2024 Influential Women in Business
2024 Influential Women in Business
Meet nine women who are making a difference in the Capital Region.
They find a way to make it all look so easy despite the myriad challenges of high-pressure careers, growing families, serving on local boards, volunteering at area nonprofits, and operating on the national stage. And somehow, many even manage to mentor others along the way.
The 2024 Influential Women in Business balance all these demands—and more—though it hasn’t been a leisurely climb for any of this year’s nine honorees. And while their personal and career paths are varied, there are a few common threads that emerge when speaking with the honorees about how they’ve reached this point in their lives. They take risks. They persevere in the face of failure. They have strong support networks. They believe in themselves. And at the end of a long day, they know how to decompress and recharge for the next challenge that awaits.
For 27 years now, Business Report has been honoring the incredible women in our community who are making the Capital Region a better place to live, work and play. As you’ll learn in their profiles on the following pages, this year’s honorees have already achieved much, but they’re not anywhere near the finish line.
In this edition of Business Report, we share their stories of success. We’ll also celebrate these women at a special luncheon May 21. Individual tickets are $65; a reserved table of 10 is $650. There, they’ll share their insights in a panel discussion moderated by Business Report
The day kicks off with the second annual Women’s Leadership Symposium, enabling professional women to connect and learn. The symposium kicks off at 7:30 a.m. with networking and a continental breakfast. The program gets underway at 8:15 a.m. with 10 dynamic women sharing their insights and experiences on work/life topics.
Speakers and panelists include C-suite executives, entrepreneurs, nonprofit change-makers and executive coaches. The keynote speaker is Jaime Glas Odom, a Capital Region entrepreneur and founder of Queen of Sparkles. Individual tickets for the morning session are $65.
To reserve your spot at both events, go to try.businessreport. com/wib2024.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY COLLIN RICHIE
JJodi Conachen’s
‘guiding star’? What’s best for the patient.
BY KELLI BOZEMAN
odi Conachen’s childhood career goal was simple: “I wanted to matter.”
Though her aspirations changed over the years while growing up in Baton Rouge, Conachen says her core focus was always the same. “I wanted to do something that was substantive,” she says, “something that had value to the community.”
In her role as chief operating officer of Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center, Conachen is doing just that. She recalls a phone call she had with a patient who was struggling with insurance and scheduling issues—things that are critical for anyone recently diagnosed with cancer.
“She had gotten bounced around by some other providers, but we were able to get her in with one of our physicians very quickly and then work to help get her insurance on board,” Conachen says. “She was able to start treatment within two or three days of that phone call. Now she is in a position to have a very successful outcome.”
Conachen’s career began in health care but then took a circuitous route. While majoring in public relations and mass communications at LSU, she had an internship with Woman’s Hospital that led to a full-time position after graduation.
She stepped away from health care to work with Chef John Folse but then returned to the marketing department at Woman’s, a place that she says “kind of raised me.” “I had several different positions and opportunities in different areas of the hospital,” she says. “Health care has always felt like home because of that.”
Her open-minded attitude led Conachen to later accept positions as communications director with the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development—“That one was exciting because it was very fast-paced, and I felt very connected to the decision-making,”
she says—and then as communications manager with Community Coffee, where she spent five years before health care came calling once again.
“I remember [then-CEO of Mary Bird Perkins] Todd Stevens in the interview asking, ‘Why would you want to come here?’” Conachen recalls. “And my response was, ‘I think I can make a difference.’”
Conachen spent nearly four years as Mary Bird Perkins’ vice president of marketing and communications before being promoted to her current position as COO. “I’ve loved being a part of this organization,” she says. “It’s a unique group of people that choose to go into oncology, so it’s been amazing to be part of that team.”
In her role as COO, Conachen has been a part of making some big decisions for the cancer center, from new equipment purchases to service lines to partnerships. “A lot of those decisions had to be made very quickly,” she says. “And to be able to know that we were making the right decisions for the right reasons is huge—to be able to have that guiding star of what’s the best thing for the patient, and then start there and build out your decision-making from that.”
