SEE HER WORK Florist Leanna Rinaldi

THE MOON LOOKS GLORIOUS

Florist Leanna Rinaldi conveys a warm, desertinspired aesthetic in her unique floral designs.

BY MADELYN GEYER

The moon changes tides, transforms men to werewolves and inspires Leanna Rinaldi, the founder of Moon Flora Studio in Austin. “I just love the moon,” she says. “If the moon is looking glorious, I’m going to point it out.” As a former ballerina, Rinaldi spent much of her life in studios and liked the idea of her floral designs emerging from an art studio. After dancing professionally for eight years, Rinaldi retired from ballet due to a career-ending injury. Dancing was her entire life, so the thought of what to do next was a terrifying prospect. It couldn’t be just any job, but a career that creatively fulfilled her artistic soul. “I had a lot of time to think while I was recovering from surgery,” Rinaldi reflects. “In that time, I decided to retire and start a business.”

But what would the business be? Rinaldi adored flowers. She found peace and rejuvenation in them. “I’m very drawn to nature, so all my creations are really influenced by it,” she muses. Flower power, one might say. Even while dancing, she was never far from this passion. “I chose to intern with a floral design company in Miami when I was with the Miami City Ballet and I just fell in love with it. It didn’t feel like work to me.” Rinaldi founded Moon Flora Studio in August 2020, the name perfectly encapsulating her passions. Opening a business during the pandemic is not for the faint of heart, but Rinaldi was tired of waiting. “I said, ‘You know what? It’s never going to be the right time. So I’m just going to go for it.’”

Rinaldi’s warm, earthy arrangements are inspired by the California desert, nature and the heat and color of Miami. She explains, “I like to pick unique flowers that many people don’t use and incorporate dried flowers, because they bring light and texture to everything. I like that you can reuse them as well.” Rinaldi strives to dismantle the idea of what floristry should be, sometimes including foraged sticks or leaves in a design. “I want to stay away from the stark, old-fashioned way of arranging flowers. From the typical ‘greenery and roses’ type of thing. I want my designs to be joyful and awe-inspiring.” To some, floristry is simply tossing spray-painted flowers in a vase. Rinaldi shows that floristry is a graceful art form, requiring the same precise choreography as a ballet performance.

When designing for a wedding, small gathering or special occasion, Rinaldi uses the client’s vision, colors and themes to bring materials together. “We’ll discuss the vibe they’re going for, whether that be rustic or classic, the vessels they’d like and then go from there.” The process of approaching each arrangement as a detailed work of art and showcasing floral beauty in unique, ethereal arrangements brings Rinaldi—and her clients—incredible joy. “I discovered that I love to put smiles on people’s faces,” she says. “I want people to look at the flowers and say, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen that before.’”

Rinaldi expresses gratitude that she’s always been able to do something she loves as her job. “I’m a very creative person, and I’m really glad that I was able to transition from ballet to this and not have to sacrifice my artistic side when I had to stop dancing.” Though no longer pirouetting, Rinaldi brings a ballerina’s grace and a nature lover’s soul into her exuberant and rejuvenating designs.

I want my designs to be joyful and awe-inspiring.

THE QUEEN OF CURIOSITY

BigCommerce CMO Lisa Eggerton tackles the world with wide eyes and an open mind.

BY HANNAH J. PHILLIPS, PHOTOS BY RUDY AROCHA

SHOT ON LOCATION AT BIGCOMMERCE

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Lisa Eggerton knows how to tell a good story. Born in New Orleans, a city steeped in narrative, the arc of her decadeslong career unfolds as more of a novel with colorful plot twists than the bio of a C-suite executive who has helped take not one, but two Austin tech companies public in the last nine years. While a love of storytelling rarely appears in the job description for leaders in the tech industry, Eggerton considers it one of the driving forces of her career.

An early love of reading instilled the curiosity and open mindedness that would become Eggerton’s calling card—first, in the advertising world of New York and San Francisco, and now, in Austin’s booming tech community. Growing up as an only child, Eggerton recalls relying on reading for companionship, escape and a source of joy. A favorite was Harriet the Spy, whose titular hero always carries a marble-covered composition book to jot down her observations on life as an 11-year-old.

