamber of Commerce. For fun, she loves walking, biking, hiking, and being outside. She is in a love/hate relationship with her rowing machine, and claims to be a Scrabble, Jeopardy, and Crossword addict. She lives in Temple, NH with her husband, Jason, and their dog, Clyde.

Join Crystal and Heidi as we bring the podcast global to Guyana with Evie Kanhai – Gurchuran. A serial entrepreneur; she began her first business at just sixteen years old and hasn’t stopped! Now 34 years old, she is the co-owner of brands, EMTEC, Java Coffee Bar, Uplined Multimedia Management and the Sites Builders, where she is the Chief Business Analyst Her passion is Marketing and Graphic Design, and she is currently pursuing a Master’s in Marketing to complement her seventeen plus years in the field. Evie also has volunteerism in her blood, growing up with parents in local and foreign missions, Evie spent most of her school holidays with foreign organizations taking medical and feeding outreaches to all corners of Guyana. This later led to her volunteering on board the Logos II with Operation Mobilization and experiencing the culture of the Middle East, Spain and North Africa. It is here where she developed her passion for Coffee and Tea and learned to bake and cook in a professional capacity. Her desire to see women become economically empowered, so that they could make their own decisions and foster better conditions for their families and community also resulted from the culture shock she would have endured on her travels, and situations in her own childhood. She works with other empowering women and youth to hold workshops, seminars and uplifting activities, with a focus on capacity building for women and youth in ICT and business development and sustainability and is a co-founder and past president of the Association of Women Entrepreneurs. These endeavors have led to her being awarded a fellowship with the US State Department’s, Young Leaders of the Americas program, Caribbean Teach Entrepreneur Program and, the position of Managing Director of the Guyana Chapter for Girls in Tech International She is the wife to Miguel Gurchuran, and mother of Skyler and Hailey. And when she is not working, she enjoys a simple day at the creek/pool with good food and fun or a good Sci-Fi /Action movie. To find out more about Evie’s professional and volunteer endeavors, you can like her professional page on facebook or add her on linkedin.

Join Crystal and Heidi as they have a great conversation with Debra Poneman. For over 35 years, Debra Poneman, bestselling author and founder of Yes to Success Seminars, has shared her system, now used by tens of thousands of people in every corner of the globe, to create lives of not only success and abundance, but deep and profound happiness, self-love and lasting inner fulfillment. Known as the mentor to the mentors, Debra’s students have used her teachings to become mega-successful entrepreneurs, renowned transformational leaders, NY Times bestselling authors, millionaires, billionaires—even household names. But Debra’s greatest gift is her deep belief in each person’s magnificence and her ability to convey that belief to energetically activate in her audience members and clients profound and lasting inner and outer transformation.

Listen as Crystal and Heidi hear from the beautiful Ariana Scalfo. Ariana Scalfo is a nutrition coach and core member of the Stronger U Nutrition (www.strongeru.com) team. She found the company while on her own personal battle toward health and wellness, seeking answers and the demystification of food. Food as fuel, energy, vitality, and the magic of enough and not too much. Working against an autoimmune disease and genetic disorder, she's made it her personal mission to find every single thing that she can do, master her weaknesses and build her strengths, and to share that tenacity and power with the people around her. She can be found on Facebook (Ariana Scalfo), Instagram (@aaarinator), and reached at ariana@strongerufit.com.

Meet Jen Lindgren, Director of the Prison Yoga Project – New Hampshire Chapter. Jen is a certified yoga instructor with over twenty years of personal practice. Following fifteen-years in a career encompassing medical management, organizational development, and process improvement, Jen started her own business, Yellow Bike Yoga, LLC. Yellow Bike Yoga is a destination Yoga Studio specializing in custom on sight yoga, mindfulness, team-building instruction and wellness retreats for businesses, teams, and individuals. Jen has been volunteering as a trauma-informed, mindfulness-based yoga instructor at the Women’s State correctional facility in New Hampshire since 2017 and began facilitating New Hampshire’s first Yoga Teacher Training Program for incarcerated individuals in 2019. Her affiliation with The Prison Yoga Project (PYP) began in 2018 when she attended Trauma-Informed Yoga Training with PYP founder, James Fox. She was appointed NH director in 2019. Jen is a published author, her debut middle grade novel, Georgie Green Takes Flight was released in 2014 and highlights her teaching and volunteer philosophy that all individuals can achieve their passions with focused attention on the true self.

