A DECADE OF CELEBRATING WOMEN-LED BUSINESSES

Their stories inspire me

By Ellen Donker

This fall issue marks a milestone for Matters Magazine. It’s our 10th year running our Women in Business feature that showcases women who own and lead businesses in our community. Every year, we create a theme that allows women to tell you, our readers, about their businesses in a fresh way. We’ve featured 175 women-led businesses.

This feature is a favorite of mine because I get to interview each woman and meet them, often for the first time, at photo sessions with photographer Julia Maloof Verderosa. When appointments overlap, some of the women also get to meet each other. Without exception, they respond with genuine excitement to have made a new acquaintance with a woman in our business community. They may exchange business cards but more often they share a spirit of rooting each other on. We all come away feeling like we’ve made new friends. That’s the power of connection. It’s something we all desire, yet it can be elusive when each of us is working hard in our separate worlds.

For this year’s theme, “Roots of My Success,” I asked women to think about what shaped their careers: the early influences, their education, a mentor, their values or someone who believed in them. Before I conducted my first interview, I did a little personal digging to think through the theme for myself.

The exercise brought me back to my father. As a small business owner, he worked long hours (dinner in our house was often late) and brought his creative gifts to a manufacturing business that might have otherwise been somewhat dull. I think he liked the independence of being a sole decision-maker responsible for determining the best way to run his business. Perhaps that’s why he encouraged me to be an entrepreneur.

After I graduated college, I spent many years in marketing and advertising. I took some time off while my kids were young and later worked a few part-time jobs during school hours, including one selling advertising at this publication.

Four years into it, the owner, Karen Duncan, asked whether I’d like to buy the business when she retired. As the magazine’s founder, she wanted to see it continue past its 26th year and thought I had the skills to take the reins. I wasn’t convinced. After all, I had never worked in journalism or graphic design, two relevant skillsets for the job. But I did have experience and abilities that could be transferred to running Matters Magazine. I also knew the vitality of our towns and was confident its residents would provide me with an endless supply of interesting stories.

As they say, the rest is history. I set myself on a path to learn what I didn’t know so I could produce a lifestyle magazine that reflects this vibrant community. I’m grateful Karen saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. I’m also indebted to a lot of professionals – writers, photographers, salespeople, editors and advertisers – who continue to support me in this endeavor.

I hope you’ll get to know the women featured. None of these owners are one-dimensional but rather the product of what their lives have added up to be. Those ingredients are what I think are so fascinating. After 10 years of meeting the women behind our community’s businesses, I continue to find inspiration in what they’ve created.