“I think I still have Harriet the Spy moments,” says Eggerton. “She’s not a role model, per se, since she’s not always a likeable character, but I gravitated toward her love of observing other people. It’s such a great book about being curious.”

Eggerton’s own curiosity eventually led her to live in the same location as the book’s setting, New York City. After earning a literature degree from Tulane University, she left her hometown with a college friend on the Amtrak Crescent, a 30-hour train ride from the Big Easy to the Big Apple. Arriving in New York City with a suitcase and duffle bag, Eggerton waited tables before finding her first job as a production assistant with a group called Festival Productions. The jazz festivals evoked her New Orleans nostalgia, but the role was seasonal; August found her searching for freelance work until festival season resumed in the spring. When the owner of Festival Productions mentioned a junior position in the company’s marketing division, Eggerton decided to accept—at least until April, anyway.

“I wasn’t particularly interested in corporate marketing at the time, but I decided to give it a try,” says Eggerton. “It ended up being an extraordinary job. American Express was their main client, and I learned so much. I shifted into that role and never went back.”

The shift was more natural than it might render on paper. Eggerton went from assisting the talent at large music festivals to helping American Express roll out new programs for its platinum-level card holders. Where nearly every contemporary credit card company offers some form of membership feature today, AmEx was revolutionary in its late-’90s rollout of premium perks.

“I got to do things that no other young woman living in a seventh-floor walkup in New York would ever get to do,” Eggerton recalls. “We produced Julia Child’s 80th birthday party where the highest level cardholders could have lunch with her and celebrate her birthday. On the one hand, I was sharing a can of Goya beans at night with two roommates; by day, I’m at the Four Seasons with Julia Child.”

Eggerton revisits that juxtaposition with palpable gratitude. Some opportunities just come down to perfect timing.

“I hate when women attribute success to luck because it can do such a disservice to drive and hard work,” she says. “I typically don’t do that, but in this case, it was just pure luck that the clock ran out on the jazz festival job because I would have capped out.”

Instead, Eggerton established herself in the marketing world, working in New York for almost a decade before relocating to San Francisco. Like her first job at Festival Productions, the Bay Area move was not an opportunity she actively pursued, but it sparked her curiosity and presented a new career storyline. In New York, she had become one of the only women on a leadership team in a recently acquired company, Euro RSCG (now Havas Creative). As the company expanded to California, she recalls chatting with her CEO about why the new offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco weren’t coming together as they should.

“I remember him telling me, ‘I’m not interested in admiring problems; I’m interested in solving them,’” says Eggerton. “He said, ‘If you have a better way, move there and go fix it.’”

So she did.

Within the month, Eggerton left her apartment, friends and New York network, moving to California as general manager of the company’s West Coast division. Looking back, she imagines the move may seem impulsive at first glance. But she submits that decisions can have short timelines without springing from whim. If anything, Eggerton’s signature curiosity, sifted like a diamond through high-pressure environments, has crystallized over time into a robust set of criteria for approaching each new career choice with confidence.

“I always ask if something will propel me forward in a way that’s exciting and gratifying, something that puts me on a new trajectory,” she says. “I don’t operate with a five-year plan or destination in mind. Instead, I evaluate opportunities based on whether the space has enormous potential; whether I will be good at it and bring value to the role; whether it will be challenging and teach me something new and whether it will excite and energize me because I am able to have an impact.”

I feel particularly comfortable being a truth-teller; I’m unafraid and unapologetic about tackling a difficult challenge.

Applying those filters, Eggerton often knows early in the process if it’s a yes or no, and she has also made a point throughout her career to consult various mentors along the way. Stressing the importance of bringing in as many unique perspectives as possible, she finds value in striking a gendered balance when exploring new ventures. Of course, as the only woman on male-dominated leadership teams in the early years of her career, seeking a male perspective was often a more practical than personal choice.

“For me, it was partially a necessity to translate some of my ideas in a way that was more consumable by my peer set,” Eggerton says. “The world isn’t going to adapt to my communication style, so I’ve had great male mentors who act as a proxy for my audience.”

