LW Board Member and 2018 Leadership America graduate, Benita Chinn was recently featured in the Spring 2020 edition of Women Looking Ahead magazine, honoring their 2020 Black Brilliance Award recipients.  This amazing article highlights Benita’s life, her goals and her 25 years at PepsiCo.

As a high school honor student, Benita received her first corporate experience after her guidance counselor submitted her application for a junior engineering apprenticeship at the Naval Air Rework Facility on the Norfolk Naval Base.  As the article recounts, “At just 17, Benita spent her days refurbishing A-6 and F-14 fighter jets.  She edited jet wing engineering drawings and tested electrical components in the hangers.”  By the time summer ended, Benita enrolled in Virginia Tech’s engineering and technology program.  She would earn her Bachelor’s in engineering and technology education and later her MBA from the University of Chicago.

While receiving her education, Benita’s resume continued to grow, working for Hill Bros., Nestle USA and Quaker Oats.  In 2001, PepsiCo and Quaker would merge, marking the start of her 25-year career with PepsiCo.  In 2009, Benita would become the first female plant director for Gaterade in Oakland, California.  “Under her leadership, the facility went from worst to top performer in less than six months,” noted the article.

The article highlights an amazing woman and her incredible career.  Make sure you check out the full article to capture the full essence of Benita Chinn’s journey.  As the article reflects, “it’s her tenacity, brilliance and confidence that sustains her, and puts her in a seat of power and influence at the company.”  The link to the online article can be found at Women Looking Ahead.

LW Board Member, Juliet Hall (LA’17), once asked herself, “Why be a glorified, unfulfilled laborer in someone else’s kingdom when  you can build your own?”  In her soon to be released leadership memoir, Own Your Opportunities, she explains, “this was a question that I had to answer for myself.  As a corporate agent for two major companies, I had gone as far as I could go in corporate America.  Blocking the punches of unconscious bias, micro-aggressions and workplace exclusion, I continued to rise as a corporate and community leader.  After hitting my glass ceiling, I realized that my capacity was far greater than my sandbox.”

Own Your Opportunities lights a torch for other women who seek a protagonist they can relate to regarding their journey of self-discovery, growing through corporate trauma, and ultimately owning their opportunities to actualize their dreams.  “I found the courage to beat my biggest adversary, self-doubt, and decided to pursue an infinite landscape that allowed me to follow my heart, share my stories and 20 years of lessons learned,” Juliet says candidly.  As a former corporate executive, Juliet provides a blueprint to empower women on taking control over their professional careers.

Juliet Hall is the owner of Juliet Hall INC., a leadership consulting firm based in Atlanta, Georgia.  Dedicated to igniting a purpose-filled passion in others, Juliet helps leaders who are at a professional crossroads to pursue their own self-discovery, develop their natural talents, and maximize their leadership potential.

Patricia Russell-McCloud, Esq., international motivational speaker and best selling author, notes, “Through magnetic storytelling, Juliet Hall masterfully shares truth serum for your workplace toolkit. In a pertinent and poignant reveal, she frames the need-to-know reality that survival in the workplace requires more than oxygen.  INHALE.”

More information on Juliet go to JulietHall.com.