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KAREN WIGGINTON
Karen Wigginton is a passionate mentor who encourages women to dream big. Her secret to success, she says, is boldly taking on leadership roles that push her outside of her comfort zone. Since 2013, Wigginton has overseen marketing and sales strategies for Sunnyside Communities, which has three senior living properties in Virgin[...]
LORETTA CATALDI
When Loretta Cataldi started out in the real estate business 25 years ago, only a handful of agents were women. “Not very many doors were open,” she says, “so I had to climb in through the windows.” That determination has taken her from being an executive assistant to principal and managing broker at Divaris Real [&helli[...]
CATHIE J. VICK
Cathie J. Vick was the first woman to join the Port of Virginia’s executive leadership team eight years ago. Vick had no direct experience in the male-dominated maritime industry, so she almost didn’t apply for the job, but a male colleague encouraged her to try. “Just having my job is shattering the glass ceiling,” Vick[...]
Bathhouses at Homestead to reopen soon
A painstaking restoration of the Warm Springs Pools will wrap up in time for The Omni Homestead Resort in Bath County to reopen one of America’s oldest spas by 2022’s end. Formerly called the Jefferson Pools, the spring-fed public baths have been closed since 2017. The resort had hoped to start work on the $3 […]
CONNIE CONNELLY O’BRIEN
Early in her career, a client at the ad agency where Connie Connelly O’Brien worked threatened to take their business to another firm. Determined to fix the situation, she spoke with the client and learned that they did not feel heard, and quickly offered a solution. “By really listening to the problem they were trying [&hel[...]
DeETTE GRAY
DeEtte Gray began her career as a middle school math and science teacher in the late 1990s. Her passion for STEM education eventually led to her role at CACI, where she’s involved in modernizing government agencies’ operations. “One of my great experiences was integrating computers into the science curriculum, making the c[...]
Incubator offers foothold for international firms
Minimal risk, long-term success. Chorus Intelligence Ltd., a British software company that sells products and services for law enforcement investigations, had these goals in mind when it set its sights on the U.S. sales market. With the help of a new Virginia Beach incubator focused on supporting international businesses, Chorus[...]
BECKY BAREFORD
To become the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond’s chief operating officer, Becky Bareford had to embrace a paradox: She had to get “comfortable with being uncomfortable.” Her moments of greatest doubt also were her “greatest learning moments,” she says, and many learning moments later, she now oversees the bank’s $400[...]
JENNIFER TAYLOR
Jennifer Taylor’s birthplace of Middletown, Ohio, is the backdrop of GOP U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance’s 2016 book “Hillbilly Elegy,” a memoir about growing class divisions in the Rust Belt. While Taylor now lives in Northern Virginia and leads one of the largest regional technology trade associations in the nation, s[...]
BRENDA ELLIOTT KARP
Brenda Elliott Karp is the first and only woman at The Breeden Co. in senior leadership devoted to real estate development partnerships. Being a woman in her industry is not easy, and Karp is determined to change that. To help level the playing field, Karp dedicates her life to mentoring women through the Commercial Real [&helli[...]
WENDY HORTON
In March 2020, Wendy Horton arrived at the University of Virginia Medical Center to start her new job as chief operating officer at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Seven months later, she became the teaching hospital’s CEO. At 43, she oversees a medical center with approximately 700 beds and 9,000 employees. She credit[...]
IRMA BECERRA
“Prepare, prepare, prepare. Persist, persist, persist.” That mantra has carried Becerra, whose family fled Fidel Castro’s Cuba for Puerto Rico when she was an infant, to the presidency of Marymount University. “From immigrant to university president in a lifetime” is an extraordinary story, but one that she credits in [...]
