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JUNE /JULY 2 02 1

FROM SUCCESS TO SIGNIFICANCE CEO

“If someone can do something 80 percent as well as you, let them do it.”

LTK’s A M B E R V E N Z B OX on the importance of delegating.

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CONTENTS J U N E /J U LY 2 0 2 1

VO LU M E 1 6 | I S S U E 0 5

P H OTO G R A P H Y BY S E A N B E R R Y

“An inability to delegate is going to stop anyone from growing beyond a certain point,” says social media entrepreneur Amber Venz Box. “A mentor told me, ‘If someone can do something 80 percent as well as you, let them do it.’”

And so, she does.

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From Success to Significance

The Great Balancing Act

Keeping the Trains Running

Amber Venz Box has created more than 100 millionaires with her influencer commerce platform, LTK. Now, she’s aiming for even greater impact.

Working mothers are constantly juggling career and parenting responsibilities. Companies that want to hang on to talent can help.

Jean Savage became the first non-family member CEO at Trinity Industries last year. She has made big changes—and more are on the way.

story by CHRISTINE PEREZ portraits by SEAN BERRY

story by WILL MADDOX photography by YAROSLAV DANYLCHENKO

story by CHRISTINE PEREZ portraits by SEAN BERRY

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CONTENTS

67

24 EDITOR’S NOTE

DOSSIER

74

3 1 YO U N E E D T O K N O W

Rear Admiral Sylvia TrentAdams, UNT Health Science Center Fort Worth 34 MEET THE 500

Monica Greene, Monica’s Mex-Tex Cantina R E S TAU R A N T BY K A T H Y T R A N ; P U R S U I T S C O U R T E S Y O F J A C K S O N - S H A W ; R O OT S C O U R T E S Y O F R E B E C C A A C U Ñ A ; C R A F T COURTESY OF F R O M T H E C O L L E C T I O N S O F T H E D A L L A S H I S T O R Y & A R C H I V E S D I V I S I O N , D A L L A S P U B L I C L I B R A R Y ; T R AV E L C O U R T E S Y O F S U G A R B E A C H

3 4 L O C A L LY S O U R C E D

Lindsey McClain and Jamie Coulter, La Vie Style House

3 6 R E S TA U R A N T S

Afifa Nayeb, Nayeb Hospitality Group

3 8 O N T H E TA B L E

Margie Aguilar, ISP Creative

72

FIELD NOTES 59 LEADING OFF

A. Shonn Brown, Kimberly-Clark 6 0 H E A LT H C A R E

Technology and the pandemic are moving healthcare into the home—and cutting costs by as much as 30 percent.

62 ON TOPIC

Carine M. Feyten of Texas Woman’s University, Lyda Hill of Lyda Hill Philanthropies, and Nikky Phinyawatana of Asian Mint on which DFW business leaders they’d choose to have dinner with, and why.

64 THOUGHT LEADER

Benchmark Income Group’s Mary Lyons on how to protect your financial legacy after exiting your business.

OFF DUTY

67 PURSUITS

Michele Wheeler, Jackson-Shaw

FROM SUCCESS TO SIGNIFICANCE CEO

7 0 G R E AT E R G O O D

Emmy Hancock, Oluna

“If someone can do something 80 percent as well as you, let them do it.”

LTK’s A M B E R V E N Z B OX on the importance of delegating.

7 2 W E L L T R AV E L E D : S T. L U C I A

36 016

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Erin Finegold White, Dallas Mavericks

74 R O O T S

Rebecca Acuña, PepsiCo

92 END MARK

Juanita Craft

92

ON THE COVER: LTK’s Amber Venz Box, photographed

by Sean Berry. Hair and makeup

by Gabby Rosenberg.

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PROVIDING THE COMPANY PERSPECTIVE

Todd Shadle Executive Vice President, General Counsel Chair, Employment Section Board Certified in Labor & Employment Law.

E M P LOY M E N T L I T I G AT I O N Representation Since 1980

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P U B L I S H E R Gillea Allison EDITORIAL EDITOR Christine Perez MANAGING EDITOR Will Maddox ONLINE MANAGING EDITOR Bianca R. Montes ASSOCIATE EDITOR Kelsey J. Vanderschoot ASSISTANT EDITOR Ben Swanger CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Richard Alm, W. Michael Cox EDITORIAL INTERNS Ellie Beeck, Maria Hieber, Mariah Terry, Chance Townsend

Financial Executives Giving Bank to the Community Through Mentorship

CONGRATULATIONS! TO FEI’S FINANCIAL EXECUTIVE EXPERIENCE 2020–21 MENTEES/STUDENTS: UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS:

Rick Nguyen

Santiago Duenas

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K. Prince Obegolu

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UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS:

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Dylan Usher

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Andrew Zang

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Ray Estep, Ambipar Holding, USA Jim Farrell, GHIG Services Eric Holleman, Conexus SG Jim Howe, Lucid Energy Group Jack Kearney, Dumas Capital Partners, LLC Miguel Molina, Avocados from Mexico Sanjay Nara, Reddy Ice

Alejondro Gonzalez

PAUL QUINN COLLEGE:

Doug Nelson, Frost Bank

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THANK YOU TO OUR EXECUTIVE MENTORS FOR THEIR GUIDANCE AND COACHING:

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THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS:

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Steve Armond, Solis Mammography

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Meera Desai Priya Desai Jean Erazo Kyle Glover Heather Hougland Reshma Karakkattil Mauli Kinkhabwala Kyle McAdams

Bernado Aguayo, 7-Eleven

Tom Beitel, Siemens Industry Software, Inc. Ben Cantrell, EFG Companies Christopher Cervantes, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management James Dworkin, Trinity Basin Prepatory, Inc.

Elizabeth Reich, City of Dallas

Scott Smaistrla, WTP Advisors Aaron Stehsel, Focal Point Data Risk Stephen Westurn, Paradigm Tax Group Kenny Wilks, Moss Adams Kyle Wiley, Whitley Penn Debbie Wood, Lonestar DQ Randy Wright, Armor Cloud Security

The FEI-Dallas Financial Executive Experience is a five month mentorship program where students who are juniors or seniors majoring in finance or accounting at local colleges or universities are selected based on academic & leadership merit. Each mentee received a $500 scholarship and 6 to 8 hours of mentoring from an accomplished local financial executive.

To learn more about Financial Executives International, please visit

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Join us for this extraordinary virtual conversation with two remarkable bestselling authors discussing the power of each woman’s voice and story in building empathy, compassion and community in our world.

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D CEO Financial Executive Awards the westin dallas downtown was the site of d ceo’s 2021 Financial Executives Awards, hosted in partnership with the Association for Corporate Growth, TXCPA Dallas, and Financial Executives International. Editor Christine Perez revealed the program’s 13 winners, including Tracey Doi of Toyota, Outstanding CFO: Large Public Company; and Darin Harper of Main Event Entertainment, Outstanding CFO: Large Private Company. Title sponsors for the event were BKD, UMB Bank, and Vaco.

Alicia Seaton, Wayne Lynch

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Persuasion Skills, Part 2: The Theory of Sponsorship R O G G E D U N N , C EO, R O G G E D U N N G R O U P

c-level execs, managers, and doctors make sales pitches every day. Whether you’re trying to motivate an employee, sell goods or services, obtain funding from a PE firm, or win an argument with family or friends, persuasion skills are essential. This article details another proven persuasion technique to use in business and your personal life.

ments with a grain of salt because they are trying to convince you to hire them. If you go to consultant No. 2 and ask their opinion of consultant No. 1, and they say that consultant No. 1 is a great company, you are much more likely to believe consultant No. 2’s opinion because it was against their self-interest to say good things about consultant No. 1.

What is the Theory of Sponsorship?

How do you engage others to sell for you?

The Theory of Sponsorship recognizes that someCompanies hire social media influencers because, one listening to a presentation or sales pitch gives under the Theory of Sponsorship, an endorsement more or less credence to the message dependor positive commentary from a celebrity who’s ing on who is delivering the message. Does the viewed as credible, dynamic, and trendy is much person delivering the message have a vested inmore effective than bragging on yourself. Consumterest in persuading them, or are they providing ers trust JD Power and customers’ Google reviews an honest assessment of the product or service over a company’s marketing efforts. about which they are commenting?

Sponsorship’s effectiveness is why people ask If you’re trying to sell someone, the listener for references, companies tout testimonials, and will be skeptical because you’re trying to persuade organizations worry about negative posts on Goothem to do something that is in your best intergle and other social media platforms. est—not necessarily theirs. If, on the other hand, someone else is singing your company’s praises, How do you prove your case at trial? it is much more believable, especially when it’s Seasoned trial lawyers know it’s much easier to prove not in the self-interest of the other person who your case at trial through the mouth of the other is endorsing you or your ideas. side. If your company’s witnesses say the defendant People are more likely to believe the opinion made mistakes or breached a contract, the jury will of someone viewed as a neutral evaluator who be skeptical because you are suing for millions. If, doesn’t have a dog in the fight. They are even on the other hand, you obtain concessions from the more likely to believe someone who endorses a defendant that it made mistakes, the jury will be company or your sales efmuch more likely to believe the defendant’s employees forts when the validation is because it was not in their against their self-interest.

If you’re considering hirself-interest to criticize their ing a management consulcurrent employer. tant, and consultant No. 1 The Takeaway: Find ways says, “Our company is the to have others promote you, 500 N. Akard Street, Suite 1900 best; we work hard for a low your company, and what Dallas, Texas 75201 price,” you take those stateyou’re selling.

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ROGGE DUNN represents companies, executives, and entrepreneurs in business and employment matters. These include the CEOs/presidents of American Airlines, Baker Hughes, Beck Group, Blucora, Crow Holdings, Dave & Busters, Gold’s Gym, Halliburton Energy Services, Kinko’s, Texas Motor Speedway, Steak ‘n Shake, SunEdison, Texas Capital Bancshares, Texas Tech University, Tuesday Morning, and Whataburger.

Corporate clients include Adecco, Beal Bank, Benihana, Cawley Partners, CBRE, Cintas, DuraServ, Match.com, Rent-A-Center, and Outback Steakhouse. Dunn was selected to the 2021 Dallas 500 list by D CEO Magazine recognizing the most powerful business leaders in Dallas-Fort Worth. He has been honored as a Texas Super Lawyer every year that award has been given and named to the group’s list as one of the top 100 attorneys in Texas by Texas Monthly (Thompson Reuters Service), and a D Magazine Best Lawyer 12 times. Dunn is one of only approximately 25 attorneys in Texas Board Certified in both Civil Trial Law and Labor and Employment Law.

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Commercial Real Estate Awards d ceo held its first in-person event in more than a year to honor the region’s most notable commercial real estate projects and leaders. Nearly 400 industry execs turned out at Gilley’s on April 28, where winners of the 2021 Commercial Real Estate Awards were revealed. Developer Shawn Todd took home the prestigious Pioneer Award, The Real Estate Council’s Linda McMahon was honored with a Community Service Award, and Holden Lunsford of Holt Lunsford Commercial was named Emerging CRE Professional of the Year. Title sponsors for the big event were Capital Title, the City of Anna, and Rogge Dunn Group.

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Live The Life You've Always Imagined.

We'll Help You Get There.

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Making Life Easier for Working Parents

No matter where you are in life, we can help you address some of your most pressing financial questions.

Gardner Wallace Financial Solutions GardnerWallace.com 972-833-2565

Securities offered through Kestra Investment Services, LLC (Kestra IS), member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through Kestra Advisory Services, LLC (Kestra AS), an affiliate of Kestra IS. Gardner Wallace Financial Solutions, LLC. is not affiliated with Kestra IS or Kestra AS. Neither Kestra IS nor Kestra AS provide legal or tax advise and are not certified public accounting firms.

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P H OTO G R A P H Y BY E L I Z A B E T H L A V I N

We call this comprehensive approach “lifecycle financial planning” because we work with you throughout your unique lifecycle.

when i was young, i’d often wake up to the sounds of the washer and dryer whirring in the laundry room or pots and pans quietly being moved about in the kitchen. Before heading out at the crack of dawn for her job as a nurse in a hospital about 30 miles away, my mom would always make sure my siblings and I had clean clothes to wear to school and a home-cooked meal prepped for dinner. She was accustomed to working hard, growing up on a farm in Ohio. And, due to social norms back then (in the 1950s), she knew that if she wanted a career, she could have one as long as she handled her domestic responsibilities, too. My dad was a high school football coach. I don’t have a single memory of him doing the laundry, cooking a meal, or even washing the dishes.

In recent years, we’ve seen some improvement in gender parity when it comes to household and parenting responsibilities, but women still carry the heaviest load. The situation has been exacerbated by the pandemic and caused hundreds of thousands of women to leave the workforce. There is one noticeable exception to the norm in our office: Managing Editor Will Maddox. His wife, Katie, is a pediatrician who works in palliative care. Given Will’s less-essential job and flexible schedule, he manages many of the domestic responsibilities and stays home with sick toddlers (Ethan, 3, and Tucker, 2) when needed, although Katie definitely pulls her weight. He does this while keeping up with a beat (healthcare) that is experiencing an ongoing, once-in-a-generation news event.

In this issue of D CEO, our annual edition that focuses exclusively on women leaders in North Texas, Will writes about the great balancing act that working moms (and, yes, some dads) must constantly perform—and five things businesses can do to provide support. Companies that want to hang on to valuable employees should take heed. Will’s feature begins on page 46.

Christine Perez Editor

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Salary Negotiations: Addressing the Confidence Gap D E B R A B R E N N A N TAG G , P R E S I D E N T, B F S A DV I S O RY G R O U P

debra brennan tagg is a financial planner, not a lawyer. Yet she wants women to become better negotiators. In her words: It is obvious that if women made as much money as men, they would have enough resources to achieve their longer-term financial goals at the same level that men do.

What are the first steps in a salary negotiation for women?

“Don’t focus solely on the salary piece—although it is a big piece. We advise our clients to use their money to have the lives they want. After this year, we’re all clear that it’s not just about salary or the corner office or the title. Flexibility or continuing to work from home may now be more important to you.

Before you negotiate, identify your vision of what you want your job to do for your life. Be clear about your terms. Is it a promotion or a bigger salary or a flexible schedule? Know what other people in the company are making and which roles are most rewarded. Who seems like they work 24 hours a day?

Who seems to have more balance? What could you make in a similar role outside of your current company? Be prepared to say ‘These are things I need to be happier here. I’m good for this company, and the company is good for me.’ If you are satisfied with your salary, negotiate the flexibility. Or be ready to negotiate both if you need more of each.

However, be willing to give up some salary if you are asking to work less. And be willing to commit to what you agree to.”

How can the negotiation discussion be less intimidating?

“Most women haven’t been raised to negotiate the way men have. Approach it as a conversation. If you go through the mental work ahead of time and know why this is important to you and why you deserve

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it, you’ll gain confidence in the ask. Then it’s just a discussion. Remember, ‘no’ doesn’t end the game— it just sets the rules. In fact, ‘no’ could be the beginning of ‘yes.’ If the answer is ‘no,’ ask why. What can you improve, learn, or achieve to get to ‘yes?’ How soon can that happen? If the answer stays ‘no,’ then figure out if the position still allows you to have the life you want.”

Once the meeting is set, what’s next?

“Even for women well advanced in their careers, compensation meetings are set by a superior. My advice is for women to flip that. Start the conversation well before salaries are reviewed. There’s an idea in negotiation called anchoring—throwing an anchor overboard to keep the boat floating just above it. By setting the meeting, you anchor the fact that there needs to be a conversation about compensation or other aspects of your role.

