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And thank you for coming to our Breaking Barriers Women in Leadership chat. And we are going to be recording today's session. And if you have any questions, you are welcome to put those in the chat. And so again, welcome everyone. My name is Lori and I'm with Career Services and I'm joined by my colleague, Katie Davidson, who also is within career services. She's at the Dahlonega campus. I'm housed on Gainesville.

And we appreciate everyone showing up today and we do have some amazing women in leadership today that are going to be talking about their career journey and how they got to where they are and hopefully impart some of their fantastic knowledge to you as well as you make your way in your career journey as well. So I want to go ahead and share my screen really quick so that way we can see all of our fabulous speakers here.

And so we're going to start off with Audrey King. Audrey is currently the vice president of Georgia Power in the South region. In this role, Audrey has direct responsibility for the company's external activities for customers across a 62 county area. She has held various positions over more than 30 years and customer service, sales, distribution, and external affairs at the company. Her other leadership opportunities have included working with the South Georgia Military Affairs Council, the Valdosta Rotary Club, Valdosta Chamber of Commerce and the Education Reform Commission for the state of Georgia, among many, many, many, many others. And she holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Troy University. So thank you Audrey for joining us today.

And next up is Dr. Chaudron Gille, who currently serves as the Provost and Senior President for Academic Affairs at the University of North Georgia. And Dr. Gille began her career teaching French and English as a second language. She has experience in the areas of curriculum development, strategic planning, accreditation, international education, distance education, academic advising, and students success initiatives. She has a PhD in French literature from Emory University and an MA in applied linguistics in teaching English as a second language from Georgia State University. Thank you, Dr. Gille for joining us today. And of course we have Gretchen Corbin, who is the president and CEO of the Georgia Lottery Corporation. Gretchen's business goal to fulfill is to fulfill the corporation's mission to maximize HOPE and Pre-K, ensuring that Georgia students continue to have access to these educational programs. And some of the students here may use HOPE.

So I know it's something that directly affects them. Prior to her role at the Georgia Lottery, Gretchen served as Commissioner for the Technical College System of Georgia, which I used to fall under, actually used to work for Albany Tech. So very familiar with that. Gretchen was also the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Affairs and as the Deputy Commissioner of global commerce and other roles at the Georgia Department of Economic Development. Gretchen is involved in a number of professional and civic organizations including Rotary International, Leadership Atlanta, and leadership Georgia. And Gretchen has been named for the last nine years as one of Georgia Trends Magazine's 100 most influential Georgians. And again, so many other accolades and accomplishments for all of these wonderful people.

So I'm going to turn it over. I'm going to start actually since I introduced Audrey first, Audrey, I'm going to turn it over to you first to talk a little bit more about that amazing career journey and how you got to where you are today. Thank you so much, Lori, and I appreciate the opportunity to engage with you today, and to be on a platform with so many other outstanding women leaders. Talk with you a little bit about my career. I started with the company 31 years ago and I started out as a customer service representative for the company. So as you talk about working your way through the business, that's exactly what I've done and I've been focused on how do I take those next steps.

So I went from customer service over to sales and marketing. I did energy on its own customers homes, helping them to understand how to make your home more efficient, how to make a small investment, to get a great return. And then whenever it's been a little bit of time in our power delivery department, how delivery as many of you can relate as that's keeping the lights on engineering the jobs and building the infrastructure that keeps our business going. So I wanted to spend a little bit of time there, learn so much about the business there that I had no clue prior to arriving, but I left with so much more knowledge. Came back to another side of the business on sales and marketing because I realize I have a little bit of a knowledge gap and I wanted to close that gap.

And for me, of course, over the course of those years, I had to think strategically, where do you take those next steps, but also listening to some other leaders that had gone before me blaze trails to help lay out a pattern, if you will, that I could potentially consider following or making some tweaks and adjustments along the way. So then I started serving as our sales manager down in south Georgia in Valdosta, spending time in the rural communities of Georgia. To learning a little bit about the dynamics there and focusing on external affairs, assisting our vice presidents, and then ultimately having the whole responsibility in the assigned territory that I had of serving as the external affairs manager and then ultimately reaching director and Vice President now, which is the role that I currently serve.

So I've played an active role in many aspects of the company and grown, learn and have many takeaways that I'm excited to share with you all today about. Thank you so much, Audrey and Dr. Gille I'll turn it over to you and tell us a little bit more about yourself. Famous Career Services interview question. Thank you, Lori. Wonderful hearing your journey, Audrey, and the way you move from area to area to really fill in the gaps and expand your knowledge. So that prepared you for the position that you have today. Yeah. If you had asked me when I was a freshman in college, if I would enter education, I would have said no, never on a bet. I'm not going to grad school. In fact my father asked me that question and I said No, I was a business major back then. It wasn't until my senior year in college that I felt a calling to teach and it really did feel like a calling.

