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BOSS LADIES THE LEGACY ISSUE | VOL. 4 | NO. 2

LEGACY WITH PASSION & PURPOSE Debbie Oatts on faith, family, business, and 32 years of building impact.

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The Lines We Carry Words from The Legacy Issue that stay with us.

READ HER STORY. WATCH HER STORY. Boss Ladies Magazine now goes beyond the page with video. Scan QR code inside to watch!

Digital Version

Welcome to LiMStudios Creative Hub! This is where the stories in these pages were shaped.

Opened January 2025. A 3,000 sq ft creative studio in Castleton, Indianapolis, designed for brand photography, video production, podcast recording, strategy sessions, and live experiences. Every corner built to support meaningful work.

The space moves between quiet focus and collective energy. A podcast set one day. A photoshoot, workshop, or creative collaboration the next. It is where preparation meets execution and brands are built with intention.

Every story in this magazine was captured here. Not just the moment content is created, but the thinking, refining, and positioning that happens before and after.

We invite you to step inside.

Click or scan the code to schedule a private tour.

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From The PUBLISHER W

hat does it really mean to build a legacy?

This is a question I have been sitting with as we created this issue.

Is it what we leave behind? The money, the business, the title, the years of work people can measure from the outside? Because there is something sacred about watching a woman finally see the weight of what she is building, even when she has not arrived yet. Legacy is not something we work on after everything else is done. It is not a destination we arrive at when the work is finished.

It is what we are building right now. It is the courage underneath the work we are currently doing. The decisions no one claps for.

The seasons we survive quietly. The family we carry. The rooms we enter before we feel ready. The work we keep doing because something inside us knows it matters.

That is the heart of The Legacy Issue.

Inside these pages you will meet women doing exactly that. Building in real time. In their homes, their businesses, their communities, and the spaces where people come looking for care, direction, history, wellness, and hope.

You will meet a woman who returned from Ghana with a new name, a deeper sense of self, and a reminder that the past still has wisdom for the future. Another who turned personal loss into Magnificent Minds, a safe place for mental health and addiction support. You will meet a woman preserving Black history so future generations inherit more than fragments. And a woman who rebuilt after fire, illness, motherhood, and loss, and now helps others return to themselves. And one more whose Olympic dream was rerouted by illness but not erased, and who is now building opportunities for the next generation of girls to see what is possible.

Woven throughout these pages you will find stories of advocacy, sisterhood, and community through NAWBO Indianapolis, reflections on leadership across generations, practical wisdom on wellness and wardrobe, and conversations about visibility, systems, reinvention, and the work behind the work. Together these stories form a living archive of women who are not only achieving but building something that can carry forward.

These are not just successful women. These are significant women. And none of them have arrived. They are still arriving. The work is still unfolding. The legacy is still being written. Boss Ladies Magazine was never meant for women at the finish line. It was built for women still running the race, still learning the terrain, still choosing to show up even when the outcome is not guaranteed.

If you have ever thought you were not far enough along to call yourself a Boss Lady, these pages were made for you.

And this issue is especially meaningful because Boss Ladies Mag-

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azine is growing beyond the page. For the first time every feature includes a video component. You can now read each Boss Lady's story then scan inside to watch her tell her full story in her own voice. You will hear the pauses. The conviction. The emotion. The laughter. The truth that only a woman's own voice can carry.

That matters because some stories deserve to be read, watched, felt, and remembered.

This expansion of the magazine into video is part of a larger vision as I continue to build my legacy too with LiMStudios. Boss Ladies Magazine is one piece of a connected infrastructure built to help leaders make their story, expertise, and brand visible through a system that attracts clients and builds lasting impact. The studio, the strategy, photography, video production, podcast, magazine, client acquisition system, and the backend that captures and converts every opportunity are all designed to work together. Not just to make women look good. But to help their work travel further and convert into the opportunities, revenue, and legacy they have been building toward.

That is the work behind the work. And you will find it on the pages that follow.

From the very beginning the goal was never just to feature women. It was to honor them.

To position them. To help the right people see the depth of their work and the humanity behind their leadership. This magazine is part celebration, part documentation, part visibility platform, and part legacy archive. Every issue is a reminder that women should not have to wait until after the milestone, the exit, the award, or the perfect moment to be seen clearly.

They deserve to be seen now.

So as you turn these pages I hope you read slowly. Scan the QR codes. Watch the stories. Share the quotes that stay with you.

Support the businesses and organizations you discover. Send a feature to a woman who needs to remember that her work matters too. Because what you will find here is more than profiles. It is proof. Proof that legacy does not have to wait. Proof that what you survived can still become something that serves.

Because visibility creates opportunity. Stories create connection.

And when women are seen clearly the impact of their work can travel farther than they ever imagined.

Welcome to The Legacy Issue.

With gratitude, Victoria Odekomaya Publisher, Boss Ladies Magazine Founder and CEO, LiMStudios Creative Agency and The Creative Hub Host, The Own Your Brand Show

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VISIBILITY IS HOW LEGACY TRAVELS S

he is sitting in her car after a full day of serving clients, one hand still on the steering wheel, the other scrolling through her phone. Another woman’s video is on her screen. The lighting is good. The message is clear. The comments are full of people asking how to work with her. And the part that stings is not jealousy. It is recognition. Because the woman watching knows she is just as qualified. Maybe more.

She has clients. She has the years of experience, the private wins, the referrals, the reputation among the people who know her well. But online, in the places where new opportunities now begin, someone else is becoming the name people remember. That is the cost of invisible expertise.

For years, women business owners have been told that if the work is good enough, people will find them. And sometimes they do. A client refers a friend. Someone mentions your name in a room. A past customer remembers you at exactly the right moment and sends another opportunity your way. Referrals are beautiful. They are evidence that your work has mattered to someone enough for them to carry your name into another conversation.

But referrals are not a reliable, consistent client acquisition system.

They depend on memory, timing, proximity, and someone else deciding to speak your name at the exact moment opportunity is looking for it. That is too fragile a place to build a future. One slow month can turn into panic fast, not because the work is not excellent, but because the visibility has not been built to move consistently. Many women are not behind because they lack expertise.

They are behind because their expertise has not been positioned, documented, distributed, and followed up with in a way that creates momentum.

This is why visibility is not vanity. Visibility is how expertise travels beyond the rooms a woman can physically enter.

The right people cannot hire what they cannot see. They cannot refer what they cannot explain. They cannot fund, invite, partner with, or advocate for work they do not understand. A woman can be gifted, experienced, trustworthy, and transformational, but if her story is unclear or invisible, the people who need her may never know where to find her.

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But visibility by itself is not enough.

Posting more is usually not the answer.

More content without strategy becomes noise. A photoshoot without positioning becomes an expensive folder. A post without follow-up becomes a missed lead. What women need is not just content. They need content with a system behind it. That system begins with message: what do you want to be known for, what problem do you solve, why should people trust you, and what story makes your work easier to understand, remember, and share?

That is the work we are building through LiMStudios, Boss Ladies Magazine, and The Revenue Engine. The mission is bigger than content. Through The Revenue Engine, we are working toward helping our clients generate $100M in revenue

by making their expertise visible to the right audience and positioning their stories in a way that turns attention into opportunities, revenue, and impact.

Not because revenue is the only measure of legacy, but because too many gifted women are sitting on expertise that should be creating jobs, funding families, opening doors, strengthening communities, and building something that outlasts them.

The Revenue Engine was created for established women experts who are done guessing. Women who have real results, real experience, and real businesses, but whose growth has depended too much on referrals, inconsistent posting, or people remembering to call. This done-for-you system is built to turn one intentional content day into months of visibility, with strategy, scripting, filming, editing, written content, ads, follow-up, backend systems, and credibility-building through Boss Ladies Magazine working together.

Because one day in the studio should not become another folder of pretty photos. It should become a body of work that keeps moving. Short-form videos that educate and build trust.

Captions that clarify the message. Ads

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that put the story in front of the right people. Follow-up systems that capture interest instead of letting it disappear. A magazine feature that deepens credibility. A video story that lets people hear the woman behind the work. A system that helps attention become action.

That is when visibility starts to create a different kind of legacy. Legacy is not only what people say about a woman after she is gone. Legacy is what becomes possible because she allowed her work to be seen clearly while she was still here to lead it. For the woman who has spent years building quietly, this is the invitation: stop waiting for the work to speak for itself. Give it language. Give it structure. Give it a path. Your work matters. But work that matters still needs a witness. Visibility is not vanity. It is how impact travels. And when visibility is supported by strategy, content, and systems, it becomes more than attention.

It becomes opportunities, revenue, and legacy.

If this resonated with you, scan the QR code to join my weekly newsletter, where I share practical tips on visibility, storytelling, content, and client acquisition for women building businesses that deserve to be seen.

About the Author: Victoria Odekomaya is the Founder and CEO of LiMStudios Creative Marketing Agency, LiMStudios Creative Hub, Publisher of Boss Ladies Magazine, and host of The Own Your Brand Show. A former drug research scientist turned content strategist and marketing expert, she helps established women business owners make their expertise visible through strategic storytelling, premium content, and client acquisition systems. Through LiMStudios, Boss Ladies Magazine, and The Revenue Engine, Victoria helps women turn visibility into opportunities, revenue, and longterm impact.

VICTORIA ODEKOMAYA WWW.VICTORIAODEKOMAYA.COM EDITORIAL SUPPORT

TREVOR ODEKOMAYA JADEN ODEKOMAYA GEORGIA CALACHAN OLUWAFERANMI FATILE MARGARET BIRABWA UCHECHUKWU 'UCHE' CHIBUEZE AHMED RAZA TYNETTA JENNINGS CHERRY JEN BELLO BOSS LADIES MAGAZINE LIMSTUDIOS LLC INDIANAPOLIS, IN COPYRIGHT 2026 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE LEGACY ISSUE w VOL. 4 | NO. 2 CONTACT INFO (260) 777-7211 HELLO@THELIMSTUDIOS.COM WWW.THELIMSTUDIOS.COM @LIMSTUDIOS

SCAN TO CONNECT

IN THIS ISSUE

PUBLISHER, & FOUNDER

A NOTE ON LEGACY

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HOW TO EXPERIENCE THIS ISSUE

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LEGACY WITH PASSION & PURPOSE

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NAWBO INDIANAPOLIS TAKES THE NATIONAL STAGE

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HISTORY NEEDS WITNESSES

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BEYOND THE YARDS OF BRICKS

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SHE LISTENED BEFORE THE SCREAM

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CONFIDENCE CHANGES CHOICES

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THE LEGACY YOU CAN'T PUT YOUR NAME ON

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THE PAST STILL SPEAKS

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THE SECOND HALF IS YOUR BETTER HALF

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THE WORK BEHIND 38 THE WORK THE LINES WE CARRY 44 NOMINATE A BOSS LADY

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HOW TO EXPERIENCE THIS ISSUE This issue was created to be experienced in more than one way.

Read the stories slowly. Every feature in these pages honors the woman behind the work, the decisions no one saw, the rooms she had to enter, and the legacy she is still building.

Watch the story on video. Throughout the magazine, you will find opportunities to go beyond the page and hear featured women in their own voices through the Boss Ladies Magazine video series.

Follow the threads. Some stories are about business. Some are about healing, leadership, advocacy, wellness, identity, family, community, and the next generation. Together, they ask one central question: what does it mean to build something that lasts?

Share what moves you. If a story reminds you of a woman who needs encouragement, send it to her. If a quote stays with you, save it. If a business or organization resonates with you, support it.

This is The Legacy Issue. Read it. Watch it. Share it. Let it remind you that the work women are building today deserves to be seen while it is still becoming.

READ Editorial features and guest perspectives that honor women building work that lasts.

SCAN Look for QR codes throughout the issue to access featured videos and related content.

WATCH Featured stories now include a video component so readers can experience the story in the woman’s own voice.

SHARE Pass along the stories, quotes, and businesses that move you. Legacy grows when stories keep traveling.

READ

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LEGACY WITH PASSION AND PURPOSE 8

AFTER 32 YEARS, DEBBIE OATTS' PASSION IS HAVING A PROFOUND IMPACT.

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eborah "Debbie" Oatts was the youngest Marshall girl in the family. She was somewhat shy. She was the one who went to Arsenal Tech High School. The one who married young.

And she was fairly well-known in her community.

Debbie was raised by parents and grandparents whose rules shaped her early life and whose values would help establish the foundation for what was ahead.

Her career was a rewarding one, at a company she had always wanted to work for. Twelve years into her marriage, she was working full-time while juggling the responsibilities of raising three children and managing the complex dynamics of family life. Her husband was an entrepreneur, busy running his trucking business. One daughter was preparing for college, two younger children were still at home and needing close parental support and guidance while she worked.

