Keeping Small Businesses Competitive through Sharing Best Practices of Global Leaders

Archive for May, 2018

Judith Fine-Sarchielli, Founder of Iconic Renaissance Woman-Marketing for Creative Entrepreneurs and the author of “Tales of a Gluten-Free Gypsy”

Judith Fine-Sarchielli’s BIO

Judith Fine-Sarchielli

Judith Fine-Sarchielli, * The Iconic Renaissance Woman: Transitional Marketing for Creative Entrepreneurs, is the founder and owner of a unique marketing and coaching business where she shares her knowledge and resources about creative marketing, life stories, and Tuscan gluten-free cuisine to promote her clients’ transformation. Judith is an intuitive, vibrational educator, author, mentor, food activist, and citizen journalist.

She is certified as both a Vision Board Coach and Transactional Analysis Practitioner.
Judith was nominated for the San Fernando Business Journal’s “Women who Mean Business Award. Most recent interview with Marie Grace Berg, Founder/Podcast Host at Today’s Leading Women.

Judith lived in Tuscany for twenty years and is a Gluten-Free Tuscan-style chef, cooking instructor, author, and designer. She was the first person in the US to initiate cooking classes at Whole Foods Market, where she designed their first cooking school, was their first in-store gluten customer consultant. She has taught cuisine for Sur La Table, Williams Sonoma, University of Denver, The Denver Botanic Gardens, and private homes in Tuscany, California and Colorado.

Judith has always been a Hyphenate, a role Webster defines as “a person who does many things at the same time.” She uses her integrative and intuitive energy tools to teach people how to create and manifest their dreams and goals and improve their health with ease and fun through one-to-one, personal, and group sessions. Judith has taught cooking for over thirty years, and now combines the g-f diet with the Paleo Diet. She has written an about- to-be-published cookbook-memoir, Tales of A Gluten-Free Gypsy, about the dangers of the gluten-free diet fad, that includes traditional Tuscan recipes translated to gluten-free.

Judith lives in a Topanga Canyon, California, in a tree-house-like studio and enjoys the coyotes, owls, mountain lions, and an occasional rattlesnake on her hikes. She is also the proud grandmother of four-year old Bianca Sequoia Sola Sarchielli.

*Sark-eee-L-eee

http://glutenfreecuisine.weebly.com/

 

In the Spotlight Interview

1. BSO: You are the Founder of Iconic Renaissance Woman-Marketing for Creative Entrepreneurs and the author of “Tales of a Gluten-Free Gypsy”. Please share with us your path to these roles.

JFS: My path has been an adventurous one with an amazing variety of twists and turns.

My parents gave me art lessons at age three at the Denver Art Museum and, by the time I was eight, I was determined to go to Paris to study art.

I went to eight different colleges and, in the middle of my junior year, made it to Paris, where I studied art and French. On a side trip to Italy, I fell in love with a Florentine man.

I returned to the states after a year abroad, graduated from art school, and moved to New York, where I worked as a junior editor in book, magazine, and record publishing.

Due to a series of unexpected incidents, I ended up marrying my Florentine lover and moved to Italy, where I acted small character roles in films with directors such as Fellini and Mike Nichols and also in avant-garde and feminist theater in Rome.

I became a mother of a son, and worked as a macrobiotic chef in an exclusive macrobiotic restaurant in Rome. Then, I became a fashion designer for one of the most elite boutiques in Rome that catered to actresses and models. At the same time, I joined a small radical feminist group who brought internationally known feminists to Rome, altered the Italian divorce and abortion laws, and produced an acclaimed film and play.

When my father called to say my mother was dying of cancer, I got on the next plane to Denver, helped her transition, and eventually brought my son there.

I did a few part-time jobs at the same time as a single mother. I taught French and art at a private school, cleaned houses, became a caterer, continued fashion design, and sold my designs to six top stores in NYC in one day. I also studied computer software and pattern design. Also, I  started the first of three years of the Colorado Women’s Festival and began therapy.