Know your facts. Find ways to prove that what you are asking for will be good for you—and the company. If salary is your driver, find out industry averages, what your company’s competitors pay, and what your colleagues (especially the male ones) make. If you want to negotiate another benefit, help your employer see how it will work for you and the company.

Entrepreneurs, high-networth individuals, women, and families rely on Debra Brennan Tagg and her fiduciary team at BFS Advisory Group to help them set and pursue strategic financial goals. As a female leader, business owner, and Certified Financial Planner®, she is doing her part to change how women are viewed in the financial industry. “The wage gap is real,” she says. “The reasons are many, but it’s time for women to start negotiating.” She recently launched The Aspen Society, providing women with financial wellness and frank discussions about money, and hosted its first webinar “Trust Yourself.”

Any confidence-building tips?

Think of a bigger vision. Every woman who recognizes her value, who asks for what she’s worth—and gets it—is paving the way for other women to do the same. Many employers want to advance opportunities for women, so let’s be bold and ask for what we need. Consider what it would be like if women at all levels, across companies of all sizes, ask for— and receive—the opportunity to have the lives they want. Imagine that.

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P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F U N T H E A L T H S C I E N C E C E N T E R

Health Exec Sylvia Trent-Adams Is Ready When Duty Calls The chief strategy officer at UNT’s Health Science Center has been on the front lines of some of the world’s greatest health crises. story by WILL MADDOX

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her own business, she says, when the call came.

But 10 days later she was the first commanding officer on the ground in Monrovia, Liberia, in her role as commanding officer for the Commission Corp Ebola response. She helped organize a hospital that treated the healthcare workers diagnosed with Ebola during the outbreak. She set up a stripped-down Air Force field hospital, complete with hot zone isolation and careful destruction of infected medical equipment. This experience would serve her well when COVID-19 arrived. “It was one of the best leadership experiences of my career and will definitely go down as something I will always remember,” she says.

After President Trump was elected, she was asked once again to serve in a highly influential role, becoming U.S. Surgeon General in 2017.

Her appointment was announced on a Friday, but Trent-Adams was focused on her daughter’s rear admiral sylvia trent-adams says 16th birthday, which was the following day. The she was at her desk “minding my own business” party was a good distraction for Trent-Adams, when she was tapped to be the first non-physiwho was never one to seek the spotlight. “Famcian to serve as Surgeon General of the Unitily from all over the country were calling me ed States. Throughout her career, duty keeps saying, ‘You’re on the news!’” she recalls. “I was calling the current Chief Strategy Officer at like, ‘What news? I don’t have time. I got 80 kids the University of North Texas Health Science coming to my house.’”

Center. And she has stepped up every time.

Trent-Adams was introduced to HSC when She developed her work ethic by helping out she gave a talk on campus about the nation’s on her grandparents’ farm in Virginia, where she opioid epidemic in her role as U.S. Principal grew up. She learned she was a strong marksDeputy Assistant Secretary man and didn’t mind physical for Health. She was impressed activity but did not see herself by how the organization was in the military. “Taking orders “THERE’S AN addressing health disparities was not necessarily my idea of ENERGY HERE in the community and emfun,” she says. But after talking THAT’S UNUSUAL. phasizing whole health, inwith her guidance counselor I THINK THERE’S novation, and entrepreneurabout her passion for healthA LOT OF UNTAPPED ship. “This place is amazing. care and scholarship opporTALENT.” There’s an energy here that’s tunities through the military, unusual,” she says. “I think and encouragement from her SYLVIA TRENT-ADAMS there’s a lot of untapped talArmy drill sergeant brother, HSC ent, and the future of HSC is she was locked in. She would very bright.” go on to serve in the Army for As for her first step into civilian life, Trent-Adfive years, including time as a nurse at Walter ams says she enjoys the freedom and depoliticiReed National Military Medical Center, before zation that exists outside of the beltway, but still transitioning to the Commissioned Corps of the embraces the opportunity to serve. “In D.C., you U.S. Public Health Service. get so caught up in the spin of everything,” she In 2014, when the Ebola outbreak began in says. “Here, you can focus on community, and West Africa, Trent-Adams was asked to lead a there’s a love for your fellow man.” mission to fight it. Once again, she was minding

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Working in the Trenches Sylvia Trent-Adams has battled some of her generation’s most significant health crises. Along with her work on Ebola in Africa, she: • spent the early ’90s setting up HIV primary care clinics for underserved populations across the country through the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program.

• spent time in Malawi and other sub-Saharan African countries during the George W. Bush administration, as part of an effort to research, treat, and prevent the spread of HIV. • led the deployment of the U.S. Public Health Service in Michigan, to assist with the Flint water crisis, mitigating lead poison exposure and increasing public awareness.

• led the Public Health Corps efforts to set up field hospitals to treat COVID-19 patients, work on nursing home infection prevention, and establish testing sites.

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Caftan Couture MEET THE 500

MONICA GREENE

la vie style house was born from a 1960s caftan that Jamie Coulter purchased at a Long Beach swap meet, and a market gap for day-to-night dresses. Coulter moved to Dallas in 2012, after selling her Los Angeles-based accessories business, Ban.do. She met fellow stylist Lindsey McClain at a pilates class a year later, and they started making caftans for friends. They went into production as La Vie Style House in 2016. Their one-size pieces, designed to look good on all body types, caught the attention of Barney’s and have been worn by celebrities such as Chrissy Teigen and January Jones. After successful pop-ups, Coulter and McClain opened a storefront in Highland Park Village last October. They hope to add more looks to their line and test future markets through pop-ups in Palm Springs, Palm Beach, Aspen, The Hamptons, and Houston. “We had a duster this winter, and now we have a buttondown, A-line ’60s jacket,” McClain says. “We have a bunch of stuff coming out, but we’ll always stay true to our one-size [approach].”

—Maria Hieber

President M O N I C A’ S M E X-T E X C A N T I N A

veteran restaurateur monica greene came out of retirement in 2018 to take over and revamp the former Cedars Social through her company, Brown Eyed Girls.

A native of Mexico City, she initially moved to the United States to attend college. Instead, by chance, she got a job working at a restaurant—and never looked back. Greene says a quote from Albert Schweitzer helps her remember what’s important in life and business: “Success is not the key to happiness; happiness is the key to success.”

BIRTHPLACE: Mexico City, Mexico EDUCATION: “My ‘culinary degrees’ were earned behind the kitchen line or at the front line by managing restaurants for some of the best restaurateurs in this city.”

WHO I ADMIRE: “Many people have been a great source of inspiration. But in the business and culinary world, the person who made a lasting impression in my life was Julia Child.”

LESSONS LEARNED: “I’ve learned that it’s important to succeed or fail on your own terms, and that your focus determines your reality.”

BOOK CLUB: “I recommend reading Infinite Possibilities—The Art of Living Your Dreams,

by Mike Dooley. It provides

wisdom for living an abundant, joyous life. It helps you understand that we can create our own fate and the positive powers we all possess.”

PROUD MOMENT: “Two years after opening my business, our concept finally became an integral part of the fabric of the emerging community in The Cedars.”

2020 TAUGHT ME: “There were so many lessons learned. But in a nutshell, I’ve learned to practice self-discipline and to surrender with grace to the reality in which we live. I learned that I have to continue to fight harder for equality and freedom from persecution for all.

I’ve learned new ways to adapt my business model to continue to succeed in this very hungry business.

And I’ve also learned that I miss hugging people.”

FUN FACT: “I like motorcycles. I’d love to travel for months on one—without a set plan.”

A BETTER DALLAS: “We need to bring to reality the expansion and redevelopment of South Dallas and its residential neighborhoods to help create more business opportunities in that sector. We also need to finish the Trinity River Project of recreation, environmental restoration, wildlife habitat, and economic development in The Cedars and the area south of downtown.”

HOBBIES/PASSIONS: “I love to cook, and I like to paint; I also enjoy writing poetry.”

LOOKING AHEAD: “My hope is that the social awakening happening in our country will help us accept and understand what is needed in order to help bring about the necessary positive changes in society.”

G R E E N E BY J A K E M E Y E R S ; C A F TA N C O U R T E S Y O F L A V I E S T Y L E H O U S E

One-size looks from Highland Park designers Lindsey McClain and Jamie Coulter have turned celebrity heads.

POST-POP-UPS

La Vie Style House opened in Forty Five Ten’s former space in Highland Park Village last October.

This Q&A is extended content from Dallas 500, a special edition produced by D CEO that profiles the region’s most influential business leaders. Visit www.dallas500.com for details.

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R E S TA U R A N T S

story by

BIANCA R. MONTES

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it’s about 10 a.m. on a wednesday, and i’m meeting NAYEB’S NEW restaurateur Afifa Nayeb at her upscale concept Âme (proRESTAURANT, nounced Ah-mmh) in the Bishop Arts District. Before we ÂME, FOLLOWS ON settle into some dark green velvet couches in the restaurant’s THE SUCCESSES OF Parisian-inspired Elephant Bar, she drags me into the kitch8 CLOVES AND LAILI. en “for a quick second” so she can start the base of her pistachio kulfi. The rich smell of turmeric, cumin, and garlic is already in the air as black dal simmers on the stove, a process that can take up to 72 hours to complete.

The restaurant blends the personalities of Nayeb and her daughter, Sabrina, who helped launch it, and combines French techniques with traditional Indian flavors. It has been about three weeks since I attended the restaurant’s grand opening, and Nayeb tells me that the excitement has not waned—it’s still tough to get a prime-time reservation at the intimate eatery, which used to house Hattie’s. Although the Nayeb Hospitality leader has seen great success with other concepts, 8 Cloves and Laili, the realization of her first full-service restaurant is a pinnacle for the woman who waited most of her life to follow her dreams. Having a deep-rooted passion for cooking, Nayeb always dreamed of running a kitchen. But for the single mother, who vividly remembers losing everything when her family emigrated from war-torn Afghanistan in 1985, providing financial stability for Sabrina took precedence.

Instead, she built a small empire of check-cashing stores. It wasn’t until her daughter graduated from high school that she dared to enroll in Le Cordon Bleu. At first, she told her family it was just for fun. When she later shared her goal of opening a restaurant, she got a lot of push-back; even an instructor warned her against it. Still, she pushed forward. “I call myself a salmon; I swim against the water,” Nayeb says. “For me, if a woman believes in herself, she should not wait for people to tap on her shoulder and say, ‘you can do it.’”

It’s fitting that this apex in Nayeb’s career includes her daughter, who she raised to be an unabashed, strong woman.

“Working with my mother has definitely been a roller coaster of emotions,” Sabrina says. “We’ve been through it all, in terms of disagreements, celebrations, hugs, COLORFUL tears, and communication issues. I feel like FEAST this project was one big therapy session for Nayeb’s new Bishop Arts my mother and me.” Nayeb agrees. “It has eatery, Âme, melds French been a very challenging journey,” she says, techniques with “but a beautiful destination.”

Indian flavors.

P H OTO G R A P H Y BY K A T H Y T R A N

A culinary instructor told Afifa Nayeb she was too old to follow her dreams. She proved him wrong.

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5/27/21 4:04 PM

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Margie Aguilar is Changing Things Up at ISP Studios After more than 20 years in business, she’s expanding her bilingual production company into a full-service creative agency.

story by KELSEY J. VANDERSCHOOT illustration by JAKE MEYERS

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i turn my head to take in the display of foliage-clad mannequins as Margie Aguilar and I take our seats at Hugo’s Invitados in Las Colinas. The executive producer and co-founder of ISP Studios has been at the restaurant all morning, conducting meetings in a nearby booth. She recommends “everything” on the menu, which features modern Mexican fare. We settle on two of Hugo’s (deliciously fresh) bowls, and both order in Spanish.

Aguilar tells me that she launched ISP Studios roughly 23 years ago after a tenure as production manager at Spanish broadcasting network Univision in Dallas. She had been hired at 19 after a brief internship and quickly worked her way up the ranks. Aguilar has struggled with dyslexia throughout her life but says the condition has also helped drive her success. “I think that’s my superpower,” she says. “I look at things differently, and visually is where I make my money, right?”

When I ask what led her to launch ISP, she tells me to imagine I was in Spain (where I mentioned I had lived for a year) and that its media portrayed American holidays and culture differently from what I felt fully encapsulated who we are. This void of holistic representation, she says, exists in the United States surrounding

Latinx cultures; she co-founded ISP Studios in 1998 to help change perceptions.

Aguilar launched the company alongside her partner, Dan Craig. Their first gig? An 11-month contract for a monthly Spanish-syndicated show for the Dallas Cowboys. Roughly five years later, Aguilar purchased the Irving studio where she had once worked for Univision. ISP has since become the production company for Sephora, Ulta Beauty, JC Penney, Chili’s Restaurants, and other clients, providing bilingual branding and marketing and social media production. “We make sure that Spanish is not an afterthought,” Aguilar says.

In March 2020, ISP pitched a new concept to a client. “We sold this really neat show, kind of like a Kelly Ripa show,” Aguilar says. From there, business took off, with ISP seeing a quick 25 percent growth in its client base. Aguilar got to thinking—maybe it was time for her to make her next move.

“It gave us the opportunity as a company to pause,” she says, and that led to an epiphany: “We are just so smart with ideas and solutions, why are we not an agency?” Aguilar wanted to build on—and be compensated for—the concepts her team provided, not just the production services for the execution of those ideas.

So, just a few weeks ago, ISP Studios became ISP Creative, a bilingual creative agency that continues to provide production services. The most challenging shift for Aguilar? Letting her newly hired marketing experts handle a portion of the business. “I have my eyes on everything,” she says, “but it’s more like giving the keys to somebody who is going to market, and now they’re pitching to me.”

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Amber Venz Box was just 23 years old when she pioneered influencer commerce with rewardStyle. Ten years, billions in sales, and four children later, she’s now upending the service industry with a new venture—while also launching a second side business and setting up her original company for mind-boggling growth.

What’s her secret? *Hint: She’s not afraid to delegate.

story by CHRISTINE portraits by SEAN

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O Three quick tips from Venz Box for managing your business and life: LET IT GO “It takes a team at the office and a team at home. Be involved in the things you can have influence over and that matter, but don’t be afraid to delegate things that someone else can do.”

BOOK CLUB “Everyone in business should read Measure What Matters by John Doerr. Applying OKRs (objectives and key results) has been transformational to our company and helped us attract and empower top executive leaders.”

PODCAST “In the mornings, I listen to The Porch, which provides a Biblical perspective on modern culture and questions. I find it useful as a parent.”

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O NE BY O NE , Amber Venz Box listened to the social entrepreneurs tell their stories. It was April 2017, and she was serving as a judge of The Pitch, United Way’s first Shark Tank-style competition. It was about six years into the launch of her company, rewardStyle, and her hard work was paying off.

Social media stars and global brands were flocking to her influencer commerce platform, and she was a darling of the tech press.

On stage at The Bomb Factory, social innovators, battling for a $75,000 grant, shared how they were helping women in poverty, offering second chances to juvenile offenders, bringing fresh produce to families in need, or giving hope to unemployed individuals through free IT training. It was a wake-up call for the 20-something entrepreneur. “It made me realize that I had been so heads-down, working on our business, and had not been doing anything philanthropically in Dallas or even understood what the needs were,” Venz Box says. “I left a changed person.”

She was especially shaken by what she had learned about childhood poverty in Texas. She asked United Way chief Jennifer Sampson to guide her through Dallas’ foundation and social impact ecosystem.