Even as the workforce evolved over the last two decades, she consistently invited a variety of opinions when coming to a new crossroads.

“I often see female leaders only seeking advice from other female leaders,” she says. “And while I never want to discount the value of that, it can become one-dimensional. There are plenty of things I’ve explored with male mentors, colleagues and friends because I value their viewpoint on impact, blind spots and development areas.”

Today, Eggerton is in a career stage where she more often seeks advice from peers than mentors, but she still prioritizes the value of different perspectives and applies the same criteria. She moved into her current position as chief marketing officer (CMO) at BigCommerce by asking the same questions she always has. After leaving her last position as CEO of Umbel, Eggerton intended to take a year off and focus on personal projects. When the BigCommerce opportunity came up, she knew almost immediately that the position ticked all the right boxes.

“I knew that eCommerce is an industry that was poised to grow dramatically,” says Eggerton, “and I looked at the market conditions and saw that the company could be a flyer. I also looked at the leadership team and recognized that they had the experience necessary to take this high-growth company to a great outcome.”

Ultimately, Eggerton also saw that it would be a win for Austin, which became a new criteria after moving here in 2010. Drawn by the city’s bootstrapping spirit of innovation, she worked on strategic growth initiatives at Dell before becoming CMO at Bazaarvoice. There, she was part of the leadership team that took the company public in 2012, which not only set the precedent for her later position as CEO at Umbel, but also for taking BigCommerce public in August of last year.

“Austin has been generous to me,” says Eggerton. “Being part of a company and taking it public, I saw what that did for employees going on to start their own company, or buy a house, or do something bigger. At BigCommerce, I wanted another win for Austin, and I wanted to work for a company where there was care for having an inclusive environment. There’s no opportunity so compelling I would take it if it wasn’t.”

BigCommerce met Eggerton’s criteria both practically and personally. Where market conditions and potential for impact were practical considerations, inclusivity was—and remains—deeply personal. Apart from her own experience as the only woman on a leadership team, Eggerton says her definition of inclusivity has expanded in recent years because she has a transgender child transitioning from female to male.

“Those teens have the highest suicide rate of any cohort, and a component of that is that they don’t feel seen for who they are,” says Eggerton. “I take that as a life-or-death matter now, not a discretionary issue. Going through this with my kid has shifted my lens to make me think more expansively about what it means to have welcoming environments where you can be your most authentic self.”

From her own experience, Eggerton believes it’s not a choice to care about inclusivity when you have only worked in an environment with a 50/50 leadership team, or even 60/40.

“I see what it’s like when you are one of the few or the only person in a room, and that needs to change,” she says. “I have a strong sense of self, so I can hold my ground in environments when it’s not there, but the fatigue of it adds up.”

For Eggerton, examples of discrimination span a spectrum from the overt disrespect of prospective investors addressing questions to her male CFO, to smaller patterns of gender bias like being the automatic point person for administrative questions on business trips with male colleagues. In the past, when she first noticed her former colleagues—well-meaning male peers—leaned on her to coordinate meetings and dinners, she gently pushed back.

“I just stopped answering,” says Eggerton. “For months, I just said I didn’t know when dinner was or where we were meeting until one of them finally realized and they all caught on: I am not here to coordinate with you; I am your peer and no more well-equipped to manage the specifics. Those are the little things—and these are guys I love who are compassionate, ethical people and allies—but the accumulation of little things can create an environment where you have to fight for your seat at the table.”

Besides their cumulative effect, Eggerton argues that these unintended slights can actually be more painful and difficult to face directly. Getting in the ring is one thing, she says, but the innate instances of discrimination are both more disappointing and exhausting.

“And we wonder why women tap out!” she says. “Part of it is they don’t see themselves reflected the way they want.”

Tackling the issue has to be a joint effort. While men have to be receptive to both overt and subtle experiences, women have to get comfortable sharing those examples as they would any other feedback, in depersonalized, approachable ways. Eggerton encourages women to sit in that discomfort—even when it means literally sitting on your hand instead of raising it to volunteer for additional responsibilities. Flipping the myth that women need to show commitment in order to get ahead, Eggerton has seen how overstretching yourself can actually distract your attention from creating the highest value in your career.

