Meet Melanie Stuber

Melanie is the founder and CEO of Cultivate and Thrive LLC. She partners with leaders to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals through business strategy and organizational culture guidance. She is a former executive with over 25 years of diverse business experience from three top-tier organizations, Northwestern Mutual, CNA Insurance Company, and Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Melanie understands the challenges of leading teams through complex environments. She delivers dynamic keynotes, interactive workshops, and customized consulting services designed to empower leaders and their teams. Her approach helps organizations gain clarity, boost efficiency, enhance experiences, and improve overall performance. Although her focus is on supporting women leaders, Melanie welcomes the opportunity to collaborate with all leaders.

Melanie is serving her second term as the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Board Director for Metro Milwaukee Society of Human Resource Management. She recently joined the Engagement Committee for the Women and Girls Fund of Waukesha. As a member of Tempo Milwaukee, Melanie serves on the Professional Development Committee and is the Chair of the Builder Community, which focuses on women entrepreneurs and business owners. She also serves on the Talent Solutions Council for the Waukesha Business Alliance.

Highlights

00:00 Welcome to the Social Capital Podcast

01:20 Introducing Today's Guest: Melanie Stuber

02:33 Melanie's Journey from Corporate to Entrepreneurship

06:38 The Importance of Strategy and Culture

08:42 Challenges and Motivation in Business

10:45 Advice for Young Professionals

13:34 Lori's Turn: Personal Insights and Goals

16:40 Final Words and Contact Information

Giveaway

Melanie is collaborating with two other women entrepreneurs (Amanda Nowak and Julie Schmidt) to host an event tailored for women - The Empowered Path: Bite-Sized Strategies for Wellness, Financial Freedom, and Leadership for Women. This in-person event is Friday January 17, 2025 (8:00-9:30) at 11270 W Park Place (First Floor Conference Room) Milwaukee, WI 53224.

She would love to give two tickets away to our listeners so they can start their year feeling empowered as they guide you in boosting your confidence with actionable steps to help you navigate both your personal and professional life effectively.

Connect with Melanie

Cultivate and Thrive

melanie@cultivatethrive.com 

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the channel that you'll find me on. Just search for Lori Highby. You can simply click the follow button as I post daily information about marketing strategy, tips, and all podcast episodes and any upcoming events you might see me at. If you'd like to connect, make sure to send a note with your connection request that references Social Capital. I can't wait to hear from you.

Social Capital Podcast is sponsored by Keystone Click, a strategic digital marketing agency that believes in order to successfully market to your ideal customer, you have to first understand your customer. Learn more about Keystone Click at KeystoneClick. com.

The topic of relationships ties very closely into marketing and relationships and people, and that's why I bring a number of a variety of experts on the show. Today's guest is Melanie Stuber. Melanie is the founder and CEO of Cultivate and Thrive. She partners with leaders to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals through business strategy and organizational culture guidance. She's a former executive with over 25 years of diverse business experience from three top tier organizations, Northwestern Mutual, CNA Insurance Company, and Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

Melanie understands the challenges of leading teams through complex environments. She delivers dynamic keynotes, interactive workshops, and customized consulting services designed to empower leaders and their teams. Her approach helps organizations gain clarity, boost efficiency, enhance experiences, and improve overall performance.

Although her focus is on supporting women leaders, Melanie welcomes the opportunity to collaborate with all leaders. Melanie, welcome to the show.

[00:02:23] Lori Highby: I'm excited to have you too. I know we've been talking about doing this for quite some time and it's finally happening.

[00:02:30] Lori Highby: So see this happening more and more, Melanie. What inspired you to transition from the corporate world into entrepreneurship?

And in the last organization, I had transitioned into a fairly new role. And shortly after there was an organizational change. And I saw this as a blessing. I truly believe everything happens for a reason. And I came to a point in my career where I knew had choices. So rather than jumping into the next corporate opportunity, I took the time to pause and reflect on what is out there for me, I felt like there was something bigger out there for me, and I was trying to figure out what that was.