Those conversations ultimately fed into the launch of Cherry, an on-demand platform for nail technicians who do manicures in clients’ homes, offices, or hotels. (Think of it as the Uber of nailcare.) Attracting investors like fellow SMU grad Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of Bumble, and BeautyBio’s Jamie O’Banion, Cherry was founded on two beliefs: first, people will continue to crave convenience; second, value will continue to be more directly transferred between the value giver and value receiver. It also helps eliminate inefficiency and waste. Traditionally, nail techs are required to be in the salon for set work hours. But they’re only paid for the services they provide—often half or less of what the customer is charged, Venz Box says.

She points out that Dallas has one of the nation’s worst rates for childhood poverty and that many of those children are being cared for by single mothers.

“Our desire was to lean into that issue and provide higher-paying opportunities for these single mothers and give them a flexible schedule,” Venz Box says. “We figured out a way to pass along the majority of the transaction to them and build in tipping and make everything cashless. We’re building their business, they’re building their business, and it’s all on a platform that we provide to them for free.” The app has a five-star rating with 1,700 reviews, and customers are tipping at an average of 23 percent.

So far, about 125 nail techs are providing services through Cherry. They’re earning about two times the national average, Venz Box says. She and her team recently hosted a conference at Reunion Tower to spread the word and provide education on entrepreneurship. They also launched Cherry business pages for the techs, so they can build their own companies on the platform. Starting in Dallas, then expanding to Austin and Houston, Cherry recently secured approval to operate in all of Texas, with plans to expand into other states. The prospects for disrupting the industry are huge. “It’s rethinking the whole salon model and how that should work,” Venz Box says.

Through funding from Ashlee and Chris Kleinert, United Way is one of Cherry’s biggest backers. It’s the organization’s first social impact investment in a for-profit venture. Cherry checked all of the boxes, Sampson says. “First, it’s an investment that will benefit women and put them on a path to economic mobility and financial independence,” she says. “And second, we thought it would become profitable and that whatever the return on the investment would be, it could recycle back into the fund and allow us to do more of these kinds of investments in the future.”

(Right) In 2018, Venz Box was named to the BoF 500, which recognizes leaders in the $2.4 trillion fashion industry.

(Far right) The Boxes at home with their kiddos, shortly after the birth of their fourth child.

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Like rewardStyle and its LIKEtoKNOW.it app, Cherry empowers women to build their own enterprises and have more control over their working lives. It’s also helping Venz Box with one of her biggest goals: moving from success to significance.

N O N E O F T H I S , of course, was on her mind as a pre-teen fashionista copying the looks of her idols, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. A quiet introvert, she liked the attention she’d get from teachers and others for the outfits she put together. Before long, fashion became a way for her to earn money, too. She’d knit scarves in class and sell them to friends. Being an entrepreneur was something her father always encouraged. He’d point out that he never missed her brother’s baseball games and was always home in time for dinner. “If you want to be involved in your family’s lives,” he’d say, “the way you do that is by owning your own business.”

By the time she was in high school, Venz Box had moved on from the Olsen twins to Jessica Simpson.

She became especially obsessed with a pair of earrings the performer wore—gold hoops with a little crystal in the middle. Studio Sebastian in Snider Plaza sold them, but at $125, they were way outside her means. So, Venz Box studied the earrings and figured out a way to make them on her own.

Soon, she began selling jewelry knockoffs to friends and creating her own designs.

After high school, she enrolled at SMU and landed a dream job at Sebastian’s. A co-worker there often tried to set Venz Box up with her nephew. But the college freshman was busy with school and her jewelry business and wasn’t interested. Then, one New Year’s Eve, her co-worker talked her into going to a party hosted by one of her nephew’s friends. Venz

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Yurts at The Local Chapter are about 600 square feet in size and feature furnishings and linens made by Texas companies.

GETTING AWAY FROM IT ALL Many DFW execs have lake houses or mountain homes. The Boxes have a small community of yurts in the Chihuahuan Desert.

After raising $15 million in Series A funding in 2015, the growth of rewardStyle really began heating up. Venz Box and her husband, Baxter, traveled the world, trying to win business from major brands and retailers. But after two years of constantly

trekking from China to Dubai to Paris and other markets, the couple realized the pace was not sustainable. “We used to work nights and weekends—we lived for work,” Venz Box says. “We needed to build in some family time and some rest.”

The couple spent some time near Big Bend National Park and fell in love with the area. In 2017, they bought 400 acres on the western boundary of the park to build an oasis where they could unwind and unplug. Staying in the Lone Star State was important; Baxter is a seventh-generation Texan “and very proud of that,” Venz Box says. They wanted to do something that had a light footprint on the land and settled on the idea of building yurts. Knowing that others might want to get away from it all, too, the couple built one residence for their family and four additional yurts

(about 600 square feet in size) to rent out through a side business they formed called The Local Chapter. Guests have ranged from NBA stars to execs on growth teams at tech companies. “It’s cool to see who chooses it and needs the space,” Venz Box says. “It’s such an interesting foil to life online.”

The posh yurts go for about $420 a night and have a nearly perfect rating on Airbnb. They feature Texas-based products, from luxurious Sferra linens to Stori Modern outdoor furniture, with books

by Texas authors on the shelves. One thing you won’t find: televisions. “We encourage people to take time to look up at the stars or sit on the porch and look out,” Venz Box says. “You can see our international border— Mexico is just on the other side of the Santa Elena Canyon; it’s pretty cool; it’s a very special place.”

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a spreadsheet she was working on and saw how much money her jewelry business was raking in.

He encouraged her to make her side gig a full-fledged business and offered to help set it up.

The jewelry venture flourished, but Venz Box began to miss the connection with fashion that came from putting together looks for customers at Sebastian’s. She started doing personal shopping, earning commissions from stores for pieces her clients purchased. Her following grew through VenzEdits, a blog she created, and her fans began emailing her to thank her for her tips and share pics of purchases they’d made based on her recommendations.

Venz Box realized she was cutting herself out of the transactions. “My business had moved online, but my business model had not,” she says. And with that, the idea for rewardStyle was born.

Venz Box has her hands full with, from left, Bizzy, 2; Boyce, 4; Boots, eight months; and Birdie, 5.

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Box went to the nephew’s house to pick up a ticket for the event. It turned out that Baxter Box lived just one street away, in a home with the same floor plan and on the same spot of the street as hers. They were four years apart, so their paths had never crossed at Highland Park High School.

It wasn’t until she and Box reconnected at a graduation party a few months later that they began dating. Venz Box was an undergrad, still at Sebastian’s, and still making jewelry. Baxter, who earned a degree in engineering from the University of San Diego, was in grad school at SMU and investing in the startup space. One afternoon, he looked over her shoulder at

T H E CO NCE PT was simple but revolutionary: use technology to help fashion bloggers monetize their content. Through rewardStyle, co-founded with Baxter, Venz Box created a way for influencers to link their posts to various retailers, who would pay commissions (to both bloggers and rewardStyle) for sales generated by their posts. After lining up a handful of influencers, it was time to get retailers on board. One of Venz Box’s first calls was to Shopbop.

It was an early adopter of online retail and had fairly robust offerings even back in 2011 when the industry was still in its infancy. The 23-year-old was persuasive, and Shopbop agreed to test the platform.

That one “yes” sustained rewardStyle through the “million no’s” that followed, Venz Box says.

Luxury retailers didn’t understand the influencer movement, which was just beginning to emerge.

“One exec told Venz Box, ‘I kind of get what you’re saying, but we work with models and magazines. If I told my boss I was going to pay a girl who takes pictures of herself in an alley, I would lose my job.”

The young entrepreneur was relentless, leveraging every possible connection. She once got a meeting with an exec at Net-a-porter in London through an intern’s boyfriend’s sister, who was roommates with a girl who did design work for the company.

But then the Shopbop numbers started to come in, and Venz Box had a real story to tell.

In 2014, she and Baxter got married. A year later, the couple had their first child, and rewardStyle secured $15 million in funding on a $290 million valuation. Everything went into hyperdrive. Influencers began flocking to the platform, and, suddenly, retailers and brands were all-in.

In 2016, Venz Box was invited to speak at SXSW

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L E F T: S E A N B E R R Y; I L L U S T R AT I O N S H U T T E R S T O C K ; A L L O T H E R S C O U R T E S Y O F A M B E R V E N Z B O X A N D LT K

in Austin and was given a coveted spot in the lineup: immediately following former President Barack Obama. “Here I was, a pregnant girl with curled hair and flash eyelashes, telling a bunch of tech guys and investors in the room about influencer marketing,” she says. At the conference, she and Baxter met executives from Chappy, a New York-based image-recognition software startup. The Boxes acquired the company and developed an app called LIKEtoKNOW.it, which influencers can use to create shoppable content on walled-garden platforms like Instagram. It was another game-changer.

Today, the platform has grown from Venz Box’s single blog to an operation involving more than 100,000 influencers. More than 100 of them have become millionaires through commissions earned via their LIKEtoKNOW.it shops. Among the most successful is Wendy Nguyen of Wendy’s Lookbook in New York. She aligned with rewardStyle in 2012; today, she has more than 2 million followers.

“What Amber and her team developed was incredibly novel,” Nguyen says. “She also gathered all of us bloggers together and created a community so we could share best practices. We went from chatting on forums with just bits of information to becoming and being viewed as individual content creators. [rewardStyle] gave us the opportunity to be in control of our monetization. It empowered us.”

Noting her innovation and impact, Dallas Fed Chief Rob Kaplan asked Venz Box to serve on one of his advisory boards. She, in turn, asked him to help introduce her at an October 2020 event at SMU, when she was presented with the school’s Emerging Leader award. Venz Box, he said, “uniquely understands key populations. Her business creates opportunities for people to be successful who might not otherwise be in the workforce. And I think in that regard, she has changed the landscape.”

AS I T EN T E R S its second decade, Venz Box’s operation continues to evolve. It has hired 50 people in recent months, bringing the total to about 300, and has another 50 positions to fill. It also invested in tech updates to the app, such as LTK Shopping Video and LTK Search. And on July 1, rewardStyle and its LIKEtoKNOW.it app will rebrand as LTK. Even as the company continues to focus on building its influencers’ businesses, Venz Box sees significant opportunities with brands. LTK currently works with about 5,000 retailers that represent 1 million brands. Brands are now establishing their own LTK shops, independent of retailers.

“Our client base on the brand side is growing

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Venz Box and her husbandto-be, Baxter, at their Cabo San Lucas wedding weekend in 2014.

dramatically,” Venz Box says. “It’s exciting to see what brand entrepreneurs are able to do when they plug into the LTK platform and have the power of a direct-to-consumer business, versus waiting on a larger player to market their goods.” Last year, shoppers made $1 billion in purchases via the LTK app. Based on midyear figures for the trailing 12 months, that number has jumped to $2.8 billion.

Along with super-charging LTK and launching Cherry and The Local Chapter (see sidebar on page 45), the Boxes, in the past five years or so, have become a family of six. There’s Birdie, who’s 5; Boyce, 4; Bizzy, 2; and Boots, eight months. Even more impressive, the couple has found a way to make it all work. It starts with setting boundaries, Venz Box says. She and Baxter also learned it was important to have clear lines of responsibility within the business. These days, she typically works from home, while he heads to the office.

A bigger adjustment was learning to hand off tasks to others. “I hit my own ceiling,” Venz Box says.

“An inability to delegate is going to stop anyone from growing beyond a certain point. A mentor told me, ‘If someone can do something 80 percent as well as you, let them do it.’” And so, she does. Venz Box gets the children ready and fed every morning and packs them in the car for school. Her home team takes it from there. She and Baxter block off nights (until the kids are in bed) and weekends for family time.

As she reflects back on her company’s decade in business, she says the influencer movement is still in its infancy. She credits Baxter with helping her focus on strategy and crafting a vision for the future.

“As a founder, you have to be a futurist,” she says.

“You have to figure out how to ride the wave—and not just try to paddle faster than everyone else.”

5K +

RETA I L ERS

1M + B RA N DS

100K + I N F LUEN CERS

100

COUN T RI ES

$2.8B

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THE A GRE T BALANCING ACT story by

WILL MADDOX

photography by

YA R O S L AV

DANYLCHENKO

Working mothers are constantly juggling career and parenting responsibilities, and the pandemic made it even worse. Companies that want to hang on to talent can help.

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“You have to let some things go.

Do my kids go to school sometimes with different socks on?

Probably. Have we missed a game here and there?

Absolutely. Life is short.”

J E N N I FE R C H A N D L E R , B a n k o f A m e r i c a

w h e n s h e wa s a yo u n g at t o r n e y

1 IN 4 WOMEN ARE CONTEMPLATING DOWNSHIFTING THEIR CAREERS OR LEAVING THEM ENTIRELY

3 IN 4 SENIORLEVEL WOMEN CITE BURNOUT AS THE MAIN REASON THEY’RE THINKING OF LEAVING

048

in the 1990s, Yvette Ostolaza says pregnancy for a working woman meant the death of her career—especially in a demanding field such as law. “They cleared out your office, and they assumed you weren’t coming back from maternity leave,” she says. Ostolaza herself faced similar questions when work colleagues learned she was with child. “Literally, people would say, ‘Oh, you’re coming back?’”

Ostolaza did indeed come back, and her career has flourished. She recently was named to the top spot at Sidley, which has 1,900 attorneys and is the nation’s sixth-largest law firm.

I spoke with numerous working mothers for this story, in different stages of their careers and in various industries. I, obviously, am not a working mom; in fact, having a pediatrician wife means I pale in comparison when it comes to skills and aptitude in caring for our two toddler sons. But as the non-breadwinning parent with a flexible job, I am often the one who stays home with sick children, cleans the house, and runs errands.

But here is one thing that never happened to me: No one asked me when my son was born if I would leave the workforce or go part-time; yet, women get asked this all the time. Fulltime childcare is exceptionally demanding, as many of us discovered during the shutdowns of 2020. But to think that a woman’s career

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is more easily abandoned than a man’s is the epitome of the problem.

As I spoke with these North Texas business leaders, an analogy kept coming up that I had never heard before. It goes like this: The average working woman is asked to juggle many balls, between chauffeuring her children to activities and performing at a high level at work, all while meeting their social, spiritual, physical, and emotional needs. Some of these juggled balls are glass, and others are plastic. The plastic ones can—and will—be dropped at some point.

Maybe it’s a work deadline that isn’t going to happen. Perhaps it’s getting a healthy dinner on the table, a kid’s soccer game, or a piano recital. But other balls are glass and would shatter if dropped. These are the top priorities. It might be a significant client deliverable, a daughter’s playoff game, or a milestone family celebration.

Juggling moms have to figure out which balls are plastic, which ones are glass, and constantly decide what gets dropped.

“There was the expectation for you to work like you don’t have kids and be a parent like you don’t work,” says Jackie Marshall, a senior vice president at CBRE in Dallas, who had her first child in 2020. “That’s not real, and that can’t happen. You can’t ‘have it all,’ like they used to say, so you have to figure out what’s most important to you—and tell yourself to accept it and know that things will not always

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PUSHING FOR PARTNER PARITY When the lockdown was in full effect, I took on many of the domestic responsibilities at home. As a working dad, I was an exception. A recent Marketplace-Edison study found stark gender disparity when it came to supervising children during the pandemic. Sixty-three percent of women said they were primarily responsible, compared to 29 percent of men.

It can be a delicate dance, deciding whose career gets priority at different points. Bridget Lopez, managing partner at Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, says she had to have a conversation with her husband: “I said, ‘I know you’re super busy. So am I. You’re going to have to take part of the responsibility, and I’ll take the other part, but I can’t do it all myself.’ Unfortunately, in most homes, [women] don’t have the power dynamic that I have.”

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feel comfortable. In the long run, you’re doing the right thing.”