And I decided that if I was going to dedicate my life to a career, I wanted it to be meaningful and education was something I was passionate about. So flipped plans, I'd been interviewing with banks and mid year I started applying to grad school. And so I entered as came to Gainesville. What was Gainesville college at the time. Not having finished my dissertation, I was wrapping my dissertation, not finished yet my first year here and started teaching. And I worked my way up through the ranks as professor, but I did not follow the traditional path of leadership in academia. I have never been a department chair and I was never the dean of a college. What I did do was have opportunities to lead projects, to take on new initiatives, to grow programs that I did as a faculty member did that on the side and that exposed me to different areas of the university.

And so then when there were opportunities to apply for leadership positions, I could talk about how all of those experiences had given me insights that I could leverage into that position. So I didn't check all the normal boxes, but I had really great experience, I think, better prepared me than some of those typical boxes. But I had to communicate to people what that was. So when you volunteer for a project, you take a small leadership role and then that grows into something else. And those got cobbled together into other leadership roles. I did that throughout my career. I've been very fortunate to work my way up through Õý°ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¿ª½±½á¹û, which is kind of unusual and academia. But I feel like I've worked at four different institutions, Gainesville College was a two-year college with one campus and 2000 students when I first came to it 28 years ago.

Now, I'm provost of a university, over 19,000 students, five campuses and everything from two-year degrees, to 5 doctoral programs. And I have grown with the university with the creation of distance education. I was on the ground floor of that introduction of International Programs. I was on the ground floor of that, got involved in student success very early and heavily focused on that. And so I'm just taking advantage of the different opportunities that came my way to continue growing. And then periodically kind of like Audrey said about every five years I would take stock and think, Okay, where do I want to go next? What are the gaps that I have now and how can I fill those? Might have been moving into a new position, but it could also be through committee work or things outside the university that helped me develop skill sets I needed. So that's my journey.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. So of course, Gretchen that leaves you. So tell us a little bit more about how you got to where you are today. Oh, you're muted. Thank you, Lori. Lori, thank you for the invitation for being with you today and to be with this incredible panel of women. It's interesting listening to Audrey, I think back on my career and Georgia Power was an incredible team member. It has always been and will always be, I'm sure, to the state of Georgia.

And as someone who started my career at the Department of Economic Development, always felt like I was raised a little bit by economic development and the state of Georgia and a lot by Georgia Power because my day-to-day my first job as a regional project manager in the Department of Economic Development. I spent as much time with my utility partners as I did with my true economic development colleagues. And so I always say whether it was sights or buildings That Georgia Power really trained me. I also being with all of you, Dr. Gille, at the University of North Georgia. I'm always so excited to be with you to know that working with the lottery. Obviously our bottom line is for education and the students that you represent. I'm always thrilled to be with any educator.

So thank you for the great work that you're doing. You know, Lori to answer your question, I started my career as a college intern. You have asked us, did you know what you wanted to be? Would anyone guess that they would be the president of a lottery? That I don't think, you know, when you're going through college, that's not one of the boxes to check that you want to that you want to aspire to. I'm so very thankful that I'm having this opportunity. I'm thankful to Governor Kemp, to Governor Deal, to our board of directors who have provided me this opportunity. And how did I get here are really started in state service. And what Dr. Gille said earlier in regards to service or education, calling to her public service is always called to me. I have been so fortunate to work for the people of Georgia and small positions, in big positions. And I started off again as a college intern.

And I remember in my last year of college, which was 1993, answering the phone and just knowing that there was a Georgian on the other end of the line and they had an opportunity or an issue that we can help them with. And I was sitting in the tourism department of the Department of Industry, Trade, and Tourism, which grew to be the Department of Economic Development. And so I started as a college intern. I grew in and really through the Department of Economic Development, probably was involved in almost every position, in every in every division of that agency. And so had the ability to really grow up through state service at the Department of Economic Development.

Which allowed me to learn the state of Georgia, which we all love so much. All of the communities all vary from Valdosta to Gainesville, to Dahlonega to all of those all of the communities. It also allowed me to work with businesses. Although I was a state, I was a state employee and a public servant to work with businesses and to understand the bottom line, what their needs were, investment, job creation, but also from the educational perspective, what kind of workforce talent they need it. And then I had the great opportunity also at the Department of Economic Development, be responsible for international offices. And so would you've ever imagined the same employee who got to manage individuals in Europe and Asia. And suddenly my world was 24-7 as it is for all of us now.