Ironically, she learned this particular lesson after volunteering to be the executive sponsor for a diversity group at a previous company. Managing speaker programs, setting up diversity surveys and creating employee resource groups, Eggerton realized the role was not only draining her but detracting from her ability to perform to her highest potential as an executive. She recognized that she was already representing diversity and inclusion, and further, that the initiative would actually have a greater impact not coming from her.

“I realized what a terrible message it sends that the woman in charge is responsible for fixing the women problem,” she says. “I had to go back to my CEO and say, ‘I know I took this on, but I also have some very aggressive targets to reach, and this should be more equitably distributed among the team.’”

When the CEO not only agreed but got personally involved in the program, the change happened much faster than it might have otherwise. The resulting message had a far greater impact on company culture.

“Together, we were able to fix that, and it was much more powerful not being led by a woman,” says Eggerton. “In the end, it sent a much stronger signal that it’s not women worried about women, but a company committed to an inclusive workplace.”

Apart from producing much quicker cross-functional results, Eggerton notes that the shift recused her from a burden that wasn’t hers, which in turn freed her to advance in her own role. After all, isn’t that the point of such initiatives? The collaborative problem-solving— her desire to call in, rather than call out—showcases Eggerton’s trademark ability to see both the forest and the trees, to trace the overarching story in each unfolding subplot. To a degree, that ability to see potential stumbling blocks as opportunities is just the sign of a good marketer, whether optimizing internal systems, identifying new target consumers and sales tactics or finding new gaps in the market and creating new features to meet them. On the other hand, this discernment comes full circle with Eggerton’s natural curiosity and love of storytelling. Ultimately, that’s where she’s comfortable calling herself a troublemaker.

“I feel particularly comfortable being a truth-teller; I’m unafraid and unapologetic about tackling a difficult challenge,” she says. “I’m not out here creating a disruptive way to invent a spleen, but I’m changing the world in my own ways by making it more inclusive, being curious and pushing forward.”

RAISING THE BARRE

A ballet company humbles itself and learns how to commit to diversity in meaningful ways.

BY BRIANNA CALERI

Ballet, Michelle Martin points out, is about creating lines. “Everything that you’re looking for in classical ballet relates to establishing a line through the body,” she says. “If you are wearing dance clothes—particularly tights on your legs—that cut your line... then you’re doing a disservice to the dancer and you’re not moving anything forward.” For as long as there have been ballet dancers of color, they’ve been forced into the wrong shades. It’s not a superficial difference. It affects the dancer’s sense of belonging as well as their actual performance and appearance of belonging. In 2019, an article in the Guardian celebrated the UK’s first line of pointe shoes to match Black and brown skin. It shouldn’t be revolutionary, but it is: dancers at Ballet Austin wear the right colors for their skin.

Martin is the associate artistic director of Ballet Austin, one of the 15 largest classical ballet companies in the United States. With Martin’s help alongside Artistic Director Stephen Mills and Executive Director Cookie Ruiz, Ballet Austin is tackling these obvious practical issues and much larger, more ambiguous ones in a racial equity company reboot. Ballet Austin has known for decades that the medium carries a centuries-long reputation both as an impeccable art and an impenetrable bastion of white, upper-class culture. Around four years ago, the company got involved in nationwide initiatives that lit a new fire under its equity efforts. Since then, through intensive audience research, internal auditing and goal-oriented industry conversation, Ballet Austin has been identifying which historical lines need breaking, and which ones can be fortified with its influence.

Ballet Austin is nationally celebrated for Mills’ choreography work, which is not only progressive in style, but in humanitarian substance. His original work Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project was recognized in 2006 by the Anti-Defamation League with the Audrey & Raymond Maislin Humanitarian Award. Martin teaches alongside him, acting as a mentor for dancers as they move through the company’s various pipelines from early-childhood training to national renown. Meanwhile, through administrative efforts, Ruiz supports securing funds to subsidize those pipelines and maintain stability for those dedicated to the art form.