M A K I N G A B AD SI T UAT I ON WO R S E The pandemic added another spinning plate to the balancing act working mothers are expected to perform. With school and daycare closures and shifts to remote working, women were more likely to take on childcare and teaching duties, all while continuing to keep up with the demands of their careers. A 2020 study by consulting firm McKinsey found that up to 2 million women were considering leaving the workplace, threatening to undo much of the progress made by women in business leadership over the past decade.

The survey found that women lacked the flexibility they needed at work and felt they were negatively judged for being less available during 9-5 because of their caregiving responsibilities. Unable to bring their whole self to work in the way they used to and feeling like they couldn’t share their struggles with team-

“It did not take more than just a few days to hit exhaustion,” Chandler said. “The lines were getting very blurred, being on web meetings all day long with the kids in another room on their web meetings as well.”

COVID-19 has meant different challenges for women in various careers and stages of motherhood. For women with young children, keeping them productive and happy became all-encompassing. But for mothers of schoolaged or teenaged children who might be more independent during remote school, the challenge was keeping a sense of normalcy for a child whose routines, social life, and activities were uprooted.

The forced togetherness did create some positives, says Noelle LeVeaux, a single mother of two teenage girls and the chief marketing officer of Communities Foundation of Texas.

“As the months went on, I felt a connection built between us that the hustle-and-bustle had eliminated,” LeVeaux says. “We recaptured what I would consider family time with riding bikes and relaxation.”

But before long, other issues arose. “I found

“When we were trying to potty train, my son would show people his poop while we were on calls.

It was insane. It was helpful to not feel like I had to cover for whatever chaos was happening.”

CI N DY TR A N , S l a l o m

mates and managers, many women questioned their ability and desire to keep working. The survey found that mothers were more likely than fathers to feel exhausted, burned out, and pressured to work more; this was true for both entry-level and executive-level women.

As a former educator, Bank of America Dallas Market President Jennifer Chandler felt she was well prepared to take on schooling at home during the pandemic. “I’m going to be all over this. I even had the kids getting up in the morning saying the Pledge of Allegiance. I thought they needed routine. We’ve got to keep some normalcy,” she said at a recent working moms panel hosted by D CEO.

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that the stress started building back up,” LeVeaux says. “For me, it is that the lack of connectivity with other people. I wasn’t going out with my girlfriends, which is therapy. As a woman, our tribes are always extremely important to us, and we were losing that connectivity.”

For those with children, not having family in town to lean on or create a bubble with during the pandemic meant more isolation.

Such was the case for Aimee DiCicco, senior vice president of commercial business development at FedEx Office in Dallas and the mother of two pre-teen boys. Early on during work-from-home, things teetered on the edge of disaster, DiCicco says. “They are very active

boys, and they can find creative things to do when people aren’t giving them structure and watching them,” she says. “My husband and I were knee-deep in work, and we were fairly shut off from everything at that point. It had the opportunity to turn into uncontrolled chaos pretty quickly.”

The family worked to define set school time, playtime, and other activities. Adding that much routine and structure to home life has its challenges, especially when work intrudes.

“Your home is your safe place and sanctuary.

You should be able to let your hair down when you’re at home, but you can’t be letting your hair down and be working,” DiCicco says.

“That was one of the hardest things that I had to come to terms with and figure out how to navigate. I’m not going to say that it ever was flawless. It was hard work every day to maintain that balance.”

LE ADING THR OUGH T H E CRIS IS Along with worries relating to their own families, women leaders also faced concerns about the safety of employees and the viability of their businesses. There weren’t enough hours in the day to answer every question, and for high-achieving mothers, the pressure they put on themselves was often the most significant challenge. “There is the self-expectation that many of us have, asking ourselves, ‘Will I be able to do the job up to 100 percent of my capacity?’” says Cindy Tran, managing director of consulting firm Slalom in Dallas. “Even before COVID, there was always that pressure. You have that decision: Am I going to be able to show up in a way that I’ll be proud of myself?”

Tran’s husband helped with childcare but had to go back to the workplace sooner than she did. “When offices started opening up, it was me with our toddler at home, and the shift of the pendulum was drastic. We finally just cried uncle and [sent our child to daycare].”

As the CEO of Medical City Children’s Hospital, Jessica O’Neal wasn’t able to work from home while her elementary-aged son and daughter were remote learning. On top of that stress, she had to be extra mindful about the transmission of COVID-19, as working in healthcare increased the risk of exposure. “We are all human, and we went through an array

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I L L U S T R AT I O N S : S H U T T E R S T O C K

5 WAYS EMPLOYERS CAN SUPPORT WORKING MOMS (AND DADS)

of emotions, asking, ‘How does this affect my kids?’”

O’Neal says.

When it comes to the difference between the glass and plastic balls, all moms know that the most critical glass ball of all is the wellbeing of their children. Heather Capps founded marketing and communications firm HCK2 Partners in 2004 while she was a single mother of two. She constantly felt the tension between work and her family as a vice president at her former company and wanted to create a different kind of environment at her firm. “There’s that constant struggle of what is more important, my visibility at my job or my kids? I didn’t want anyone to ever feel that way,” she says.

When her own office reopened in January, Capps added more changes to the already flexible work environment to support working parents; Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays became office days, while Tuesdays and Thursdays were work-from-home days. Capps says the plan allows for a good balance between collaboration and heads-down work, while supporting a flexible schedule. “After realizing that we could still efficiently operate the business with people at home, we wanted to be the embodiment of that core value of having a balanced life,” she says.

Corporate practices have become more progressive in recent decades, as organizations realize that making the workplace more comfortable for mothers is the right thing to do— and makes good business sense. The pandemic illuminated the pressures working moms face and the need to provide even more support.

Businesses that want to retain top-flight talent see the wisdom of those investments.

According to Roslyn Dawson Thompson of the Texas Women’s Foundation, 600,000 Texas women permanently left the workforce during the pandemic because of the pressures they faced. “They simply cannot contend with the demands of two jobs that are full-time, one being caregiving and childcare,” Thompson says. “We have worlds of opportunity ahead to address the effects of the women that have left the workforce and to bring them back in.”

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TH R EE

MENTAL HEALTH. With the mass acceptance of telehealth during the pandemic, access to mental health services has never been more convenient. Businesses can add mental health options to their employee assistance programs or health plans and reduce stigma around mental health by raising awareness.

ONE

FOUR

BE FLEXIBLE.

PROVIDE CHILDCARE.

The pandemic catalyzed the movement toward more remote work and proved its effectiveness. Companies can allow their employees to work from home when needed or normalize nontraditional schedules so workers can more easily balance their career and family obligations.

In Texas, childcare can be as expensive as college tuition (about $9,200 a year for infants and $6,700 for older children). Employers can arrange for onsite childcare or develop agreements with providers for reduced or subsidized rates and extended hours that fit their employees’ needs.

T WO

FIVE

PARENTAL LEAVE.

WALK THE TALK.

The United States is one of the few developed countries without statutory paid parental leave, so it is left to states and employers to support parents of newborns. Many large companies offer between 16 and 20 weeks of paid maternity leave; experts say six months is ideal.

Organizations that value people as much as profits should demonstrate the importance of work-life balance.

If leaders work themselves into the ground, never take a day off, avoid sharing about their struggles, and don’t prioritize wellness, employees will feel pressured to do the same.

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Jean Savage, CEO and president, at TrinityRail’s facility in Saginaw.

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5/31/21 7:46 PM

Former Caterpillar exec JEAN SAVAGE became the first non-family member and FIRST WOMAN CEO at TRINITY INDUSTRIES in early 2020, just weeks before the lockdown.

In short order, she has made TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGES at the iconic Dallas company—and more are on the way. story by

CHRISTINE PEREZ portrait by SEAN

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BERRY

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TrinityRail is a longtime leader in making and servicing autorack cars, which transport finished vehicles by rail.

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Jean Savage knew her two young sons weren’t happy. Her family had picked up and moved seven times as she made her way up the ranks at motion controls maker Parker Hannifin, but they had been settled in Alabama for an Career advice from the CEO: Don’t focus on your next move; do the best you can at the job you’re in.

Savage did not have a straight climb up the corporate ladder, and she says others should consider a non-linear path, too: “Don’t always be thinking about that next step in your career. Also, be willing to go sideways to learn other parts of the business. I’ve even taken a step back to learn. Don’t overlook opportunities to expand your knowledge.

If you can’t change roles, try to get on a cross-functional team and learn through that. All of these things really helped me be ready for the role I’m in today.”

extended time, and the boys didn’t want to leave.

It was 2002, and Savage had just gotten another promotion; this one would take the family back to Ohio. The boys had been born there but were young when they left, and their anchors were now all in Alabama. Besides, middle school football practice was just days away from starting.

Nevertheless, the car was packed, and Savage and her sons were on their way, with their father planning to join them later. Savage had one stop to make first. Progress Rail Services Corp., a local company, wanted to talk with her about an opportunity, and she had agreed to a quick chat. “All of my suits were packed, so I went in very casually. It was a no-lose interview,” she says. “It went great, but when it was over, I got back in the car and started driving.”

An hour down the road, her phone rang. Progress was calling to offer her a job. “It was unbelievable,” Savage says. “I knew Parker, and they were progressing me well, but I had a choice to make: Was I willing to make a career sacrifice for the family? At that point, I was.”

So, Savage turned the car around and got into the rail business.

It was a move that ultimately would position her perfectly for her current role at Dallas-based Trinity Industries. The company was founded by C.J. Bender in Dallas in 1937 and subsequently led by his nephew, Ray Wallace, who turned over the reins to his son, Tim Wallace, in 1998. Savage became the first non-family member—and the first woman—to take the helm when she became CEO and president in early 2020.

An executive with Caterpillar at the time, she had gotten to know Trinity through serving on its board, which she joined in 2018. She was not involved in the CEO search after Wallace announced his plans to retire, nor did she throw her hat in the ring. But Wallace himself approached her and said, “Jean, I think you have the right skill sets.

Would you be interested in this role?”

Savage had been given many opportunities at Caterpillar, which acquired Progress Rail in 2006.

The decision to move to Trinity, which generated

A welder at TrinityRail’s facility in Longview affixes coils to a tank car; they help heat the commodity for easier unloading.

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Trinity’s early days were spent in a mule barn. Now, the railcar giant has a market cap of $3.6 billion.

nearly $2 billion in revenue in 2020, came down to possibilities. “It was the chance to see what we as a team could do to transition the business,” she says.

“That’s what drove me—to see what the impact could be.”

1937

M I DW E S T E R N U P B R I N G I N G

C.J. Bender forms Automatic Gas Equipment to sell propane tanks. A few years later, he hires his nephew, W. Ray Wallace, to do engineering work.

Savage grew up in Middletown, Ohio, the youngest girl of six children. Her father was a welder; her mother stayed at home until the kids were old enough to fend for themselves. Savage learned early on that “if you want something, you earn it,” and got a job at the age of 12 in the arcade of a local amusement park called Fantasy Farm. Noting her interest in the way things worked, her boss taught her how to fix the wiring and do other repairs.

In high school, Savage was one of those students who tried everything. She played softball, basketball, and ran some track; she was in Junior Achievement, Spanish Club, Electronics Club, and Math Club. “My mom was the biggest supporter, always saying I could do whatever I put my mind to do,” she says. “But a high school physics teacher told me I’d never make it in engineering, and I’d never make it in the military. That drove me.”

A week after graduating, Savage was on a plane for the first time, flying to the U.S. Army base in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. At 18, she was one of the youngest recruits in basic training. Nevertheless, she was made a squad leader. It taught her what can happen when people work in a team and that every role is important. “We all have jobs to do,” she says. “We just have different jobs to do.”

Savage worked in Army intelligence. She thought she might make a career in the military but fell in love and, after a year at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, moved home to Ohio and got married. At Parker Hannifin, she started in robotics and engineering

1944

The company merges with Trinity Steel, which makes tanks for butane and liquefied petroleum gas. It operates out of a mule barn east of downtown Dallas.

1948

Trinity Steel issues $100,000 worth of stock and incorporates.

Board members are Wallace, Bender, and his personal physician, Dr. Howard Bryant.

1958

The company merges with Bender-Wallace Development and Dallas Tank to form a new public entity, Trinity Steel Co. Ray Wallace is named CEO.

1966

The company is renamed Trinity Industries. It enters the railcar sector when it subcontracts 1,500 tank cars for Union Tank Car.

1972

Trinity’s common stock lists on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TRN. Five years later, it formally enters the railcar manufacturing industry.

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1977

The company develops its first hopper car and begins manufacturing entire tank railcars.

Within three years, it delivers nearly 6,000 tank and hopper cars.

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Welders perform work inside a hopper railcar, which carries a range of commodities, at TrinityRail’s facility in Saginaw.

1979-80

Trinity gets into leasing with Trinity Railcar Leasing Corp. and Trinity Industries Leasing Co. The following year, it makes its debut on the Fortune 500.

1983-86

Trinity becomes the country’s largest railcar manufacturer, after acquiring several distressed businesses, including Pullman Standard.

then quickly moved into different business units and P&L roles. She had been with the company for 15 years when she took the job with Progress Rail.

Founder and CEO Billy Ainsworth interviewed her. “I knew within about five minutes that I wanted to hire her,” he says. “It was her poise, her self-confidence, the way she answered questions.” Savage proved to be an exceptional leader, Ainsworth says.

“She’s like Nick Saban or Bear Bryant or other great coaches. She has a unique ability to hold people accountable and take them to the next level.”

Ainsworth and Marty Haycraft (who’s now president and CEO), worked with Savage on nights and weekends to teach her about the rail business and its many acronyms and regulations. Doug Creech, now senior vice president, was another mentor. “He was an encyclopedia,” Savage says. “If you listened and took notes, he would always have time for you.

Now, if you went back and asked him the same question twice, he might get a little frustrated; he taught me to listen and learn.”

An even more important lesson came from Ainsworth. Progress Rail had a scrapping business, where it would occasionally remanufacture and sell components. Savage came from a just-in-time background and wanted to get rid of the scrap inventory.

Ainsworth told her if she sold it, she’d regret it. But he let her do it anyway. When demand came back some months later, he walked into her office, sat

1995

The company goes international when it acquires Grupo Tatsa, a Mexican fabricator of steel products, and railcar services company Transcisco Industries.

1998

Ray Wallace retires after 40 years at the helm of the company.

His son, Tim Wallace, succeeds him as chairman, CEO, and president.

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down at her desk, and showed her the revenue that could have been generated from what had been on the books as scrap. “It taught me that you had better understand your business drivers when you go into a new company or unit,” Savage says. “You need to take everything in before making changes.”

P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F TA D D M Y E R S A N D T R I N I T Y I N D U S T R I E S

I N N OVAT I N G AT C AT E R P I L L A R

Ainsworth sold Progress Rail to Caterpillar in 2006, but stayed on as CEO until recently retiring.

In 2014, Savage moved to Peoria, Illinois, to join the mothership and serve as chief technology officer and VP of Caterpillar’s innovation and technology development division. When she took the helm of its surface mining and technology group three years later, she became deeply involved in efforts that made Caterpillar a leading player in mining autonomy technology. The initiative was not without controversy. For one thing, it meant bypassing equipment dealers to work with customers directly.

Jim Hawkins, general manager of mining technology at Caterpillar, was the program’s point man.

“It was a radical departure from the traditional business in a lot of ways,” he says. “It was like a startup within a big company. Jean was always very supportive in meetings with executives or customers—even when she risked having to engage in things that could be fairly confrontational.”

Savage’s courage, loyalty, and consistency make her stand out, Hawkins says. “My peers and I were really disappointed when we learned that she was leaving to take a CEO role, but there wasn’t one among us who was surprised.”

Savage began her new job at Trinity in February 2020—just a couple of weeks before the COVID-19 lockdown went into effect. She worked to build relationships with employees by holding town halls.