At the same time, I was a temp for international corporations in their marketing departments. My last assignment was with the international marketing department at IBM in San Francisco. During the same period, I also taught cooking for Sur la Table there.

I then moved to LA to be with my son as I didn’t feel safe traveling during 911. In LA,I was hired to design a teaching/working kitchen for a French company, and when their LA office closed, was hired by Whole Foods Market in the San Fernando Valley. I developed their first cooking school and taught there for 3- ½ years. I was their first food consultant and researched the gluten issue for our clients. Whole Foods was not interested gluten at the time. I continued to teach cooking at Sur La Table and Williams Sonoma, Whole Foods Market, and to cater to elite private events.

I began to write my book about gluten when I left Whole Foods. I decided I had been an entrepreneur for most of my working life, and after obtaining my certificates as a Transactional Analysis Practitioner, and a certified vision board teacher, I began coaching creative entrepreneurs on communication and the use of words in communicating with male and female brains. I emphasize the important of diet and healthy life style for the entrepreneurial life. I also studied The Book Yourself Solid marketing system and use that as well with my clients who want to grow their business and make a difference.

I babysit my 3-1/2 year old granddaughter 24 + hours a week.

 

2. BSO: Take us through a typical day, start to finish.

JFS: On the days I babysit, I work from 9 am to 9:30 pm, 4 days a week.

Other days, I awake about 5 am and do my daily ritual:

meditation, inspirational reading, gratitudes, forgivenesses, chakras, essential oils, yoga, breathing and medicine ball exercises.

I scan my email and then break for breakfast. I answer emails and market research for new clients until 11:30 am. I break for lunch, read and take a short nap, follow up emails, do online research for new food info and inspiration, until 4 or 5 pm. Break for dinner, do some more coaching online and by phone, and walk for ½-hour. I turn off the computer at 8 pm unless I am coaching.

Weekends, I sometimes see a friend and walk, go to a film, or out for lunch or dinner.

 

3. BSO: What was the best advice you received when you founded Iconic Renaissance Woman-Marketing for Creative Entrepreneurs ??

JFS: To work with creatives because I could understand their stories well and they would resonate with my ideas.

My best tool is my instinct and imagination. I am also a very compassionate, Highly Sensitive Person (HSP),and understand people’s pain with ease. I work well with musicians, artists, actors, and writers.

 

4. BSO: What are your strategies for building awareness of your organization, short and long term?

JFS: My best clients come through word of mouth. I don’t actively market very much as I don’t have time to add many more clients right now, due to babysitting.

I am very low tech and go mainly on instinct. I have the right words to ask the right questions when I meet someone who might be a potential client. I also send potential clients I meet helpful hints and ideas and do brainstorming sessions about their challenges. The more I focus on them, the more likely people follow my lead.

 

5. BSO: What is your proudest achievement?

JFS: A computer laboratory project I developed with no funding for my son’s high school that won a best of state award.

 

6. BSO: What are Your Top 3 book recommendations?

JFS:

1. How Your Mind Can Keep You Well: Roy Masterson
2. Active Imagination: Carl Jung
3. Marcus Aurelius: Meditations

 

7. BSO: What charitable causes are most meaningful to you and why?

JFS: I am committed to the Organic Consumers Organization and Food Day because of my belief that we can heal the planet through healthy diet and food.

Compassion and Choices allows individuals to choose the time and manner of their transition to the next level.

 

8. BSO: Who has been most influential toward your accomplishments, professional & personal ?

JFS: My most recent therapists, Barbara Foley and Sharon Dunas. Both extremely creative, knowledgeable and caring experts. Also, my counselor for 25 years, Dr John Samuel Leiby.

