Building a Social Business from the Ground Up
October 7, 2016
Hosted by Marcia Zidle
[Download MP3s: Full Show Marcia's Musings] [itunes] [Bookmark Episode]
Guest Information
Episode Description
Three key factors play essential roles in building a social business from the ground up: brand, impact and an innovative product. Brittany Underwood, Founder and CEO of Akola, has built a social business through a nonprofit framework. Akola exists to empower women to become agents of transformation in their communities and operates both domestically and internationally. From raw materials to assembly to distribution, Brittany shares how she has managed to create a social brand that has a measurable impact in every level of the supply chain and what she has learned along the way. Akola's programs have been instrumental in reshaping the lives of over 500 women and their children in Uganda and the US. Most recently, Akola launched a partnership with luxury retailer Neiman Marcus to launch the first full impact brand in this luxury space.This partnership has provided work, training and employment opportunity to over 100 women who are hand making jewelry.
The Business Edge
Archives Available on VoiceAmerica Business Channel
Your entrepreneurial vision has taken hold. Your business is growing. It's everything you hoped for and more. Or is it? With growth come bigger headaches: more hiring, more capital, more customers to satisfy, more employees to deal with, more plates to juggle and more demands on your time. Whether you realize it or not, you are experiencing Growing Pains!
On The Business Edge, with host Marcia Zidle, The Smart Moves Coach, you will hear how to make the leap from running a stressful business that is always putting out fires to leading a successful company that operates like a finely tuned management machine. You will meet savvy, street smart entrepreneurs and business leaders who’ll share their stories of success and even missteps as well as practical solutions to the unique challenges faced by growing companies.
Marcia Zidle
Marcia Zidle, The Smart Moves Coach, works with entrepreneurial ventures and small to medium size companies to build and leverage their leadership foundation to move from Start-Up to Scale-Up to Successful Enterprise. In other words, she helps them take the growing pains out of growth.
Coming from a unique entrepreneurial and corporate background, she’s both street smart and strategic as she guides CEO’s and their management teams to focus on the right priorities - the right talent - the right alignment - the right performance to get the right results that will satisfy their investors, customers and other stakeholders.
With 25 years of management, business consulting and international experience, she brings an expertise in executive and team leadership; employee engagement and performance; personal and organization change; emotional and social intelligence. Her clients range from privately owned businesses to mid-market professional firms to divisions of global companies in the following industries: healthcare, financial services, insurance, manufacturing, transportation, high-tech, hospitality as well as governments and nonprofit agencies.
Marcia's "claim to fame" is as a global citizen, living as an expatriate with her family in Scandinavia and Australia. In fact, one of her children is an "Aussie.” She’s traveled in over 30 countries throughout Europe, the Middle East, Far East and South Pacific.
Episode Directory
November 2016
October 2016
- 10/28/2016: Becoming An Entrepreneur Who Thrives in Business Rather than Crumbles Listen Now test
- 10/21/2016: Big Box to Little Box- Same Rules Apply!
- 10/14/2016: Encore: Transitioning from startup to a real company. 5 Essentials to get you there. Listen Now test
- 10/7/2016: Building a Social Business from the Ground Up