A mother of three who earned her MBA while working and has served on multiple community nonprofit boards, Conachen knows the challenges of balancing multiple commitments—“I read a lot of papers on soccer fields and in airports,” she says—but perhaps that balancing act is what makes her excel in her role of helping to guide Mary Bird’s rapidly growing operations.
“Part of what I do is to try to keep the wheels on the bus at all times,” she says. “I’m the designated problem-solver. And then as we roll out all these new service lines, everything’s about implementation and making sure that the concept and the vision actually get to the patient.”
THE INFLUENCE
Jodi Conachen has helped spearhead various initiatives to expand and grow Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center’s reach to underserved communities, while expanding the services offered at existing locations. She has been instrumental in coordinating logistics for the center’s recent acquisition of MD Clinics locations across the state, extending into more rural communities to ensure cancer patients are able to receive needed care closer to home.
Strategist The
JODI CONACHEN chief operating officer, Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center
Counselor The
LANA CRUMP, partner and general counsel, Kean Miller
Resolute litigator Lana Crump also advises
her colleagues
on best practices.
BY MARIA CLARK
Is AI right for a law firm?
It’s one of the many critical decisions that Lana Crump has tackled in her role as a partner and general counsel for Kean Miller.
She stepped into the position four years ago at the urging of firm leadership. Today, she advises Kean Miller on a variety of legal issues, including by reviewing firm contracts and providing insights into ethical and conflict issues involving client matters.
Crump also is a voice for best practices when it comes to implementing new tools in the legal space—with AI being high on the list.
Early on, the firm organized a task force of interested attorneys that focused on how AI could help both with clients and the business as a whole. Crump helped craft a policy specifying ways that AI can and cannot be used when it comes to such issues as client confidentiality, copyrights and intellectual property.
“We decided that we are not ready to adopt an open AI or generative AI platform here, but we can leverage what is in the market for legal services,” she says. This includes using platforms for legal research such as Westlaw Precision.
As a young woman growing up in Alexandria, Crump originally contemplated a career in broadcast journalism. But family members who practiced law had a hand in also inspiring an early interest in law.
Nevertheless, she went on to LSU to study journalism, earning a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism in 1992. But she never could quite shake her curiosity for the courtroom.
“It seemed very intellectually challenging,”
she says. “Ultimately, I think I called it right.”
In addition to representing companies and individuals in business disputes, contract litigation and insurance claims, Crump brought a unique expertise in class-action litigation involving chemical exposures and catastrophic accidents. She counts some of Louisiana’s biggest energy and petrochemical companies among her clients.
On another front, she counseled municipalities on municipal, land use, constitutional and civil rights issues.
These days, however, the firm is her primary focus. “This has evolved into a significant role now to where my outside practice is secondary to the general counsel,” she says.
She also has served as a mentor during her time at Kean Miller, helping many young attorneys navigate challenges while in the early stages of their career. Mentoring can be a two-way street, however, and Crump says she learns just as much from the mentees.
Crump stays active in the community by volunteering her time with organizations such as Capital Area United Way. This year, she and her husband, Hampton, will celebrate the graduation of two of their children from Samford University in Birmingham.
As Crump gets ready to celebrate a career milestone—next year will mark 30 years with Kean Miller—she is quick to praise the firm’s culture of camaraderie, which she says was instilled by its founding partners and continues to this day.
“We also have such a great client base and continue to grow it,” Crump says. “It’s fun when you have good steady work coming in. We’ve had great success and growth as a firm and it has made it a great place to be.”
THE INFLUENCE
Lana Crump guides Fortune 50 clients and local businesses in toxic tort and mass tort actions, business litigation, financial services litigation, federal civil rights cases, local government and land use matters, as well as property, life, health, and disability insurance litigation. The LSU Law Center Hall of Famer also advises fellow Kean Miller attorneys on legal and ethical issues.