But had the opportunity to manage and direct our operations for Georgia internationally and then serve as Deputy Commissioner. So as Deputy Commissioner, we would work on bringing in companies to Georgia, along with many of our powers, like Georgia Power in our educational partners. And then to negotiate, to negotiate what that looked like for a company come into Georgia. From that, Governor Deal provided leaving incredible opportunity Services Commissioner for the Department of Community Affairs. Where I then went and learned where I then went and learned about affordable housing and of course, community development and backing up all of our incentive promises at Georgia and made during negotiations for economic development. And then Governor Deal asked me to go serve as the Commissioner of the Technical College System of Georgia, Lori, where I got to serve with incredible institutions of technical colleges.

And so the leadership at the Technical College, it's just like the university system. Presidents, faculty, staff, incredible. And then just the back to be with students, higher education students at the technical college level and see their lives, to see those students changing their lives one-by-one was quite the honor to be involved with. And then again, Governor Deal, board members like Jennifer Herring of the Georgia lottery, as well as other board members asked me to serve as presidency of the Georgia lottery. And I think at that point in time they were thinking, Gretchen, you have the ability to put the love you have for education and students, whether they're at the Technical College, University System or pre-K.

To meld that with the business knowledge you have from the Department of Economic Development to running a company. That, although it is for the benefit of the state and our beneficiaries of students. It is to act like a private corporation. And if you were to put it up against some of the Fortune 500 companies in Atlanta, we would be within the top 19. And so this has been incredible opportunity. And when you look back through all of that, and, and I should say, Governor Kemp has been very kind to allow me to continue in this role. And I love the call that when any Governor asked you to do something, the answer is yes, right? And I've been very fortunate to have those calls. And when Governor Kemp said Gretchen, I won't tell you the full conversation because it's too fun.

But but Gretchen, keep doing it Keep working with your team to do an incredible job at the Georgia lottery. We wanted to make sure that I was I was ecstatic to be able to do that. So I'm very thankful to Governor Kemp and thrilled to be in this position working with incredible individuals, you can imagine at the lottery, we have sales and marketing, we have information security, we have retailer sales, we have finances, we have everything that any fortune 500 company. And my job as I see it, is to keep those individuals, to keep to keep those individuals running at their top capacity and provide leadership as they need it to make sure that we're providing the greatest returns to the state of Georgia. Again, to go to our incredible HOPE scholars and our pre-K students.

Dr. Gille, I'll only you you mentioned something about maybe some of our some of the University of North Georgia students receive HOPE, I would say that they have earned HOPE. And we are so very proud of those students and excited to see the great things that they're going to do throughout Georgia in their lifetimes as well. Thanks for the opportunity to be with you today. Thank you so much. Wonderful. I mean, again, all of you have just such amazing journeys and I know you have many more adventures yet to come since you're already doing so many great things. So we'll get to some of the questions now.

And I will start actually with Gretchen. I know you just did a lot of talking there, but I'll go ahead and start with you. And I, besides being asked by the governor to take on leadership roles, but what motivated you to step up into all of these different leadership positions? Because you do hear a lot, especially a lot of times in the news where they'll talk about why is there a gap between men and women and why aren't there more women in leadership. And what is it that led you to say, you know what, I'm just going to do it. I'm going to take on this role. I think that as individuals we all have an internal drive within ourselves.

I know all of you on this screen I know you all know if I've had conversations and I know the drive that you all drive and passion that we all have as individuals that we're just blessed with wonder when, when we, when we start our journeys. And so I need to really tap into those drives. But to realize it's not always about the next position or the next stop in your journey is the real opportunities do an incredible job where you are at the moment. To really, to look down and think, how can I impact today? How can I impact  my team? How can I impact my bottom line? And I have figured out that, or I've just seen whether it's in my journey or others. Everyone on the screen I've watched all of you do such an incredible job in your position at that point in time. That things just naturally, the next step just naturally comes.

I kind of see life as a series of doors. And sometimes we'll push through them. We didn't even see that they were open. And other times we need to  kind of really open them and I think the consistent piece is always working hard, being kind to others and having fun will lead to that, that next step. Sometimes we have to be strategic, Absolutely. But I think there are kind ways to do that because at the end of the day, we go to work with other individuals. We all want to be on really good teams. And so I'm just, I like, like being a team player and I love being part of great change, which I've been fortunate today. Fantastic. Thank you so much.

And Dr. Gille, I'll actually ask you this question that Jennifer had put in the chat. Have you ever been told no. In your professional career and how did you handle that? Oh, yes. I've been told no I've been told no more than once. And I'll, you know it's been challenging at times. So there were times in my career where well, first, let me say I really appreciate what Gretchen was saying about you get in the position that you're in, you work hard and you try to make the biggest impact you can in that role and everything else kind of flows from that. It's not necessarily that you're, you're setting your sights on achieving a particular position. So the opportunities typically come if you're, if you're working hard, if you have a sense of advocacy, that the creativity in the position and also the desire to serve others and advocate are kind of my motors.