 

9. BSO: What is your advice for entrepreneurs who are 1-3 months away from launching their new business?

JFS:

• Research and interview successful entrepreneurs in your field
• Establish a narrow niche for your target market
• Get to know the competition
• Get trained by a marketing pro such as my Book Yourself Solid Coach, Ana Melikian. http://www.anamelikian.com
• Be consistent with your self-care. A healthy diet is absolutely essential to maintain your reserves. You will need them as successful entrepreneurs often work 60-80 hour weeks
• Create a strong technical and social network team
• Identify your essence and share that in your business
• Have fun with your work. Quit if it isn’t fun. Do something that engages you.

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Risa Mish, Faculty Member in the Management and Leadership of Organizations at Cornell’s Graduate School of Management

Risa Mish’ BIO

Risa Mish

Risa Mish is a member of the Management and Leadership of Organizations faculty at Cornell University’s S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management, where she teaches courses in team leadership and critical and strategic thinking, and serves as Faculty Director of the Johnson Leadership Fellows program. She is the winner of the Apple Teaching Award, given by the MBA graduating class to honor a faculty member who exemplifies “outstanding leadership and enduring educational excellence”; the Executive MBA Globe Award for Teaching Excellence, given to a faculty member by the EMBA graduating class on the basis of “enduring educational influence in motivating students to achieve and excel”; and the Stephen Russell’61. Distinguished Teaching Award, given by the Johnson 5th Reunion Class to a faculty member “whose teaching and example have continued to influence graduates five years into their post-MBA careers.”

Prof. Mish is an honors graduate of Cornell University and Cornell Law School, is admitted to practice law in New York and before the U.S. Supreme Court, and runs her own consulting firm through which she trains and advises companies and senior executives on a range of leadership and employee relations topics, and serves as a keynote speaker and workshop leader at regional, national and global conferences. She is a member of the boards of directors of SmithBucklin Corporation, TheraCare, Inc., and the United Way of Tompkins County (NY), and is a Trustee of the Tompkins County (NY) Public Library.

http://www.cornell.edu/

 

In the Spotlight Interview

1. BSO : You are a faculty member in the Management and Leadership of Organizations at Cornell’s Graduate School of Management. You are also the Principal of a human capital practice. Please share with us your path to receiving these roles.

RM: So many life stories have an element of Serendipity to them, and that includes mine.

I started my career as a lawyer with a focus on labor and employment law issues, first practicing with a global law firm based in New York City, and then later as a partner in a boutique law firm, also in New York City. The big change in my life path came courtesy of my older child, Daniel, who was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome when he was five years old.

My husband and I agreed that my current law firm partner life was not a good fit with what Daniel was likely to need from me, and so we started brainstorming alternatives. John and I had met at Cornell when I was a 3L and he was a PhD student, and we thought that perhaps Ithaca might be the right place in which to rear a special needs child. I cast around for job opportunities, and found that the one that best met our family’s needs was in Alumni Affairs & Development at my alma mater, Cornell Law School.

So, I gave up my law firm partnership, we moved to Ithaca, and I began working for Cornell while also continuing to advise my clients on labor and employment law issues. Eventually, my work at Cornell brought me to the Johnson Graduate School of Management, and through a series of twists and turns, I got the chance to apply for a role there that combined teaching with management of the leadership program. Because my initial foray into teaching was well received by the students, the school expanded that portion of my job into a full-time teaching load that now includes teaching in the One-Year Ithaca MBA, NYC Tech Campus MBA, Two-Year MBA, Executive MBA, and Executive Education programs, and allows me to run my own human capital practice, as well.

 

2. BSO: Take us through a typical day, start to finish.

RM: When you work with students, and also work with clients, there is no such thing as a “typical day”!

I generally focus my early morning time on client work so that I can devote my full “regular work day” to my students.

I start my day with a short exercise routine, and then spend the rest of the early morning updating content for the keynotes and workshops that I give on leadership topics and/or communicating with one or more of the companies that I continue to advise on labor and employment law matters.

I teach all year ‘round, so during the day I am either teaching classes in leadership or critical and strategic thinking or preparing for the next day’s class or grading or meeting individually with students about coursework, career plans, and life issues. I also build into my day regular “social media breaks” so that I can keep up with and post to Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook – platforms through which I both maintain contact with my former students, and also stay current with issues of the day.