Rachel DiResto guides communities through recovery and resiliency.
BY KELLI BOZEMAN
One of Louisiana’s most challenging moments led to a formative period in Rachel DiResto’s career.
It was the mid-2000s, and DiResto was working as vice president of Plan Baton Rouge, helping to implement Baton Rouge’s downtown plan and then expand those planning efforts to Old South Baton Rouge.
Then hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the state.
“That drastically changed the trajectory of our little nonprofit,” she says. “We had already been thinking of becoming more of a statewide resource that could bring new ideas and development standards to other communities. But when those hurricanes hit, we were really called to take an even more important role.”
And so Plan Baton Rouge became the Center for Planning Excellence, and DiResto—a Hammond native who had earned a master’s degree in urban, community and regional planning while on the job—suddenly found herself in meetings with renowned architects and urban planners from around the world whom she was familiar with only through books.
“They had come to Louisiana to help communities not just rebuild but rebuild better,” she says. “That was an incredible time of growth for me and my career, learning from and working alongside these experts who opened my mind to new concepts and ideas.”
After nearly two decades at CPEX—during which time she worked on several other impactful projects including the Connect Coalition, which advocated for enhanced transportation options between Baton Rouge and New Orleans—DiResto accepted a leadership role with management consulting firm Emergent Method.
“I see Emergent Method as an incredible team of very smart people and problem-solvers,” she says. “I love project-based work, and I love working at the municipal level and the state level—the kind of
scale that Emergent Method projects offered.”
As managing director, DiResto says that much of what she learned after the 2005 hurricanes is being applied once again. “I work on disaster recovery housing projects like Restore Louisiana,” she says. “A majority of my work at Emergent Method has been on disaster recovery programs, but also with cities and municipalities that are undergoing some kind of change.”
DiResto’s work involves juggling numerous client projects, so no two days are alike, but one constant is the collaboration she fosters with her team members. “I really try to take the time to mentor and give feedback,” she says. “I tend to be the kind of person who digs in and puts my head down and does the work, but I’ve learned that you can only expand your success if you build a successful team.”
Since many of Emergent Method’s projects are multiyear endeavors or large-scale infrastructure initiatives, DiResto says she makes it a priority to “celebrate the little wins” with her team along the way.
“It’s important to recognize advancements as they come along, since these projects may not see an end anytime soon,” she says. “At the same time, we want to take a fresh look and try to determine what we can do better, and what value we can be adding.”
DiResto also makes time to give back to the community through volunteering with local nonprofits: She has served on the boards of organizations including the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge, Front Yard Bikes and Baton Rouge Gallery, and she currently is a member of the board of directors of Baton Rouge Green.
“Those organizations are so incredibly important to Baton Rouge’s fabric,” she says, noting that working with nonprofits has motivated her even during the busiest times of motherhood with her three children, who are now grown. “It’s incredible to see the work they have done to preserve our unique culture.”
THE INFLUENCE
Rachel DiResto is a force in community transformation, in Baton Rouge and throughout Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. She led the creation of the Connect Coalition, a regional transit and housing coalition advocating for improved transportation connectivity between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and sparked the adoption of Complete Streets policies, inclusion of transit projects in regional and state plans, and the formation of a Rail Authority charged with implementing passenger rail between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
RACHEL DIRESTO managing director, Emergent Method
Change Agent The
Mentor
MELISSA DOTSON , expansion manager, Shell Geismar
Melissa Dotson pays it forward, helping others make their journey.
BY SAM BARNES
While growing up in Metairie, Melissa Dotson thought she was destined for a career in medicine. Her mother even sent her to Latin camp one summer so she’d be able to read medical terms one day—she still has the camp T–shirt, in fact.
