![\"power-up-summit\"](\"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/power-up-summit.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The challenges women face, experiences of thriving despite many obstacles, and tips for success took center stage at FIU\u2019s inaugural Power Up summit, which brought together women leaders from South Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuccess is completion, deletion, creation,\u201d author Susan Ford Collins told participants. \u201cIt\u2019s knowing when a method isn\u2019t producing results and abandoning it if necessary\u2026 and thinking of the next great idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
Participants and experts at the half-day seminar discussed leadership and entrepreneurship, health, and financial wellness. Power Up is presented by the College of Business\u2019 Women\u2019s Alumni Council, a group formed in 2015 to support alumni from the College of Business.<\/p>\n
The May 27 event included a number of powerful spotlight speakers, among them entrepreneurs Misha Kuryla-Gomez of Misha\u2019s Cupcakes and Pilar Guzman-Zavala of Half Moon Empanadas, and top-level women executives from Ryder System, Baptist Outpatient Services, and the Miami Dolphins.<\/p>\n
Building a successful business is rarely easy and the speakers showed that passion can be derived from many places.<\/p>\n
The creation and launch of Half Moon Empanadas wasn\u2019t an easy task for Pilar Guzman-Zavala and her husband Juan Zavala, who opened the first store in 2008. As the business grew, so did the challenges, Guzman-Zavala said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a time when I couldn\u2019t get a bank loan despite having a signed contract for a store at Miami International Airport,\u201d said Guzman-Zavala. \u201cYou have to rationalize your failures and your fears – ask why, what the worst case scenario might be \u2013 so you won\u2019t go crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2015, Half Moon opened a store in the North Terminal Marketplace at Miami International Airport. Today they have seven stores, including Sawgrass Mills, FIU\u2019s Modesto Maidique Campus, Miami International Airport, and the University of Miami.<\/p>\n
For Misha Kuryla-Gomez (MIB \u201904), founder of Misha\u2019s Cupcakes, the financial need to get a job and wanting to be a stay-at-home mom were the impetus for becoming an entrepreneur. She started the business in 2005 from her kitchen and today owns five bakeries in South Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese women are down to earth, honest and say what they feel,\u201d said conference attendee Alexia Gonzalez, founder of networking and financial education group {My Man is Not} My Plan. \u201cMisha got up at 4 a.m. to bake cupcakes in her kitchen for seven years; she wasn\u2019t sleeping in. That\u2019s reality and people need to hear that, they need to see how important it is to be passionate.\u201d<\/p>\n
The consensus from Power Up speakers is that successful women\u00a0must take it upon themselves to stand out across divisions, build relationships throughout the company, and ask the right questions to get the skills needed to reach top-level positions.<\/p>\n
Now in her 17th<\/sup> year as senior vice president and chief technology officer of the Miami Dolphins and Sun Life Stadium, Tery Howard urged teamwork and determination. Before joining the Dolphins, she spent 15 years managing Carnival Cruise Lines\u2019 shipboard technologies.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen my career at the Dolphins began, my team consisted of one employee. My challenge was to build an entire team,\u201d said Howard. \u201cYou have to take risks, do things outside your comfort zone, have no fears, and believe in yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n Still a long way to go.<\/em><\/p>\n College of Business professor Seema Pissaris remarked that while women have made many advances, the areas of progress have been uneven.\u00a0 She noted for example that women in the US earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. In Florida that increases to 84 cents and drops to 60 cents among Hispanic women.<\/p>\n \u201cToday it\u2019s about leaning in, looking up and leaping upward,\u201d said Pissaris, who teaches courses in Leadership, Strategy, and Entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n Currently, only 21 women hold CEO jobs at the top 500 companies in the world, according to a survey released by the Rockefeller Foundation.<\/p>\n Cristina Gallo-Aquino, vice president and chief financial officer of Fleet Management Solutions (FMS) for Ryder System, pointed out that oftentimes men are given an opportunity based in their potential to perform while women may need to have to prove they can perform.<\/p>\n \u201cIf there\u2019s an opening, women would have to prove they can do the job,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Power Up speakers noted that the road to success includes hurdles and obstacles that must be dealt with. Fear of failure? Acceptance is the key to overcoming it.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to accept it and use it as a lesson,\u201d said Patricia Rosello, chief executive officer at Baptist Outpatient Services. \u201cFailure is the means to the end, it isn\u2019t the end-all.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In Their Own Words:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cYou have to dream big and work very hard\u2026 I would live it again even if it was painful\u201d – Pilar Guzman-Zavala, president of Half Moon Empanadas<\/p>\n \u201cLeadership is all about getting followers and they don\u2019t follow you because you say so, they follow you because they believe in you and your vision\u201d \u2013 Patricia Rosello, chief executive officer at Baptist Outpatient Services<\/p>\n \u201cLook back at what you have accomplished, that will give you the strength to move forward\u201d – Cristina Gallo-Aquino, vice president and chief financial officer of Fleet Management Solutions (FMS) for Ryder System<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you have a good idea, do something about it\u201d \u2013 Susan Ford Collins, creator of The Technology of Success<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Building a successful business is rarely easy and passion arises from many places![\"power-up-summit-panel\"](\"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/power-up-summit-panel.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nExperts discussed leadership and entrepreneurship, health, and financial wellness
\nEmpowered women, empower women<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":26889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[302,3952,2680],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26886"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26886"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36193,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26886\/revisions\/36193"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}