She’d give a company update for 20 or 30 minutes then spend the rest of the time taking questions, which workers could post anonymously.

2006

Trinity issues its first publicly traded railcar securitization in the capital markets. It also opens a new manufacturing facility in Monclova, Mexico.

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2007-08

The company effectively scales its manufacturing operations to meet customer demand, delivering more than 27,000 railcars a year.

2009

Trinity Industries does not operate railroads. It has three primary business segments: Railcar Leasing and Management Services: Provides railcar leasing and fleet management services designed to optimize ownership and usage of railcars.

Last year, it generated $801.5 million in revenue. It currently owns or manages a fleet of 134,000 railcars with a book value of about $10 billion.

Rail Products: Makes tank and freight railcars in North America and includes the company’s maintenance, tank heads, and aftermarket parts businesses. It does everything from field inspections and compliance testing to specialized cleaning.

In 2020, it generated about $950 million in external revenue.

All Other: Primarily includes Trinity’s highway products business, which makes guardrails, crash cushions, traffic control, and other barriers. Last year, it generated about $250 million in revenue.

Trinity’s lease fleet reaches 50,000 railcars and generates steady revenue, making it North America’s fastest-growing railcar leasing company.

2018

Trinity had separated from its infrastructure (non-rail) business, which now operates as Arcosa, in 2018. Under the TrinityRail brand, it focuses on three segments—railcar leasing and management services, rail products, and highway products. (See sidebar at left for more.) Savage saw that the units were siloed; to her, it made sense to collaborate and leverage internal strengths. It also made sense, from an earnings perspective, to shift from an emphasis on manufacturing to a focus on leasing.

Instead of slowing down during the shutdown, she accelerated the company’s transformation. She gathered information from the leadership team and others throughout the company. Pulling from early lessons at Progressive Rail, she took everything in.

And before long, the company had a new purpose statement, new values, and a new three-year strategic plan, which was rolled out in November. In December, Savage moved Trinity’s headquarters from its longtime home on Stemmons Freeway to new space on the Dallas North Tollway. She calls it going from “me” space to “we” space.

“The progress that Jean and her team have made, especially when you consider the pandemic environment, has been nothing short of remarkable,” says Lel Echols, Trinity’s board chairman. “She completed an organizational redesign and continued the cost-optimization efforts we had going on; she essentially restructured the company. She also helped rebuild and refresh our board.

“She’s continuing to execute on the company’s strategies—extremely well,” Echols adds. “But she’s also focusing on growth opportunities.”

For Savage, that means exploring tech opportunities in the rail industry (much like she did with mining at Caterpillar), gaining market share, evaluating new products and services, and keeping her eyes open for more international plays. “The Wallaces did a great job of growing this company and setting this company up over time,” she says. And now, it’s all about the possibilities.

Trinity spins off its infrastructure-related business into a new publicly-traded firm named Arcosa, which trades on the NYSE under the symbol ACA.

2019

Trinity’s lease fleet tops 100,000 railcars in its owned portfolio, with 270 designs for more than 700 customers that transport 900+ commodities.

2020

Tim Wallace retires after 45 years. Jean Savage becomes the company’s first non-family-member CEO. Trinity moves to a new headquarters.

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5/28/21 12:05 PM

W E D N E S D AY • J U N E 2 3 , 2 0 2 1

This year’s Women’s Leadership Symposium, “A Matter of Value,” will feature 8+ hours of insightful and powerful programming, strategic and focused networking opportunities for women leaders of all levels, and access to some of North Texas’ most diverse and powerful executives who are championing the value of women in the workplace and in society.

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a n d

C O M M E N TA R Y

BEST ADVICE

Becoming Part of the Solution A. Shonn Brown, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel

P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y YA R O S L AV D A N Y L C H E N K O

K I M B E R LY- C L A R K C O R P.

“although my mother and father were very present in my life, i was raised by my grandparents. They instilled in me a sense of faith and taught me the importance of working hard and standing up on your own merit. They also taught me the benefits of having a forgiving heart. Growing up in this country during the ‘separate but equal’ era, they experienced the impact of the Jim Crow laws and the lack of civil rights, then saw attempts made to right the sins of the past. This could have left them with a hardened heart; instead, they consistently looked for the good in people and situations. No matter how negative an experience, they refused to dwell on negativity and focused on the positive for purposes of advancement. One of the quotes that I remember the most from my grandfather is, ‘Don’t stand outside the establishment and throw bricks at it. Get inside, take a seat, and break it down brick by brick—then build it up again.’” —As told to Christine Perez

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H E A LT H C A R E

Home Is Where the Hospital Is Technology, the pandemic, and patient preference are moving healthcare into residences, and cutting costs by as much as 30 percent. story by WILL MADDOX

I

improved patient monitoring, developments in portable technology, and accelerated implementation of telehealth have all pushed healthcare from the hospital to the home during the past year. Home healthcare has proven to be less expensive and more comfortable for the patient and just as effective as care delivered in a hospital or clinic. But the trend means that more home healthcare workers, who are often women, are leaving clinics and hospital environments.

During the pandemic, the shift to at-home care meant more risk for women, a population already disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. A study from the British Medical Journal found that 70 percent of coronavirus infections for healthcare

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workers were women, and 40 percent of those were nurses early in the pandemic. It has also complicated the treatment pipeline for home health organizations. “We have patients who might have otherwise, in a non-pandemic environment, gone into a nursing home for a couple of weeks before they came home,” says Encompass Home Health and Hospice CEO April Anthony. “Now, those patients are going directly home because they don’t want to go to institutional care.”

Moving care to the home has also enabled many women to stay in the workforce, where they may have previously had to become full-time caregivers to family members or loved ones. “Care at home gives the opportunity for primary caregivers to continue working and taking care of their loved one the way that they’d like to, in a way that previously they weren’t able to do,” says Winjie Tang

predictive analytics help us understand patients’ inherent risk profile,” says Bud Langham, chief strategy officer at Encompass.

This allows providers to predict which patients are better suited for home care, resulting in better outcomes and lower costs. The pandemic forced everyone to avoid in-person visits if possible, but there was a silver lining. Widespread adoption of telehealth meant patients were more comfortable with a video visit, and providers could access and interpret data received from devices in patients’ homes with improved monitoring technology and better broadband.

Encompass is in talks with several health systems to implement the hospital-at-home platform.

Texas Health Resources plans to move more acute care into the home and add to its mobile urgent care services established before the pandemic. The

“WE HAVE PATIENTS WHO MIGHT HAVE OTHERWISE, IN A NON-PANDEMIC ENVIRONMENT, GONE INTO A NURSING HOME FOR A COUPLE OF WEEKS BEFORE THEY CAME HOME.” APRIL ANTHONY

Encompass

Miao, senior executive vice president and chief experience officer for Texas Health Resources.

As work returns to normal and the pandemic subsides, risks will decrease for all healthcare workers. Increased flexibility during the workday is probably here to stay, and technology plays a role in making that happen.

I M AG E BY C A C T U S C R E A T I V E S T U D I O

Q UA L I T Y A N D CO S T

The hospital to home movement works like this: A hospital physician or emergency department identifies a patient who is sick enough to be hospitalized but stable enough to be treated at home.

Providers determine the suitability of the home, and care is assigned to a supervising physician, who may be an internist or specialist. The patient is then visited at home by various caregivers, such as physical therapists or nurses. The physician sees the patient daily via a virtual or in-person visit, as if they were in the hospital. When the patient has recovered, care is passed back to the primary care physician for future follow-up.

Big data has been essential in moving care to home. “Advances in technology that incorporate

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health system may also add chemotherapy and radiation follow-up appointments and chronic disease management to at-home care options. “We will always need to have a place where you can have complex care and surgery,” Miao says. “But this is one of those times where [home care] is the right thing to do for myriad reasons.”

Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services is continuing to force providers toward value-based care over fee-for-service, and the hospital-at-home model rewards providers who can care for their patients efficiently. The movement has been implemented around the world in countries with government-run health systems. At Johns Hopkins University, a similar pilot being launched by the VA, home health, and various hospital systems has been shown to reduce costs by 19 to 30 percent without losing quality.

Those improvements in cost, quality of care, and patient experience could soon accelerate in North Texas, says Langham. “We want to push boldly into hospital-at-home, which should lead to a significant change in how health systems do business,” he says.

H E A LT H T E C H

Rural Rescue Mitchell Berenson left his executive healthcare position with Baylor Scott & White Health to launch Community Infusion Solutions, which now works with 40 rural hospitals in 22 states to help patients receive medication infusion at home and reduce hospital readmissions. Around 5 percent of all patients on Medicare take up 50 percent of the costs, so impacting this small group of costly patients can pay big dividends for the healthcare system.

Berenson’s newest venture is IV Ensure, a monitoring device that tracks outpatient infusion compliance for chronically ill patients.

The device can monitor the psychosocial status of the patient as well as the medication’s rate, temperature, and timing. This information is transmitted to the provider at a hospital. It can be a massive timesaver for patients who live far from their health center, without losing the quality of the outcomes.

“Our organization has the ability to effect change and health value for the sickest of the sick, and we’ve shown that it’s possible with remote monitoring,” Berenson says.

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ON TOPIC

“If you could have dinner with any two DFW business leaders, who would you choose?” edited by CHRISTINE PEREZ

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illustrations by JAKE MEYERS

CARINE FEYTEN

LYDA HILL

NIKKY PHINYAWATANA

Chancellor and President TE X A S WO MAN ’ S U N IVE RSIT Y

Chairman LY DA H I L L P H I L A N T H R O P I E S

Founder and CEO A S I A N M I N T R E S TA U R A N T G R O U P

“I’d have dinner with former Dallas Cowboys great Emmitt Smith. He has built on his success to serve today’s youth, and he is committed to making sure that everyone has a voice at the table. My second dinner guest would be John Stankey of AT&T. As CEO, he has to be mindful of profits in leading the company, but at the same time, his heart is with the people he leads, their families, and the wellbeing of Dallas as a city.”

“I’d have dinner with J. Erik Jonsson, mayor of Dallas from 1964 to 1971. Erik’s vision transformed the city. When asked what his most important contribution to Dallas was, he said it was putting Woodall Rodgers Freeway underground so someday someone could put a park over it.

That is vision—beyond vision. I’d also choose Rob Kaplan, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. His vision of what can be done is inspiring.”

“I’d have dinner with Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks and Anne Chow of AT&T. I’d love to pick Mark’s mind on a growth strategy for restaurants of my caliber. I’d also like to hear his thoughts on supplychain ideas to get products in supermarkets and sold online.

For Anne, I would love to be mentored on leadership and get her perspectives on strategies for growth. That would be a dream come true!”

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5/25/21 11:01 AM

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THE RIGHT MOVE Thomas Haskins Litigation Partner

Tommy Haskins knows quality when he sees it. “I came from a very large firm and was immediately impressed with the people at Barnes & Thornburg,” he says. “We have former U.S. attorneys and in-house counsel, and other outstanding lawyers, plus a talented and supportive back-office team.

“We also represent some of the most sophisticated companies and individuals in the world, handling their most critical legal needs. Yes, our rates are competitive, but that doesn’t come at the expense of quality.”

As for his transition to the firm, Tommy says the emphasis on lateral integration “is like nothing I’ve ever seen. I was given the resources needed to make personal connections in our offices across the country. Within a few months, I had established relationships with someone in every office, and years later I work on matters with those same individuals.

“Here we truly think and act as one firm, all dedicated to the same goal: delivering the highest quality service to our clients. And our deep bench across the country provides incredible opportunities for me and my clients.

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He’s also been impressed with Barnes & Thornburg’s deep commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. “Early on, one of our highly successful partners converted fulltime to developing and implementing market-leading DEI policy and programming. I think that puts us ahead of the pack and demonstrates a commitment beyond lip service.

“Importantly, it’s not simply because our clients and communities demand it, but because it’s the right thing to do, which is why we have been committed to these efforts for years. I am very proud of that, and it solidifies why Barnes & Thornburg is the right firm — for me and my clients.”

Tommy Haskins is a proud partner in the Dallas office of Barnes & Thornburg, one of the largest law firms in the country, with more than 700 attorneys and other legal professionals serving clients worldwide.

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THOUGHT LEADER

ty, or you could run out of money. Done correctly, you can spend 5 to 8 percent of your assets each year.

You worked so hard to build your business, don’t let your money be lazy when you retire. You expect your employees to be efficient—your dollars should be, too.

Making Your Money Work, Even When You Don’t Benchmark Income Group owner Mary Lyons on how to protect your financial legacy after exiting your business.

COURTESY OF BENCHMARK INCOME GROUP

A

2.

1.

DON’T SETTLE. The generally accepted rule for safe withdrawals in retirement is 3 percent of your total assets. That means for every $1 million you have in investments, you can spend approximately $30,000. But returns aren’t constant; they fluctuate.

Your withdrawals must be conservative in dealing with volatility and longevi-

s entrepreneurs, we pour our blood, sweat, and tears into building our companies. We make sacrifices. We devote ourselves to growth and progress. We scale through determination, working with purpose and grit. It’s a way of life, not a 9-to-5 gig. But when we finally hit that magic exit and sell our companies, we frequently leave money on the table— not just in our exit but in our long-term strategies. Why? Because advisers tend to think primarily about managing your net worth, not about optimizing your income strategies.

Rate of return (accumulation/growth) and distribution rate (income) are two very different things.

You built your business because you saw space for doing things a better way. You weren’t happy with the status quo. Don’t forget those same principles when it comes to managing your wealth. Creativity is a necessity for long-term improvement. Here are three tips on how to increase income from your assets once you exit.

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BUILD A MARKET SHOCK ABSORBER. Sometimes the market goes into a freefall. Before retirement, this creates opportunity.

You can buy low and super-charge your recovery. In retirement, the effect is the opposite.

When you take a loss, your income withdrawals further compromise your portfolio. As the market recovers, continuing to withdraw money cripples your ability to recover. Creating a liquid side account that has guarantees against market loss creates a buffer; it allows your portfolio time to recover because you have an alternate source of income.

3.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ACTUARIAL SCIENCE. Longevity is one of the most significant resource strains we face in retirement. You must plan for life potential, whereas a reinsured pension based on actuarial science can plan for life expectancy (a much shorter time frame) due to the large, shared risk pool. This allows for higher withdrawals. You can apply the same principles used in pensions to your own portfolio, allowing you to create higher income on a guaranteed basis for the duration of your lifetime, simply by looking at certain insured products.

Financial adviser Mary Lyons is the founder of Benchmark Income Group in Dallas.

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5/25/21 10:53 AM

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OFF DUTY THE PERSONAL SIDE

o f

DFW BUSINESS LEADERS

GOOD CATCH

Wheeler says she “screams like a girl” when she feels her pole tug with the weight of a trout.

PURSUITS

Michele Wheeler Lives for the Thrill of Fly Fishing in Colorado P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F J A C K S O N - S H A W

The Jackson-Shaw president developed a passion for the sport while leading a ranch community project near Crested Butte. story by BIANCA R. MONTES

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catching bass at sam rayburn reservoir, Lake Texoma, and Possum Kingdom Lake was a rite of passage for Jackson-Shaw President and COO Michele Wheeler, who grew up in East Texas and fished with her father. But she would never have called it a passion. It wasn’t until she went fly fishing for the first time when her firm began developing a ranch community in Colorado that she found true zeal while casting a line.

Wheeler says she “screams like a girl” when she feels her pole tug with the weight of a trout. In those energized moments, you have to be careful not to forget things like form, she advises: “The fish tries to trick you, and you have to learn to be patient.”