But that all changed in 1994 after Dotson’s junior year in high school, when a summer program at LSU—Recruiting into Engineering High-Ability Multicultural Students, or REHAM—opened her eyes to the world of chemical engineering. Dotson and other participants would attend classes in the morning, then tour area plants under the guidance of mentors from Dow, ExxonMobil, Shell and others. “That’s when the light bulb went off,” Dotson says. “That summer program showed me that engineering was exactly what I wanted to do.”
The third of eight children, Dotson came from humble beginnings. She credits her parents, particularly her mother, for encouraging her to focus on her education. “My mother was a nurse, and she gave up a lot of herself to ensure that we all had every opportunity to succeed,” she says. “My siblings and I grew up knowing that we needed to focus intensely on our schooling, because that would be the gateway to a different future for all of us.”
Thanks to that pivotal summer at LSU, Dotson already had a crystal-clear idea of what she wanted to do after high school graduation. “I knew I was going into engineering at LSU … there was no Plan B,” she says.
While in college, she began working at Shell Geismar as a process control summer intern, and then, after graduating with a degree in chemical engineering in 2000, she took a full-time job there as a process control engineer. Later, she accepted her first leadership role as an instrument team lead in 2005. “That sparked my passion for bringing teams together, setting goals and providing the best support to the operations staff,” she says.
In 2013, she transferred to Shell’s Manufacturing Excellence organization in Houston, where in her
role as asset master planner she conducted site studies for the strategic use of capital within the Shell Americas region. She returned to the Geismar plant in 2019.
Through it all, Dotson has felt a need to “pay it forward” by mentoring area youth and other employees in the Shell organization. “There were so many different mentors in my journey that encouraged me to do something that, at the time, I didn’t have the confidence to do,” she adds. “I knew I had a responsibility to do the same for others.”
Not surprisingly, her list of volunteer work is long. Dotson is currently active within a variety of Shell employee resource groups, a sustainer for Junior League of Baton Rouge, current member of the LSU Chemical Engineering Advisory Board, past assistant programing director for the Baton Rouge Chapter of Jack and Jill, and current parliamentarian in the National Charity League – River Road Chapter. She also serves as secretary on the Louisiana Art & Science Museum’s board of trustees.
Dotson admits juggling all that, while also managing her current day job as Shell Geismar’s expansion manager and raising a family, gets a bit challenging at times. She gives credit to her attorney husband, Anderson O. Dotson III, for helping her keep all the balls in the air and managing the schedules of their three children—Andie, Ryann and Anderson IV.
In her various roles, Dotson seeks to encourage the uniqueness of the individuals she mentors. She credits Robin Roberts’ book, Everybody’s Got Something, for opening her eyes to the benefits gained from a diverse and inclusive team. “Her book phrases it so beautifully,” Dotson says. “Everybody has a different background or journey that they’re on. The key to success is recognizing that they all have something unique that shapes who they are.
“Allowing folks to unlock their potential and diversity of thought is the true key to success,” she adds. “That’s where Shell shines. They are focused upon building that diversity of thought and encouraging others to bring their ‘authentic selves’ to work.”
THE INFLUENCE
As an engineer working for Shell, Melissa Dotson prioritizes mentorship and development in the workplace and in the community through organizations such as the National Charity League, the Junior League of Greater Baton Rouge, the Louisiana Art & Science Museum, the LSU Chemical Engineering Advisory Board and others.
Meredith Hathorn is the legal mind behind some of Louisiana’s biggest public projects.
BY MARIA CLARK
Woman’s Hospital. The Port of New Orleans. Ochsner Health. LCMC Health. The University Medical Center in New Orleans.
The expansions of I-10 in Baton Rouge and the Huey P Long Bridge.
If you’re familiar with those entities, then you can appreciate the work of Meredith Hathorn.
As managing partner of Foley & Judell, Hathorn is focused on aspects of state tax, securities, and contract laws. She guides clients through complex financing issues to build major capital projects. In fact, she has been the lead bond attorney for major transportation-related capital improvement projects throughout Louisiana, including the aforementioned interstate and bridge.