April Adams is an Emotional Health Consultant, specializing in healing resentment, worries, self-sabotage, longing, emotional triggers and certain addictive tendencies. April has the uncanny ability to help people discover the origin of their emotional struggle and guide them in how to get rid of it for good- not only consciously, but subconsciously, where it really counts. And she teaches others how to do this for themselves. By learning these tools, you will have the peace of mind that you can find emotional relief from any situation for the rest of your life. April is the author of two Amazon Bestselling books and a workbook. Her certifications include hypnosis, PSTEC Advanced, Reiki Master and Marconic Energy Practitioner. She has been in the nurturing business since 1995 and looks forward to helping you find your best possible life on every level. Find out more at AprilAdams.org and AprilAdamsAuthor.com

Angela loves people who see a door and instinctively say, “Hey, what’s in there?” It’s the curiosity, ability to to jump into the unknown, and grow from different challenges that comprise my favorite kind of person. She has dedicated my life to doing things that scare me because these are the experiences that make her a stronger person. Angela is an award-winning speaker, author of three books, founder of the Speaking School for Women, CEO of the Speaker Sisterhood, and the host of Claim the Stage, a public speaking podcast for women. Learn more here: http://angelalussier.us

Toni Portmann is currently co-founder and CEO of Walkabout Workplace, a digital office that is changing the paradigm of remote work. With more than 35 years of leadership experience in board and executive management, Toni has spent her career in technology centric companies, ranging from software and hardware to support and services. She brings a wealth of management skills with expertise in board leadership, M&A, strategic planning, process improvement and innovative sales solutions. Toni’s corporate leadership includes holding the position of chief executive officer at 5 companies. Throughout her career she has held executive positions at IBM Corporation and Diebold, Inc. and has served on public, private and non-profit boards in roles of chairman of the board as well as chairman of nom/gov; compensation and strategic planning committees. Ms. Portmann holds a bachelor of business administration from Boise State University and is a member of WCD (Women Corporate Directors). Toni is an investor in Texas Women Venture Network (TWV) and serves on advisory boards for TWV; Prime Women; Great Girls Network; and Speakalytics. She has served as a board member of The Center for Brain Health, an organization for the assessment and treatment of brain diseases and she established the Tyson Johnson Memorial for Another Solution, Inc., dedicated to fighting the disease of addiction. Toni loves skiing, biking, and enjoying her 6 grandchildren and her cat, Frank!

Jasmine received her BA in Psychology and MS in College Students Personnel from Arkansas Tech University. She spent the first 5 years of her professional career working at colleges and universities, specializing in retention counseling and student services program management. Jasmine went on to spend the next decade working in corporate training and human resources roles for technology and healthcare companies including Hewlett Packard, Micro Focus and Tenet Healthcare. She's currently fulfilling her passion and purpose as an educator for the South Conway County School District where she teaches business education and serves as co-sponsor for student council.