As COVID-19 shuttered arts organizations, the trio remained on task. The dancers had to be engaged as athletes, and everyone on staff had to be paid. Ballet Austin had to keep offering art to its audience, especially as the world became desperate for healing in any form. The company had to put its allyship training to work as the country descended into protests and even insurrection. Ruiz sums up the organization’s existential responsibility: “Whether or not there’s a performance really doesn’t matter in terms of Ballet Austin’s obligation to employing our artists.”

ENACTING CHANGE

Three and a half years ago, Ballet Austin was invited to participate in a nationwide program sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation called The Equity Project: Increasing the Presence of Blacks in Ballet. Twenty-one of the largest ballet companies in the U.S. (who are also the largest employers of dancers) gathered together under the leadership of Dance Theatre of Harlem, The International Association of Blacks in Dance and Dance/USA for coaching on creating a more equitable national landscape in ballet. Participants flew from city to city for two years of conferences and conversations about doing more than simply hoping for more equity by putting detailed practices in place.

Toward the end of the program, Ballet Austin’s answer was to put together an employee-led task group that would carry those principles forward. The Equity Leadership Team, as it’s now called, then commissioned an internal landscape analysis run by an external consultant. The results showed a lack of conversation at Ballet Austin about race. As much as Mills, Martin and Ruiz had been talking, it wasn’t reaching ears throughout the rest of the company. To keep up, they’ve continued undergoing allyship training, while Martin started moderating optional small-group discussions with the rest of the staff. Ruiz succinctly points out the need for “organizational opportunities for individuals to do individual work.”

Finding more diverse representation on the board of directors had also proved difficult over years of wishful thinking. Starting with low representation in a small group, Ballet Austin was moving the needle one person at a time. Progress was slow, and strides were undone the moment anyone left. To commit more deeply to its goal—35% BIPOC representation on the board—for the past three years, Ballet Austin assembled nominating committees that were entirely made up of people of color. Like any nominating committee, they reach out to prospective members and invite them to performances and events to continue to let the work speak for itself. The difference is simply a more welcoming face to those who would worry they don’t belong in ballet.

This is the lament of many white-led organizations trying to invite members of color through good intentions alone. Martin points out, “What I’ve heard a lot of people say—and I’m sure these words left my mouth as well—‘We just don’t see a lot of people of color who come to our auditions.’ If you’ve been excluded and harmed for generations...if you don’t see others that look like you in an organization, why would you want to present yourself?”

While the Ballet Austin team is building nominating committees, it’s also looking into starting a paid internship and an apprenticeship program for BIPOC college students. Getting them involved just before graduation could widen the company’s admin talent pool past the same kinds of applications that have been coming in for years. This way, Ruiz explains, the company will be less reliant on “the luck of the draw” while rushing to fill gaps.

A similar program, Ballet Austin II, has been in place for dancers since Martin established it in 1999. Catching dancers early in their careers, as dramatic as it may sound, means developing talent in children and getting them ready to hit the dance floor running, so to speak, when they hit 18. From then and until they’re 23, they become a part of Ballet Austin II. There they take classes, perform with Ballet Austin and receive health services, eventually moving on to the main company or one of the 42 others across the U.S. contracted with the program. Right now, nearly 80% of Ballet Austin dancers come through this pipeline.

This type of development is common with professional dance companies. This also means the diversity issues that are common to ballet are already coming up before a dancer even signs up to audition. One of the shifts Martin made in recent years is reexamining the training organizations Ballet Austin II is sourcing from. The program is now fostering partner relationships with institutions that work specifically with young dancers of color, including the Chicago High School for the Arts and the International Association of Blacks in Dance. Martin also recognizes the barriers even those dancers, who seem set up for success, face. Parents are often worried about sending their Black children away at the cusp of adulthood to a Southern company, to work in an industry that historically mistreats them. Even if they wanted to, they might not be able to afford it. Countering both issues takes continuous work and relationship-building. Over time, personally validating the experiences of BIPOC dancers in one-on-one discussion and maintaining scholarships like the Butler Fellowship Program could invite more diverse dancers to step onto its stage.