In the evenings, I spend time with my two kids and my husband, do more work for clients, and then end the day with at least 30 minutes of reading literary fiction. That is my small gift to myself. It allows me to decompress from worldly concerns and engage my imagination.

 

3. BSO: What was the best advice you received when you were given your role at Cornell?

RM: One of my fellow faculty members told me that when students leave my class, they should feel as if they have been given “a bag of magic beans”. What he meant by that is that what students want when they take a course from a practitioner (as opposed to a course taught by a research scholar) are very practical and effective tools that they can apply right away, and from which they can see results right away.

That turned out to be excellent advice. When I am thinking about how to shape the content that I deliver – whether in the classroom or in front of an executive audience at a conference or in a workshop – I am always thinking, “Practical, Practical, Practical. Apply, Apply, Apply.” You want to deliver insights, yes, but you want to deliver them in a way that allows your audience to apply what they’ve learned to the problems they will be called upon to solve.

 

4. BSO: What are your strategies for building awareness of your practice, short and long term?

RM: This is an area to which I should be devoting much more attention than I do. I have mostly been operating on the “word of mouth” strategy. The workshops and keynotes that I give usually lead to other invitations. What I should probably be doing is building a website, blogging, and getting an agent!

 

5. BSO: What is your proudest achievement?

RM: Being crystal clear about my Core Values, and living in a way that is consistent with those values.

 

6. BSO: What are Your Top 3 book recommendations?

RM: I am a serious fan of literary fiction. I think there is more to learn there about the important issues in life than you will find in a shelf full of self-help books.

It is hard to choose a Top 3, but among my very favorite novels are:

Pride and Prejudice;

Atonement by Ian McEwan;

Possession, by A.S. Byatt.

Lest your listeners think that I value British fiction above American literature, I would also very strongly recommend

“Beloved” by Toni Morrison;

 “Olive Kitteridge” by Elizabeth Strout;

and “House of Mirth” by Edith Wharton.

 

7. BSO: What other charitable causes are most meaningful to you and why?

RM: I serve on the board of directors of the United Way of Tompkins County and as a Trustee of the Tompkins County Public Library.

The United Way is, in many ways, the community’s “safety net”,  funding non-profit organizations that help the neediest members of our community and also ensuring that those organizations meet standards of excellence in order to operate consistently in the best interest of the people they serve. The public library – together with public schools and an independent press — is one the institutions that is most essential to a functioning democracy.

 

8. BSO: Who has been most influential toward your accomplishments, professional & personal?

RM: My parents, who taught me the power of perseverance (one of my Core Values), and my husband, who reminds me that a full life consists of more than one’s professional work.

 

9. BSO: What is your advice for entrepreneurs who are 1-3 months away from launching their new business?

RM: Be very clear about What Problem You are Solving;

Why, and for Whom, Your Proposed Solution is Optimal;

and Why You Are the Right Person to be Solving It.


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A One in a Million Mentor : Beth Goldstein (www.m-edge.com)

 

I met Beth Goldstein (www.m-edge.com) 14 years ago when I was an M.B.A. student in her marketing class at Boston University’s Graduate School of Management. I was a stockbroker working full-time at Fidelity Investments. I had been managing private retail clients’ wealth at Merrill Lynch’s downtown Boston location for several years before I joined Fidelity Investments in 1994. After obtaining my NASD Series 7,63 licenses, I was tremendously enjoying helping small business owners and families make profitable investments and achieve their financial long-term goals. Having received my financial services training at Merrill Lynch immediately upon graduating from Boston University’s School of Management, I felt that I had arrived at the doorstep of success: I was eager to learn more and was anticipating the next chapter of my career within the financial services industry.

 

Beth transformed my career track.