Wheeler has led Jackson-Shaw since 2005. Known for its industrial and hospitality developments, the company has also dabbled in residential, most recently with Wilder on the Taylor near Crested Butte. After serving as master developer for the 2,100-acre project, Wheeler fell in love with the land, bought a homestead site, and built a place of her own. She and her husband spend as much time there as they can during summer months and have an unofficial competition every time they fish.

Like real estate deals, fly fishing requires finesse, Wheeler says. It involves flicking the rod between two triangular points in the air—called the casting arc—until your line forward-casts and back-casts in tight, circular loops. When you get it right, the loops form a smooth, missile-like shape that sails through the sky.

The sport has taught her to be more patient, Wheeler says. “Sometimes, the best things are things you have to wait for or things you have to practice and get really good at,” she says. “If we caught a fish every single time we cast a fly, it would not be very rewarding. You get rewarded for wonderful presentations, and wonderful preparations, and wonderful practice, and all of that translates to business.”

Fly fishing has also taught Wheeler the importance of detaching from the bustle of life. “When you’re out on the water, you’ve got pine trees surrounding you, and it’s beautiful,” she says. “You don’t have your cell phone, and you are totally in the moment; your mind isn’t wandering about the conference call you have to make. We sometimes forget that we need to exhale now and then.”

ESCAPES

Wading into the Wilderness In the heart of the Rocky Mountains, Wilder on the Taylor has been a working ranch since the early 1900s and is a historic preservation project for Jackson-Shaw. It’s allowing just 32 homesteads on the 2,100-acre site. Wheeler’s home, designed by CCY Architects of Aspen, sits on a 45-acre parcel. Much like the way ski slopes are categorized, Wilder’s bountiful fishing opportunities accommodate anglers of various abilities. “The ponds are like green runs, the stream is like a blue run, and the river is much like a black run,” Wheeler says.

P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F J A C K S O N - S H A W

OFF DUTY

BACK TO NATURE

The Taylor River runs through Jackson-Shaw’s Wilder on the Taylor community in Colorado.

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LEARNERS today.

LEADERS tomorrow.

Educating strong women since 1966.

dallascollege.edu

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5/25/21 11:35 AM

OFF DUTY

G R E AT E R G O O D

OLUNA’S 25-YEAR-OLD FOUNDER EMMY HANCOCK IS FIGHTING PERIOD POVERTY WITH FASHION story by KELSEY J. VANDERSCHOOT

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Dallas, giving her time and the funds to build the business. Her personal network stepped up to provide the patterns and photography, while Hancock and childhood friend Ali Aston built a website and an all-female supply chain.

The brand, which launched in October 2020, partners with 10 local homeless shelters to match women who need period products. Oluna also educates on sustainable product options.

By December, Oluna had sold nearly 200 pairs of pants and racked up 18,000 unique site visits.

It welcomed Aston as a partner in January, and launched a new spring line of pants in March.

“We wanted to reflect the happy colors of spring and summer,” Aston says.

Next up? A planned expansion to New York City, although the company’s headquarters will remain in Dallas. “I love this issue, because one person can really make an impact in their community,” Hancock says.

PANT POWER

Hancock found the inspiration for her pants while on a trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia.

P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F O L U N A

hockaday graduate emmy hancock first became interested in the period poverty cause in 2015. “There was viral activism,” she says of the months leading up to former President Obama getting grilled by vlogger Ingrid Nilsen on the “tampon tax.” Obama admitted he didn’t know why states imposed luxury taxes on feminine products, while other health products aren’t taxed. Hancock liked the various lenses through which the movement could be viewed: policy and gender equality, environmental impact, education, and a lack of access for underserved communities. “That piqued my interest,” she says.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Hancock went from taking interest to taking action in 2018. She created a line of colorful and comfortable pants with the idea of using a portion of sales to provide period supplies to underserved communities. But she wanted to go beyond the one-for-one model—where for each product purchased, a company offers a year of service or supplies—because it’s “often criticized for fostering dependence,” Hancock says. So, in addition to supplying a year’s worth of period supplies to women, she donates 1 percent of Oluna’s merchandise proceeds to help fund menstrual research and education.

Hancock found the inspiration for her pants while on a trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia. “I wanted an upgrade from sweatpants that were as comfortable as loungewear but still designed in a way where you feel comfortable wearing them out to dinner,” she says. The pandemic brought Hancock from New York City back to

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5/25/21 2:56 PM

“Baker Tilly puts stewardship and belonging at the forefront of our organization. As team members, we have the opportunity to serve the communities in which we live and work and we have communities and initiatives within our firm that help us foster our sense of belonging and champion diversity to help us identify our own paths to success.”

Jennifer Soltis President and Chair Baker Tilly Foundation

The Baker Tilly Foundation focuses our charitable involvement on three pillars of philanthropy: education, health and wellness and human services.

Through GROW, we seek to significantly enhance the recruitment, retention, development, and advancement of women at Baker Tilly.

advisory. tax. assurance. | bakertilly.com Baker Tilly US, LLP, trading as Baker Tilly, is a member of the global network of Baker Tilly International Ltd., the members of which are separate and independent legal entities. © 2021 Baker Tilly US, LLP.

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5/25/21 11:10 AM

OFF DUTY

BEACH BLISS

LUSH ISLE

Sugar Beach offers Caribbean access with mountain views.

Sugar Beach sits next to 100 acres of rainforest.

QUIET ESCAPE

Rainforest Spa offers treatments in unique private “treehouses.”

St. Lucia The tropical paradise in the Caribbean is a memorable destination for Dallas Mavericks exec Erin Finegold White. story by HAMILTON HEDRICK

SECLUDED GETAWAY

Sugar Beach offers 25 private residences.

ISLAND FARE

Ladera’s Dasheene features fresh ingredients from St. Lucian farmers.

TWIN PEAKS

Gros and Petit Piton are natural landmarks on the southwestern coast of the island country.

SEA BREEZE

Ladera’s Villa at Paradise Ridge lets in the warm Caribbean air.

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P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F L A D E R A , S U G A R B E A C H A N D S H U I T T E R S T O C K ; F I N E G O L D W H I T E BY J A K E M E Y E R S

W E L L T R AV E L E D

OFF DUTY

P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F L A D E R A , S U G A R B E A C H A N D S H U I T T E R S T O C K ; F I N E G O L D W H I T E BY J A K E M E Y E R S

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i am a lot of things; but an outdoorsman, I am not. Still, during a recent trip to the island nation of St. Lucia, I slept outdoors (sort of), ziplined through the rainforest, power snorkeled through majestic reefs, and bathed in sulphuric mud. And I loved every minute of it.

For the first half of my getaway, I stayed at Ladera Resort. Soaring above the Caribbean with stunning views of Saint Lucia’s Piton Mountains, the 37-room, eco-conscious luxury estate features open-air suites. Having no fourth wall puts guests directly in the midst of paradise; suites also feature a private plunge pool, locally sourced artwork, and furniture that’s hand-crafted by artisans onsite.

Despite its relatively small footprint, Ladera doesn’t lack in amenities. Offerings include a state-of-the-art gym, an award-winning farmto-table restaurant (Dasheene), a bar with spectacular views, a new spa (opening later this year), fitness classes, and more.

Sourcing from local farmers, Executive Chef Nigel Mitchel’s cuisine takes a modern approach to classic St. Lucian dishes. From the grilled catch of the day to Caribbean lamb salad, meals at Dasheene are not to be missed. Selections from the restaurant’s extensive wine and cocktail list make the meals even more enjoyable.

Walk off your meals by taking advantage of the resort’s hiking trail, and ask Eustace, a 30-year Ladera veteran, to guide you along the path. The roughly 40-minute hike will present you with incredible views of the surrounding area and an assortment of plants and flowers to admire.

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If you’re more adventurous and want to zipline through the rainforest, mountain bike to a remote waterfall, or lather up in the St. Lucian Sulphur Springs (the only drive-in volcano in the world), adventure company Island Routes has you covered. I opted for several excursions, including an exhilarating ride on a 17-foot speedboat named Miss Erin. I also took a cruise up the western coast of the island, capped by a power-snorkel in one of the many protected reefs. As we journeyed, first mate Cherry pointed out the various villages, bays, landmarks, and where the locals like to grab a bite to eat.

After a few days in the rainforest, I moved down the mountain to Sugar Beach, a Viceroy Resort.

Formerly the Jalousie sugar plantation, it offers 96 guest rooms, three restaurants, three bars, a world-class spa, 25 private residences, and a plethora of onsite activities. Perfectly styled rooms come with a walk-in shower, claw foot tub, four-poster bed (with the most luxurious linens), and a private plunge pool. Or, splurge on a luxury beachfront bungalow, and French doors will open to the white sands of Sugar Beach and breathtaking views of the Caribbean. (It also makes it easy to take a quick dip, with the sea just a stone’s throw away.)

Restaurants at the resort offer a variety of experiences. If you’re looking for fine dining, check out the Great Room. The candlelit venue serves up many elevated dishes, from grilled octopus to the Wagyu filet in a port reduction. For a more casual setting, head to Bayside Restaurant. But don’t let the ambiance fool you; with options like burrata cheese with fire-roasted peppers, eggplant dip, and charred jerk half-chicken, the food rises above typical beach fare.

SUITE DREAMS Rooms at Sugar Before leaving the resort, Beach feature luxurious linens and be sure to book some time at tropical garden views.

Sugar Beach’s Rainforest Spa, which offers an array of services performed in private treehouse rooms. (Coconut bliss, for example, is a combination of a coconut body scrub and coconut milk healing body massage.)

After your treatment, take time to relax in the open-air gazebo or a steam in the Temazcal. You are on vacation, after all.

T R AV E L T I P S

Another Day in Paradise Dallas Mavericks exec Erin Finegold White and her husband, Justin, capped a 10-day honeymoon in the Caribbean with five days at Sugar Beach.

And they can’t wait to go back.

“It’s the coolest place we’ve ever been; you’re in the middle of a rainforest between the Pitons and the bay,” she says.

The couple went snorkeling, sailed a Sunfish, and drank Piton (a local Pilsner beer).

Finegold praises the dining at Sugar Beach and nearby Jade Mountain, one of the top luxury destinations in the world. “The seafood is super fresh and prepared by top chefs,” she says.

On tap for the couple’s next visit, likely next year: chocolate tasting at one of the island’s famed cacao estates.

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SCHOOL DAYS Five-year-old Acuña (middle row, fifth from left) with her kindergarten classmates.

SUNDAY BEST

Acuña at age 2, at la Plazuela Del Fuerte. She and her family moved to the U.S. when she was nearly 7.

ROOTS

REBECCA ACUÑA Director of Government Affairs PE PSICO

FAMILY TIME

as told to ELLIE BEECK illustration by JAKE MEYERS

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P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F R E B E C C A A C U Å Ñ A

Acuña at age 6,

left, with her sister born in el fuerte in the mexican and parents at state of Sinaloa, Rebecca Acuña una restaurant in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, derstands the challenges many immiMexico. grants face after arriving in America.

Today, she’s director of government by my surroundings because I had something affairs for $70 billion beverage and snack giant else to compare it to. My parents had petitioned PepsiCo, and says she never takes her opportuto adjust my immigration status to ‘resident’ for nities for granted. Here, she shares her journey: “For me, growing up in Mexico was great. I a very long time; I didn’t get work authorization until a few months before my 25th birthday. I was surrounded by family, and I wanted for couldn’t do internships, take out certain types nothing. Even so, when I moved to the U.S., I saw something better. My family came here for of loans, or get scholarships; I had so much to catch up on, especially compared to my peers. a better future, a few months before I turned 7.

When I got my first job (as communications There was a moment when my mom told my sisdirector for State Representative Garnet Coleter and me that we were going to start taking the school bus instead of her driving us. I said that man), I ran as fast as I could. I felt so behind and that I needed to run faster than everyone else.

I didn’t want to because the buses were hot and Any opportunity that I was allowed to take, I didn’t have air conditioning. She said, ‘Buses have air conditioning in the United States.’ And took on with joy because, for me, the alternative sure enough, they did. Suddenly, I felt so blessed was not being allowed to work at all.”

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H E A LT H CA R E R O U N DTA B L E

State of Healthcare: A Roundtable Discussion for Businesses BRET REDMAN

Industry experts discuss the role of employers in today’s healthcare system, COVID-19’s impact on companies, how technology and telehealth are game-changers, and healthcare landscape predictions.

Back Row (left to right): Christopher Crow, M.D., Shara McClure, Mike Sheehan, Scott F. Flannery.

Front Row (left to right): Awstin Gregg, David Goldfarb, Karen Pinkstaff

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In Discussion With

CHRISTOPHER CROW, M.D. CEO, Catalyst Health Network

SCOTT F. FLANNERY CEO, UnitedHealthcare of North Texas and Oklahoma

DAVID GOLDFARB President, DSG Benefits Group

AWSTIN GREGG, MBA, LCSW, LCSW CEO, Connections Wellness Group

What role do employers have in the overall healthcare ecosystem, particularly when it comes to cost control, improving health equity, and holding providers accountable for quality outcomes?

CHRISTOPHER CROW: Employers have a huge role in the healthcare ecosystem—and not just as the primary funders of healthcare. Their choices in benefit design influence the health decisions of millions of Americans. We’d like to see employers evaluate their healthcare costs through more of a performance mindset. What outcomes would they like to achieve? What behaviors link to that?

By answering those questions, I think they’d see a clear need to broaden access and support for primary care and create payment models that incentivize the type of preventive care that helps people avoid the most major (and most costly) health interventions.

DAVID GOLDFARB: In my experience, employers often don’t realize their power and potential in the healthcare ecosystem. It is vital to have a partner alongside them to help balance member/ employee experience, all with cost containment

realize better health. For example, we partner with providers through value-based arrangements like Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), which are models that aim to improve health and satisfaction while attributing a population and reducing cost.

AWSTIN GREGG: The role employers have in the healthcare ecosystem is critical. Employers are in the position to advocate for their employees and to push the bar for quality outcomes. Employers are a significant source of healthcare coverage for individuals in our communities. Viewing healthcare with a high standard both internally and externally allows for employees to enjoy the benefits of accessing high-quality providers, while also responsibly stewarding the costs to the organization. Typically, this is a cost shortcut some employers take to save a few margin points on the P&L. It is thought the cheapest plan creates the maximum bottom line.

However, we know this could not be further from the truth. An employer’s obligation is not only to render the business service in a superior competitive manner, but to also care for those in their charge with them. Overlooking this responsibility could perpetuate a flywheel riddled with challenges.

SCOTT FLANNERY: With COVID-19 making wellness

“Employers have a huge role in the healthcare ecosystem—and not just as the primary funders of healthcare. Their choices in benefit design influence the health decisions of millions of Americans.”

C H R I STO P H ER C ROW, M .D.

SHARA MCCLURE Divisional Senior Vice President, Texas Health Care Delivery, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas

KAREN PINKSTAFF Partner, RSM US, LLP

MIKE SHEEHAN CEO, Intellicentrics

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in mind. This requires intentional, focused research and effort, both into their own utilization data and local solutions that are available, as well as a proactive eye for out-of-the-box strategies.

When incentives are aligned, employers can impact their own health plans and begin to steer the local healthcare ecosystem toward a more transparent, collaborative one.

SHARA MCCLURE: Employers play a critical role in the healthcare ecosystem in that they can provide their employees access to health information and tools to help them take charge of their health and make informed healthcare decisions. In doing so, they can help their employees achieve better health with the result being lower overall healthcare costs for employers. With regard to providers, value-based care models present an opportunity to deliver smarter care resulting in better health.