Elissa Bloom is the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator at Macy’s Center City. She has been with the organization since 2011 and launched the successful initiative which is now used as an international model for fashion incubation. With over 20 years of both corporate and entrepreneurial experience, Elissa brings a unique and fresh understanding to the world of fashion and business. She has worked corporately for Bloomingdales and Anthropologie and has taught fashion entrepreneurship courses at Drexel University, Moore College of Art and Design, and Jefferson University. She launched a successful accessories brand, Elissa Bloom New York, which she oversaw for eight years. While managing all aspects of her company including design, sourcing, manufacturing, marketing, sales and distribution, Elissa learned what it takes to run a successful fashion company. She has a strong understanding of both the creative and commercial side of business and is committed to sharing her experience with others to help them achieve success in the business world. In 2018 Elissa was awarded the Philadelphia Business Journal Woman of Distinction. In 2017 she was nominated as the Philadelphia Ambassador of Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, a global event empowering female entrepreneurship that is celebrated in 144 countries with the United Nations. She organized and led Philadelphia’s first and second annual event honoring female entrepreneurs in the region. In 2016 she was honored with the Trailblazer Award by Philly Fashion Week. Elissa is a highly sought after international speaker on fashion incubation and the business of fashion: 2019 US Embassy Trip to Italy - In conjunction with International Women’s Day, Elissa was invited by the US Embassy to teach a series of workshops on the business of fashion to the fashion communities of Rome, Palermo and Milan. • 2018 Fashion and Technology Panel Speaker – Estonia Creative Conference hosted by Incubator Tallinn • 2017 Keynote: Fashion Tech Event Moscow – Elissa was invited by the US Embassy to be the keynote at their annual Fashion Tech event and teach business boot camps to the fashion sectors of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Philadelphia Ambassador, Women’s Entrepreneurship Day (WED) – Elissa organized and led Philadelphia’s 1st and 2nd Entrepreneurship Day event. www.wedphiladelphia,wordpress.com and www.womenseday.org • 2017 International Business Innovation Association: featured speaker on the Creative Economy 2016 The Enterprise of Culture, ‘Harnessing Uncertainty’ Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland 2016 JWRP Fashion Industry Trip to Israel 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit, Nairobi, Kenya with President Obama in attendance. Elissa was invited by the White House to speak on two panels: Specialty Incubators and the Creative Economy. • 2015 PA Conference for Women: featured speaker on Entrepreneurship. • 2014, Elissa was invited to teach her customized Business Boot Camps to the fashion communities of the Baltic States and Finland via two US State Dept. grants. 2014 Estonian Design Festival: featured speaker on ‘Design Mistakes’ 2013 International Fashion Incubator Conference, Toronto, Canada. Featured speaker on the ‘Top Five Sales Trends for Emerging Designers’. 2014, 2015 National Business Incubator Association International Conferences in New Orleans, LA and Denver, CO. Featured speaker on Fashion Incubation.

We had some technical difficulties with the original interview with Yabing. Listen as we captured her original moments of vulnerability. Yabing Wang has master’s degrees in both Philosophy and Computer Science. She has over 20 years of experience in technology and cyber security. Currently Yabing is the VP of Global Security at Alight Solutions. Yabing is also a co-active life coach trained by Coaching Training Institute (CTI) in 2009. Yabing is an advocate for women in technology and women in cyber security. She has been playing an active role in leading the Women in Technology ERG group, and mentoring women in different companies. Yabing is an active speaker on many conferences from cyber security strategy to security control implementations, and from building success career to effective networking.

Yabing Wang has master’s degrees in both Philosophy and Computer Science. She has over 20 years of experience in technology and cyber security. Currently Yabing is the VP of Global Security at Alight Solutions. Yabing is also a co-active life coach trained by Coaching Training Institute (CTI) in 2009. Yabing is an advocate for women in technology and women in cyber security. She has been playing an active role in leading the Women in Technology ERG group, and mentoring women in different companies. Yabing is an active speaker on many conferences from cyber security strategy to security control implementations, and from building success career to effective networking.

Jen Ryan, International Best-Selling Author and Certified Professional Success Coach, has nearly three decades of business experience in the corporate world and as an accomplished entrepreneur. After many years of trying to be everything to everyone and still maintain a prosperous career, she found it overwhelming and unfulfilling. Nothing ever felt “good enough.” All of that changed, however, through learning to be present in her yoga practice. Once Jen mastered that on her mat, she realized how it could carry over and benefit her business life as well. It is now her mission to teach other women how to thrive in business with less stress and more success. Jen brings her clients and audience to the present moment and her ability of meeting people where there are at so that they find clarity and build confidence as they reach massive success in their business and personal life. Learn more at jenryancoaching.com

Listen as Crystal & Heidi talk to Tam Williams and learn about her journey and company She'sIt. https://www.shes-it.com/

Listen as Heidi shares exciting news and Crystal shares the making of HERstory.

Join Heidi and Crystal as they kick off Making of HERstory with Nancy Pearson, Portsmouth NH City Councilwoman.

Listen as Joy Daniels, former back up singer for Sam Smith and Stevie Wonder, shares her journey. Today Joy has launched her own music production company and a new music single, G.O.K.

Listen as we dive into the pivotal moments of Heidi Solomon-Orlick and learn how life changed shortly after birth for this incredible woman. Listen and find out why.