Revealed! Here are the 2019 honorees in CBJ’s Women in Business awards program

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Originally published on Charlotte Business Journal

For more than 20 years, the Charlotte Business Journal has recognized outstanding local businesswomen through the Women in Business Achievement Awards program — and the time has come to reveal our 2019 honorees.

This signature awards program recognizes 25 female business leaders in the Charlotte region who’ve made significant contributions to their companies, industries and communities over the previous year.

A Lifetime Achievement Award honoree will be announced in the days to come. She will be someone who’s made an impact over the course of a distinguished career, joining past recipients such as Susan DeVore of Premier Inc. (NASDAQ: PINC) and Cathy Bessant of Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC).

CBJ will honor the members of the 2019 class at an awards event Feb. 25. As was the case last year, that program will take place in tandem with our Bizwomen Mentoring Monday event, which offers brief, one-on-one coaching sessions and networking opportunities. A cocktail hour, seated dinner and awards presentation will follow.

Each honoree has been asked to share a yearbook photo of herself and to consider this question: “What were you thinking at that moment when the photo was taken, and what advice would you give her today?” Those responses will be part of the program.

The honorees also will be profiled in a CBJ special report Feb. 15, with additional coverage and photos to come after the awards presentation.

Check out last year’s special section here to learn more about the program, and check out the photo gallery below for scenes from the 2018 event.

Congratulations to the 2019 winners:

  • Zelleka Biermann, city of Charlotte
  • Sarah Taylor Brigham, Sycamore Brewing
  • Tina Craft, Albemarle Corp.
  • Ruby DuBay, Blythe Construction
  • Caroline Dudley, Accenture
  • Carla Eustache, Style Perfect Events
  • Jada Grandy-Mock, Fifth Third Bank
  • Kim Henderson, Novant Health
  • Diane Honeycutt, Team Honeycutt/Allen Tate Realtors and Cabarrus County commissioner
  • Pat Jones, Carowinds
  • Elizabeth Jordan, Deloitte
  • Kathleen Kaney, Atrium Health
  • Cathie McDonald, OrthoCarolina
  • Rima Mehta, PNC Bank
  • Kelly Necessary, Dixon Hughes Goodman
  • Monika Nessbach, Designbar
  • Diana Palecek, Fox Rothschild
  • Scarlet Powell, Unified Technology Systems
  • Kim Rock, EY
  • Jane Rosaasen, Daimler Trucks North America
  • Erin Santos, Isabella Santos Foundation
  • Christine Steiner, Life’s Food
  • Stephanie Titus, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
  • Marcie Williams, RKW Residential
  • Jane Wu, Panorama Holdings

Revealed! Here are the 2019 honorees in CBJ’s Women in Business awards program (Charlotte Business Journal)

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For more than 20 years, CBJ has recognized outstanding local businesswomen through the Women in Business Achievement Awards program. Here’s an exclusive first look at the members of the 2019 class of honorees.

To read the full article please go here.

Charlotte’s unsung heroes: They made Charlotte better in 2018 (Part 2)

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Originally published by The Charlotte Observer Editorial Board

Erin Santos with her daughter, Isabella. Santos has responded to Isabella’s death by helping others in similar situations. ANGELO MERENDINO

Each year, the Observer editorial board searches for heroes among us who make our city and region better. This year, we’ve found people who’ve made the most of a second chance, helped dads connect with children, helped students explore and forever changed treatment of cancer in Charlotte. (We published our first two honorees yesterday.) To them, and to all who make our community better, we say thank you!

Reimagining pediatric cancer care in Charlotte

Charlotte’s Isabella Santos was 2 years old when she was diagnosed in 2007 with neuroblastoma, a rare cancer that mostly afflicts very young children.

Her parents couldn’t get the treatment they needed for her in Charlotte. So they took Isabella to Sloan Kettering in New York and to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to try to save her life.

 

Even as they cared for their daughter, they quickly created the Isabella Santos Foundation to raise money to fund research at Sloan Kettering for a cure. At first it wasn’t much – they raised $7,000 at their first 5K race in Ballantyne.

But Isabella’s mother, Erin Santos, quit her job at Lending Tree to work on the foundation full time, and she changed the focus. She had had the resources to take Isabella around the country, but she knew other families didn’t, with deadly results. They needed world-class treatment in Charlotte.

So Erin stopped sending money elsewhere and instead worked with Levine Children’s Hospital to treat neuroblastoma here. The foundation raised $1 million last year and $1.4 million this year. It used part of that money to partner with Levine to build an MIBG treatment room, one of fewer than 20 in the country and arguably the best.

Erin Santos and the Isabella Santos Foundation have forever changed treatment of neuroblastoma in Charlotte. But they’re not content to stop there. They have pledged to raise $5 million over five years to have Levine build a rare and solid tumor program that would treat about 15 different rare cancers. It would be the only one of its kind in the country.

Isabella Santos died in 2012 at the age of 7. But her life, through the work of her mother Erin, will benefit others for generations.