Healthcare that is smarter reduces inefficiencies and gives patients and their physicians the right tools to

a renewed priority for many people, employers may consider using the pandemic as an opportunity to re-evaluate how they approach health benefits. Developing and implementing a strategic, data-driven approach to health benefits is crucial, given medical care ranks as the second largest expense (behind salaries) for employers. Plus, encouraging a healthier workforce is vital to reducing absenteeism and presenteeism, both of which sap productivity and may make an employer less competitive.

KAREN PINKSTAFF: The cost of healthcare is critical for employers. For most of them, healthcare is their largest expense after direct wage compensation.

Self-insured employers operate in a unique space as the financiers or conduits of care for large populations of people. This allows them flexibility to work directly with startups and provider groups to create innovative care models that align financial incentives toward reducing cost and improving quality for their employees and their families. On

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COVID-19 taught us trust plays a key role in our healthcare That’s why our mission is to use trust to make high-quality healthcare as accessible as a good cup of coffee.

www.intellicentrics.com/trust Trusted by more than 11,000 facilities worldwide ©2021 IntelliCentrics. All Rights Reserved.

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the issue of health equity, our national workforce is incredibly diverse, and I am optimistic that employers will want the cost-saving and outcome-improving measures they utilize to be available to all employees and not just those with traditional access to health care.

How do you think COVID-19 will influence healthcare services or how employers think about healthcare for their employees moving forward?

The pandemic has forced each of us to ask important questions about how we receive care that we likely would not have asked otherwise. Questions such as, “Why am I forced to lose wages and time while sitting in the waiting room for a doctor visit only to be told my health is stable?” “Why am I always required to fill out forms every time I engage the healthcare system?”

“Who is on my side helping me trust that my family is receiving the best possible care?” Ultimately, the pandemic has transformed us from passive recipients of care into active consumers making value-based decisions. We all want higher quality at a lower cost, a better use of technology, access MIKE SHEEHAN:

tire country to see greater value in the ability to access care. Moving forward, the challenge will be creating cohesive care experiences for patients who rely on multiple channels for their array of health needs. Physicians and their practices alone can’t support every moment that matters for patients, so they need integrated teams and technologies that can expand their capacity and extend their reach to every point along the care journey. We see that as the best way to ensure patients receive the most connected care experience and achieve the best outcomes.

DAVID GOLDFARB: In many ways, COVID-19 has increased elasticity within the healthcare service industry but simultaneously created a feeling of instability through complicating an already complex model. Many employers have had to reorganize their priorities, re-assess their business model, transform their staffing, and/ or rethink and reconfigure their benefits packages. Employer-sponsored healthcare is more vital now than it has been in a while; business owners in the COVID and post-COVID world are in need of affordable, sustainable solutions more than ever.

“One of the most significant ways an organization can promote an employee’s mental health is by choosing leaders who have the skill of leadership.”

AWSTIN G R EG G

to in-person and remote care that fits our schedules, and above all else, the ownership and control of our individual health data.

KAREN PINKSTAFF: Our position is that COVID-19 will accelerate the adoption of value-based care as well as virtually delivered services. When it comes to the value-based care, providers with higher concentrations of risk-bearing contracts generally saw a smaller impact related to service disruptions due to the pandemic. Additionally, providers saw an unbelievable growth in 2020 in their services delivered virtually. Furthermore, millions of patients experienced the convenience of virtual healthcare and will not want to revert to a physical-only delivery of care going forward. Employers that want to create a competitive compensation and benefits packaged to attract and retain talent will ensure virtual and other modern care delivery options are available to employees and their families.

CHRISTOPHER CROW: It’s certainly pushed our en-

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For entrepreneurs or small business owners, what are your suggestions for scaling their health insurance offerings and keeping costs in line?

AWSTIN GREGG: My recommendation for entrepre-

neurs and small business owners is to first challenge the way we think about insurance offerings.

Too often, it is defaulted as a recurring dreaded cost on a P&L, but what it’s actually providing is a much-needed benefit for your team members. I think it is important to pause and view insurance offerings in this light. Sure, there is some cost strategy that goes into picking the correct plan, and there are several options out there. However, and in the truest sense, when you take better care of your team, your team takes better care of your patients/clients.

SCOTT FLANNERY: Consider benefits packages that include specialty benefits—dental, vision, and financial protection. Bundling these with

their medical plan may help small businesses save money and save on administration resources. UnitedHealthcare has seen an increase in employers looking at All Savers® Alternate Funding, a level-funded offering that allows employers to potentially save premium dollars under certain conditions. Additionally, adding or expanding coverage for virtual care visits may provide employers with a more convenient—and affordable— way to access medical care. With this coverage, employees can access medical care through their computer, tablet, or smartphone for a variety of services, including urgent, wellness, and chronic condition management.

DAVID GOLDFARB: I think the first step is align with a trusted partner who understands the goals for the health plan. Is the employer simply looking to avoid tax penalties or is the goal to offer a benefits package that makes them an employer of choice?

From there, you can begin to narrow down a strategy that examines “what path gets us to our goal” rather than “how do we make what we’ve always done work for us?” The traditional health insurance offering is not sustainable—employers should look for models that include transparency, cost containment, and member engagement/education.

KAREN PINKSTAFF: The Kaiser Family Foundation found that during the past year, employer insurance prices increased by an average of 4% for individuals and 5% for family coverage. That puts the average annual premium for employer-sponsored health insurance at $7,188 for individuals and $20,576 for families in 2019. There are five strategies to help you reduce healthcare costs as an employer without sacrificing the benefits that are so crucial to you and your team. You can shop around for the best health insurance plans, offer a high deductible health plan, combine a high deductible health plan with a savings option, offer an FSA, and consider offering a QSEHRA instead of group health insurance.

COVID-19 has also exposed the wide disparity in healthcare access and outcomes for communities of color. Why is it important for business and political leaders to address these inequities?

SCOTT FLANNERY: Health equity is needed before

attaining true equality to ensure everyone has access to the healthcare they need and deserve. By looking at the whole person and the life factors that may affect overall well-being, employers can work with health plans to help identify social barriers to improve health and healthcare. In fact, research shows that social determinants of health may in-

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fluence up to 80% of a person’s health. Considering ways to address things like lack of access to reliable transportation, nutritious food, or secure housing could help improve the overall health of employees, lower costs, and drive engagement in clinical intervention programs.

CHRISTOPHER CROW: There’s a life expectancy gap of six years between zip codes where less than 5% of people live in poverty and zip codes where more than 20% do. We have a moral obligation to change this. Individuals and families can no longer be forced to bear the brunt of rising healthcare costs, at the expense of reducing available dollars that could otherwise go to other basic necessities, such as food, education, housing, and clothing. That’s why we’re such vocal proponents of primary care for all as a crucial first step toward addressing this issue and transforming our communities.

SHARA MCCLURE: It’s important because business and government leaders must work together to change the trajectory of health disparities and re-imagine a more equitable healthcare system.

Recently, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), of which BCBSTX is part, announced its National Health Equity Strategy to confront the

to stay from a provider standpoint or from a business owner standpoint?

At IntelliCentrics, we believe technology is essential for healthcare to move forward, but it must be technology that can be trusted across the entire continuum of care. Our mission statement is to use trust to make highquality healthcare as accessible as a good cup of coffee. We believe the role of technology helps deliver that promise, which is why we created the SEC³URE Ethos, a fully optimized technology platform that delivers trusted interactions between all stakeholders across the entire continuum of care.

Today, the SEC³URE Ethos is comprised of nearly 11,000 unique locations of care across North America and the UK, including home healthcare.

Additionally, we are in the process of delivering a highly advanced telemedicine solution that allows individuals to own, control, and benefit from a personal healthcare record. The SEC³URE Ethos is the only end-to-end integrated technology platform in healthcare that connects the supply side with the demand side of care based on trust.

Technology that ensures trust results in the best healthcare for us all.

MIKE SHEEHAN:

“Employers that want to create a competitive compensation and benefits package to attract and retain talent will ensure virtual and other modern care delivery options are available to employees and their families.”

K AREN PI N KSTAF F

nation’s crisis in racial health disparities. In recent months, BCBSTX has worked with local leaders to support vulnerable communities with COVID-19 vaccine access. As well, the pandemic brought on

by COVID-19 and the social justice unrest events in the United States reinforced our focus on health equity and our core purpose to do everything in our power to stand with our communities in sickness and health. We understand that what determines a person’s health doesn’t entail access to healthcare only. So, our 2021 Healthy Kids Healthy Families® (HKHF) grants targeted programs that create measurable results in addressing housing, behavioral health, safe environment and education, and jobs needs while also accounting for the current public health pandemic.

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Technology is constantly becoming more prevalent in our lives, both business and personal. In healthcare, it has the potential to remove traditional access to care barriers and bridge the gap that exists between consumer and their knowledge of health insurance and benefits.

Telemedicine is only one example and was emerging as a longstanding force in the healthcare space even before COVID-19. But now, more than ever, it has become a necessary component when it comes to on-demand access to care in non-emergent situations, rather than simply a perk. Technology is only as good as its user. For optimal impact, it requires engagement/education.

CHRISTOPHER CROW: Before the pandemic, about 1% of our members’ visits were telemedicine appointments. Within weeks of the country’s closing in 2020, close to 99% of visits became telemedicine appointments. It’s clear that physicians and patients are ready. But the technology alone isn’t DAVID GOLDFARB:

the full answer. Patients are absolutely more likely to seek out care when we can remove barriers, such as access, time off, transportation, and childcare.

The key is that patients are also able to see their PCPs—the physicians who understand them and their individual circumstances to be able to deliver the personalized care they’ve come to expect.

AWSTIN GREGG: The introduction of technology is significantly enhancing the ability to deliver timely care in the service-based business model for many providers, including myself. The recent pandemic accelerated the community’s adoption of the idea of telehealth, and it is my strong opinion this chapter in care-delivery survives this pandemic and presents as the new preference for many patients. Additionally, telehealth introduces a delivery platform which largely mitigates typical barriers to treatment. I believe treatment compliance will increase secondary to this chapter in innovation.

SHARA MCCLURE: Recently, Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), one division of which is BCBSTX, announced a strategic relationship with Collective Health that will bring new and existing customers access to its digital platform and services, beginning with self-funded customers in Texas. We will offer Collective Health’s integrated solution, which provides a single digital platform that enables self-funded employers to administer benefits, reduce workload, manage costs, and help manage the health of their people in one place.

For members, it will enhance navigation, providing a personalized experience with products and features that make it easier to understand and manage their healthcare, from wherever they are.

SCOTT FLANNERY: COVID-19 represented a watershed moment in the adoption of virtual care.

Compared to 2019, virtual care visits in 2020 by UnitedHealthcare members increased by over 2,500% across our employer-sponsored Medicare and Medicaid plans. The adoption of telephone or videoconferencing may help flag gaps in care, prevent complications, and avoid unnecessary hospitalizations—all of which help improve health outcomes and curb costs. Concerningly, the number of Americans with a primary care physician has declined recently, with an estimated 25% of people lacking this type of ongoing relationship.

KAREN PINKSTAFF: Telehealth is certainly here to stay, and it will likely grow in the future. Technology was used to enable physicians to provide office visits using virtual platforms, it was also used to enhance remote monitoring through devices similar to an Apple Watch and Google Home.

Business owners should continue to evaluate how to use telehealth to bend their cost curve. Some

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employers offer incentive for employees using remote monitoring devices, with the goal keeping their patients adhering to their care plans for chronic diseases.

Are telemedicine or digital apps changing the way healthcare organizations operate? Are they here to stay? What are foreseen limitations and/or benefits?

While the healthcare industry continues to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic, we now know with some certainty that telemedicine/telehealth is a healthcare delivery option that is here to stay. But even as more people feel more comfortable with scheduling office visits again, many will continue to use telemedicine/telehealth option to manage their healthcare.

AWSTIN GREGG: I do believe telemedicine is changing the way healthcare organizations operate, and at the very least, it certainly requires organization leaders to challenge the way they think from an operational perspective. Telehealth removes the typical barriers to treatment by making it profoundly convenient to the user.

SHARA MCCLURE:

MIKE SHEEHAN: We are witnessing the dawn of healthcare 2.0, evidenced by the countless promising technologies currently sitting peripheral to mainstream healthcare. After years of global travel and visiting dozens of countries where I have had the opportunity to sit, talk, and hear from hundreds of individuals, I discovered a universal truth when it comes to healthcare that is intrinsic to each of us and transcends age, gender, faith, culture, and geography. This universal truth is that we are all in search of the best possible care for ourselves and our loved ones, and we are willing to do anything and everything in our power to locate it. Upon exhausting all our efforts and resources in our quest for finding the best possible, we desperately want to trust our conclusion. The deep desire to trust our healthcare is why IntelliCentrics’ vision is to be the world’s most trusted solution for trust. We believe IntelliCentrics’ trust as a technology will be essential to finding the best possible care as we navigate healthcare 2.0.

KAREN PINKSTAFF: The benefit of self-insured plans from an employer perspective is that you have more control and influence over your claims expense and experience. The risk is that you could

“We are witnessing the dawn of healthcare 2.0, evidenced by the countless promising technologies currently sitting peripheral to mainstream healthcare.”

MIKE S H EEH AN

I think some practices may prefer the in-person model to the telehealth mode—and there’s nothing wrong with this stance—but I do believe the consumer market is changing, and this is a hurdle that will need to be jumped by healthcare practices as the delivery of services innovates itself.

CHRISTOPHER CROW: No doubt that new technologies are changing how healthcare works. We believe digital innovations will do so much more. Too many digital companies have built technologies designed primarily around patient convenience.

Instead, we see opportunity to use technologies as an enabler of care that allows people to feel known throughout the health journey. To achieve that, integrated care teams—care managers, care coordinators, pharmacists, chronic condition educators and more—need to use the same technologies for a connected, team-based approach to care delivery.

That’s an enduring value of digital innovation that needs to take greater root throughout healthcare.

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be exposed if you have a large growth in plan experience. There are products to insulate your risk exposure. For instance, stop loss coverage that you can purchase to minimize the top end of your risk exposure. Additional benefits are that self- insured plans generally have more control over the provider network (i.e. using a narrow network) and plan design (subject to limitations based on legislation and regulations).

SCOTT FLANNERY: Digital health resources have emerged as a valuable bridge that can help keep healthcare providers and their patients connected. One example in Texas is Level2, a digital therapy that combines wearable technology, clinical coaching, lifestyle changes, and incentives at no additional cost to eligible UnitedHealthcare members to help improve the health of people living with type 2 diabetes. Participants gain real-time insights and some successfully reduce spikes in blood sugar levels or achieve remission. Overall,

the digital health market will continue to grow, with some studies estimating the industry will reach nearly $380 billion by 2024.

Preventive care is another buzzword today. What role do business owners play in improving the health and wellness of their employees? Is it an actual cost-saver? How should business owners think about their wellness program investments?

A wellness program needs at least two things: it needs to be holistic and employee turnover needs to be low. Holistic means it’s more than an on-site gym or virtual primary care options or diabetes management coaches.

These are all parts of what a wellness program can be, but to really see cost savings, employers need to develop a strategy and stitch together all the tactical components of a wellness plan to support that. Furthermore, the options need to be convenient so employees will actually use them.

If the free primary care center or coaches are only available in person and some of your employees live far from those locations, they will not utilize those services. Second, in general, the lower turnover is, the more beneficial wellness plans can be. Typically, wellness initiatives will not see significant savings right away. Employees need to actively participate in the program over the span of several years to see the largest savings. If employees turn over regularly, savings will likely be lower.