Debbie was also heavily involved in a women's ministry at her church. She cofounded a married women's fellowship group to offer prayer circles, conversation, outreach, classes, and opportunities to talk with women who were struggling to manage family, relationships, and marriage while finding time for themselves. Yet in the midst of all of these sometimes conflicting responsibilities, she kept hearing a voice telling her a direction that did not make sense on paper: Leave the job. Go back to school. Follow the path.

The voice was not audible, but it was steady. It came through prayer, through conversations with her fellow church women over lunch and coffee, and through the growing awareness "OUR FOCUS HAS ALWAYS that there was a purpose inside her BEEN ON HELPING BUSIshe had not quite fully embraced.

Debbie loved people. She loved NESSES BUILD CAPACITY, teaching and mentoring. She loved IMPROVE PERFORMANCE, motivating others. She especially loved encouraging and supporting AND POSITION THEMother women. And she loved builSELVES FOR LONG-TERM ding bridges between people and opportunities. Yet it would be four GROWTH" or five years before she felt free to change the existing balance of family and work to leave a stable career and pursue this personal passion.

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WHAT DOES LEGACY MEAN TO DEBBIE OATTS? That leap of faith was not just for Debbie Oatts. It was for the women who would come after her, the employees who would grow under her leadership, the businesses that would find opportunity through her work, and the next generation watching what faith, preparation, and courage can become.

Legacy, for her, is not measured only by the projects completed or the company name on the door. It is measured by the people who rise, the women who lead, the doors that stay open, and the responsibility to bring someone else along every time you are invited into a room.

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Seated center, then counterclockwise: Debbie Oatts, Nadina E. Edwards, Jordyn N. Edwards, Kyla I. Keeylen, and Nicole D. Keeylen. PHOTO: @limstudios Finally, at 40, deciding she was not going to live a "coulda, woulda, shoulda" life, Debbie took that leap of faith and left her job. Her husband encouraged her to join him in his trucking business, where her work sparked the desire to gain an even stronger business education. She scaled the family's finances down to one income, went back to school in an accelerated adult learning program at Indiana Wesleyan, and co-founded her own trucking business with her daughter at the same time. Debbie laughingly acknowledges that she had two children in college while she was in college herself. The picture she keeps in the ladies' room at her office still holds that memory. A woman leaping over a mountain with the words, "The just shall live by faith." She still could not see the whole way forward, yet she could hear the direction.

while putting children through college required a kind of steadiness and a commitment to the values that mattered most to Debbie: faith, family, and the future. Things that do not show up in a company bio.

Debbie's leap provided its own education. There were bids she did not win.

Rooms she had to learn how to enter. Questions she had to ask because she did not yet know what she did not know. When the work was slow, she studied.

She listened. She found mentors. She learned how to become more competitive. School taught her the language of business, teams, collaboration, and leadership. The marketplace taught her resilience while the projects taught her precision. The people she connected with and the relationships she built taught her trust. Debbie was not only building a company. She was becoming There were moments when the risk felt as real as the calling. Starting a busi- the kind of leader who could hold pressure without losing tenderness and ness is capital-intensive. Going back to school is capital-intensive. Doing both make decisions without losing sight of the people those decisions would affect.

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Nubian Construction Group

By the time Debbie began growing Nubian beyond they may not know how to gain access to. She sees the NAWBO-Indianapolis community and beyond, trucking, she had already learned that opportunity the company that needs one more introduction, she was recently awarded the 2026 inaugural Lee is rarely just one door. It is often a pathway. Her one more connection, one more chance to grow. Ann Richardson Impact Award. This award honors successes as a contractor, lessons learned, indus- That is where the work becomes personal. When individuals who embody the spirit of connection, try understanding, and the relationships she had another small or woman-owned business rises. leadership, and advocacy that defined the excultivated over the years enabled the company When a local company becomes more competi- traordinary results Lee Ann Richardson achieved to expand into supplier development and diverse, con- tive. When a project creates economic movement in championing women-owned businesses as diNubian is a small, certified struction management. The greatest asset that beyond the project itself. rector of NAWBO-Indianapolis. propelled her toWomanthe next leveland was the ability to Minority-Owned Business connect, not just with primes and other subs but Her mantra is that leadership comes from the This is the standard Debbie carries in Nubian ConIt is how a company treats clients and em- struction Group. A company known not only for with public and private project to embrace heart. located inowners Indianapolis, Indiana, their vision of project success. With this mindset, ployees. It is whether people experience trust, the projects it supports, but for the way it shows thought leadership, andDebbie the willingness Nubian had proven they could bein trusted with fairness, Oattsup in the community. Real people. Trusted peospecializing construction and project more. It was not a departure from the company's to work through problems with care. And it is who ple. People who listen, solve problems, and underelse a leader brings along while rising. As clients. As stand that successful delivery depends on more original work. It was an expansion of the same pur- that management services prioritize pose: to help projects succeed while creating room trusted partners. As employees. As leaders within than contracts and schedules. It depends on reher own business, including her daughter Nadi- lationships. It depends on integrity. It depends for businesses tosupplier grow. And itdevelopment, fed her passion for community outreach, and relationship-building. helping individuals and businesses expand their na, who is Nubian's Chief Operating Officer, and on building something solid enough for others to capabilities and create opportunities for others. daughter Nicole, who serves as Operations Man- stand on. ager. Granddaughters Jordyn and Kyla are learning We partner with our clients, helping them implement bestNow, practices after 32 years, the vision is not simply to Over time, Debbie built a career helping organi- leadership firsthand through their examples. sustain what has been built at Nubian. It is to zations identify qualified businesses, strengthen for collaboration with prime and subcontractors to ensure successful supplier networks, and create partnerships that The work of building projects has always carried strengthen it for generations to come. With strong contribute to successful project delivery. Her fo- the responsibility of building people, which is why women in her family leading at every level, a clear project outcomes. Our key strengths lie in fostering professional cus has been on helping businesses build their ca- community has never been separate from the succession strategy in place, and the next generpacity and improve performance in order to best business. Debbie thinks about the economic im- ation already familiar with what it means to lead relationships across various service industries and providing essential position themselves for long-term growth. Strong pact of a project. The neighborhood it touches. The with responsibility and integrity, Nubian's vision is projects, she believes, are built through strong re- families connected to the companies doing the clear: to continue building a women-owned busiresources that guarantee project work.

The smallsuccess. or women business owners who ness that honors its legacy and expands its reach. lationships. need access to the right rooms, the right informa- A business built with purpose, preparation, and That belief has made Nubian more than a compa- tion, and the right relationships. The leap she took faith does not just last. It leads with a profound a proud 30-year Nubian has contributed to aand wide ny that managesWith work. Debbie believes Nubian'shistory, was not only about creating an opportunity for lastingrange impact. work is to create pathways that allow companies herself. It was about creating opportunities that Nubian Construction Group continues to build ofand transportation, local to compete, grow, contribute at higher construction, levels. would moveand through her toeconomic reach others. development through projects, partnerships, and pathways She is very much aware that people often see the For Debbie, creating these opportunities delivers took a designed to strengthen businesses, communirole in small business development value success and missinitiatives. the years it tookOur to build the trust beneath it. Relationships take time. Integrity takes variety of forms. Her passion for helping wom- ties, and the women prepared to lead next at her to membership in the Indianapolis toconfidence large- and small-scale projects throughout Indiana.

Wehttps://nubianconstructiongroup.com/. strive to proof. Community is earned decision en led by decision, project by project, conversation by chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO-Indianapolis).

Memexpectations on every project. conversation. consistently exceed client bership involvement expanded into a position on The most rewarding part of the work for Deb- the Board of Directors, then officer of the Board, bie has been watching businesses expand their then President of the chapter, and now serving Watch Her capabilities and create opportunities for others. as a Chapter Advisor. In recognition of Debbie's Story on Video She sees people when they are struggling and at passion and leadership in creating a culture of times grasping for hope. She sees opportunities belonging and strengthening connections within

NUBIAN

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NAWBO INDIANAPOLIS TAKES THE NATIONAL STAGE

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here are moments when legacy stops feeling like an idea and starts looking like a room full of women who showed up.

For NAWBO Indianapolis, NAWBO Days 2026 in Washington, D.C. became one of those moments. From May 30 through June 2, members from across the country gathered for advocacy, leadership, connection, and conversations shaping the future of women-owned businesses. For several attendees in the Indianapolis delegation, it was their first national NAWBO experience.

For the chapter, it became a visible reminder of what happens when local leadership grows into national influence.

Approximately 15 members from NAWBO Indianapolis traveled to Washington, representing the chapter in rooms where policy, entrepreneurship, technology, economic

opportunity, and the future of small business were being discussed. The days were filled with sessions, advocacy conversations, Capitol Hill moments, and connection with women business owners from across the nation. But what many brought home was something deeper than a schedule of events. It was the feeling of sisterhood.

The kind that shows up through shared wisdom, honest conversations, new friendships, thoughtful introductions, and the quiet understanding that women do not have to build alone.

That spirit was especially meaningful as Indianapolis leaders were recognized on the national stage. Thresette Briggs, DDI, MBA, founder of Performance 3, was inducted as Chair of the NAWBO National Board of Directors, placing an Indianapolis leader in one of the organization’s most visible

SISTER national leadership roles. Her appointment represents not only personal achievement, but the strength of a chapter known for producing women who lead with vision, service, and commitment to the broader business community.

discussion alongside Meta focused on advocacy, AI, and the future of business.

Her participation underscored a critical truth for this season: women business owners cannot afford to sit outside the conversations shaping technology, policy, growth, and access. As AI continues to influence how companies operate, compete, communicate, and scale, women entrepreneurs must be represented not only as users of new tools, but as leaders helping define what responsible and equitable innovation should look like.

NAWBO Indianapolis also celebrated Judi Firestone Roth, who received the prestigious Susan Hager Legacy Award, one of NAWBO National’s highest honors. The award recognizes a member whose leadership, service, and long-standing comBack home, the momentum continues mitment have helped advance women’s through the 2026 to 2027 NAWBO Indieconomic empowerment and strengthen NAWBO’s mission locally and nationanapolis Board of Directors, led by Board ally. Judi’s recognition reflects the kind of "Legacy is not a monument President Christy Gormal. The incomlegacy that is built over decades, you erect at the through end of your ing leadership team includes Shawnda Sparks, Sheena Lee, Irem Rashidfarokhi, steady service, generous leadership, and life. Legacy is an intentional Lesley Crane, Evgenia Baikova, and Victothe willingness to keep showing up for practice that you cultivate women businessevery owners long after the ria Odekomaya. Together, they step into single day." a season shaped by advocacy, member spotlight has moved on. connection, visibility, leadership developThe chapter’s presence was also felt in ment, and the continued work of making future-focused conversations. Rebecca sure women business owners in IndianBormann, founder and CEO of RB Conapolis know they belong. sulting Agency, participated in a national

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That message of belonging has already become a defining part of the chapter’s story. Through the “I Belong” campaign, NAWBO Indianapolis has been highlighting the journeys, achievements, and impact of its members, reminding women business owners that their stories are not side notes. They are part of the economic and cultural fabric of the community. The chapter is also investing in future leadership through its CollabX Cohort Program, creating mentorship and leadership development opportunities for rising stars within the organization.

The recognition in Washington did not happen in isolation. It sits within a larger chapter culture of showing up, serving, building, and giving back. NAWBO Indianapolis has been named a NAWBO National Chapter of Excellence and has raised more than $60,000 for the NAWBO Indianapolis Foundation to support scholarships and future growth. Those milestones point to a chapter that is not only celebrating women in business, but actively creating the structure, resources, and community needed for more women to rise.

HOOD Legacy, in this chapter, is not passive. It is not only about honoring who came before. It is about building rooms where women can speak, lead, advocate, mentor, belong, and be heard. It is the national chair who began as a local leader. The longtime member honored for decades of service. The first-time attendee who leaves Washington with a fuller sense of what is possible. The board member preparing to serve. The rising entrepreneur discovering that her voice matters in rooms larger than the one she started in.

NAWBO Days 2026 made something clear: Indianapolis is not waiting to be invited into the future of women’s entrepreneurship. Indianapolis women are already helping shape it. Through advocacy, sisterhood, leadership, and legacy, NAWBO Indianapolis continues to prove that when women business owners gather with purpose, they do more than represent their city.

They expand what leadership can look like for everyone coming next. To learn more about NAWBO Indianapolis and join this sisterhood, visit nawboindy.org.

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WHERE LEGACY MEETS LEADERSHIP: A NAWBO STORY ACROSS GENERATIONS

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“Legacy is not just what we build.