 

Beth was the consummate business professor – engaging, dynamic, passionate about sharing her knowledge in marketing, excited to challenge the students and retrain their brain to think strategically about making optimal decisions for an organization’s sustainable long term growth. Thinking back on many weekday class sessions at 9 pm, she kept us on our toes and invigorated our minds. Suffice to say, it was one of my favorite classes.

As I became fortunate to find out 14 years later when she mentored me, Beth’s teaching style mirrored her mentoring style. Her depth in caring and truly understanding the passions and skill sets of her clients, along with their aspirations and life goals, inspired me and magically fused my diverse skill sets together, enabling me to transform my life path.

Upon receiving my B.S. in Business Administration, I spent the next 11 years of my career advising retail clients and managing their wealth portfolios. Over the next 10 years, I transferred my corporate business skills to the charitable fundraising industry where I championed causes that raised funds for pediatric cancer, pediatric rehabilitation and homeless families. Through my extensive work with children, I began teaching workshops that coached non-traditional urban students to be effective fundraisers. I partnered with community colleges in Boston, Roxbury and Cambridge. I collaborated with non-profit organizations serving underemployed professionals and taught fundraising workshops. To tap into my writing and public relations passion, I created beyondsuccessonline.com in 2009 to share the best practices for personal and business success (via my 1:1 interviews) of global leaders.

Following Beth’s counsel, I began focusing my consulting practice on providing fundraising coaching to executive directors and non-profit professionals with emphasis on creating immediately actionable corporate sponsorship campaigns and building/managing an effective Board of Directors. My love of helping non-profits serve their community and my joy in sharing my 20+ years of business management experience with urban college students created a path for me that maximized my skill sets as a business professional.

Beth tapped into my core passions of writing and coaching. She reinvigorated within me the joys that I had initially experienced 14 years earlier as a young business professional embarking on a career in 2 of the most highly regarded financial services companies in Boston.

Beth transformed my life through her vibrant way of drawing out the professional achievements that meant the most to me. Through her talent in assessing details in my big picture, she leveraged my skills while helping me determine multiple business needs within the community that my skill sets could serve.

She brought back my joie de vivre and my core desire to help professionals achieve sustainable long-term growth at their companies. I am so grateful to Beth for all that she has done to help me carve out a new path toward a fulfilling future that empowers my young adult students and senior professional students.


Edith Moricz
Boston University Alumna
SMG ’91,GSM 2001

 

http://www.m-edge.com/

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Angelo Garofalo, Owner and Designer at Angelo Wood Design

Angelo Garofalo’s BIO

Born and raised in Brighton, Massachusetts of Italian immigrants.  My parents, Lucia and Salvatore Garofalo, worked as a seamstress and a tailor before retiring just a few years ago.  I grew up as a Boston sports addict, living about 3 miles from Fenway Park.  For me Boston sports was a tale of two worlds–agonizing as a child and but exhilarating as an adult.

After receiving a full scholarship and attending Boston University, I earned a bachelor’s degree in education with a concentration in physical education in 1989.  My first teaching position was working in a residential school for boys.  After acquiring a position in the Lexington Public Schools, I moved to Wakefield, Massachusetts with my future wife Angelique.  Yes, Angelo and Angelique.  When we decided to get married we moved out to Phillipston, Massachusetts where we reside today.  In 2007,  I earned my master’s degree in educational leadership and acquired my elementary principal’s license.

During those early years in education, I met a teacher and friend who introduced me to woodworking.  I loved it so much I began purchasing tools and machinery as well as taking workshops and classes to develop my skills.  I became an avid reader of several woodworking publications and spent my summers creating a variety of woodworking projects.  In 2005, I immersed myself in digital photography.  As the digital age exploded shortly after the turn of the century, I purchased my first DSLR camera and developed my professional photography skills through online courses and trainings.  Candid portraits became a specialty of mine.

After the past 10-20 years mastering skills in woodworking and photography, my creative juices got the best of me.  I decided to retire early from education after 22 years and today I work for myself out of my own home focused on a creative combination of woodworking and photography.  Angelo Wood Design was born after a year and a half of research and planning in December 2013.  The transition has been challenging, frightening yet rewarding and extremely satisfying.

