Community & Guest List

Marcia Moran has written over fifty business plans and helped entrepreneurs strategize over how to differentiate their companies in changing environments. Her twenty-plus years of experience helping other entrepreneurs caused her to found her own firm, Performance Architect, in 2012 and co-founded Positive Business DC that same year. After suffering a major stroke in 2014, Marcia applied her skills in planning and strategy as she strived to become whole. Over time she learned to walk again, but Marcia struggled with aphasia, a language disorder. She joined Toastmasters International hoping to regain her speaking abilities, and it helped some, but in August 2017 she discovered a technological breakthrough that minimized her speaking disability. Let's hear from Marcia what coming back from the stroke was like.

Michelle Mekky has more than 20 years of experience as a broadcast journalist and public relations executive, leading award-winning marketing and PR campaigns for some of the nation’s biggest and most diverse brands and businesses. After her years as a veteran journalist, Michelle launched her own company, Mekky Media Relations Inc., in 2016, to bring her brand of PR to the market and deliver powerful publicity. Michelle has led her company through a fast-paced launch and high-profile successes, including winning a prestigious 2018 Stevie Award for Women in Business, receiving a bronze medal in the Entrepreneur of the Year category. In 2020 Mekky Media won a Stevie Award for Public Relations Agency of the Year receiving a bronze medal and Bulldog Award for Best Not-for-Profit/ Association Campaign for Komen Chicago's Race for the Cure. Also in 2018, Michelle and Mekky Media were selected to be part of the Forbes Agency Council, a prestigious organization for owners and executives of PR, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. In 2019, Michelle was named a Crain’s Chicago Business Notable Entrepreneur, and Mekky Media was honored with two Publicity Club of Chicago Golden Trumpet Awards, in the categories of Advocacy (for its work with Komen Chicago) and Media Relations (for its work with Abt Electronics). The agency also was named a PR News Agency Elite Award Finalist for Media Relations in 2019.

Maryann Remsburg is an adventurer in every area of life and as an ICF certified coach, inspires her clients to look at their lives as an adventurous journey ready to explore. Maryann is co-author of Your Adventurous Life Awaits; 7 Coordinates for Living a Purposeful Life of Adventure and co-founder of Adventurous Life with her husband Brian. With her four kids and husband, she loves to hike, bike, and have daily time to thank God for his many gifts.

Marie Gettel-Gilmartin, founder of Fertile Ground Communications, is a writer and marketing communications coach who loves to connect people and resources or solve seemingly impossible problems. She guides clients in discovering what makes them special and helps them share that with the world. She has two podcasts: Finding Fertile Ground features grit and resilience stories from historically excluded populations., and Companies That Care highlights business leaders who are working to create a better world for all. Marie helps clients communicate about pressing issues; creates compelling websites that showcase company culture; implements world-class sustainability and community engagement strategies; ghostwrites for clients to position them as experts in their fields; writes communications that boost employee engagement; coaches leaders and executives on how to strengthen communications and leadership; helps win work by writing compelling, unbeatable proposals and award applications; and coordinates authors and reviewers to produce documents in one voice.

Marion Zola has always been a writer and animal lover. Her first writing was poetry, until she began writing screenplays and sitcoms. Eventually, she wrote her first book, “All The Good Ones Are Married,” which became a Lifetime movie. Along the way she began producing with a vampire movie and, for the last few years, a show on shelter dogs entitled “Shelter Me. Her second book is “Romancing The Dog, The Struggle to Make a Pound Dog Happy in Beverly Hills.”