On this episode of TheEdge, YUPRO CEO, Michelle Sims, joins ClearEdge Marketing CEO and Founder Leslie Vickrey to talk about how Michelle has led with confidence through her career, why it’s so important to be your number one fan, their shared passion for diversity in the C-Suite, finding “dog-balance” and more.
Like many of us (if not most of us), Michelle fell into staffing after studying marketing and sales in college. From there, she wanted to grow into management and then operations, which led her to HR. There, while working on the client side of staffing as a single mother, job stability was undoubtedly more important than opportunity. However, when Michelle was faced with mom-shaming, she quit. Even though she took a pay cut moving to inner staffing, she knew her confidence in her abilities were on her side.
Pivoting to talk of gender equality, from Michelle’s view as CEO, in a female-dominated industry, companies can’t ignore raising females into senior executive roles. We, as an industry, need to build women up from entry-level, create development programs and network events for women specifically – but the efforts shouldn’t stop there. Executives and boards must notice that we need to position women to move up and on in their careers. If we fail to do this, women will “speak with their feet” – a new phrase we allies will use moving forward (thanks, Michelle!)
As the conversation continues, the pair also discuss Michelle’s greatest lessons from her journey in staffing, how more isn’t always better, and why she believes it’s her role to support women, specifically women of color, to change the makeup of the C-suite and beyond. We hope you enjoy this episode.
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