5 Incredible Women from My Career

I have been lucky enough to spend my life surrounded by incredible women. Their powerful example and support have been, and continue to be, critical to my own success in both large and small ways. On this International Women’s Day, I want to celebrate some of the amazing women in my life whose influence has greatly impacted my career so far. There are so many more beyond this list, but to avoid it being overly long, I decided to only focus on five. I had to break out my thesaurus for this one, so get ready for a lot of synonyms for “incredible”, “fantastic”, and “amazing”! 

Before I go on and on, I want to say to all of the women who have supported me throughout my career - thank you all! 

Amy Cathy 

Amy and I worked together during a crazy time on the Elite Hearing Network marketing team. Amy was the product marketing manager while I was a specialist working mostly on digital communications. During this time, there were a lot of changes happening quickly and I often felt I was in over my head. It was Amy’s desk that I would run to when I needed a fresh set of eyes on a problem. From special projects to issues with co-workers or generally just not knowing how to be successful under the circumstances, Amy was an honest, helpful voice and someone I could lean on. Almost five years later, she still is. 

Amy is the ​​Marketing Communications Manager at Nystrom, a commercial building product manufacturer. Amy has worked in marketing for over twenty years in a wide range of industries and roles. She is a skilled people leader, marketing expert, and business executive. 

Amy Cathy is the ​​Marketing Communications Manager at Nystrom, a commercial building product manufacturer. Amy has worked in marketing for over twenty years in a wide range of industries and roles. She is a skilled people leader, marketing expert, and business executive. 

Kimya Singleton

Kimya is one of the finest leaders I have ever had the privilege of working for, and being on her team at Cadalys was an honor. She is a skilled marketer, brilliant businesswoman, and outstanding people leader. Any time Kimya’s name enters a conversation, people end up raving about how much they love working with her, and rightly so. Kimya understands the strengths of those around her and actively empowers people to be their best selves.  

Kimya Singleton is the Sr. Director of Marketing at Cadalys, a Salesforce Marketplace SAAS company, and has worked in marketing for almost 20 years. She is a key member of the leadership team, driving success for her department, as well as supporting the goals of the company at large.

Michelle Lemmons & Jamie Zarembinski

I put these two wonderful women together not because they share many of the treats that I cherished when I had the joy of working with them. If you’re lucky, you’ll find one person at a company who you love working with and makes showing up to work a joy. While I worked at Key Surgical, I worked with many such people. Jamie and Michelle were the two most influential. One of the most incredible things about Key Surgical is the way they provided education. Many of those resources are the result of the passion that these two women have for their work. It was a joy to work with people who care so deeply about patient safety, healthcare workers, and making a positive impact on others. 

Michelle Lemmons, RN, BSN, PHN, CNOR, CCSVP is the OR Clinical Educator at Key Surgical, stemming from a 10-year career in nursing.

Michelle Lemmons, RN, BSN, PHN, CNOR, CCSVP is the OR Clinical Educator at Key Surgical, has over 10 years of healthcare experience, and has worked in nearly every aspect of the patient experience, including admissions, surgery, acute care, and post-acute care.

Jamie Zarembinski, CRCST, CER, CCSVP is the Sterile Processing Educator at Key Surgical. Jamie has worked at Key Surgical for nearly 10 years and helped create the clinical education department, with her passion for educating and supporting sterile processing departments.

You can learn from them both with Key Surgical’s free CEs or in their podcast, Knowledge Unlocked. 

Dayna Del Val

I first met Dayna when I was working as an Intern at the Immigrant Development Center (IDC) in Fargo. I was in my Senior year at Concordia College and just beginning a venture into nonprofit work. As part of our launch of the International Market Plaza, we were pursuing a grant from the Arts Partnership (TAP) to fund a mural project for the building’s exterior. I knew of Dayna as the Executive Director of TAP through the small business and non-profit community in Fargo but had not personally met her. After attending training that TAP had for the grant, I was lucky enough to meet Dayna. Her support for the IDC before and after we received the grant was invaluable. I was astonished by her generosity with her time and expertise as well as her passion for building up her community.

After I left Fargo, we maintained a social media friendship, which mostly meant “likes” on big events. When I started my business last year and was looking at who in my network could best support my new venture, Dayna immediately came to mind. I again experienced her generosity as she immediately agreed to meet with me, giving me advice and promising her support in whatever way she could. Reaching out to Dayna remains one of the best choices I made while starting my business as she is now a favorite client, creates one of my favorite newsletters, and is a huge supporter of my new ventures. 

In addition to being the Executive Director of the Arts Partnership, Dayna Del Val is a powerful speaker, coach, and writer with her own business, aptly named Dayna Del Val. She is also the Co-Host of an incredible show called Daily Dose. She and her husband, Mazz Marry, discuss addiction and recovery, live every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

Lisa Cotter

For those of you who don’t already know, Lisa Cotter is my mother. I hesitated for almost a full second to put her on this list only because, as a professional, it feels a little weird to still list my mom as one of the pivotal people in my career. However, anyone who would discount her impact doesn’t know Lisa Cotter. If you gave all the credit for all of my successes to her, I wouldn’t even be upset. Lisa Cotter got her master's degree in Engineering at Stanford and has since spent decades as a supply chain and business leader at top global companies.

Those achievements alone have set the example for what I can achieve when I put my mind to it, but her influence on my career is so much more than that. Who she, as a person, in those roles has shaped the way I walk through the world. Her balance of intellectual, confident, and compassionate leadership sets the standard to which I hold myself and others in the workplace. I honestly didn’t understand how rare that combination was until I entered the professional world myself. She is the model of the kind of professional I want to become. I would be thrilled to find even half the success that she has.

Lisa Cotter is a Supply Chain Strategy, Culture, and Communications Executive at Thrasio, a fast-growing e-commerce company in Boston, MA.

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