It’s who we bring with us.”

egacy doesn’t always announce itself in grand gestures. Sometimes it shows up quietly, in the way a daughter watches her mother walk into a room and speak with purpose, or how a granddaughter studies the conversations happening around her and begins to imagine her own place in them. I felt that truth deeply this year at NAWBO Advocacy Days in Washington, D.C., when three generations of my family stood together on Capitol Hill, adding our voices to decisions being made that will affect the future of women-owned businesses.

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When I first joined NAWBO eighteen years ago, I didn’t imagine how profoundly it would shape my life. I came in as a member seeking ideas on how to better grow my business. I stayed because I found a deeply committed community that was at the forefront of a movement. Over the years, as a board member and now as part of the NAWBO national headquarters team, I’ve watched women step into their power not by speaking the loudest, but by speaking with clarity, conviction, and a communal continuity. That continuity is legacy.

preneurs deserved a seat at every table where decisions were made. Today, her spirit lives on not only in our work, but even in our technology. Our AI bot, affectionately named Susan, is a modern extension of her vision of getting resources into the hands of more women to support their business growth, an always-on resource designed to support women business owners with the same determination and accessibility she championed decades ago. It’s a reminder that legacy evolves. It adapts. It meets the moment. It lives on.

Our annual Advocacy Days event has always been a reminder that progress doesn’t happen by accident, chance or hope. It happens because women show up, year after year, administration after administration, to ensure our needs, our innovations, and our economic impact are not overlooked. This year, watching my daughter and granddaughter stand together with me and over 200 women business owners from every corner of our nation gather on the steps of Capitol Hill, I realized that legacy is not just what we build. It’s who we bring with us.

But legacy also requires stewardship.

It asks us to hold the door open long enough for the next generation to walk through with confidence. At Advocacy Days, I watched my granddaughter ask thoughtful questions of the successful, experienced women who have been leading the way for generations before her. They embraced her curiosity and told her the truth: because women’s voices matter, and because silence has never moved a single idea or policy forward.

NAWBO’s founder, Susan Hager, understood that. She believed women entre-

In a world that often tells women to wait their turn, NAWBO has always insisted that our time is now. For the past 51 years, our collective voice has shaped legislation, influenced economic policy, and expanded opportunities for millions of women. But the real legacy is not the policies themselves, it’s the culture of tenacity and participation we’ve built. A culture where women understand that advocacy and having each other’s backs is not an event; it is who we are and how we live.

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My eighteen years in NAWBO have taught me that leadership is not defined by titles. It’s defined by presence and service. By showing up even when the issues are complex, the rooms are intimidating, or the outcomes are uncertain. By modeling for the next generation what it looks like to engage with courage, cooperation and curiosity. By never giving up.

For women building businesses, families, and futures, legacy is not something we leave behind, it’s something we live into. It’s the daily decision to use our voice, to mentor another woman, to innovate boldly, to challenge outdated systems, and to imagine what’s possible beyond our own timeline.

As I watched my daughter and granddaughter walk beside me in Washington, I felt both the weight and the hope of that truth. Legacy is not linear. It’s layered. It’s shared. And when women choose to stand together, across generations, across industries, across lived experiences, we don’t just influence the future. We create it.

If there is one thing I hope readers carry with them, it’s this: your voice is part of a much larger story. Use it. Protect it.

Encourage others to be part of the collective. That is how we build something that lasts. That is our legacy.

About the Author: Lynda Bishop is a longtime leader within the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), where she has spent eighteen years dedicated to creating and supporting the education and advancement of women entrepreneurs. Now a member of the national team, she brings deep experience in relationship management, program development, and community-building. Her work is rooted in the belief that women’s voices are essential to shaping economic progress and sustainable, inclusive communities. She is committed to fostering a legacy of opportunity for future generations of women business owners.

She currently directs the national programs for the NAWBO Institute for Entrepreneurial Development. http://www.nawbo.org and https://www.lyndabishop. com

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BOSS LADY: Eunice Trotter PHOTO: @limstudios

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ISTORY

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WITNESSES

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am the kind of girl who will use a shoe if I do not have a hammer.”

That is Eunice Trotter’s way of telling the truth about herself. Tenacious.

Resourceful. From the community. A woman who knows how to use what is in her hands when the proper tool is not available. Before she became Director of the Black Heritage Preservation Program at Indiana Landmarks, before she began helping preserve the places and stories that shaped Black life in Indiana, Eunice learned what it meant to survive with very little and still move.

At her lowest point, she was a teenager fleeing domestic violence with her infant, boarding a plane to a place she had never been. Everything she owned for herself and her baby fit into one suitcase.

That image explains something about the woman she would become. Not because hardship is romantic, but because it trained her eye. She understands what it means for a life, a home, a place, or a story to hang in the balance. She understands what can be lost when no one protects what matters.

Eunice became a wife, mother, church worker, employee, entrepreneur, sister, cousin, friend, neighbor, and activist while still pursuing her education. She learned through choices that did not always serve her future and through responsibilities that arrived early. She has told mentees to make season appropriate decisions. Finish school. Build work ethic. Save money. Vet yourself before you bind your life to someone else.

These are not lessons she read in a book.

They came through living.

One of her hardest seasons came while she owned The Recorder and was also raising teenagers. The business required long hours, decisions, pressure, and

constant responsibility. Her children required presence. Eunice’s fear was not public failure. It was failing them. Our children must have present parents, she says, because they are our future.

In that season, she had to make choices not only about what she could build, but about who needed her most.

Then illness shifted the frame. Eunice was diagnosed with cancer. After surviving the diagnosis and treatment and returning to the normal rhythm of life, she was diagnosed a second time. Catastrophic illness can change the way a woman understands time. For Eunice, it made the present more valuable. The now. The work that still needed doing.

The people still within reach.

Today, Eunice’s work is legacy in its most literal form. Through Indiana Landmarks, she works to uncover, document, and preserve significant Black heritage sites. She is helping move projects like the Martindale area and Lost Creek in Terre Haute toward historic recognition. She is building a Black oral history database intended to serve people one hundred years from now. She is involved in building restoration and walking tour projects that allow communities to see the past not as a footnote, but as foundation.

This is not simply preservation of structures. A neighborhood can be erased before a building ever falls. A story can disappear while people are still walking past the place where it happened.

A community can lose memory one undocumented site at a time. Eunice’s work insists that Black history deserves more than fragments. It deserves record. Protection. Context. A place in the public memory that cannot be casually removed.

Her impact often returns to her in small, unexpected ways. People tell her she gave them their first job or helped them in ways she does not even remember.

She does not keep a scorecard of impact.

Her faith teaches her that the work is what she is supposed to do. That is how legacy often reveals itself. Not always in the award or the headline, but in someone standing in front of you years later, carrying forward something you once made possible.

"I AM THE KIND OF GIRL WHO WILL USE A SHOE IF I DO NOT HAVE A HAMMER" Eunice has had to release the burden of worrying about how others perceived her. How she talked. How she walked.

How she dressed. How she interacted.

What remains is sincerity. Commitment.

A woman who wants people to feel that she is genuine and that her work is rooted in love for her people. Success, for her, is not only achievement. It is loving what you do, having resources to help others, and having time for what matters.

For those who believe history should not have to fight for a place at the table, Eunice’s work is a standing invitation. Indiana Landmarks continues to preserve the places and stories that help future generations inherit more than fragments at www.indianalandmarks.org.

Watch Her Story on Video

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The Legacy Is in the Blueprint HOW NAKEISHA WASHINGTON IS BUILDING STEM EXPERIENCES DESIGNED TO OUTLAST THE ROOM, THE MOMENT, AND THE FOUNDER.

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here is a particular kind of silence that comes after a long day of building. The room is finally still, the emails stop for a moment, the supplies are stacked by the door, and the question rises: will any of this last without me? For years, I thought legacy was measured by what people saw - the ribbon cuttings, the photos, the awards, the full rooms, the moments when someone says, “You did that.” I am grateful for those moments. But the longer I lead, the more I understand that legacy is not what shines for one day.

Legacy is what still works when your hands are not the only hands holding it.

My work began with a child I had not yet met. I was already a mother of two sons, moving toward a new season of life, when I learned I would be welcoming my daughter, Nyla Denae’. That news made me think differently about the future. I wanted her to grow up seeing herself as capable, prepared, and powerful in a world that would demand creativity, confidence, and problem-solving. That desire became bigger than my own home. It became a question I could not let go of: what would learning look like if every child was invited to explore, build, test, travel, wonder, and lead?

That question became the seed for Nyla Nova STEMversity. At first, it was a story. A character.

A book. A way to make science and learning feel alive. Over time, it grew into programs, field experiences, hands-on labs, kits, partnerships, training, and a learning world that students could step into. But the deeper lesson was not just how to create something people enjoy. The deeper lesson was how to build something with enough structure, clarity, and purpose that it could keep moving beyond one person’s energy.

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Many founders, educators, and community builders know what it feels like to carry a vision in your body. You remember every child’s name.

You answer the late messages. You know which supply bin has the batteries, which parent needs reassurance, which partner needs one more update, and which staff member is still finding their rhythm. In the beginning, that level of care can be the thing that keeps the work alive. But if we are honest, it can also become the ceiling. When everything depends on you, the work may be meaningful, but it is not yet lasting.

I have had to learn that love and structure are not opposites. A strong system does not make the work less personal. It protects what made the work matter in the first place. A clear curriculum, a trained team, a documented process, a partner checklist, a student safety plan, and a repeatable learning model are not just operational tools.

They are acts of stewardship. They say, “This vision deserves to be handled well, even when I am not in the room.”

That has changed how I think about leadership. I used to believe the goal was to be needed. Now I believe the goal is to prepare others to lead with care and excellence. The most important work is not always the part people applaud. Sometimes it is refining the lesson plan after everyone leaves.

Sometimes it is creating the template that saves the next leader two hours. Sometimes it is letting a young person facilitate an activity, even when it would be faster to do it yourself. Sometimes it is building the quiet blueprint that gives the next person a real chance to succeed.

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Legacy also has a way of becoming personal again. One of the greatest feelings I have had is watching my own family benefit from something I created. Seeing my grandbabies light up in a learning environment that started as a vision in my heart reminded me that impact is not abstract.

It has faces. It has laughter. It has questions from children who want to know why the sky looks the way it does, how robots move, or what happens when they mix two materials together. In those moments, I am not thinking about growth charts. I am thinking about inheritance.

But inheritance is not only money or property. It is also language, confidence, discipline, curiosity, and access to better choices. It is the child who learns to ask, “How does this work?” instead of saying, “I can’t do this.” It is the parent who sees learning as something that can happen at the kitchen table, on a field trip, in a workbook, or through a question asked on the ride home. It is the staff member who learns how to lead a room with care. It is the partner who realizes that a program can be more than an event. It can be a model.

LEGACY IS WHAT STILL WORKS WHEN YOUR HANDS ARE NO LONGER THE ONLY HANDS HOLDING IT. INHERITANCE IS NOT ONLY MONEY OR PROPERTY. IT IS LANGUAGE, CONFIDENCE, DISCIPLINE, CURIOSITY, AND ACCESS TO BETTER CHOICES.

For any leader building something that matters, I would offer this: do not confuse being busy with building legacy. A full calendar is not the same as a firm foundation. Ask what part of your work can be taught, repeated, measured, protected, and passed on. Ask what needs to be written down. Ask who needs to be trained. Ask where your excellence is still trapped inside your habits instead of being placed into a system.

Then start there. With intention.

The work that lasts is rarely built by accident. It is built when we decide that our ideas deserve roots, not just attention. It is built when we stop measuring impact only by what happened today and start asking what tomorrow can carry. My legacy will not be that I did every task, attended every meeting, or personally led every room. My hope is that the work continues to open doors, spark questions, strengthen families, and prepare young people long after I have stepped aside. That, to me, is the real measure of leadership: building something strong enough to serve the future.

About the Author: Nakeisha Washington is the Founder and CEO of Nyla Denae’ Enterprises, LLC dba Nyla Nova STEMversity. A former science teacher, assistant principal, curriculum developer, and STEM learning strategist, she has spent more than 25 years helping students, families, and learning organizations connect education to real-world opportunity. Known as The Global STEMsation, Nakeisha builds character-led STEM experiences, products, and partnerships that make learning hands-on, future-focused, and memorable. Her work is rooted in family, faith, innovation, and creating systems that help the next generation lead.

Learn more at NylaNovaSTEM.com, NylaNovaFoundation.org, and NakeishaWashington.com.

Connect on social media at @nylanovastem or by email at info@nylanovastem.com.