So I took the time. This is actually last year to do all the things, Lori. I listened to podcasts. I read books. I took courses. I was networking within the community because I had some idea of where I wanted to go. And I wanted to be thoughtful about my next steps.

To be honest, I, there was a part of me where I've always wanted to have my own business, and I felt like this was the nudge for me to pursue this. And also knew as I was reflecting on my next steps that if I didn't take the opportunity to pursue opening or starting my own business that I would have regrets later in life. So I decided last year to launch my business, which again focuses on organizational culture and business strategy.

And it's been an amazing journey, Lori. There are so many wonderful entrepreneurs, business owners in the Milwaukee and greater Milwaukee area that I've just had the wonderful pleasure of meeting over the past year and continue to meet and I, there's so much talent here and I've learned so much. So when I decided to be all in, and I'll be very honest, I experienced this throughout my corporate career and when I was transitioning to becoming a business owner that despite my successes and my accomplishments, I had that self talk, the lack of confidence. Imposter syndrome. So even when I decided to organize my business, it took me a few months to fully promote and announce my business. And what I decided after I was going through this journey was nobody's wanting me to fail. It was me getting in my own way. And I realized I have this amazing support system that really helped me to gain that confidence and to really understand my, my value. And that's when I decided to be all in. So I focus on women, business owners. And again, I welcome working with all leaders. And particularly because of my own experiences, whether it was being the only leader in the room and what that looked and felt like to my own journey of lacking that confidence and imposter syndrome. I feel like a lot of those experiences resonate with women and I'm here to help women where regardless of where they are in their journey, whether it's early in their career, throughout their career, to help them feel empowered and have that confidence to effectively lead.

So I feel like I found my passion and my purpose, and I'm really excited to help others.

So you talk a lot about focusing on both strategy and culture. Yeah. Curious why you decided to kind of merge those as opposed to choosing one or the other.

We had a strong leadership team, and I worked in environments where we didn't have a strong culture. And I've seen firsthand how leadership can develop this amazing strategy that looks good on paper, but doesn't do well executing because we don't have that culture to support it. We don't have that buy in.

We don't have that environment where there's that inclusion, right. Or people feel they have a voice and they are supporting what that, that strategy looks like. And so I feel very strongly that culture and strategy go hand in hand because you can't effectively execute on a strategy unless you have that healthy culture.

Sure. Yeah. And oftentimes when individuals reach out to me to share what their challenges are, have me come in and have a conversation with them. And it's often we have these challenges, so it might be focused on the strategy piece. And after having a conversation with them, there's a little bit more underneath there in terms of the culture.

And I often recommend in those situations that it's beneficial to spend time on that culture, making sure you have that healthy environment. So everybody who's involved feels again that they have a voice that they're included. And that will benefit the organization overall.

[00:08:48] Melanie Stuber: So you're well aware that being an entrepreneur is hard, and not easy. That's no, no. However, it is very rewarding. I think I should say, I know that being laser focused on your, your purpose and your passion really helps you to navigate through those challenges. So despite what those challenges are, whether you're having a , challenging day with a client or a speaking event, or whatever that looks like, staying grounded on why you're doing what you're doing and also surrounding yourself with that support system that helps you, to support you, and gives you that positive energy really helps.

So I, again, just regrounding yourself on your purpose and your passion. So me ,knowing that my purpose and passion is to empower leaders and to help them to navigate those challenges, whatever that looks like through whether it's a culture opportunity or something with strategy. That helps me to keep me grounded. It helps me to stay focused, and it gives me energy.

[00:10:11] Melanie Stuber: Well, and I believe too, all of your experiences shape you, right. In your stories, all of your experiences. So throughout my career, again, I was in situations where I had great leadership. I was in situations where I didn't have as great of a leadership and I learned from those experiences. And the other part too, is we learn from our mistakes.

That's how we grow as individuals. And so I feel that we are who we are today because of our experiences.