And so so I would, I was like in a position at one point and I had been told by the VP for academic affairs. I had been told by others in leadership that they had seen potential in me that we're sending and leadership development programs that I was in a position currently that was a natural stepping stone to the next level and that they were grooming me to, step into the next level. Well, in the position at the next level, up and I applied, I ended up being one of two finalists and I was not selected. Someone from the outside was brought in. And that was difficult to deal with initially because I'd been told for two years I was being groomed for that position. Ultimately, it was the very best thing that could have happened to me. At that time, the VP for academic affairs came to me and said, I think this person will be a great mentor for you. And we can really use their skills and your skills. And this will be great, and the President even came to see me and it was hard to not be upset. I'll admit I shed a few tears. But it ended up being a great experience. I learned so much from my mentor. And also in terms of where I was in, in my life and the age, if my children, in retrospect, it was better that that did not happened for me at that time.

And about three to four years later, maybe more, I did end up applying for the position again when my mentor left and I got the position at that point. Later on in my career after the merger of the university, I applied for a position that was being created that was going to take half of the responsibilities I currently have. Again, thought that I was a shoe in and again did not get the position. And someone from outside came in and I would just look at that personally got how how could they have been a better choice than me? But ultimately, again, yeah, so focused on what I was doing and doing well and adding on other projects and continuing to learn things. And a different and better opportunity came up that eventually led me to the provost role. So sometimes what seems like a disappointment and a stumbling block is an opportunity to continue to grow. It may be better timing with everything else that's going on in your life. It may provide a great mentor.

And it may lead you to doors that open that take you into a better direction. And so yeah, that's happened to me a couple of times. Yeah, I think it is hurtful when you get told Oh, this will be perfect for you and then you don't get it. And hey, I thought that was going to be perfect for me. I will I will say, you got to get over the momentary disappointment and look for what's positive and keep going. Yeah, I've seen through the course of the, the merger of the university people who took that as an opportunity to grow and to learn and to take on new roles. And there were people who were very bitter about the change or what they saw as a loss of opportunity. And for the people who got mired in bitterness, it really tanked them. You know, if if you can move beyond the initial disappointment of whatever it is and look for the opportunities for growth then your journeys going to continue in a great way.

Fantastic. And so Audrey, I'm going to actually combine these questions about, you know, have you been told no. And how did you handle that and what motivated you to take on some of these leadership roles? Because again, you know a lot of times when we meet with students, they want a place where they can grow and get into leadership. But sometimes you are directed into other directions and how what motivated you to keep going and striving for those leadership positions as well as how did you handle those times where you may have been dealt some disappointment.

So thank you so much, Lori, for that question to Dr. Gille. You did an amazing job of responding to that. As I was thinking about how I would respond to this, you just kind of really laid on top of that no question I'll start there in that, you know, I've been told no on numerous occasions. And if you handle that with poise and dignity and maintain your integrity and keep things intact, then you will continue to succeed throughout the journey. However, if you respond, anything outside of that, one it's not attractive. You impact your own personal and professional brand, which you, in many cases, you can't recover those losses and the impact that you have, respond in ways that are not pleasant or pleasing.

And so I just encourage individuals, just as I did when I was told no to find out is there really is some validity to the no. And typically there is, you have to find it because it's a bitter pill to swallow, but it goes out so much easier when you're opening your mind to processing, what are some of the key takeaways from the conversation, the message that's being communicated to you. And then how can you grow from that? But don't dwell on it in such a way that it holds you in position and it gets a firm grip on you that you can no longer continue taking those steps towards your greatness and success.

So I just encourage individuals just be persistent in what you're doing. Then when you talk about what motivated me to get me to where I am, I will tell you, I chuckle when I think about that. Because at the ripe old age of 25 years old, I thought I would never lead again. I was a supervisor at an early age in life and I vowed that once I get out of that, I would not go down that path again. Well, life happened and so I began to understand more about other people's journey because that became my journey as well. You get the spouse, you have children, you have the family unit, you have balancing work and home and everything that comes with that.

And so as I began to grow, I wanted to be instrumental in helping others to grow and to realize how you move through the process in your career as you desire, whatever that looks like for you. And so I was not a traditional post-secondary student going to college. I graduated high school and thought that it might be a good idea just to get a job. And so before I could get out of high school, I got a part-time job, began to work, make a little money, and then, you know, as a young college student, you cannot really communicate a whole lot to them when they have a few dollars. Essentially, you don't really realize those dollars are really not going to take you far, but you think they are.