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E

very May, the world descends upon the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, drawn by an electric, unmistakable energy. For decades, my family has attended the Indy 500 parade and sat in the same seats on race day, passing down a multi-generational tradition. Feeling the deep, physical rumble of the engines, and hearing the collective roar of hundreds of thousands of voices on race day gives me chills every year. But as I look down the row at my two teenagers, the spectacle takes on a much deeper meaning. What I am truly witnessing is the passing of a metaphorical torch and a vivid, living demonstration of what it means to build something that lasts.

The Indy 500 teaches us a profound truth about endurance: no driver ever wins a race entirely on their own.

Behind the blur of Indy cars speeding by is an intricately synchronized pit crew, a team of data engineers, and decades of institutional knowledge. Yet, in our professional and personal lives, women frequently subscribe to the dangerous myth of the "self-made" success story, treating their days like a solo endurance race.

We default to acting as both the driver and the entire pit crew, trying to execute every single task ourselves.

Women are almost always the chief operators of family life, disproportionately carrying the invisible, non-stop mental and emotional load of scheduling, anticipating needs, and managing the daily cognitive juggle. We carry all these hats until the constant pivoting leads to burnout.

This exhausting lifestyle often stems from a deeper tension: letting other people define us and allowing ourselves to be squeezed into metaphorical boxes where we do not belong. Throughout my career, I often fell into this trap, listening to external feedback that told me to act, dress, or think a certain way. Because my natural inclination is that of a learner, I assumed these constraints were part of the education required to lead.

In reality, I was learning exactly what not to do. I watched how restricting human talent to rigid, arbitrary expectations erodes an organization’s culture, dampens innovation, and stifles the bottom line.

"Legacy is not a monument you erect at the end of your life. Legacy is an intentional practice that you cultivate every single day."

“Legacy is not what you leave for people. It is what you leave in people.”

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A pivotal turning point for me occurred during a brief career sabbatical when I spent a day chaperoning my daughter’s school field trip at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Looking out over that vast expanse of history, away from the corporate noise, a phrase that had guided our family's unconventional choices crystallized with absolute clarity – “boxes are for cats.” I also realized I possessed a wealth of knowledge and capabilities that I was holding back because I was waiting for some standard of perfection. Stepping out of those internal negative voices and external expectations was the catalyst that allowed me to launch Vita Nova Strategy and finally claim my own legacy.

B OS S LADIES MAGA ZI N E | V O L. 4 N O . 2 | THE LE G A CY IS S U E

INDIANAPOLIS IN MAY

BEYOND THE YARD OF BRICKS: WHY LEGACY DEMANDS AN INTENTIONAL BLUEPRINT

Ask yourself whether what you are doing on any given day is the highest-value use of your time. If not, eliminate or delegate it, so you can reclaim the creative whitespace necessary to think strategically. Designing a life of impact also means protecting your personal boundaries with the same fierce loyalty you grant to high-stakes client meetings. Schedule your personal wellness, family milestones, and non-negotiable downtime first, guarding those blocks aggressively against corporate creep. You cannot cultivate a legacy of resilience if you are modeling a lifestyle of exhaustion.

By establishing these boundaries at home, you pass down a living legacy of shared responsibility and emotional health to the next generation, proving that a successful life is balanced, not breathless.

“You cannot cultivate a legacy of resilience if you are modeling a lifestyle of exhaustion.”

We must also consciously build environments where everyone can rise together, guiding one another out of the isolation of trying to do it all alone. Surrounding yourself with peer networks, professional masterminds, and leadership programs provides the vital encouragement and shared resources necessary to challenge the status quo and build legacy. My own growth over the past decade has been profoundly shaped by the incredible network of women and allies within Women & Hi Tech. Legacy is ultimately relational, measured by deep, meaningful relationships and the standard we set for how people collaborate and support one another.

As the checkered flag waves and the roar of engines begins to fade, the infrastructure of the IMS remains, ready for the next generation of dreamers. Women are the backbone of our communities. When we stop trying to fit into boxes and we create space to focus on value, we can focus on designing systems, empowering our teams and families, and fiercely guarding our boundaries – we can stop running a solo race and start building an enduring ecosystem that allows everyone to shine their light for years to come. Legacy is not what you leave for people; it is what you leave in people.

We all navigate stress and competing demands daily, and the concept of "legacy" can feel like an abstract ideal reserved for retirement. But legacy is not a monument you erect at the end of your life. Legacy is an intentional practice that you cultivate every single day. And, practically speaking, building a legacy that outlasts us depends on the strength of the systems we design. We must shift our identity from the person who executes every task to the person who designs the sustainable system. True legacy occurs when your business, your community organizations, and your household can thrive without your active, daily management.

About the Author: Darcy Lee is the CEO and Founder of Vita Nova Strategy, where she serves as a fractional executive and business strategist, empowering leaders to scale organizations and handle complex operational growth.

You can find Darcy at vitanovastrategy. com, connect with her on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/darcylee, and learn more about her community work at womenandhitech.org.

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BOSS LADY: Karen Hubbard PHOTO: @limstudios

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B OS S LADIES MAGA ZI N E | V O L. 4 N O . 2 | THE LE G A CY IS S U E

Still FINISHED NOT

“YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES ARE REAL, BUT THEY ARE NOT FINAL.”

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t began on her mother’s couch. The place Karen Hubbard landed after surgery, when her body had pushed her past what discipline could fix. Long before she became a USA bobsled athlete, Olympic Hopeful, founder, speaker, and coach, she was a Purdue student studying biomedical engineering, a track standout with Olympic dreams, and a woman suddenly taking incompletes because she could no longer physically keep up with the life she had planned.

Karen grew up in Indiana with sports, faith, and competition shaping the way she saw the world.

She discovered she was fast in fifth grade and built an identity around movement, speed, and winning. By high school, she had set records and earned her way to Purdue on an academic scholarship while pursuing track. She intended to become an engineer. She intended to stay an athlete. She intended, one day, to reach the Olympics through the lane she understood.

Professors. People who encouraged her when she was failing and reminded her that the situation in front of her was not the whole story.

One professor even prayed with her before an exam. The prayer did not change the grade, but it marked the room. She was not alone there and that mattered.

After Purdue, Karen took her engineering degree into business at McKinsey & Co. and returned to track as a coach at Westfield High School. Finishing the degree took longer than she had planned, and it took every bit of the help she had finally learned to accept. Coaching girls brought something back to life in her.

The competitor was still there. The grit was still there. The Olympic dream was not gone. It had changed shape. She started entering amateur track meets, traveling, training, and testing what

woman there and met the standard to earn a spot at the 2026 Olympic Trials. Because the season led into Olympic trials, the timeline compressed. In three months, she went from attending a combine to training alongside Olympians. She placed top fifteen in the country and became a development athlete on the USA bobsled team.

Karen Sleighs carries that same rerouted power. The organization exists to empower girls through STEM, leadership, and sport. It is not only an Olympic campaign. It is a platform. One sprinter Karen coaches at Westfield High School came to her unsure she belonged on the team at all. She is now being recruited to run in college. That is the room Karen is building, opportunity, mindset training, and mentorship, where young women do not have to choose between being athletic, intelligent, ambitious, feminine, and full of personality. She coaches sprinters at Westfield High School and mentors young women beyond the track, connecting them to resources, helping some earn scholarships, and teaching tools that serve them in competition and in life.

HER LEGACY IS NOT ONLY THE MEDAL SHE IS CHASING. IT IS THE GIRL WHO LEARNS THAT HARDSHIP CAN BE FRAMED DIFFERENTLY.

Then her health changed the route.

Doctors, scans, and tests started eating into her class schedule, chasing a pain that did not yet have a name. The Purdue track team was the first thing to go. At one point, she was on academic probation because illness had taken so much of her time and focus. The hardest part was not only the pain. It was not being able to see the end. She could not see the end of the sickness. The end of the academic struggle. The end of the question that followed her into every decision. Am I still the person who can do this?

Rock bottom gave her an identity crisis. Karen had tied herself to achievement. Track. Medals. Engineering. The future she had already rehearsed in her mind. When that future was interrupted, she had to learn that a woman cannot build her worth on titles that can be taken, delayed, or rerouted. She had to stop being a one-woman army. She had to learn to ask for help before the bottom became a place she decorated and called home. Asking for help did not fix the timeline. It just meant she was not rebuilding alone.

Community helped pull her forward. Staff members in student organizations. Family.

her body could do again. At a meet at the Olympic Training Center in Geneva, Ohio, in pouring rain, she ran numbers that reminded her there was still something in her worth exploring.

The doorway to bobsled came through a conversation. At a planning conference for the National Society of Black Engineers, a colleague asked about her goals. Karen told him she believed God would lead her back to the Olympics somehow, though she did not know through what sport. He suggested bobsled.

It sounded random. Still, she listened. In May 2025, she went to a combine in Chicago with her mother, a borrowed place to stay, and a red outfit because at the very least, she knew she was going to be cute.

At the combine, Karen recorded the number one vertical jump for the women. That performance fast tracked her into the rookie class. At rookie camp, she came out as the number one

Her legacy is not only the medal she is chasing. It is the girl who learns that hardship can be framed differently.

The student who realizes one opportunity can change a life. The athlete who stops hiding the hard parts of her story and begins to use them as proof. Karen does not pretend the process is always pretty. She knows the ugly parts. She also believes a woman can still show up with intention in the middle of them.

This is more than a comeback story. It is a platform with reach into Olympic sport, STEM education, and the next generation of girls who need to see what is possible. If Karen's story belongs on your stage, in your event, or in front of your network, connect with her directly on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenmh/.

Watch Her Story on Video

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HEALING AFE

S

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ROOM

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efore Ashlee Mack built Macnificent Minds, before she became the provider others would trust with mental health and addiction care, she was a little girl in a hospital bed. About eleven years old. Sick with pneumonia. Staying overnight for the first time. Watching nurses move through the room with care, attention, and steadiness. She saw what it looked like for someone to enter fear without making it heavier. That memory did not leave her.

Ashlee grew up carrying both belief and doubt. She was an overachiever, an overthinker, and a believer, but underneath the discipline was the question of whether she was good enough. She moved through middle school, high school, and nursing school with a clear sense that care was not simply something she wanted to do. It was something placed in her. Still, calling does not remove the tests that come to measure it.

COVID. She watched nurses, doctors, patients, coworkers, and families under pressure. She saw how much the system needed people who could stay present when the room was heavy. Her mother’s words stayed with her. Never make it about the money.

Macnificent Minds is Ashlee’s answer to that conviction. It is a telehealth mental health and addiction medicine company serving children, teens, and adults, from age eight to ninety nine, across Indiana, Georgia, Ohio, Texas, and eventually Kentucky. The company provides care for ADHD, depression, anxiety, mood disorders, and medication assisted treatment for opioid and alcohol addiction. But the work is larger than the list. It is access. It is a safe place. It is a judgment free room where people can tell the truth about what they are carrying.

The story behind the work is personal. Ashlee’s sister died from an overdose. Her stepfather battled alcoholism, and his death left its mark on the family. Addiction was no longer something happening somewhere else. It had a name. A face. Children. Sisters. A mother.

A family left to carry what remained. Ashlee began Macnificent Minds in the spirit of her sister and stepfather because she believed their stories could still move through her work and reach someone else before it was too late.

“I WAS A PATIENT BEFORE I BECAME THE PROVIDER.”

One of those tests came in nursing school when a teacher failed her and told her she did not have the foundation to become a nurse. The words nearly collapsed the future she had been working toward. Ashlee cried. Her mother came to the school with her, even though Ashlee was already an adult. They spoke with the dean of nursing. By grace, Ashlee returned to the program and finished her bachelor’s degree. She did not leave that season untouched. She left with discipline, steadfastness, and a clearer understanding that no one else’s sentence over her life could become the final word.

That is the legacy Ashlee is building. Restored families. Better communities. People who were afraid to get help finding care that does not shame them for needing it. Young Black girls seeing that a woman can survive real challenges and still build something healing, professional, and powerful. Ashlee is a God fearing mother, daughter, sister, best friend, provider, and woman who has had to shed old versions of herself to become this one. The defensive version.

The one always protecting. The one trying to impress people. The one looking for love in the wrong places.

Years later, another door closed. Ashlee was working as a provider, caring for inpatient clients, when she received a termination notice with no explanation. She asked why. No answer came. The disappointment pressed against more than employment. It pressed against purpose. She knew she had shown up to serve. She knew she was good at what she did. Great at what she did. Eventually, she stopped reading the closed door as rejection and began to understand it as removal. God moving something out of the way For those who believe healing should feel safe, human, so she could build what would become Macnificent Minds. and close enough to reach, Ashlee’s work is an open door.