SHARA MCCLURE: The idea of wellness programs is that they can be a long-term cost saver by incentivizing employees to get a health screening or by removing barriers to getting one—like having an on-site provider to conduct screenings that could help identify a chronic issue like high blood pressure or cholesterol early. Aside from the potential financial benefits, it’s also just the right thing to do. With regard to other wellness incentives, like gym memberships, we’ve found those don’t really move the needle. People who already go the gym used the incentive, and the group who didn’t go to the gym didn’t really use it. So, the message here is to tailor incentives to your culture and have leaders model behavior from the top down.

AWSTIN GREGG: The role is significant! The “cost” associated with this can sometimes be hidden because we are investing in something we are trying to avoid. An example of this could be changing the oil in your car. We change the oil because we want to preserve the engine. We know what happens when an engine is in disrepair. I don’t complain about an oil change because I know what I’m inKAREN PINKSTAFF:

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Awstin Gregg,

MBA, LCSW, LCDC Chief Executive Officer

Social Worker of the Year - 2018 Entrepreneur of the Year - 2019 D CEO Excellence in Healthcare Executive Finalist - 2020

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vesting in. In the same way, I don’t look at my monthly P&L and complain about the financial allocation to employee wellness, because I know what I am investing in.

CHRISTOPHER CROW: In virtually every other area of our lives, we talk about starting earlier if you want to go farther. Why wouldn’t it be the case with our health? Employers have tried to push this concept with wellness programs. The problem is that most wellness programs are fractured, with employees asked to follow separate guidance for different conditions. When we look at preventive care, it works optimally if we capture the whole picture, create a comprehensive plan that considers all aspects of a person’s life and provide support in alignment with physician guidance at every phase of the employee’s health experience.

SCOTT FLANNERY: Preventive care can help identify issues before they become chronic illnesses that must be treated, and often, prevention is far less costly. To help motivate employees to pursue healthier behaviors, incentive-based wellness programs are worth investing in. One example is UnitedHealthcare Motion, a wearable device program that enables people to earn $1,000 per

preventable conditions, a tailored program with proper implementation can deliver real results.

What can be done to ensure quality, transparency in pricing, and a reduction in the cost of healthcare to help consumers?

Increased transparency in healthcare data brings more choices to patients, and it improves trust between patients, healthcare providers, and insurance companies. When people are empowered with information about healthcare quality and cost, they may make more informed choices and save money. People are starting to take action; more than one-third (37%) of Americans say they have used the internet or mobile apps during the last year to compare medical services costs—more than double from 14% in 2012—according to the UnitedHealthcare Consumer Sentiment Survey. Transparency could reduce U.S. healthcare spending by more than $100 billion over the next decade.

DAVID GOLDFARB: Access to granular medical and prescription data is key, including utilization, cost, outcomes, and quality. This likely requires SCOTT FLANNERY:

“When healthcare becomes more transparent and accessible, true member engagement and education will become possible.”

DAV ID G O L D FAR B

year by meeting certain daily activity goals. We’ve found that among all eligible enrollees, over 45% participated in the program compared to other employer-sponsored disease-management programs that report 5% engagement rates. Among people who registered their device, 59% stayed active for at least six months—a rate higher than gym memberships (29%).

DAVID GOLDFARB: Approximately 1% of members on employer plans account for 28% of spend, often with significant claims being preventable conditions. An investment in wellness requires insight into the population you are looking to manage.

Options include packaged wellness programs, or even directly contracting with a provider or local system. If the goal is making an investment in wellness to yield a quick return in annualized expense, it will not deliver immediately. If the goal is investing in the quality of life of employees, increasing presenteeism, and curbing chronic or

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a partially self-funded medical plan strategy. This data must be interpretable and actionable rather than the traditionally opaque facts/figures that may hide or skew the inverse relationship that sometimes exists between cost and quality. Pricing transparency and cost reduction requires a productive dialogue that includes all stakeholders.

This could happen on a large community scale.

It can even be successful with individual companies and the providers/vendors involved in their company’s healthcare/benefits ecosystem while enlisting a patient advocacy and care navigation to support the effort.

KAREN PINKSTAFF: In many ways, these issues are symptomatic of the larger problem, which is that financial incentives are frequently misaligned. Given what we now understand about the incredible cost savings that preventive care presents, feefor-service models largely need to be rethought.

When provider, payers/employers, and patients’

incentives all align, we will see drastically fewer issues with quality and transparency. Also, providers and payers are leveraging cutting-edge analytics and deep learning technologies to deliver value and transparency in new ways. The exciting part about analytics in 2021 is these tools are no longer restricted only to the largest organizations.

Every provider, payer, and employer can leverage analytics to gain meaningful insights to better address a wide array of challenges, including quality and transparency.

CHRISTOPHER CROW: Transformational change in healthcare—especially in something as massive as cost reduction—requires employers, payers, and people at-large to take a stand against this predictably broken system of ours. The good news is that one major solution already exists. It starts with primary care for all, to help people get the care they need in the moments when that care can have the most enduring impact. To do that, we need to expand current capacity for primary care providers through connected care teams and technologies. And we need employer-sponsored and government-funded payment models that incentivize outcomes, not appointments.

MIKE SHEEHAN: In a word, trust. The highest level of trust can only be achieved when an independent third party is part of the equation. This is proven in the financial markets where independent third parties are brought in to verify financial data, so it can be trusted. Our trust in FDIC banks allows customers to trust their deposits are safe. IntelliCentrics’ SEC³URE Ethos is a technology platform that plays the role of the independent third party for all of healthcare by creating trusted interactions between all stakeholders. When there is trust in everyday healthcare exchanges between doctors, patients, vendors, locations of care, etc., it creates a form of partnership that delivers personal, professional, and financial benefits. Trust is the force capable of increasing quality of care while lowering costs for everyone.

SHARA MCCLURE: As BCBSTX transitions from a fee-for-service to a fee-for-value healthcare model, we now have more than 1.6 million lives under value-based-care arrangements. Many of these are through Accountable Care Organization (ACO) agreements are designed to promote high value, coordinated, and quality care for our members.

Value-based care is essential to public health. Shifting incentives from a model that rewards volume to one that rewards value is critical to finding a solution to our current economic healthcare crisis. Value-based care presents an opportunity to encourage delivery of smarter care resulting in

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48% savings?

Let’s go.

1

Built to help businesses like yours get back to business faster, All Savers® Alternate Funding is a different kind of health plan. In addition to potential plan cost savings of up to 48% compared to other local plans,1 All Savers includes the potential for a surplus refund at yearend 2 if employee medical claims are lower than expected.

Get the details and ask for a quote at uhc.com/AllSaversTX or contact your broker

More savings Exemption from most Affordable Care Act regulations and state premium taxes

More flexibility A variety of plan designs, including wellness programs and telemedicine at no additional cost to employees

More stability Fixed monthly plan costs and safeguards to help protect your plan from unexpected high claims

1 *48% savings based on Q2 2020 UnitedHealthcare internal analysis between UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company and All Savers medical plans with groups of 5-50 eligible employees.

2 Please consult a tax and/or legal advisor to determine if, by receiving this surplus refund, there are any restrictions or obligations, or whether the surplus refund is taxable. Surplus refund available only where allowed by state law.

Administrative services provided by United HealthCare Services, Inc. or their affiliates, and UnitedHealthcare Service LLC in NY. Stop-loss insurance is underwritten by All Savers Insurance Company (except MA, MN, NJ and NY), UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company in MA and MN, UnitedHealthcare Life Insurance Company in NJ, and UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company of New York in NY. B2B EI21665350.0 4/21 © 2021 United HealthCare Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 21-573929-F

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better health. Part of making healthcare easier to understand is price transparency and knowing how much a medical procedure or doctor’s visit will cost. We encourage healthcare providers to be more transparent with their patients about costs, including posting prices for treatments. For in-network providers, BCBSTX can help members know the costs involved. However, for out-of-network providers, BCBSTX does not have that same clarity in pricing. We know that members are sensitive to their premium and out of-pocket costs and we want to help them make overall prices for services as a top priority. That’s why we are committed to increasing access and providing transparency for our members through online tools and personal services like our Benefit Value Advisors whom our members can call and learn about in-network providers and the estimated cost for a procedure at each provider.

Companies face continuous challenges with their healthcare choices. How does a business owner balance the benefits of self-insured options with the more standard plans?

ing their employees with best-in-class customer service, preventive health and wellness programs, member discounts, and access to the largest provider network in Texas.

Looking forward, what do you think the healthcare landscape will look like, say, five years from now?

AWSTIN GREGG: I believe the healthcare landscape

in five years will be fueled with innovation and technology. In the past 12 months, we have seen a strong emergence of the utilization of technology to increase convenience for the consumer. A particular emergence was telehealth and the supporting technology to deliver clinical care. This has shown to increase attendance to appointments, increase convenience, and in several instances maintain or exceed average outcome measures. I believe we are on the cutting edge of a truly exciting chapter in healthcare, and one that we’ll be perfecting over the next five years.

CHRISTOPHER CROW: The vision is that five years from now, we’ll see primary care for all, with local primary care providers who are empowered to stay central to each patient’s individual care. The

“When people are empowered with information about healthcare quality and cost, they may make more informed choices and save money.”

SCOT T FL AN N ERY

There is no one-size-fits-all solution, nor is there a general rule of thumb regarding which options make sense for every employer. Much like healthcare has evolved over the past several decades taking a turn toward looking at the whole patient, an effective benefit strategy must look at the whole company—this means their strategic/growth goals, hiring/retention strategy, risk tolerance/aversion, administrative capacity, and even their strategic partners. An employer-centric approach that examines all of this and then builds a strategy around it, based on the available options, is most likely to be sustainable long-term.

SHARA MCCLURE: All companies are looking at their budgets and ways to save money. Our customers want choice, customization, and flexibility but cost and affordability are a top priority. BCBSTX provides its group members with a unique mix of cost-competitive health plans that provide employers with flexibility and choice while providDAVID GOLDFARB:

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best way to create this wave of real change is to remove the obstacles that prevent patients from seeking care in the most accessible and least costly environments and to create payment models that incentivize providers to deliver care focused on quality and outcomes, not just number of visits.

Together, we can make sure that people live the longest, healthiest, best lives possible.

MIKE SHEEHAN: In the future, we will see transformations in how care is delivered, received, and paid for. I believe the biggest transformation will come from a combination of medical and life sciences integrated with love and support from family and friends, resulting in the highest quality of care. As the complexity of healthcare grows, we will naturally turn to family and friends for assistance to make the best possible decisions. At IntelliCentrics, we make this easier by providing the ability for patients to include trusted family and friends earlier and more deeply in the healthcare process.

When family and friends are involved, the patient’s adherence and ability to follow the care regimen prescribed by doctors increases significantly, setting them on the right track for improved health.

The driving force to integrate love and science for a patient stems from the premise that when both influences are working together, we can be healthier, stronger, and happier.

SCOTT FLANNERY: Technology likely will continue to shape how we deliver care. As more consumers and healthcare professionals move to a digital-first mindset, virtual care and digital therapeutics may play increasingly important roles in how people access care. For instance, virtual care has expanded from providing treatment to also focus on prevention and disease detection before it starts and helping people conveniently manage chronic conditions. Using wearables–smartwatches, continuous blood glucose monitors, and connected asthma inhalers–can facilitate the sharing of near real-time data back to patients and healthcare professionals, helping encourage a more active and data-driven approach to preventing disease and treating chronic conditions.

KAREN PINKSTAFF: Healthcare will become more patient-centric. It’s difficult to say with certainty what the ecosystem will look like going forward.

The north star that we suggest leaders participating in this ecosystem focus on is providing a massively customizable experience and care plan for patients/ employees. If you’re focused on delivering that, you will likely see success for your organization, payer provider, or employer in the future.

DAVID GOLDFARB: Ideally, healthcare in the future will look more decentralized and more local out of a need to address the changing workforce. This will juxtapose the likely consolidation within the healthcare industry and possibly new, disruptive players entering the space. There are bound to be more options and an increased focus on consumer choice, which will require consumer education.

When healthcare becomes more transparent and accessible, true member engagement and education will become possible. It will require dramatic change being made to today’s model where incentives are generally misaligned and navigating the system is excessively complex.

Mental health is becoming a routine part of the conversation these days.

In what way does an employee’s mental health contribute to a healthcare organization’s success?

AWSTIN GREGG: The relevancy of the mental health

of employees relates to an organization reaching

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its internal and external goals together. Ensuring our organization has resources to address mental health is equally as crucial as ensuring physical health. In my opinion, one of the most significant ways an organization can promote an employee’s mental health is by choosing leaders who have the skill of leadership. The ability to communicate crit-

MIKE SHEEHAN: Micro Epidemiology will be the greatest asset in improving quality while lowering costs. In this instance, IntelliCentrics defines Micro Epidemiology as “the study of how I, as a unique individual, react to each of the many different environments I encounter during the course of a day, week, month, or year.” For example, using

“There is mounting evidence that an emphasis on primary care, coupled with a value-based care (VBC) payment model, is the roadmap that leads to improved quality and cost effectiveness in healthcare.”

S HARA M CC LU R E

icism constructively, the ability to resolve conflict civilly, and the ability to understand EQ without condescension, belittling, or hostility are just a few of the ways employers can promote mental health.

What do you view as the key technologies in improving cost, quality, and access in healthcare in the U.S.?

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IntelliCentrics definition of Micro Epidemiology, a standard blood test today will be replaced with a deep understanding of where I have been, who I have been in contact with, and what time of day it happened. Integrating additional perspectives such as these will provide tremendous insights into understanding how we individually react in the environments we occupy. This will result in

a higher quality and lower cost treatment that is unique to the patient. IntelliCentrics has already begun creating Micro Epidemiology insights by leveraging exponentially greater data sources inclusive of environmental data, and our early work is proving to be very promising.

As we start to see some businesses opening back up, there are still a lot of people who are out of a job right now and have lost their employer health insurance coverage. How is are you helping those people?

SHARA MCCLURE: This pandemic and the ensuing job losses have left many people without health insurance coverage at a time when they need it most. People may not realize that if they need healthcare coverage, we are now in a Special Enrollment Period (SEP) that runs through August 15. The good thing is, no proof of a qualifying life event is required to buy a health plan during this SEP. Moreover, with the enactment of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, more Texans are now eligible to receive additional funding that could lower their monthly costs for health insurance coverage.

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END MARK

EARLY ACTIVIST In 1944, Juanita Craft became the first Black woman to vote in a Dallas County election.

First Lady of Dallas Civil Rights J U A N I TA J . C R A F T Feb. 9, 1902–Aug. 6, 1985

edited by MARIAH TERRY

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uanita craft was born in round Rock as the granddaughter of former slaves and the daughter of schoolteachers. When her mother died of tuberculosis in 1918 after being denied care at a Whites-only facility, the experience ignited a fire in Craft, who went on to devote her life to desegregating Texas. While working as a maid at The Adolphus Hotel in 1935, Craft joined the NAACP. In 1942, she chaired the organization’s Dallas membership committee and increased chapter membership numbers to the third-highest in the country. Two years later, Craft became the first Black woman to vote in a Dallas County public election. Throughout the 1950s, she organized numerous anti-segregation protests.

Her 1955 protest of the State Fair of Texas led to the event’s eventual desegregation. Craft also fought to integrate some of the largest education systems in the state and succeeded in her efforts to desegregate theaters, restaurants, and trains. In 1975, Craft was elected to represent District 6 on the Dallas City Council. She devoted her two terms to advancing the rights of Hispanic and Native American Texans, seeing herself as a defender of every American’s civil rights.

COURTESY OF F R O M T H E C O L L E C T I O N S O F T H E D A L L A S H I S T O R Y & A R C H I V E S DIVISION , DALL AS PU B LIC LIB R ARY

J

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LET’S KICK GLASS TOGETHER

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