And then I began to work in banking and and I think Dr. Gille mentioned she had a banking background, so we have some commonalities there. But I began to work in banking and then ultimately starting with Georgia Power Company. And the motivation for me is just that I had so many life experiences I pursued college as a young adult. I help my children to realize the importance of education, whether, whether that's early childhood or post-secondary. I applaud you all for being in that space of education. Because here at Georgia Power Company, we are always committing ourselves to education. We know that's the key to many things in life. And it ultimately unlocks so many doors and opportunities for you. And I'm a living testament to that. But I just learned from my own journey whether they were mistakes that I made missteps along the way. How can I help other people to realize those successes? And I use those opportunities to just encourage others and bring them along.

Thank you so much, Wonderful. And we have a great question in the chat, actually, from Eduardo and Gretchen, I'll throw this to you. First. Has there been a time in which you've been treated different because you were a woman in a leadership position. And what steps or actions did you take to handle that situation? Absolutely. I don't know if they recognize it or if it was intentional. But absolutely it was kind of I remember. And I won't go and dive into the situation. But I remember it's almost like when you're on recess, when you're on the playground and you're like, okay, we're going to pick teams and when it all all When it all ended you looked over at all the girls were on one side when all the guys were on one side I remember that and it And so I can't say I can't share the topic or everybody will know where I was with, or who I was with but I would just say that um the most interesting piece of it is probably the women that basically the men went on wondering and the women went on another journey and this is like a day event so not a big deal.

But I remember the women at first being like Did you just see what happened? We all got like, like, we are all pushed to the side When like all the boys went and it ended up the girls were left. But we had the best day of our lives probably, to be honest, and we we talked professionally. We learned a lot. And it was one of those days where you had business and you also had personal time. And we had a blast together. And I think realizing that diversity is incredible, it's important and it is necessary, absolutely. But there are times in life when just the girls are going to get together and the guys are going to get together. And you know, that there will be minutes and those lives in you. What I would say, ease and enjoy them, and and you know, to be honest, the guys probably went and had a beer and the girls probably went and had pizza and we had a blast together and we and so and so yes. And without getting into the specifics, it doesn't sound like it was a big deal, but it was a pretty big deal. And I would just say that we make the most out of it. And hopefully the guys never noticed it because I'll be honest, some of those guys may have been some, uh, my champions in the future.

I think also recognizing that something that feels very big to you in the moment, a real, it's very important to figure out which time to hold up your hand and say, Hold on, this is a big deal. I'm a female and you just push this off to the sides. It would be a very big deal if we had been talking about positions or or salaries, but this was like who goes it goes, it goes and it goes in this direction who goes in that direction wasn't that big of a deal. Let me think about a more professional piece because of course the answer is always yes. I'll say, I'll go to a very early, very early time in my career when basically someone said to me, you would be great for this position. And again, there's a great difference.

Some of the friends who said that you would be great in this position when you looked around, I was like it was more of a hate to say fluffy position. It was a fluffy position, was not business, it was not strategy, it was not analytics. And I wanted to be in business strategy analytics at that moment in time. And I remember them saying you'd be great in this position. And I thought, would they have said that to me if I were a man and this was years and years and years ago. And and so what I did is I didn't I didn't pitch a fit, I just said, thank you for the opportunity. I think I'm going to explore something else.

And I went and explored something else for a minute that did fit those pieces of bottom line business analytics that I wanted to do for the moment. And then, interestingly enough, years later I went back to work for that position that that same individual and a business in a business position more like I wanted to get in the middle of. So kinda like Dr. Gille or excuse me mentioned earlier, those things are going to happen whether it's on a small, small level, like a daily level where it's a big level, whether it's about if you're a female or whether, or whether there's another decision that a leader is making and people recognize how do you or you are in it for the team. And can you hold Can you hold on for a minute? And then when the next opportunity is there be ready to take it or you or you handle that. I had been very blessed to come behind some incredible female leaders, the Georgia lottery. I'm the, the fourth female president and CEO of the Georgia lottery. And there have only been females at the Georgia lottery as presidents and CEOs.

The first president, CEO Rebecca Paul, is now in Tennessee and she is a dear colleague. And so I come behind, although I've had stumbles here and there, I've also come behind some incredible women who have made the path much easier for me and championed me. And during this conversation, I always like to say, I've had many men who have championed me. I will never be in a position if it were not for many men and for women and so, And so I like to be thankful for that and look for lookout for everyone else as well. And I think that's the job as a CEO to make sure everyone and and and making sure whether it's a male or female, whether it's an ethnicity that we are always making sure we're looking out for all of our employees for the betterment of every single one of them for the team. Fantastic. And Audrey, I think Eduardo's question actually kinda leads us. The other questions I wanted to ask our speakers today about some of the barriers to women being in leadership. And sometimes they are treated differently for, for whatever reason.