While living in New Orleans pre-Hurricane Katrina, Hathorn had a hand in major projects such as the development of the University Medical Center.
“No matter where I drive in the state, there is some building or major project I have been involved in. It is incredibly satisfying,” she says. “I love my firm. I have had great mentors and clients here.”
Hathorn has always had a fascination with finance and economics. “It touches everything we do,” she says, “whether you are doing a credit card transaction to refinancing.”
Eager to get started with her college education at the age of 16, Hathorn took college-level courses at what is now Louisiana Christian University in Pineville. The school was near where she grew up in Alexandria and allowed her to get a head start on her college career while remaining close to home. She eventually went to LSU to study business and then to Tulane University where she received her law degree in 1983.
In 1982 while at Tulane, Hathorn clerked with her current firm, Foley & Judell, and then after graduation worked as an associate at the firm of Mudge Rose Guthrie & Alexander in New York City. In 1985, she returned to Louisiana, again joining Foley & Judell.
“When I became a clerk, I took to this work,” she says. “We are a boutique law firm and only do public finance, we don’t do litigation or estate planning. It resonated with me.”
Away from work, Hathorn is a passionate advocate for financial literacy and supporting women in this area. She is a member and past president of the Louisiana Chapter of Women in Public Finance and a member and current president of the International Women’s Forum – Louisiana Chapter.
Says Hathorn, “Financial literacy is very important to me, and making sure that women in particular have the resources they need to address and control their finances.”
The lawyer has also held several leadership roles in her field, including chairing the Government and Public Law Section of the Louisiana Bar Association. She also served a four-year term on the board of directors of the National Association of Bond Lawyers— including a term as secretary—and was elected to serve a four-year term on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board in 2020 and again as chair in 2023.
Hathorn says part of her success boils down to three basic tenets—showing up on time, being present and being courteous. She also points to the importance of volunteering for extra projects, serving on committees and seeking out additional educational opportunities.
“To become knowledgeable about your business you have to be able to sit and listen and learn from others,” she says. “And you must give back by mentoring others.”
THE INFLUENCE
Named a trailblazer by her peers in public finance, Meredith Hathorn has served as lead bond attorney for the state of Louisiana on transportation-related and other specialized financings. She serves as bond counsel to the Port of New Orleans, the Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority and on many 501(c)(3) financings for hospitals, universities and charter schools.
Financial Whiz The
MEREDITH HATHORN , managing partner, Foley & Judell
Tessa Holloway’s measure of success is better life outcomes for children.
BY CYNTHEA CORFAH
When Tessa Holloway was approached in 2006 to purchase a child care center in Port Allen, she was a manager at Blockbuster with no experience in early learning. She had two sons, a husband who believed in her, and the will to become an expert at something she had never done before. The Irwinville native would have never imagined that one leap of faith and years of education, certifications and child advocacy would lead to her becoming the co-owner of a multimillion-dollar early learning and child care center.
Holloway and her husband, Derrick, opened Kidz Karousel in December 2006. Eighteen years later, they have eight locations in Louisiana including standalone centers in Baton Rouge, Zachary, Mandeville, Prairieville and Addis, as well as centers at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center and Woman’s Hospital in Baton Rouge and a microcenter at a Scotlandville elementary school in partnership with the East Baton Rouge Parish school system.
Kidz Karousel is the largest private Black-owned early learning center in the state and instructors start the curriculum for children as early as six weeks old.
“Ninety-five percent of everything you will ever learn in your entire life is learned from birth to 5,” Holloway says. “What is poured into you at that time is so important.”
Each center offers programming to prepare children for kindergarten and beyond. Holloway and her team aim to advance children mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. The centers use Frog Street, an early childhood curriculum based on early brain research that helps with vocabulary development, social and emotional connections, and physical activity. Kidz Karousel also has enrichment programs such as Upfield Soccer, an age-appropriate and noncompetitive soccer program; Tumbling Tigers, a gymnastics and fitness class;
storytime with librarians; and an annual scholastic book fair.