[00:10:58] Melanie Stuber: So many learnings, Lori, as I share with you. So there's a couple key areas I would say, and I touched on it a little bit. One is to give ourselves grace. I think we are so hard on ourselves, especially when we're hyper performers, right? And to look at those situations where we might not have been as successful or there might have been a mistake or a failure.

To look at those situations and learn from that and not to be so hard on ourselves, to give ourselves grace and just acknowledge that that's an opportunity to learn and grow. So that would be one. The other would be to stay focused on your purpose and your passion. There were oftentimes throughout my career, I became distracted by other successes or what was happening around me. And I learned that that's not beneficial to me, that I need to stay focused on my purpose and my passion and not to be distracted by that because that's not productive. And by the way, we should celebrate the successes of others. I think it's more of the, we're all different places in our journey and to acknowledge that and to celebrate that and, and also think about ourselves and where we want to be.

And the last I would say is find your people. Life is hard as it is, whether it's personal or professional. Find your people who give you energy, who are there to support you, who are there to challenge you in healthy ways, to celebrate you, to help lift you up.

Find your people. And actually, Lori, I've learned as I've been talking about my own journey. This past year of how I became intentional with building my support system when I transitioned out of the corporate world into entrepreneurship. I talked about how I built the support system or my personal board and this is really resonated with so many, particularly women and the community. And I'm really hoping that by continuing to tell my story, I can help women in that space, because again, life's hard enough. So making sure that you surround yourself with the right people to help you navigate through those challenges.

I think that's great. And building those communities, so important as well. All right, Melanie, I'm going to give you the opportunity to lead the conversation. You can interview me, something, what is something that you'd like to ask me? Sure.

[00:13:52] Lori Highby: That is a big question. Yeah, I'm really focused on my personal end game. My passion is really to help businesses small or large really understand the power of digital. There's so much messaging that is overwhelming. And I really want to try to simplify that message so that people can move forward and, and really lean into and elevate their business by using these amazing tools that are in front of us right now. That's the kind of stuff that really excites me. So anytime I can kind of teach or educate or share my knowledge but also learn new things. I love learning new things too. That's the kind of stuff that motivates me.

[00:14:49] Lori Highby: Yeah. Some personal goals I'd say more on, Oh, actually they line up with the business goals.

[00:15:19] Melanie Stuber: Oh, I love that. And my last question is, what do you do? Because you are a very busy woman. So what do you do in your, I'm doing quotes, spare time to just unwind, relax, enjoy life. What are your fun things to do?

I love playing hockey. I love watching hockey. I like biking yoga, reading, cooking, travel, new experiences. You know, kind of kind of all those things fall under one of the things that keep Lori moving forward.

[00:16:10] Lori Highby: Oh goodness. I love trying new places, but I I'm pretty much a stickler for going to the same places over and over again. I live in Bayview. Vanguard is great. Tenuta's my husband and I go to Tenuta's way more frequently than I'd like to admit, but as my favorite Italian in town.

[00:16:31] Lori Highby: Yeah, I was just there on Sunday.

All right. Well, thanks for these fun questions.

[00:16:40] Lori Highby: Do you have any final words of wisdom to leave our listeners leave with our listeners here?

[00:17:16] Lori Highby: Yeah, love that. Great, great advice for sure. Alright, Melanie, if anyone was interested in getting in contact with you, what is the best way that they can reach you?

[00:17:46] Lori Highby: Right. We will include all of that information in the show notes. All right. Thank you so much for being on the show today.

[00:17:56] Lori Highby: Absolutely. All right. This wraps up an episode of Social Capital. A huge thank you to Melanie for taking the time to connect with us. If you have a burning marketing or relationship question, just reach out. I'd love to answer it on the show. And as mentioned before, let's connect on LinkedIn, reach out to me, reach out to Melanie. We both would love to hear from you. I hope you enjoyed today's show and I want you to go out there and get noticed.