So same to you. I have there have been instances where you were treated differently because you are a woman and how do you feel that some of these barriers really affects women and try it and preventing them from going into leadership positions. So thank you again. Great question, Eduardo and Lori. Thank you for sharing that information with me. But what I will say as being a woman in leadership comes with its own unique set of opportunities. We won't necessarily call them challenges because they become challenges if you allow that to become a challenge for you. It simply means that there's always going to be the case. So I think about for me in the position that I'm in and the positions that I've held throughout my career journey. I've got several things to look at. I have the opportunity to be looked at as a woman or a minority woman. And so you've got two things that you're facing. They are instead you use, in some cases have to address that. But when you have those in the space that you're in that understand the value of diversity, the value of thought, the value of perspective. Yeah, none of that really even matter.

And as Gretchen shared, once you surround yourself with individuals who have your best interest at heart to help you to grow, to develop, and to be the best you that you can be. Whether that means in your personal life or your professional life, then that's ultimately what the goal is, the end goal is. As a woman in leadership, I just say be open to some of the, some of the opportunities that will come your way because for as long as you're in that position, whether you're a woman or a male leader, you got to face challenges. That's just life. And it's all in how you respond to that. But the things that present us with being barriers sometimes as women we can be our own barriers, we sometimes will step in the way and not give full validation and say, I deserve to be where I am. I've worked really hard to accomplish the things that I've accomplished along the journey. And so you have to embrace that and be okay. But you also surround yourself with other women, like those that are on the platform here today that will give you that full transparency.

The things that you need to hear that you don't necessarily want to hear, but you need to hear. And you have to surround yourself with individuals that don't necessarily think like you. That don't look like you, that don't walk like you, don't talk like you they're completely different and they come from a different angle. With that being said, they really position you for greater journey along, along the way in the future and can help you to be successful or to respond to ways the challenges that you may face along the journey so that you can continue to achieve and realize the success that you desire. Excellent. Thank you so much and Jennifer, you have a great question there. And actually it is one of my questions. Don't worry, we will get to it because that is something I think a lot of people wonder, how do you do it all, so we will get to that in just a minute, but Dr. Gille, I want to head to you now. And what do you think are some of the benefits of women in leadership?

Because again, a lot of times across all industries, it seems like we're always saying well we have to break it, break through that glass ceiling and always, always striving to try to reach those higher positions. So what do you think are some of the benefits that women bring into those roles? I want to be. So I think there are definitely things that women tend to bring into their leadership roles, but I want to be careful to not go too far into stereotypes because men can bring these characteristics as well. And just like Gretchen said, she had women and men who had been champions for her and given her opportunities. But with that caveat aside, I think that women often bring a style of leadership that is relational, that works really well at building functioning teams that had, that that lends itself to bringing a real collaborative spirit, if you will. Perhaps a flatter system of authority as opposed to very higher hierarchical, excuse me. And tending to focus on the benefit of whole in bringing everybody along as opposed to wielding authority. And there's a little bit stereotype in that, but women leaders that I have observed tend to fall more in that category than in the positional authority, type role. Often emotional intelligence. Our culture as a whole.

It puts a negative influence on men expressing emotion and it values women expressing emotions. I think women, not that men don't have emotional intelligence, but I think women tend to be more in tune with that, sometimes more empathetic and that ability to respond to the needs and concerns of the people who are your direct reports or the units under you being aware of all the different actors that affect their ability to perform and be empathetic towards your workers, to hear the concerns of different people know already talked about the diversity of a team and diversity of perspectives that's so important and being able to consider a question from different viewpoints. And so I think that emotional intelligence, quotient women have, often have more developed is a real plus, so I think those are the real strengths of a female leadership. And again, you can fall into stereotypes.

And in terms of women are not always their own best advocates in claiming their success, like Audrey said, and promoting that. So you need some level of authority, but it doesn't have to be wielded heavily. I would say let the results speak for themselves or no, show your results, wow them with the results, and build your, your functioning team. I'm my own leadership style is very transparent, very collaborative, very team oriented. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And gosh, I just looked at the clock can't believe we're already getting close to the end of the hour, so I definitely do want to get to Jennifer's question about how to balance all of this. And we saw, especially with you know, the past couple years of how a lot of women have left the workforce because of all the demands from work and having to work from home and family life and all of these different things.

And, you know, we hear repeatedly you can't have it all. And how do you balance this, especially you know Audrey, you're right now you're traveling and you've gotta hit the road pretty soon. So you, Audrey, I'll start with you. How do you balance that work-life, home life, and hopefully  a little bit of a life for yourself in there as well. So Lori, I will say when it comes to balance, it all relates to where are you in your, in the spectrum of the life that you're in. Sometimes that means do you have a family that you're trying to balance that with? Is it just you? Do you have small children, are they adolescent children along the journey? I think for everyone that's different, what does work-life balance look like? Is their work life balance? It is. It all depends on how it fits in your dynamics. And so you've gotta look at what, what your unit is, what it requires, and what the needs are. So many challenges surrounding that because is there a true true balance there?