“Early child care will reduce incarceration rates and decrease the juvenile issues that we’re having,” Holloway says. “If more people around the nation poured into early child care like they do K-12, it would fix so much. By 7, a child’s personality is developed. It’s so important for you to learn the right stuff, be around the right people, see the right things and feel the right love.”
In 2023, Louisiana ranked 41st for pre-K-12 education, according to U.S. News and World Report, five spots higher than in 2019. While the data shows local education is improving, Holloway feels there is more work to be done, especially in early learning.
Holloway wants to reach as many children as possible to create better overall outcomes for their lives. This year, she has two new locations in the works. One will be a microcenter, located inside a school, and the other will be at Perkins Road and Rouzan Avenue.
In addition to shaping the minds of young children and providing them with intentional care, she is motivated to improve the lives of staff members and create a legacy for her family. She supports her staff with a 401(k) program, health benefits and promotion opportunities. Some of her instructors have gone from teaching children to becoming administrators to running their own early learning centers.
“I could stop right now and be financially 100 percent OK,” she says. “I am growing to help the community, help these children be better people and create better environments and outcomes. It’s also for my staff. The bigger I grow, the more opportunities they have.”
Holloway’s go-getter attitude, resilient spirit and desire to soak up everything there is to learn about early learning and child care make her more than an influential woman in business, but a woman who influences how everyone can do business.
THE INFLUENCE
Tessa Holloway is an entrepreneur who, with her husband, Derrick, has founded eight Kidz Karousel early learning and child care centers in the Capital Region, with two more in the works. The curriculum is designed to advance children mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually, She also actively engages in public policy advocacy for early childhood education, participating in the Public Policy Forum on Capitol Hill in Washington.
LearningAdvocate The
TESSA HOLLOWAY, founder, Kidz Karousel
Caregiver
CHERI JOHNSON , executive vice president of patient care and chief nursing officer, Woman’s Hospital
Cheri Johnson ensures safe perinatal experiences for women.
BY CYNTHEA CORFAH
Cheri Johnson didn’t seek to be a hospital executive. It sought her.
Before becoming the executive vice president of patient care and chief nursing officer at Woman’s Hospital, she was a nurse who loved caring for women and babies as well as being a single mother who wanted to provide for her three children.
The Texas native started her Baton Rouge nursing career at Baton Rouge General in the ’90s. After a few years as a young and passionate nurse, she was suddenly asked to step up to a managerial role while the hospital searched for someone to fill it. She ended up keeping her position in leadership at the hospital until she found her new home at Woman’s Hospital in 2006, where she oversees 8,000 deliveries and nearly 10,000 surgeries a year.
Johnson has become an expert at creating safe perinatal experiences for women. Before she became Woman’s chief nursing officer, she served as vice president of perinatal services and director of obstetrical services. She oversaw all aspects of the hospital experience for women before and after birth.
“I am a nurse first before I am an executive,” she says. “I just want to take really good care of our patients.”
During her career, she has been intensely involved in advocating for women and infants. She has served on committees and task forces such as Fetal Infant Mortality Review, March of Dimes, Medicaid Quality OB/MFM Subcommittee, Perinatal Associated Mortality Review and the Louisiana Perinatal Quality Collaborative.
Her day-to-day duties include analyzing the hospital’s data and finding ways to provide the best care for women and improve birth outcomes. She regularly examines Woman’s metrics including severe maternal mortality, morbidity, C-section rates and infection rates. She works closely with medical staff members to consider what has been successful for women and children’s health, what studies have been published in those areas and what processes they should practice to improve care for their patients.
To combat maternal health disparities, Johnson helped conceptualize and direct the execution of Louisiana’s first inpatient mental health unit dedicated to serving pregnant and postpartum women. The 10-bed unit at Woman’s is scheduled to open in September.