 

In the Spotlight Interview

1. You are Owner and Designer at Angelo Wood Design . Please share with us your path to this role.

Angelo: My first career was dedicating more than 20 years of my life to educating children as a teacher and principal. While working those years in education,  I developed passion and skills in the areas of woodworking and photography. The idea of taking this passion to the next level became increasingly enticing. Ultimately, I made the decision to retire from education and plunge wholeheartedly into my creative ambitions.

After a year of researching the technology and acquiring the necessary capital equipment, I created an artistic marriage between woodworking and photography. And Angelo Wood Design was born in the fall of 2013.

 

2. Take us through a typical day, start to finish.

Angelo: My typical day starts with a prioritized list of tasks. Depending on the size and number of projects on a particular day, I will allocate times for designing, creating and finishing projects. In addition, I check my email 4-5 times a day. Viewing and posting on social media is dictated by the optimal and suggested times of the day for each social media site. I always schedule time to eat and take a break away from the work.

There are, however, several scheduling challenges that impact a typical day. These include traveling to meet with clients or acquire necessary supplies and participating in training’s that allow me to stay abreast of new software developments that impact my products and services.

 

3. What was the best advice you received when you joined Angelo Wood Design?

Angelo:

“Enjoy the journey”
Through all the challenges and speed bumps, if you do not enjoy what you are doing, it will impact the results.

 

4. What are your strategies for building awareness of your organization, short and long term?

Angelo:

1) Wood carved gifts to local and charitable organizations as well as targeted businesses
2) Using  various social Networks – LinkedIn has delivered the most success and connections
3) Participating in local business and entrepreneurial groups
4) Coordinate opportunities display my work to the public
5) Participating in Arts and Craft events
6) Providing newsletters and press releases

 

5. What is your proudest achievement?

Angelo: Taking the risk and making the leap away from a secure and salaried position.

 

6. What are your top 3 book recommendations?

Angelo:

“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” (Stephan Covey)
“Paris 1919” (Margaret McMillan)
“Thirteen Days” (Robert F. Kennedy)

 

7. What charitable causes are most meaningful to you & why?

Angelo: Support for military veterans and their immediate families. Military personnel risk their lives for our protection and freedoms. If they are injured or killed while serving this country, financial support should be allocated to those veterans and their families in order for them to sustain a manageable life.

Child Abuse/Animal Abuse

It is a cowardly act bearing down on victims who cannot defend themselves. I believe no child or animal deserves that trauma for the rest of their lives.

8. Who has been most influential toward your accomplishments, professional & personal?

Angelo: First, and foremost my wife who has more strength than anyone I know. She has supported me in this risky and frightening venture from the start; a handful of close friends and family members who took the time and effort to not only support me, but challenge me to be a stronger person; and my parents, Salvatore and Lucia Garofalo who took a similarly frightening journey as immigrants to America from Italy more than 50 years ago.

 

9. What advice would you give an entrepreneur in the first 90 days of launching a business venture within this industry?

Angelo:

1) Streamline–focus on creating one or two great products and then add new selections.
2) Have a “regroup plan” when things go awry and you may get frustrated. Ask yourself how you are going to handle it when it happens. I take a break away from work and will do something fun that completely takes my mind off the situation.
3) In this field, keep in mind that creativity does not have a schedule. Do not force creativity. Let it happen.
4) In the first 90 days, do not forget to direct attention to yourself. You will likely be working long hours but I think it is imperative to do something else and get away from your work from time to time. Take care of yourself or it will impact the efficiency and quality of your work. Don’t compromise life’s essentials–a good diet and regular sleep.