I think if you ask that of all the women on this platform and others that may be listening in. If you ask them what does work-life balance, you really don't know because it depends on where you are in that stage of life, what challenges you're facing. You know, how much time are you having to devote to your children? Are there any special needs in the household? Are there any big assignments at work? And what does all of that look like? And then lastly, you have to think about self and self-care is so important because in order for us to be successful at women or men in the workplace, you've got to identify what is that recharges your batteries. There are times for all of us when things seem a little bit heavy, on us.

And you gotta respond to that. If you don't respond to that, you run your charge down and you don't wanna do that, then deliver dividends for anyone to any magnitude for you to reach long-term success and be able to sustain that. And so I'll just say just identifying what are the needs? How are they going to benefit you and your family? What does that look like? And how did you make that fit into the equation for your entire family unit? And what are the needs for work and what are the needs for home? And then make sure that you communicate that message clearly. In the workplace. If that seems to be an issue, because no one understands what challenges you faced. If you don't communicate that and don't make the assumption that everyone understands what's happening.

For instance, I have a team of 17. I don't know what each individual needs at the time, that they need it. But I tried to stay in constant communication with them so that if something should arise it doesn't catch me off guard. But I also encourage everyone to make your family priorities first. And then we will tend to the business of Georgia Power Company. We can't do what we do at Georgia Power Company, whether you're male or female in this organization, if we're not taking care of the entire person. Fantastic. So Gretchen I'll throw that same question right to you as well. How do you balance all, all all the things that go on in work and life. And again, like Audrey  had mentioned taking some time for yourself as well. Well I'll just say Audrey handled that question so well, I don't know if there's much to add. And so maybe instead of like giving some suggestions, I would just kind of, I would give my my little two cents of a journey. There had been I'm a mother of two. I'm a wife. I'm a I'm a daughter, I'm a sister and is just like Audrey said, when I talked to my team, I always take family comes first.

We were not put on this earth to work or to, to live to work. We were put on this earth, I think. Or we work now to live. And I think that's very important. And I think that if we take care of our families, then we are better at what we do, where we do it. We're going to be better for our institution every time. But I would first say, don't beat yourself up too much about it. Kind of just do what you do on a daily basis and stop occasionally and take some stock and think, do I need to be doing a little more on the life side? Need to be doing a little, little more work side. I think COVID has provided us with an interesting opportunity.

I remember the first week. The first week I had ever been home for a full week and my children at the same time and we actually took a walk in the middle of a weekday. And I remember saying to my child, I think the world must have needed to slow down for a minute. And I'm sure whether we were working remotely for a week or you are with the company that was working remotely a little longer, that you had the ability to take a little bit stop during that time period. And and so I would just say whether it was then or whether it's in the future. Just stop and think. Do I need to spend more time at home?

Don't need to spend more time at work. And I say that because there have been times where I've had to tell my family who is recently as five minutes. No, I will not be home on Thursday at 09:00 a.m. I having meeting that I will be in that I have committed to. I'm going to miss a very important thing during your senior year. But I'm comfortable saying that because I will make all the others one that I can. I also tell my daughter often you know, you don't pay me, right? I know I have responsibility to the state of Georgia, to the Georgia lottery and more importantly to my team and the HOPE, all the HOPE scholars, right? And so I think you just, you just have to give yourself a little bit of grace. As we all say. I will say there was a moment in time that I decided I was going to step away from the career all altogether and do and see what being a stay at home mother was like.So I saved to be a stay at home mother. I made a couple of marks that I wanted to make within my career and I should have checked my marks off. I'm going home to stay with my kids. And the individuals who know me on the screen know that I was only gone for a little bit of time. My husband said you're a  horrible stay at home, mother, you have to go back to work. We all agree. Because I think the bottom line was, I recognize I'm the happiest when I'm working and when I'm with my family. And so as individuals, we all have different levels of happiness there. And so the trick is getting it right for you. And we are the only ones who can get it right for ourselves. And I will just add, I'll echo what Audrey mentioned in regards to communicating it because I can guarantee you probably need to take that year off. I probably could have said to my supervisor supervisor how I'd really like to spend more time. Can you maybe help me into a different position or can I have a three week sabbatical maybe that would've that would've made me really excited to go back right into the workforce. There have been times again, we're not told myself. Okay.