“One in five women are affected by mental health conditions that can range from anxiety and depression to birth-related PTSD,” Johnson says. “Seventyfive percent of these moms are left untreated. We want to destigmatize mental health issues for our pregnant and postpartum women and also provide support for them.”
The $8 million inpatient hospital unit will have private rooms, an outdoor patio, a group activity room, specially trained staff, support for lactating moms, and newborn visitation. It will be the first of its kind in the state and one of just four in the U.S.
“Our pregnant moms are being sent to other areas where they can’t see their baby,” Johnson says. “Here, we’ll be able to have the baby come and visit the mom. That is unheard of in mental health facilities. We will have support groups and therapies, access to emergency OB care and maternal fetal medicine physicians for any high-risk issues or needs that they might have.”
Johnson also helped establish the Woman’s Guiding Recovery and Creating Empowerment program in 2018. The program supports pregnant women suffering from substance misuse. GRACE participants carry infants an average of three weeks longer and weigh 1.3 pounds heavier than those struggling with substance abuse who are not enrolled in the program, Johnson says.
With national maternal mortality rates on the rise, especially for women of color, Johnson’s efforts and initiatives are more relevant than ever.
“I would love it if we didn’t have to talk about the disparities in maternal mortality,” she says. “I would love to be in a world where we didn’t talk about everybody not having equal access to care. I always want to support and help others who don’t have the same benefits as some of the rest of us.”
THE INFLUENCE
Woman’s Hospital delivers more than 8,000 babies each year— making it the 16th-largest delivery service in the nation and the largest in Louisiana—and performs more than 9,650 surgeries annually. In her role, Cheri Johnson has a direct impact on the quality of care provided to tens of thousands of women and infants.
Amanda Martin’s Studyville concept has transformed the tutoring experience.
BY KELLI BOZEMAN
Like a great symphony, Amanda Martin’s career has had a lot of twists and turns but plenty of high notes—all leading to a crescendo, which in her case was the creation of the rapidly growing Studyville academic workspace.
After earning undergraduate and master’s degrees in music from Vanderbilt and the University of Texas, respectively, the Alexandria native wasn’t quite sure which way the working world would take her. Performing opera came naturally to the singer with a coloratura soprano voice—think Renee Fleming or Mariah Carey— but after marrying and having children, Martin says the unpredictable life of a musician didn’t play well with the motherhood lifestyle.
But it was the world of music that led her to discover her business strengths, as Robert Grayson tapped her to help create Opéra Louisiane in 2007.
“That was a pinnacle time for me,” Martin recalls. “I wrote the business plan, did the marketing and raised the first funds to get us going.”
Martin went on to lend her talents to the founding of Furball Baton Rouge; meanwhile, she worked for her family’s business, Alexandriabased wood products and forestry company RoyOMartin, in marketing and as its Family Council president.
But being the mother of two sons was Martin’s most important role, and it was through that relationship that Studyville emerged. She says that when her oldest son was in middle school the “the homework struggle became real,” with missed assignments and plenty of frustration on her part.
Neither the typical tutoring centers nor athome tutoring was quite what Martin was looking for, so she developed a concept inspired by collegiate-style studying environments and office coworking spaces.
“I thought, ‘What if we had a coworking space for teens and tutoring?’” she recalls. “It would work like a gym, where you have a membership and can go anytime you want to work independently, or there is a personal trainer—a tutor—to help you when you need that extra attention.”
Studyville opened its doors in Perkins Rowe in August 2020, “and we have been busy ever since,” Martin says. The company has seen exponential growth since its inception, more than tripling its revenue in less than four years and adding a second location in Alexandria.
Offerings have expanded to include microschooling and early childhood literacy, and Studyville now also offers tutors in Georgia, North Carolina and Florida. The growing roster of members stems from data showing Studyville’s tutoring is 275% more effective than the national average for tutoring, Martin says.