Macnificent Minds continues to serve children, teens, Her work is not built on health care as a fallback plan or adults, and families ready to receive care without judga paycheck. Ashlee has seen what happens when people ment, and the path begins at MacnificentMinds.com. enter care for money and forget the person in front of them. She worked emergency rooms. She worked through

Watch Her Story on Video

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B OS S LADIES MAGA ZI N E | V O L. 4 N O . 2 | THE LE G A CY IS S U E

BOSS LADY: Ashlee Mack PHOTO: @limstudios

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BOSS LADY: Regina Matthews PHOTO: @limstudios

"THE BODY WHISPERS BEFORE IT SCREAMS."

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B OS S LADIES MAGA ZI N E | V O L. 4 N O . 2 | THE LE G A CY IS S U E

She

LISTENED BEFORE

THE

SCREAM

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egina Matthews has learned to listen for the whisper.

In bodies. In families. In business. In mothers who have been carrying too much for too long. Before Wellera Brands & Wellness became a wellness company, before the products, workshops, mobile services, and consulting, Regina was already paying attention to the places where people felt unseen. A wife of twenty years. A mother. A caregiver in the neurodivergent community. A woman taught to serve, but also learning that service without self-advocacy can become another way to disappear.

dega. Skin, hair, and body care. Small batch. Researched.

Intentional. Built with the kind of care that considers not only the person using the product, but also the environment receiving what is left behind.

What makes Wellera distinct is not only what it sells. It is what Regina refuses to separate. The science from the service. The body from the story. The caregiver from the care she needs. Her work includes wellness services, workshops, products, trichology support, business consulting, and education for people navigating overwhelm, burnout, autoimmune challenges, hair and scalp concerns, nervous system dysregulation, and the quiet exhaustion of being strong too long. She works with overwhelmed mothers, caregivers of neurodivergent children, stressed individuals, entrepreneurs, families, and people trying to find language for what their bodies have already been saying.

Her work began with science and curiosity. Biology. Chemistry. Allergies. Nature. The kind of questions that can make a child seem difficult when she is really trying to understand. Regina moved from traditional science into the healing arts because she wanted to be closer to people. She wanted more time with them. More listening. More space to ask what they needed and to walk beside them as they The impact shows up in real rooms. Workshop participants learned to trust their own bodies. saying thank you. Mothers releasing tears after carrying Her own body became one of her first teachers. After child- heaviness into an event. Clients who have stayed with her birth, Regina developed psoriasis. With each pregnancy, for years, some for more than a decade, because trust was it would seem to calm, then return like wildfire. It was not earned slowly and held carefully. A business consulting cliinvisible. It showed on her skin and scalp. There was no hid- ent reviewing her year end profit and loss statement and ing the evidence, so for a long time, she hid herself. Stress realizing revenue had increased by more than two thoumade it worse. Products on the market did not feel aligned sand percent in one year. Regina does not treat those mowith what her skin needed or what her values required, so ments as performance. They are evidence of what happens she began formulating from a place of both science and when care is specific enough to meet the need in front of it. lived experience. If she could not use it on her own skin, she Her legacy also lives at home. Homeschooling. Gardenhad no interest in selling it to someone else. ing. Bread making. Canning. Teaching life skills. Creating Then came the fire. In 2019, after her third child was born individualized learning plans. Remaining connected to a and while her body was still dealing with postpartum pso- family line of farmers, educators, and servant leaders. She riasis, Regina received the call that the building housing is finishing her first children’s book and a related curricuher business had burned. Her suite was gone. The tangi- lum in collaboration with her daughter, extending the work ble parts of what she had built over years were gone. At into homes, classrooms, youth organizations, and the next the time, she was one of the only Black owned full service generation. wellness spaces on the northwest side, with cosmetology, massage, esthetics, and reception in place. Gone. Not as For those who are ready to stop serving from fumes and a metaphor. As a phone call. As a locked building. As ash. begin trusting the body’s way back to calm, Regina’s work is an open door. Wellera Brands & Wellness continues to She relocated to a small room and focused on surviving. create products, services, workshops, and wellness spaces Then 2020 came, and personal care services shut down. where people can feel seen, heard, and supported at www.

No normal income. No easy path back. Regina leaned into wellerabrands.com. retail and product formulation. One person gave her a chance, and her products found shelf space at Cleo’s BoWatch Her Story on Video

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TRUTH

CAN PROTECT S

abrina Simmons was driving home from school when the conversation in the car began to feel different. Her daughter, Brooklyn, had just gone through a body safety program, the kind that teaches children about safe and unsafe touch, private body parts, and how to speak when something feels wrong. In the car, Brooklyn’s brother talked about what they had learned.

Brooklyn went quiet.

Sabrina noticed it. The discomfort. The way her daughter seemed to fold inward around the conversation. Nothing had been said yet, but a mother knows when the air changes. By the time they got home, Sabrina could not ignore what she had felt on that ride.

After her brother went upstairs, Brooklyn sat at the table and said very little. Sabrina asked the question no mother ever wants to ask. Had anyone ever touched her inappropriately? Brooklyn said yes. When Sabrina asked who, Brooklyn named Sabrina’s now ex-husband.

ing her children carry theirs. She struggled with the should-haves.

She wondered what signs she missed, why she did not know, how something so devastating could have happened inside the life she was trying to protect. As a mother, she wanted to fix it.

To bandage it. To make the pain disappear. But some wounds do not heal because someone rushes them closed. Brooklyn had to be allowed to feel, process, return to the story, and learn that none of it was her fault.

Prevail became one of the places where both of them could begin to breathe. Sabrina had an advocate. Brooklyn had an advocate.

Group counseling placed Brooklyn in rooms with other children who understood what it meant to carry what she was carrying.

They called them sexual hurts. They taught the children how to name feelings, how to process, how to understand that what happened to them did not define them. Sabrina saw safety begin to return not all at once, but in pieces. A protective order. A counseling room. A child realizing she was believed. A mother learning how to support without trying to control every part of the healing.

“YOUR STORY COULD BE SOMEBODY ELSE’S SURVIVAL GUIDE.”

In that moment, Sabrina did what a mother’s body knows to do before the mind can make sense of the words. She held her daughter. She thanked her for telling the truth. She told her she was proud of her. She wanted Brooklyn to know immediately that she was not in trouble, that she was believed, and that what happened would not continue. It was the beginning of a story Sabrina never wanted for her family, but also the beginning of the work that would later become part of her calling.

Today, Brooklyn is seventeen. Sabrina describes her as fearless and beautiful, a young woman who has grown from a scared little girl into someone who understands the power of her own voice. She speaks about what happened to her because she knows the silence is where shame grows. Sabrina beams with pride every time she hears her daughter share, not because the story is easy, but because every word proves that what happened The abuse had happened when Brooklyn was very young, did not get the final say. around the age of five or six. She carried it silently for years. Like many children, she had been afraid. She had been told she would That is why Sabrina tells the story now. Not for attention. Not to get in trouble if she told. Sabrina would later learn that there had reopen pain without purpose. She tells it because families need also been online manipulation connected to the abuse, using to understand that abuse can happen close to home. It can hapa familiar name and image to make Brooklyn believe she was pen through people children know. It can happen to girls and communicating with someone she knew. It was the kind of be- boys. It can happen in ways that are quiet, confusing, and hidden trayal that changes how a family understands safety, trust, home, behind trust. She wants parents and caregivers to teach body technology, and the people allowed close. safety early, use accurate names for body parts, listen for discomfort, monitor technology, and create a home where children The days after disclosure were terrifying. Sabrina wanted to gath- know they can tell the truth without being blamed. er her children and run to safety, but the situation unfolded with fear, threats, control, and uncertainty. She tried to preserve as For Sabrina, healing means using the story so another family much normalcy as she could for the children while quietly finding does not have to learn too late. It means turning fear into vighelp. Eventually, at work, she told her boss what had happened ilance, shame into language, and pain into advocacy. It means and said she needed help. From there, the school counselor con- reminding survivors and the people who love them that this is tacted the proper authorities. DCS became involved. The children part of the story, not the whole story. For those carrying somewere interviewed. A protective order was filed through Prevail. thing similar, Sabrina’s message is steady: you are not alone, your Police came. Sabrina would never see him in her home again. voice matters, your story matters, and it can get better.

What followed was not instant relief. It was the beginning of a different kind of work. Sabrina had to carry her own fear while helpWatch Her Story on Video

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BOSS LADY: Sabrina Simmons PHOTO: @limstudios

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BOSS LADY: Michele Dieckmeyer PHOTO: @limstudios

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Confidence

changesChoices B

efore Michele Dieckmeyer became the woman behind Fringe & Form, she was a young woman trying to build a life out of decisions that had already become public. At eighteen, she was pregnant, unmarried, and carrying the weight of shame inside a Christian family and a culture that knew how to name the mistake before it knew how to hold the girl. She had skipped her senior year of high school, started nursing school, and was already trying to become something useful. Then life changed. Not slowly. All at once.

superficial when it changes how she enters a room, a meeting, a date, a stage, or the next version of her life. Her work is not about turning women into someone else. It is about helping them see themselves with enough care to stop hiding. The boutique became a place where fit, size, fabric, confidence, and story could meet.

Her husband became part of that becoming. Michele says he has supported her one thousand percent, emotionally and financially, believing in the vision enough to put what they had on the table with her. He has held her when she cried, stood beside her when fear was loud, and celebrated the moments when the work began proving itself. His presence is part of the restoration. Not because another person can give a woman confidence, but because being loved well can help her recognize the value she had to find inside herself.

The pregnancy moved her into adulthood before she had language for what had happened to her. She worked as a waitress through pregnancy, stood on her feet for hours, paid weekly rent in Fort Wayne, and learned quickly that survival is not theoretical when your name is on the bill.

The second night in one apartment, a bullet came through the wall and passed above her head while she was lying on the sofa. Years later, she can look at that moment and say God had a plan. At the time, it was sim- Today, Fringe & Form serves women through its Carmel City Center location, a second location in Fort Wayne, and an expanding online presply another hard line in a life she was trying to keep moving. ence. The Fort Wayne store carries a For much of her life, confidence was the full-circle meaning for Michele, who is originally from the city and already wound underneath the decisions. Michele had wrestled with her weight since had clients driving from there to childhood. In third grade, she lost twenty Carmel. The two-location model alpounds using Richard Simmons Deal-Alows the team to serve women with Meal cards her grandmother loaned her more variety, more size range, and and VHS tapes in the living room. That same more flexibility, while trained stylists twenty pounds came and went through adcontinue learning together through olescence. During pregnancy, she gained advanced styling education. The inmore than one hundred pounds and gave store experience remains the secret birth at a size 22 on a five-foot-three frame. sauce, but virtual styling and e-comHer body changed. Her sense of herself merce now help women access changed with it. Later, she would understand how deeply a woman’s pieces and guidance from a distance. confidence can shape what she accepts, what she questions, and what The impact reaches beyond the fitting room. Fringe & Form supports she believes she is allowed to walk away from. organizations close to Michele’s own story, including the O’Connor House She spent years trying to prove she was more than the shame. College. for pregnant women, Prevail for victims of intimate partner violence, Nursing. A master’s degree. Credentials. Leadership. The drive to make Dove Recovery, and Allies Inc., which serves women impacted by sex trafan impact became part ambition, part repair. Then came another break- ficking. These are not random partnerships. They sit close to the places ing point. After transitioning into the tech world as a nursing industry ex- Michele has lived, survived, and learned from. She knows what it feels like pert, Michele thought she was going to help change health care. Instead, to need hope when the next step is not clear. She knows what it means she was fired. Now she calls it being set free. At the time, it floored her. for a woman to be told she still has choices.

If she was not the title, the degree, the role, or the career path she had Michele does not want women to mistake the boutique, the clothes, built, she had to ask a harder question. Who am I now? or the polished photos for arrival. She is still human. Still growing. Still The answer came as a faith-led vision that felt too elaborate to ignore. learning to put the fork down when she is full and still choosing, day by She could style women. She could help them with their confidence and day, to show up as the best version of herself. That is part of the legacy their wardrobes. She could take everything she had lived through, the in- she is building, a space where women are treated with equal and high security, the weight loss, the unhealthy relationship, the career wounds, value, where confidence is practiced, not performed, and where the story the search for the one outfit that might finally make her feel beautiful, is never over because the woman is still becoming. For those ready to and turn it into something useful for someone else. But Michele still dress the life they are rebuilding, Fringe & Form continues to welcome wanted tools. She found a style coaching program, studied the work, women through styling, retail, virtual support, and community care at and began building the first part of what would become Fringe & Form https://www.fringe-form.com/. as a personal styling business.

“I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW I’M A SAFE PERSON. I’VE BEEN THROUGH STUFF. I’M STILL GOING THROUGH STUFF. I’M IMPERFECT.”

