It is with great pleasure that we will be featuring our Women Veterans Day 2020, “The Pitch: Women Veteran” Winners during our July, Women Warriors Winning The Business Battle virtual event.
Join us for an enlightening Fireside Chat with Alicia Makaye, Co-Founder/Co-Owner, GXA, the Judges Choice and Ericka McKim, Owner/Founder, And I Like It our Audience Choice, as they share their experiences, before, during and after the Pitch. We will examine how COVID 19 has impacted their businesses along with what strategies they have or are employing to pivot, position and push their businesses forward. During this time of continual change, we can learn from each other’s challenges and successes.
Women Veteran Entrepreneurs are connecting across our region and the nation to obtain the resources they need to succeed. Are you connected?
We are working to keep a focus on our 2020 theme by applying successful strategies to build:
Personal/Professional Confidence
Business Credit & Access to Capital
Business to Business Sales
This month’s program will continue to be offered virtually via Zoom and Facebook Live, our agenda will includes, but is not limited to:
11:10AM - 11:15AM - Pitching Virtually: What We Learned - Quick Tips
11:15AM - 11:20AM - 30 Second Business Pitch - We want to continue to give you the opportunity to battle with your peers for the best pitch and a $60 Onlie Gift Card.
Prepare Your Pitch - Your Pitch Coaches are available off line—email us with your request for a Business Coach prep session @ info@veteranwomensec.org
Shirley Staten is a certified life and business coach, specializing in sales and customer service. She’s passionate about working with individuals to help them achieve their personal goals as well as business owners to help them increase sales by leveraging customer service techniques. Her process includes helping clients create an executable strategic plan to help them achieve their business goals by focusing on key operational areas.
Holly Caplan is a female empowerment author, speaker and confidence coach. As she climbed the corporate ladder for over 20 years, she learned that advancing meant tolerating discriminatoion in the workplace. This drove Holly to write a book titled, “Surviving the Dick Clique: A Girl’s Guide to Surviving the Male Dominated Corporate World.” Her most recent work related articles can be found in Fox Business, Inc, and Fast Company, CEO MOM and Cosmopolitan. Holly resides in Dallas, TX.
11:20AM - 11:50PM
Meet the Judges - 11:20AM - 11:50PM - THE PITCH: WOMEN VETERAN - PARTNER PANEL REVIEW
Christina Mortel , Army Veteran & Business Consultant, Texas Veterans Commission Veteran Entrepreneur Program;
Tracy Irby, Associate Director, Center for Women Entrepreneurs, Texas Woman's University;
12:00PM - 12:40PM - Words of Wisdom - Fireside Chat hosted by VR Small with:
Alicia Makaye (the “A” in GXA) is a philanthropist, entrepreneur, and co-founder/co-owner of GXA. Alicia is a U.S. Air Force Veteran and a graduate of U.T. Dallas with a Ph.D. in Public Affairs. She is an alumni of Goldman Sachs 10,000, Small Businesses Entrepreneurship Program (Cohort 10). Dr. Makaye currently serves on multiple boards including Dallas County Community College District Foundation Board.
Dr. Makaye has received the following honors: Dallas Business Journal’s Minority Business Leader; Minority Women Business Entrepreneur of the Year Award; Alumna of the Year at UT Dallas; Air Force Achievement Medal; and most recently, nominated as ‘Women of the Year.’
GXA is an IT Solutions company that helps build stronger businesses for small to medium size businesses in the Dallas Ft Worth area supported by 20 employees. GXA was recognized as the recipient of the Inc. 5000 Award, as one of America’s fastest growing companies in 2014/2019 and Texas most inspiring companies in 2020. In 2018, GXA was recognized for providing over 75,000 to a local pantry.
Alicia with her husband of 19 years, George Makaye, founded GXA on an idea sketched on a napkin 16 years ago. GXA launched in 2004, as an LLC and in 2008, it was officially incorporated. Since the launch of GXA in 2004, Alicia Makaye and her husband, had 2 children now 5 and 12 years old. Currently, Alicia has jumped into commercial real estate, securing the purchase of her first commercial property located in Richardson, Texas, which she named Makaye @ CityLine. The new property is home to GXA and Makaye InfoSec (GXA’s Cyber Security Division), with 10,000 square feet of available rental space.
Ericka McKim, Owner/Founder, And I Like It, is a medically retired veteran who created And I Like It.™ Sugar was ruining her health! Ericka struggled to stay on her health course, but she hated the bitter taste and strange cooling effect that one tastes with low-calorie sweeteners. Yuck! She needed a product that would bridge the gap from the standard American diet to a ketogenic lifestyle.
Food Manufactures put sugar in everything…even bread! It is 8 TIMES MORE ADDICTIVE THAN COCAINE which makes transitioning off sugar difficult, and it’s hard to find CLEAN convenient snacks for our busy lives.
And I Like It™, specialize in making CLEAN decadent, delicious, single-serve, low carbohydrate cheesecakes that are made with our proprietary all-natural sweetener FirstRate! FirstRate makes it simple to transition off sugar because it tastes great, has no bitter diet taste, or weird cooling effect, typically found in sugar-free foods.
There are many cheesecake flavors to choose from. Bonus is they only have 1 - 3 net carbs per cheesecake! They are gluten-free, low carb, keto-friendly and still tasty for the whole family! You will have those picky eaters saying, it's healthy "And I Like It"!!!
Ericka believes her cheesecakes, And I Like It™ Baking Blend, FirstRate™, TopNotch™, and And I Like It™ Stevia are tools that will help you effectively navigate your health course.
Come, connect, collaborate, and conquer your challenges, so you can win your business battles!
12:40PM - 12:50PM - Questions & Answers
12:50PM - 1:00PM - Selection of Business Pitches for July as we work to reopen the VWEC & Closing Remarks
Are you ready to take full control of your business, turning contacts into contracts, building your business credit and strengthening your business pitch? We’ve created a venue for you to access the resources your need to succeed.