“We are committed to education and helping students reach their full potential,” Martin says. “Our passion and performance has fueled our growth.”
The next step for Studyville is franchising, a significant move but one Martin says is fueled by the knowledge that she can’t do everything alone. “The harvest is plentiful, and now is a great time to own a tutoring center if you do it correctly,” she says.
Personally, Martin says she juggles running a business and mom life “by the skin of my teeth,” scheduling calls during carpool and planning her days in strategic blocks. But she hopes Studyville’s success story shows other women that it’s never too late to get started.
“Focus on your family for the season when they need you most,” she advises. “You can start a business at any time in life, and when you do there will be a network of female entrepreneurs out here cheering you on.”
THE INFLUENCE
On the verge of becoming a franchise concept, the innovative and high-performing Studyville is not Amanda Martin’s only startup. She was also a co-founder of Opera Louisiane, Baton Rouge’s only professional opera company, and The FurBall—one of Baton Rouge’s most successful philanthropic events—also grew out of her work and influence.
Entrepreneur The
AMANDA MARTIN , CEO, Studyville
Financial Tactician
ALICIA VIDRINE , chief financial officer, Tiger Athletic Foundation
A chance encounter in college leads to a meteoric rise for Alicia Vidrine.
BY MARIA CLARK
While in her senior year at LSU, one of Alicia Vidrine’s professors posed a simple question to her during an encounter at the student union.
Had she secured a job after graduation?
The conversation quickly turned to an internship opportunity at the Tiger Athletic Foundation. Now, 20 years later, Vidrine is vice president and chief financial officer of the organization. Since that day in the student union, she has overseen the finances of several facility upgrades and capital improvements, including the storied south end zone addition to Tiger Stadium and the Football Operations and Performance Nutrition Center renovation project.
Originally from the town of Vidrine, Louisiana, she received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting from LSU. She started at the foundation in 2004 as an accounting intern before moving up to an accountant role the following year. She continued to work her way up through the organization, and was named CFO at the age of 34.
It meant a lot, she says, seeing herself “surrounded by people who had the confidence in me to be placed in that position at such a young age.”
She counts her first boss as a formative mentor, teaching her the value of perseverance and the will “to strive to do better and improve things.” Vidrine also notes the importance of being willing to listen and learn from others.
A key aspect of her job at the nonprofit foundation is working closely with the board’s finance committee.
“It’s filled with business-savvy people from Baton Rouge and across the country,” she says. “They have a lot of knowledge of business, and it is an opportunity to learn from people I think of as mentors and to continue improving what TAF does.”
During her time with the foundation, Vidrine has played a major role in its fundraising success, leading to the construction and improvement of a variety of facilities and programs for the university’s athletics portfolio, including an indoor tennis facility, a gymnastics practice facility, and a nutrition center for student athletes.
Vidrine was part of the foundation team that was awarded the PACnet Star of the Year Award, which is given to organizations that exceed expectations and achieve extraordinary results in marketing, ticketing, or fundraising.
Outside of work, Vidrine has been an active volunteer with St. Aloysius Church and St. Aloysius School. She also helps raise funds for Catholic High School.
This year promises to be momentous for her family. Vidrine and her husband, Kirk, whom she calls her best friend and greatest supporter, will celebrate their three children’s graduations later this spring.
In reflecting on her 20 years at TAF, Vidrine appreciates the importance of that serendipitous encounter in the student union.
“I love that my job is never the same,” she says. “There is always some new project process, or something new going on in athletics we must learn to deal with. There are always new challenges that pop up. It’s exciting.”
THE INFLUENCE
Alicia Vidrine has played a key role in the Tiger Athletic Foundation’s record-breaking fundraising success. She oversees the finances of constructing its capital improvement projects, which have included the south end zone addition at Tiger Stadium and the LSU Football Operations and Performance Nutrition Center renovation, among others.