The retail space was always part of the vision. Fringe & Form grew from in-home styling into a boutique experience rooted in something deeper than clothing. Michele understands that what a woman wears is not

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WHAT YOUR WARDROBE SAYS BEFORE YOU SPEAK A

woman can know exactly what she brings to the table and still pause in front of her closet, unsure of how to dress for the room she is about to enter. She may have the title, the business, the presentation, the clients, the experience, and the opportunity. Yet there she is, standing between hangers, looking at clothes that no longer speak to the woman she has become.

helps you understand how to dress your actual body, not the mannequin, not the trend, and not a version of yourself from ten years ago. Your lifestyle keeps your wardrobe connected to the places you actually go and the roles you actually live.

Many women skip those questions and go straight to buying clothes. That is why closets become full and still feel empty.

A woman sees a beautiful piece, brings it home, and realizes it does not work with anything else she owns. Or she shops online to save time, only to spend more time returning pieces that were never designed for her body or her life. Real style is not built by collecting clothes. It is built by creating alignment.

I see this often with high-achieving women.

They are growing quickly, leading teams, raising families, building businesses, taking meetings, showing up for everyone else, and making decisions all day long. But somewhere along the way, their wardrobe stopped growing with them. The clothes still reflect an earlier version of their life, while the woman wearing them has moved There is also mindset work inside this prointo a new season of authority, visibility, cess. Measurements can feel emotional for many women because numbers have been and purpose. given too much authority over worth. But That gap matters because clothes are iden- your measurements do not define your tity communication. Before a woman says beauty, your value, or your acceptance. her name, shakes a hand, sits on a panel, They are simply information. They help unwalks into a client meeting, or steps onto lock clarity. Your body may change through a stage, her wardrobe is already speaking. babies, menopause, stress, healing, aging, The question is not whether people should weight fluctuation, or life transitions, but judge us by what we wear. The question is your body type gives you a way to dress whether what we wear is aligned with who with understanding instead of frustration. we are, what we carry, and how we want When you stop fighting your body and start to show up in the rooms we are called to learning how to support it, getting dressed becomes less of a battle. occupy.

This is not about dressing to please people. It is about showing up as yourself with intention. When a woman is distracted by clothes that pull, hide, gap, shrink, overwhelm, or fail to reflect her personality, it is harder for her to be fully present. Her mind moves toward the outfit instead of the message. She starts managing discomfort instead of leading from confidence. But when she feels aligned, something shifts.

She can walk into the room with her attention on the work, the people, and the opportunity in front of her.

That kind of alignment does not happen by accident. It begins with knowing yourself. I call this Main Character Style, and it brings together three things: your identity, your body type, and your lifestyle. Your identity helps name the words you want your style to communicate. Maybe it is bold, polished, feminine, effortless, artistic, powerful, refined, or approachable. Your body type

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has changed. It is the business owner whose outside finally reflects the authority, creativity, and excellence she has carried all along.

A woman’s wardrobe will not do the work for her. But it can support the woman who is doing the work. It can remind her that she is allowed to take up space. It can help her move through the day with less hesitation and more presence. It can become one more way she communicates identity, leadership, and confidence with intention.

Because when a woman knows who she is, dresses the body she has, and builds for the life she is actually living, she does not just get dressed. She enters the room already aligned with the legacy she is creating.

For women ready to dress for the rooms, roles, and opportunities they are stepping into next, my Main Character Style work offers a place to begin. Visit www.martijstyles.com for style resources, wardrobe guidance, and inspiration to dress with more confidence and intention.

The same is true for seasons. A wardrobe that worked beautifully in summer may leave a woman confused in winter.

A closet that served her as an emerging entrepreneur may no longer support her as a CEO, speaker, attorney, consultant, or leader. That is why style cannot be treated as a one-time project. It has to evolve with the woman. The goal is not to chase fashion. The goal is to build a wardrobe that About the Author: Marti Justice is a percan keep pace with the life she is actually sonal stylist and wardrobe strategist who helps high-capacity women build style rootbuilding. ed in identity, body confidence, and lifestyle.

Legacy may not be the first word people Through her Main Character Style framework, connect to clothing, but I believe it belongs Marti helps women understand what their here. Legacy is not only what we build in clothing is communicating, dress for their public. It is also the permission we give our- body type with confidence, and create wardselves and other women to stop hiding. It robes that support the rooms, roles, and opis the daughter who watches her mother portunities they are stepping into next. Learn walk into a room with confidence. It is the more at www.martijstyles.com. client who feels safer because the woman leading her is fully present. It is the leader who no longer shrinks because her body

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THE LEGACY YOU CAN’T PUT YOUR NAME ON M

y last day in corporate was in November 2021, in the middle of the pandemic.

There was no office to clear out and no walk to a parking lot. A few weeks later a box arrived at my house, packed up by the office and shipped to my door. It held a few photos, a notebook, a coffee mug. I set it on my kitchen table and thought, oddly, “What did I actually build?” My name was on nothing inside it. No building, no product line, no patent with my signature on it.

After a quarter century in this work, the proof of my career fit on one corner of the table.

That question stayed with me longer than I expected, and when I finally answered it, the answer surprised me. The work I was proudest of had never carried my name. In one role I held for three years, I made a habit of hiring people other managers had doubts about, then telling them plainly what I saw in them. Some are running teams of their own now. Years later, a few still reach out to say I changed the direction of their lives, only because I believed in them before they could. One of them named her daughter after me. None of that would show up if you searched for me, and all of it is still out there, long after I’d gone.

I see this pattern constantly now in the women I work with, many of them founders and business owners. They have spent years building exactly this kind of legacy and don’t recognize it as one. They’ll tell me they don’t have much to show for their careers, and then in the next breath they’ll mention the three people they mentored into leadership, or the team they held together through a brutal year. They call it “just helping.” Somewhere along the way they learned to file that work under kindness rather than contribution, and they stopped counting it as building anything.

I think we’ve confused legacy with visibility. We assume the things that last are the things with our name on them, the company we founded, the title we reached, the award on the shelf.

Those things matter. The most durable thing most of us create is harder to photograph. It’s the way other people experience themselves after spending time around us, and that tends to outlive projects, job titles, and sometimes the companies themselves.

A client of mine walked away from a company she had spent years leading and told me she felt empty-handed. She kept saying she had nothing to point to, no single win she could

name in a room full of strangers. So we traced it together. We followed the people she had hired and developed. One was now running her own company. Two had been promoted into senior roles. Several still called her before making big decisions about their teams. She had been carrying a legacy the whole time and treating it like it didn’t count, because it wasn’t sitting on her own resume.

The work I love most is helping people see their own strengths clearly, because that’s where lasting leadership tends to start. When someone reads their strengths named for the first time, the response is usually relief, a sense of finally having words for what they do without trying. One leader I coached was worn out from performing the version of herself she thought the role required. When we mapped her strengths through CliftonStrengths, she stopped imitating and started leading as herself. The self-awareness showed her where her blind spots were, so she could use her strengths on purpose. Her people could finally read her, and they felt seen and heard. Within a year, that team’s engagement climbed from the 27th percentile to the 96th. The numbers were the echo. What lasted was a leader who had become herself, and what that left in the people around her.

for teams that will land in businesses that don’t exist yet. The legacy is already in motion. The real question is whether they’ll recognize it in time to build on it deliberately, rather than discovering it years later at a kitchen table, opening a box.

Legacy is already growing in the people around you, whether you’ve noticed it or not. The most generous thing you can do is start noticing now, and help the women near you see what they’re building too. A good place to begin is with yourself. If you’ve never put words to your own strengths, the ones so natural you’ve stopped seeing them, that’s where it starts, and it’s the conversation I care about most.

Find me, and I’ll gladly have it with you. That work will outlast all of us.

Evgenia Baikova works with women entrepreneurs and leaders who want to lead from their strengths. Find her at fcc.coach or connect on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/evgenia-baikova.

So here’s the reframe I’d offer, especially if you’re building a business. Most of us keep one scoreboard, the visible one: revenue, titles, launches, the wins we can put in a pitch.

Keep a second one too. Who grew because you were in the room? Who is braver, clearer, or more themselves because of how you led?

That second list tells you something the first one can’t, and over time it’s the better predictor About the Author: Evgenia “Eve” Baikova is the of whether your work outlasts you. founder of Fulfillment Coaching and Consulting, This matters for how we treat ourselves, and where she helps women entrepreneurs, leadit matters for how we treat each other. When ers, and organizations grow through strengthswe only credit the legacy that carries a name, based coaching and leadership development. She we quietly erase most of what women build. brings more than 25 years of HR and leadership We do it to ourselves when we shrink our own experience across multinational companies in history, and we do it to the woman beside us Europe and the United States. A Certified Profeswhen we call her contribution “support” rather sional Co-Active Coach, PCC, and Gallup-Certified than leadership. Naming this work accurately CliftonStrengths Coach, she has delivered more is part of how it finally gets valued, and part of than 100 strengths assessments and logged over how the next woman learns to value her own. 500 coaching hours. She serves on the NAWBO Indianapolis Board of Directors and was named The women I work with are building things the chapter’s 2025 Emerging Entrepreneur. She right now that won’t be visible for years. lives in Fishers, Indiana, with her three daughters.

They’re building companies, shaping how their daughters understand ambition, setting a tone

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BOSS LADY: Carletta Clark PHOTO: @limstudios

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Speaks THE

PAST STILL

"I WAS NEVER AFRAID TO LOSE THE MONEY. I WAS AFRAID TO LOSE MYSELF"

L

ong before Carletta Clark became the woman behind Akua Coaching and Consulting, she was a woman who knew how to fit in. For years, she could move inside corporate rooms, adjust to what the space required, and become useful without asking whether usefulness was costing her something. She had spent more than twenty five years in finance, much of it in investments, helping build departments, create momentum, and move work through systems with more red tape than air. She knew how to survive inside a structure. What she had not fully asked herself was whether survival had started to look too much like success.

The first sign came through a woman named Bessie. An older Black woman. A coworker Carletta admired because she had been in the company for more than forty years and knew how to navigate it. One day, Carletta asked how she was doing. Bessie said she was exhausted. That word entered the room and stayed there. Carletta saw herself in it.

Bessie began to cry. Carletta began to cry. No speech. No solution. Just softness, in a space where Black women are rarely given permission to be soft. In that moment, Carletta understood that if she stayed on the same course, forty years from then she could be exhausted too.

slave river and Elmina Castle. She walked through the Door of No Return and entered a naming ceremony where she was given the name Akua, meaning born on Wednesday. As she walked back through a door her ancestors were never expected to return through, she understood that she was bringing something back with her. Sankofa stayed close.

The idea that what is behind us can still carry what we need to move forward.

That became the heart of her work. Carletta comes alongside founders, small businesses, and nonprofits not to take their lane, but to help them see what is actually holding them in place. She does not begin by telling them what to fix. She begins with where the pain is. What keeps them up at night. What they are walking past because another problem feels louder. A piece of paper on the floor may bother an outside consultant, but if it does not bother the founder, she will walk past it too. Trust begins where the founder is willing to look.

Her work is awareness with motion behind it. When a business owner could not fully see inventory because the system was delayed and physical, Carletta helped create a process that gave him a clearer picture from anywhere. Not drama. Not a full reinvention. One fixed point that changed how the rest of the business moved. That is how she sees legacy. Not only in the large declaration, but in the structure that allows something to keep moving after the founder steps away.

SURVIVAL HAD STARTED TO LOOK TOO MUCH LIKE SUCCESS.

Another sign came through her son. One morning, after asking him gently to get up, then asking again, then finally insisting, Carletta found herself in the car frustrated that he was not listening. Then she heard it. But you do not listen. The words turned her back toward herself. Toward every whisper she had ignored. Every breadcrumb. Every moment when something in her had already spoken and she kept moving anyway. She decided she would rather listen to the whisper than wait to feel the breath.

So when her boss began discussing plans for the following year during her midyear review, Carletta said what she had not planned to say. “I will not be here.” She did not have the map. She did not have every answer. She had the truth.

She had the awareness that staying would cost more than leaving. When she told her husband, he did not ask her to shrink the decision into something more comfortable. He reminded her that maybe it was time to invest in herself.

Akua Coaching and Consulting was not born only from leaving. It was born from returning. Months before that conversation, Carletta had traveled to Ghana. She visited the

Carletta is building toward global work, toward organizations and communities that need to remember who they are, toward technology used with wisdom instead of fear, toward founders who understand that endurance is not the same as running harder. Strategy, to her, is not about stronger and faster. It is about knowing when no is a full sentence. Knowing when softness is a form of intelligence.

Knowing when the past is not a weight, but a resource.