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Nicole Noonan, Esq., CEO of Novitas US

NICOLE NOONAN’s BIO

Nicole Noonan, Esq., CEO of Novitas US, is a nationally recognized divorce expert. Crowned the “Fairy Godmother of Divorce” by the New York Post’s Julia Marsh, Nicole is an advocate for the protection of women and their rights. Nicole is a frequent featured speaker on Bloomberg’s “Talking Stock with Pimm Fox”. She has been featured on Good Morning America, Bloomberg TV, and WLNY’s “The Couch”

Recognized by New York Magazine as New York’s Women Leader’s in the Law 2014, Nicole holds a BA from Boston College and a JD from Seton Hall University School of Law. As a former matrimonial attorney, Nicole is very familiar with the issues facing the non-moneyed spouse. She remains a member of the New Jersey Bar.

 

In the Spotlight Interview

1. You are CEO at Novitas US. Please share with us your path to this role.

Nicole: While it is important to speak up and be heard, it is equally, if not more important to listen. This great advice as instilled in me by my mentor, Judge Douglas Fasciale, during my clerkship with him in Family Court. What really started me on my path was recognizing the value of listening. While practicing family law, my listening skills opened my eyes to the disparity of the money/non-moneyed spouse during family law proceedings. Hearing about the need to help level the disparity, I wanted to get involved. I wanted to be involved with a company that is well established and also “listen” to the needs of clients. I asked and again listened to top attorneys and financial advisers, who is the best at leveling the playing field for the non-moneyed spouse, the overwhelming answer was Novitas.

 

2. Take us through a typical day, start to finish.

Nicole: Time management is an essential part of my day. I have colleagues in the UK and clients throughout the United States. I make sure to start my day early so that if there are issues that need to be addressed with the UK, this can be done quickly. My day can also run late since we do work on the west coast. There is a lot of travel involved as well, but on a typical day in New York City where we are based, I begin each day with a scan of all latest emails and current news. This is followed by an early morning workout at Physique 57. I make a call to the UK to touch base. I head out to my morning appointments with attorneys. This could take me to anywhere in New York or New Jersey. If I am able to, I meet a client for a late lunch. I follow up with phone appointments, prepare information to be sent out to new applications. The evenings usually include a Bar Association or charity event.

 

3. What was the best advice you received when you joined Novitas US?

Nicole: Novitas has worked with well over 400 firms in the UK. They have perfected the process. Novitas UK director and founder Jason Reeve has a wealth of knowledge in this area. His experience is invaluable and something I utilize almost everyday.

 

4. What are your strategies for building awareness of your organization, short and long term?

Nicole: My goal is to bring awareness of divorce funding. While it is utilized across Europe, divorce funding is new to the US. My goal is not only to maintain our position as the market leader, but also to build awareness of the entire concept.

 

5. What is your proudest achievement?

Nicole: Becoming the first attorney in my family. We have a number of other professionals, but I was the first attorney and certainly the moment I felt most honored and cherished is when Judge Fasciale swore me in as a new lawyer and my grandmother, my hero, held the bible.

 

6. What are your top 3 book recommendations?

Nicole: a. ‘ Thrive ‘ by Arianna Huffington
             b. ‘Lean In ‘ by Sheryl Samberg
             c. ‘The “It” Factor’  by Leesa Rowland

 

7. What charitable causes are most meaningful to you & why?

Nicole: American Heart Association is a cause I have been involved in for a number of years. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women in the United States. It also hits close to home since heart disease runs in my family. Next summer, I will be co-chairing the American Heart Association Hamptons Heart Ball on Long Island.

 

8. Who has been most influential toward your accomplishments, professional & personal? 

Nicole: I have two wonderful people that are inspiring to me both personally and professionally, Judge Douglas Fasciale and my grandmother Alice Pyne. Judge Fasciale taught me the value of listening and treating all people with the dignity and respect they deserve. My grandmother taught me the value of hard work and determination.

 

9. What advice (for the first 90 days of launch) would you give to an entrepreneur starting a business venture within this industry?

Nicole: Some ventures can be started without a lot of capital, however this is not one of them. Since this is new to the United States, seeking out partners with experience is essential to development in this type of field.

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Business Services

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