CONSTANT GROWTH

A dancer’s career onstage, like any athlete’s, is short and could end with an injury or, say, a pandemic, at any time. While Ruiz’s concern is getting those dancers through the door, Martin’s is making sure these young dancers fighting for coveted jobs are not only growing in ways they think others want to see. “That’s not how artists are developed,” she says, through an exasperated chuckle.

So why should an arts organization put itself under the same stress? During an intensive audience research program, Martin and Ruiz realized that developing a connection was more complicated than showing the audience what Ballet Austin thought they were ready for. “My only lens previously had been what we wanted people to get from what we were doing,” Martin says. “That is not what people necessarily come to you for, and that’s often not what they find.”

The invite-only research program that upended these assumptions was run by the Wallace Foundation and took a year of applications and audits to qualify for. Just three dance companies were admitted to the group of 25 arts organizations: Ballet Austin, New York City’s Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre (whose Texas-born founder is famous for preserving Black contributions in dance) and Seattle’s hugely popular Pacific Northwest Ballet. Each company had a different goal. Austin’s was to learn to engage audiences in their new, less familiar offerings, while traditional stories like Swan Lake and The Nutcracker regularly sell out.

In its write-up, the Wallace Foundation notes that there were two simple things drawing Austin audiences in: “the social experience of spending time with family and friends at an event and the emotional or intellectual reward of experiencing the art itself.” Ballet Austin also learned that familiarity with the experience of attending a ballet was more important to ticket buyers than familiarity with the story itself. The company was suddenly, measurably free to widen its repertoire past the unfamiliar. All they had to do was explain it. One project Martin is excited to unveil to audiences over the coming years is a triptych of children’s ballets highlighting non-Western European cultures, starting with Filipino folktales choreographed by Ballet Master Alexa Capareda, who came up through Ballet Austin’s Butler Fellowship Program.

This is a tangible result of another continuous line, created by ballet, from scholarship to training, to staff, to audience, including the children and families who are familiar with how folktales are told, even if they’re less familiar with Filipino lore. Other audience members may see themselves in the non-white narrative and go on to take public classes at Ballet Austin, some of which are free thanks to the money they spent on ticket sales and donor subsidies. The cycle begins again.

Ballet Austin knows results will come slowly, and only if they’re willing to put ideas out. Their hypothesis that framed their Wallace Foundation audience was wrong. Their internal culture audit found unflattering blind spots. They didn’t know exactly what to say when the country cried out about police brutality, but their simple online statement of support led to an invitation from Black Women in Business to join their ongoing food drive. Of course, cultural leaders have to do their due diligence, but they will often be wrong, and they can’t afford to let that fear keep them from making necessary trouble. Ruiz embraces the opportunity to rebuild after the pandemic—not just getting things back to normal, but elevating them to a more equitable space. She promises, “We have no intention of putting it back the same.”

Which ballet step represents you as a person?

Ruiz: “As an executive director, it’s probably most fitting that I would identify with the grand jete. Because to me, it represents my ongoing desire to take those large leaps forward on behalf of our artists and through our mission.” Martin: “A pas de basque. This is not a flashy step. It’s a very grounded movement. It requires managing dynamics of energy and coordination. I am not a flashy person; I strive to be very grounded.”

What’s something traditional that you love?

Ruiz: “I’m deeply impacted each year by the capacity of The Nutcracker, which is very traditional. To bring so many people together...over all these years, seem[s] to celebrate family. But family…in a way that reaches across ages and races and cultures and ethnicity and just brings us together as a community.” Martin: “I love corps de ballet work…because I love to watch the power and the community that is created by a group of women working together. We don’t have a company that has a lot of cookie-cutter bodies. The challenge and the beauty, to me, is creating a unison and a symmetry out of people’s energy and the dynamics of the way in which they move.”

What’s your favorite way to make trouble?

Ruiz: “My favorite way to make trouble is through advocacy. To me, that means showing up and standing up and speaking up for a greater cause.” Martin: “Right now…the thing I’m most passionate about is racial justice and racial equity. I wouldn’t call myself a troublemaker, but I think we, as white leaders, have all gotten ourselves into some trouble, and we all have to work together to get ourselves out.”