For those who believe the past still has wisdom for the future, Carletta’s work is a steady invitation. Akua Coaching and Consulting continues to help founders build from memory, motion, and the courage to listen before the whisper becomes a storm at https://akuacoaching.com/ and through her LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ carletta-clark-a295241b0/.

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WHAT DOES LIFE LOOK LIKE AFTER 50?

Click to Watch on Youtube

T

here is a moment when the word “next” starts to carry more weight.

Next career. Next decision. Next responsibility.

Next version of yourself. For many adults over 50, the second half of life is not a slow fade into the background. It is a season filled with reinvention, wisdom, leadership, family responsibility, career transitions, financial questions, health decisions, and dreams that still deserve room to breathe.

That is the heart behind The Second Half, a new podcast created through a strategic collaboration between InnoPower Global, the Indianapolis Recorder, and LiMStudios. The show exists to equip and empower adults 50 and older with real conversations, practical insight, and community-centered solutions for the chapter they are living now.

The phrase says it best: The Second Half, where your second half is your better half.

Hosted by Thomas “Sparkle Soxx” Griffin and Andrea McGordon, the show brings together cultural trust, lived wisdom, financial perspective, and a deep love for Indianapolis. Thomas carries decades of connection to Central Indiana through broadcasting, music, and community presence.

Andrea brings years of civic, financial, and community development leadership. Together, they create the kind of conversation that feels both familiar and necessary.

The first episodes begin with a civic lens, asking one important question: what kind of city are we building for residents 50 and older? The series launched with City-County Council President and mayoral candidate Vop Osili, followed by State Senator and mayoral candidate Andrea Hunley. These conversations move beyond campaign talking points and into the realities that shape daily life for seasoned residents: housing, economic mobility, workforce reinvention, health, community safety, and what it means to keep contributing in a city that is still changing.

Behind the scenes, The Second Half is also a picture of what collaboration can make possible. InnoPower Global brings the vision for economic empowerment and community strategy. The Indianapolis Recorder brings more than 130 years of trusted local journalism and connection to the community. LiMStudios provides the creative home where the conversations are captured, produced,

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and prepared to travel across video, audio, and digital platforms.

For LiMStudios, this partnership reflects a belief we carry into every room we build: visibility creates opportunity. When a generation has spent decades working, leading, caring, voting, mentoring, volunteering, building families, and shaping institutions, their stories should not be treated as an afterthought.

Their questions deserve attention. Their wisdom deserves a platform. Their next chapter deserves strategy.

SECOND HALF PODCAST WHERE YOUR SECOND HALF IS YOUR BETTER HALF. NEW EPISODES FEATURE COMMUNITY LEADERS, EXPERTS, AND CONVERSATIONS DESIGNED TO EQUIP ADULTS 50 AND OLDER FOR REINVENTION, LEADERSHIP, AND IMPACT. That is why The Second Half matters. It is not only a podcast. It is a media platform for people who are still becoming. It gives viewers and listeners access to leaders, experts, and community voices who can help them think differently about what comes next. It honors the truth that reinvention is not reserved for the young, and legacy is not only something people leave behind.

Sometimes legacy is what they choose to build with the years still in front of them.

The behind-the-scenes moments tell part of the story too. Hosts preparing in the studio. Guests stepping under the lights.

Cameras rolling. Conversations continuing after the microphones are off. People laughing, reflecting, and realizing that this subject is personal for almost everyone in the room. Because we all know someone in their second half. Many of us are walking toward it. Some are already there, carrying more wisdom than the world has made space to hear.

The Second Half is creating that space.

New episodes are available on YouTube, social platforms, and through Indianapolis Recorder channels. For anyone navigating career changes, civic questions, family responsibility, wealth building, health decisions, or the desire to make the next chapter count, this is a show worth watching. Because the second half is not the end of the story. It may be where the story finally gets honest, intentional, and powerful enough to become the better half. Scan the QR code or click the link to watch on YouTube.

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BEHIND

THE THE WORK WORK

HOW LIMSTUDIOS IS BUILDING A $100M REVENUE LEGACY FOR OUR CLIENTS THROUGH STORYTELLING, CONTENT, AND STRATEGY.

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ecently someone introduced me at a networking event and paused.

She said: Victoria does podcasts. I mean she does more than that. I do not want to say just podcasts but I do not know how to describe it.

I appreciated the heart behind it. She knows my work. She knows LiMStudios. But the moment stayed with me because it revealed something important. If the people who know us are still reaching for the words then it is time to make the work clearer.

Because yes we produce podcasts. We also create brand photography, video content, magazine features, launch campaigns, social content, live event coverage, paid ads, client acquisition systems, and full content strategies.

From the outside those can look like separate services. But inside LiMStudios they are all connected.

That is why nothing we create is meant to sit alone. Every asset is created with intention. Each one has a specific job, yet they work together to move your ideal client from awareness to trust to action.

Strategy gives every piece of content a job. A brand shoot gives the business a visual library for websites, social media, email, press, and promotions. Video adds voice, presence, and trust, turning one shoot into short-form clips, long-form stories, ads, website content, and social proof.

A podcast builds thought leadership over time by turning one conversation into clips, quotes, articles, and nurture content. A live event captures the energy of the room and turns it into stories, photos, recaps, clips, and follow-up content. A campaign connects the message, offer, assets, ads, landing page, lead capture, and follow-up into a path people can actually take. A magazine feature becomes the credibility anchor, giving the story permanence, authority, and a platform that helps the work travel farther. The companion docuseries brings that story to life in video, creating a lasting asset that lives on YouTube and travels across social media long after the issue drops.

When marketing feels random it usually means there is a broken link in the system. Posting more will not fix a broken message. A beautiful shoot will not fix a missing follow-up process. Ads will not fix an unclear offer. A podcast will not create momentum if there is no plan to repurpose, distribute, and nurture the audience it attracts.

We are a content marketing agency.

We turn your story, your expertise, and your brand into a system that creates visibility, attracts clients, and builds a legacy that outlasts any single piece of content.

That is the work behind the work.

The goal is always the same: help our clients become visible to the right audience, trusted for the right reasons, and positioned for the right opportunities.

The way we see it, marketing has layers. Awareness helps new people find you. Nurture helps them stay connected long enough to trust you.

Conversion gives them the proof, clarity, and confidence to take the next step. Retention turns client results into repeat business, referrals, and longterm momentum. When one of those layers is weak the whole system feels harder than it should. That is why we do not begin by asking what content do you need. We begin by asking what are your goals and where is the system breaking down.

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SHORT FORM CONTENT CREATION FOR EMPOWER YOU That is why a beautiful photo matters, but only if it helps people understand who you are. A podcast episode matters, but only if it gives your audience a reason to trust you. A video matters, but only if it moves someone closer to a decision. A magazine feature matters, but only if it positions your story with the authority it deserves. A campaign matters, but only if it has strategy, distribution, lead capture, and follow-up behind it.

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EVERY ASSET IS CREATED WITH INTENTION. EACH ONE HAS A SPECIFIC JOB YET THEY WORK TOGETHER TO MOVE YOUR IDEAL CLIENT FROM AWARENESS TO TRUST TO ACTION.

WE ARE BUILDING SYSTEMS THAT HELP GREAT WORK TRAVEL AND CONVERT Over time we built that thinking into a framework. What we now call the Revenue Engine is a connected content marketing and client acquisition system designed to help established leaders, service businesses, and organizations turn visibility into opportunities, revenue, and impact. It brings together strategy, content production, paid ads, lead capture automation, follow-up systems, and a Boss Ladies Magazine feature and docuseries that reaches over one million readers across Indiana and beyond.

This framework has helped nonprofits raise funds, organizations build audiences, and leaders turn one day of content into assets that keep working long after the day is over.

Through podcast partnerships including Trusted Mentors, Tools for Success, and The Second Half we help organizations turn conversations into ongoing content ecosystems. Through brand shoots, client campaigns, events, and content systems we help leaders turn visibility into opportunities that compound over time.

Our clients and partners have trusted us with stories that matter. Organizations like Keys2Work, RecycleForce, Nubian Construction Group, Citizens State Bank, Macnificent Minds, Empower You, Cascaid Health, Global Village Museum, Indiana Landmarks, InnoPower Global, and the Indianapolis Recorder have allowed us to help shape, capture, and distribute work designed to reach the right people.

This is not content for the sake of content.

What we are building is larger than a photoshoot, a podcast, or any individual piece of content. This is a system designed to create momentum. A strategy that helps women

BRAND PHOTOGRAPHY TO PROMOTE BOOK LAUNCH who are sitting on expertise turn that expertise into revenue, jobs, opportunity, and businesses that outlast them. Visibility done right is not vanity. It is economic infrastructure. It is how gifted women stop being the best kept secret in their industry and start building something that compounds, creates, and carries forward.

That is why our mission through the Revenue Engine is to generate $100M in revenue for our clients. Not as a marketing goal. As a legacy one.

SHORT FORM CONTENT CREATION FOR CASCAID HEALTH

WE DO NOT BEGIN BY ASKING WHAT CONTENT DO YOU NEED. WE BEGIN BY ASKING WHERE IS THE SYSTEM BREAKING DOWN.

BRAND PHOTOGRAPHY FOR NUTRITION FOR HOLISTIC HEALTH That is what legacy looks like in practice. Not one beautiful photo. Not one viral post. Not one great article. But the way every piece begins to build on the last. The credibility that travels before you enter the room. The story that helps the right person remember your name. The content that makes the opportunity easier to say yes to. The system that helps great work keep moving after the first moment of attention.

PODCAST PRODUCTION FOR TOOLS FOR SUCCESS To every client who has trusted LiMStudios with your story, your mission, your brand, your podcast, your event, your campaign, or your next chapter, thank you.

You are the reason we keep building systems that do more than make people look good.

We are building systems that help great work travel, connect, and convert.

Because work that matters deserves more than visibility.

It deserves momentum. The kind that turns attention into opportunities, grows your revenue, and builds a legacy that outlasts any single piece of content.

BRAND PHOTOGRAPHY FOR EMPOWER YOU

"NAWBO I Belong" CAMPAIGN VIDEO FOR NAWBO INDIANAPOLIS

Victoria Odekomaya Founder and CEO of LiMStudios Creative Agency and LiMStudios Creative Hub Publisher of Boss Ladies Magazine Host of The Own Your Brand Show

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THE ECOSYSTEM BEHIND THE WORK

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LiMStudios is a content marketing agency and creative hub built to help leaders, service businesses, and organizations make their story, expertise, and brand visible through a system that attracts clients and builds lasting impact.

Every piece has a job. Message strategy clarifies the offer. Content production creates the assets. Podcasts build thought leadership. Magazine features and docuseries build credibility. Content distribution keeps the message visible.

Ads, lead capture, and follow-up systems help turn attention into action.

From Boss Ladies Magazine and The Own Your Brand Show to client podcasts, brand campaigns, live events, and the Revenue Engine, every service is designed to work together so great work can travel further and convert.

So leaders can be seen, positioned, trusted, and remembered.

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Hydration as Legacy: Protecting the Brain You’ll Depend On for Decades 42

4 Hydrating Foods to Boost Wellness for Professional Women in Their 40s This Summer

Watermelon supports a legacy of clarity and recovery. With 92% water and natural electrolytes, it restores hydration quickly and reduces oxidative stress through releasing the chemical lycopene. This fast digestive fruit can be enjoyed as chilled slices between tasks or toss with mint and lime for a refreshing lunch. Each serving strengthens the clarity you need to lead, create, and make decisions with confidence.

2026 Summer is here and it can stretch your energy, your schedule, and your focus. For professional women in their 40s, this season is a reminder that the choices you make today can shape the legacy of your future brain. Hydration isn’t just a wellness task—it’s a functional strategy for preserving clarity, emotional steadiness, and long-term cognitive strength.

Legacy, in the Functional Well-being (FXWB) lens, is not only what you leave behind. It’s the internal inheritance you build daily such as sharper thinking for work tasks and family vacation planning, to steadier energy for outdoor activities with your kids post completing an intense strategic meeting, to a brain that ages with intention. Hydrating foods are simple tools that help you protect that legacy in real time. At FXWB we highly recommend the following 4 hydrating foods handy to beat the summer heat and keep your brain cognitive function at its best this time of year.

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Cucumbers offer a legacy of calm and anti-inflammation. Summer brings many cucumber varieties, but English, Persian, and garden cucumbers are especially easy to enjoy. Made of about 95% water, they provide deep hydration while their antioxidants help reduce inflammation linked to cognitive aging. Add slices to infused water or keep crisp cucumber rounds nearby for an easy on-the-go snack. This simple ritual supports a calmer nervous system and a more focused mind.