You have really enjoyed your family. You have got a couple of items at the office that you have that you've put off, it's time to get back to it. And so I think it's just being honest with ourselves and being willing to communicate with our employers and with our families to ask for their help so that they know where we are in that piece of the family work balance. And then I think again, going back to Audrey's  position when any of us are in roles of leadership. To recognize that every single one of our team members has a different family environment and whether they are just taking care of themselves. A small child, a parent, an aging parent. Like these are all different stages of life that are incredibly important to our team members. And if we can help get, if we can help them understand we're there to make their balance correct or as close as it can. Then they'll be the best employees that they can be as well.

Fantastic. And so we have time for one last question, because I can't believe the hour's almost up. So Dr. Gille I will start with you. What advice would you give your 25-year-old self? Take yourself back to your college days or shortly thereafter college. And what advice would you have for your younger self? I think the best advice that I could give myself is somewhat tied to the, to the conversations would just had with Audrey and Gretchen about that work work life balance piece I, earlier in my career, I had internalized this sort of expected path and timeframe for choosing thing, for achieving certain benchmarks. And I was really hard on myself and pushing myself to do things that were having a detrimental effect on my my work-life balance, my family. I don't think you balance it ever but you dial one up, dial one down. So I remember having this realization that I did not have to achieve X position by x year of my life, that I probably had 25 more years to work. And it didn't make sense to get to the summit in the first of those 25 years that I had time to space it out and that other people's journey was not my journey. And recently, I had a conversation with my oldest daughter who is 25, and she was agonizing about whether or not to begin grad school. She had looked at programs and thought she picked a program, but the idea of actually applying, starting was making her incredibly anxious.

And it's like, okay, this is a sign we need to pause and rethink this. And she ultimately decided that's not the field, but she wants to go into. But she felt so guilty because she wasn't enrolling in  grad school now because that was supposed to be the next step, that people do and she didn't want to disappoint people and fail and I'm like baby, your journey is your journey. You're not on anybody else's timeframe. So you know recognizing that for ourselves, I think is key. Wonderful and how about Audrey as well, wrapping it up, what advice would you give your younger self as well? I will give myself the advice. And I think about this often, of course, because you know, when something happens in along a career journey, you always think the whole world's going to fall apart and it's really not. Everything is really going to be okay and you're going to make some missteps along the way, but you just kind of hold it together. It's how read a book.

Many, many years ago, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And many of you have probably seen, read, or heard about the book by Stephen Covey. The one thing he said in that book is seek first to understand, then be understood. And as Jennifer asked the question about being told no, about this platform today is talking about women in leadership. If you seek first to understand, then be understood. The message gets communicated so much further along the way. It just really kind of helps put things in perspective for you. It gives you a better balance of self and a better balance and perspective of others.

And it really just kinda helps to move things along for you. So I would just say talk less and listen more. Because when you do that, you have the ability to absorb what was being said and what's being communicated. And it minimizes the possibility, like me as my younger self, I had that in reverse order. I would talk more and listen less. As I began to grow and mature throughout the journey, I began to talk less and listen more. And you can learn a valuable lesson from anyone. It doesn't matter what their journey is, what a walk of life they have, what challenges they may face that you've not face, or if they facing similar challenges because we all come from a different perspective, view, different ideas of thought that we see through different lenses. And so when you pull that together, we can all learn from one another. Excellent. So Gretchen, I will let you add the final words here. Any last bit of advice that you would like to give to our students and those that are just starting out on their career journey. Exactly what your parents would tell you.

Do your best. Be kind, enjoy what you do, and it will be okay. It's Dr. Gille said, if you need to pause, if things don't go well for the moment, just keep going. As I said earlier, through the doors, keep being persistent. Go through the doors, keep up your network. And the thing that I can say has been best for anyone who has walked through their career successfully, is to always think about the team instead of me. If we can think about the team, we will never burn a bridge. Maybe that opportunity wasn't there for you when you were 24. But that same relationship will be there for you to come back through this through a different door same organization maybe when you're 35.

So as one former colleague said to me, business is about relationships. And so if we can all do the best with our relationships, enjoy them, and network everything and work hard as a way, as we've all said, everything else will fall in place. Always say yes, unless there's something unethical. If you have, if your boss provide you with an incredible opportunity, even when you're scared, Say yes, if you're scared, that's when some really cool things are going to happen. If you say no, your boss is going to remember it and they're going to go to the next person the next time. So that's that would be my quick advice. Thank you for the opportunity to be on this panel today. Well, thank you so much. All of you had so many wonderful things to say. I really appreciate your time. Audrey, safe travels. I hope you get back to Savannah nice and safe. And thank you again everyone for joining us today. I really appreciate you being here. Thank you for the wonderful questions. And again, thank you for all of our speakers, Dr. Gille, Gretchen and Audrey, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it All the best and you have a wonderful day. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you

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