Citrus fruits build a legacy of energy and emotional resilience. For a working woman over 40, grapefruit and oranges can be a practical way to stay hydrated and mentally steady through packed schedules, shifting hormones, and long summer workdays. Their water content, vitamin C, and natural electrolytes support immunity, cognitive function, mood balance, and sustained energy. For example, enjoying orange slices or a small grapefruit bowl before an afternoon strategy call can help refresh your body, sharpen your focus, and prevent the energy dip that often arrives between meetings.

“Hydration is not just a wellness task. It is a functional strategy for preserving clarity, emotional steadiness, and long-term cognitive strength.”

Celery contributes to the legacy of gut-brain harmony. With 95% water and powerful phytonutrients, celery supports digestion, reduces inflammation, and nurtures the gut microbiome—one of the strongest influencers of memory and mood. Pair with hummus or add to salads to support the internal systems your brain depends on.

About the Author: Michelle Bailey, MS, is the founder of Functional Well-being LLC and an ACSM-certified personal trainer with more than 20 years of experience in health, fitness, and performance. A former elite athlete who has navigated her own health challenges, Michelle helps women reclaim their vitality through a functional approach to nutrition, movement, and mindset. Her work is rooted in helping women feel strong, supported, and equipped to care for their bodies with confidence. Learn more at https://fxwell-beingllc.com/home.

Hydration is a daily act of legacy-building and a practical tool for busy women to use with intention. Through FXWB workshops, professional women over 40 gain strategies to manage demanding schedules, support brain health, and build healthier rhythms at work and home. Keeping watermelon, cucumbers, citrus fruits, and celery within reach this summer can help protect clarity, resilience, emotional steadiness, and cognitive vitality. Your future self, family, workplace, and community benefit from the choices you practice today. Connect with us at https:// fxwell-beingllc.com/home—we would love to help keep you on track this summer.

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“RELATIONSHIPS TAKE TIME. INTEGRITY TAKES PROOF. COMMUNITY CONFIDENCE IS EARNED DECISION BY DECISION, PROJECT BY PROJECT, CONVERSATION BY CONVERSATION.” - DEBBIE OATTS

“A NEIGHBORHOOD CAN BE ERASED BEFORE A BUILDING EVER FALLS. A STORY CAN DISAPPEAR WHILE PEOPLE ARE STILL WALKING PAST THE PLACE WHERE IT HAPPENED.” - EUNICE TROTTER

The Lines We Carry “WHAT MAKES WELLERA DISTINCT IS NOT ONLY WHAT IT SELLS. IT IS WHAT REGINA REFUSES TO SEPARATE. THE SCIENCE FROM THE SERVICE. THE BODY FROM THE STORY. THE CAREGIVER FROM THE CARE SHE NEEDS.” -REGINA MATTHEWS

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“IT IS ACCESS. IT IS A SAFE PLACE. IT IS A JUDGMENT FREE ROOM WHERE PEOPLE CAN TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT THEY ARE CARRYING.” -ASHLEE MACK

“YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES ARE REAL, BUT THEY ARE NOT FINAL. DO NOT CONFUSE THE CHAPTER WITH THE STORY.” -KAREN HUBBARD

“HEALING MEANS USING THE STORY SO ANOTHER FAMILY DOES NOT HAVE TO LEARN TOO LATE. IT MEANS TURNING FEAR INTO VIGILANCE, SHAME INTO LANGUAGE, AND PAIN INTO ADVOCACY.” -SABRINA SIMMONS

The Words That Stay “WHAT A WOMAN WEARS IS NOT SUPERFICIAL WHEN IT CHANGES HOW SHE ENTERS A ROOM, A MEETING, A DATE, A STAGE, OR THE NEXT VERSION OF HER LIFE.” -MICHELE DIECKMEYER

“SANKOFA STAYED CLOSE. THE IDEA THAT WHAT IS BEHIND US CAN STILL CARRY WHAT WE NEED TO MOVE FORWARD.” -CARLETTA CLARK

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THE OWN YOUR BRAND SHOW REAL STORIES. REAL STRATEGY

T

he Own Your Brand Show is where established executives, founders, and service business owners get the practical visibility and marketing insights they need to be known at the level they are already operating at.

Each week Victoria Odekomaya teaches one clear idea drawn from real work with real clients. No theory. No fluff.

Just the actual thinking behind building a brand that attracts clients, creates authority, and builds something that lasts. Every episode is designed to give listeners something they can apply immediately.

Selected guest episodes bring in founders, executives, and leaders who are actively building. At the center of every guest conversation is a live strategy moment where Victoria and the guest work through a real challenge together

on air and the conversation becomes real time insight.

Guest appearances are curated and offered by invitation or application only.

Every guest receives a fully produced video podcast experience and content assets designed to position them as the authority in their industry.

PARTNER WITH THE SHOW

Partners are featured alongside conversations that reach business owners, executives, and decision-makers who value intentional growth and visibility.

Sponsorship placements are integrated thoughtfully and designed to build long-term trust, not quick impressions.

If your organization believes in supporting founders, visibility, and meaningful impact we invite you to explore partnership.

Email hello@thelimstudios.com or scan the code to inquire about guest opportunities or sponsorship.

The Own Your Brand Show offers a limited number of sponsorship opportunities for aligned brands.

Sponsorship is not about interruption.

It is about association.

NEW EPISODE

OWN YOUR BRAND SHOW

with

VICTORIA ODEKOMAYA

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THE BOSS LADIES EXPERIENCE Boss Ladies Magazine was created to do more than feature women. It was created to help the right people see them differently. Because for many women leading meaningful businesses, the problem is not that they lack expertise. The problem is that their story, credibility, and value have not been positioned in a way that opens the right doors. This experience is part of our signature framework called REVENUE ENGINE, a larger visibility system designed to help women turn their expertise into opportunities, revenue, and impact.

Every woman featured in these pages is invited into an experience designed with intention. Hair and makeup by a professional artist. Wardrobe styling curated to reflect who she truly is. Her favorite music playing from the moment she walks through the door. A glass of wine. Chocolate-covered strawberries. A team whose only job for the next few hours is to make sure she feels seen, celebrated, and completely taken care of. But every detail serves a bigger purpose.

When a woman feels fully seen, she stops shrinking the story she came to tell.

Before the shoot, we listen. We learn her story, her vision, her business, and the

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version of herself she needs the world to understand. During the shoot, we capture more than portraits. We record her story in her own voice through the Boss Ladies Magazine video docuseries, giving readers a way to watch the story on video and experience the woman behind the feature in motion. After the shoot comes the writing.

A professionally crafted editorial article that captures not just what she has built, but why it matters, how she got here, and why people should trust her.

That is what makes the feature more than a beautiful keepsake. It becomes an authority asset. A credibility piece. A conversation starter. A link she can send before walking into the room. A story people can read, watch, remember, and share. It gives potential clients, partners, funders, media, and decision makers a deeper reason to believe in the woman behind the work.

When she holds the finished magazine in her hands for the first time, something shifts. Women cry. Not from sadness. From recognition. From finally seeing themselves the way the people around them have always seen them. And that recognition does not stay personal. It changes how she shows

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up. Her confidence shifts. Her positioning shifts. The way opportunities find her shifts.

We believe women leading and building meaningful businesses deserve to feel celebrated while they are still in the work. Not after the exit. Not after the milestone. Not when everything is perfectly in place. Now. While they are navigating the hard parts.

While they are making the decisions nobody sees. While they are carrying more than anyone around them fully understands.

Because when a woman is seen clearly, and that visibility is supported by strategy, content, and systems, it becomes more than visibility. It becomes the beginning of opportunities, revenue, and impact.

For women ready to be positioned this way, the next conversation begins at hello@ thelimstudios.com.

Scan to watch the Boss Ladies Experience

NOMINATE

A BOSS LADY Do you know a woman building something meaningful? A founder, executive, creative, or community leader whose story deserves to be documented.

Nominations are open for future issues of Boss Ladies Magazine.

Boss Ladies Magazine exists because too many women are doing extraordinary work in silence. The nominations process is how we find them. It is how a woman who has never considered herself magazine-worthy learns that her story has been turning heads all along. Every issue is built around women whose work matters, whose leadership inspires, and whose stories deserve to travel further than their immediate circle.

Featured women are selected based on leadership, impact, and alignment with the standards of the magazine. Some features are reserved for current LiMStudios clients in long-term partnerships. Others are invited through nomination and editorial review.

Selected nominees may be invited to be featured in the magazine, appear as a guest on The Own Your Brand Show, or explore a deeper visibility partnership.

Nomination is not a guarantee of publication. It is an invitation into consideration.

Nominate her. Or nominate yourself.

Scan the code to submit a nomination.

Boss Ladies Magazine offers aligned brands the opportunity to stand alongside women shaping culture, business, and community across Indiana and beyond.

SPONSOR THE NEXT EDITION

Our platform reaches over one million readers and decision-makers through Boss Ladies Magazine in print and digital distribution, The Own Your Brand Show, and our Boss Ladies Magazine video features, distributed across YouTube, podcast platforms, and social media.

Sponsorship opportunities are available at three levels and include placements across print, podcast, and video. All partnerships are structured around long-term visibility and genuine audience alignment. Annual packages are available.

Sponsorship is intentional. It is selective. It is relationship-driven.

Partners are featured alongside conversations and stories that reach established business owners, executives, and decision-makers who value intentional growth and are actively investing in their brands. This is not a passive audience. They pay attention. They take action. And they trust the voices they hear in these rooms.

If your organization believes in investing in women-led impact and wants to be part of the stories shaping what comes next, we invite you to start the conversation.

Email hello@thelimstudios.com to explore partnership opportunities.

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TESTIMONIALS I saw the space online, but in person, it's even more beautiful. A living room set, a dining area, an office, the podcast space, there's a setup for everything. The moment I walked in, I knew this wasn't just a studio. It was a space designed to make you feel like the expert you are. I just showed up and created. - Taylor M.

My brain runs throughout the night, what do I narrow down on? How do I stay relevant? Victoria broke it down in a way that finally made sense. I walked away knowing exactly what's next.

- Marie W. We did so much, but not a lot of people knew. NAWBO Indy kept being the best-kept secret. We needed a way to tell our story, show our impact, and raise money for the foundation to support women business owners.

The Boss Ladies Magazine x NAWBO Indy collaboration helped us do exactly that. - NAWBO INDY

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Everything finally made sense. This wasn't about marketing, it was about positioning and authority.

Victoria helped me launch a podcast that feels like a real conversation, not a performance. The quality elevated my voice. I'm ready to take my position as a thought leader. - Darcy H.

Victoria has a signature process. It's so much more than just in front of the camera, it's what builds up to those moments that make it successful. She really gets to know her clients. This is a win-win all day. - Marti J. I'm not trying to be a jack at everything. I need content, but I'm not a content person. Victoria made it simple. Come in, create, and walk out with everything I need. Now I can focus on what I do best. - LaVreen H.

We are starting to get eyes on us that we did not have before, and our name is becoming more recognizable. We have had a handful of people reach out, and I am getting interaction from the clients we want. Victoria’s ideas are great, and I am pleased with the work she is doing.

- Lyndsey B. Working with LiMStudios changed how I saw my business. The strategy sessions helped me articulate my value with confidence. I stopped explaining myself and started attracting the right opportunities.

- Karen M

I want to stay in my wheelhouse. I don't want to know how to do marketing. I just want it done.

Victoria made it a good, productive session. I got a lot of good headshots and content, if you look at my websites, I've been using them all over the place. - Sherry B. Being featured gave my brand credibility I couldn’t manufacture. People referenced the article before I even introduced myself. - Amy T.

I had an amazing experience with Victoria. I am not a big fan of having my pictures taken, and honestly was not super excited. The minute I walked into Victoria’s studio I felt invited, comfortable and at home. She was extremely professional, kind and just lovely.

The pictures she took, without being edited, are spectacular. I cannot wait to go back!

- Wendy N

Victoria is a talented photographer that strives to make her clients feel beautiful and empowered. It was a wonderful experience that I would recommend to anyone. She is worth every penny!

- Tiffany M.

LiMStudios gives you the utmost experience.

Victoria is a fantastic photographer and has the warmest personality. She will make you feel like your best self. Highly recommend the Celebrity Experience Photoshoot. I felt completely pampered with professional hair and makeup, yummy treats and lovely directions for poses.

- Daniele M.

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STEP INSIDE

LIMSTUDIOS CREATIVE HUB Every story in this magazine was captured here.

Not just the moment content is created, but the thinking, refining, and positioning that happens before and after.

SCHEDULE A PRIVATE TOUR | EXPLORE CREATOR SESSIONS REIMAGINE PODCAST AND BRAND STORYTELLING