What is the Bloombase Experience for Advanced Women Leaders?

About Alison
Alison is a Director with responsibility for implementing and enabling the business strategy for the Mid-Central Region at PwC. She has been with PwC, her favorite job so far in her career, for over 7 years.

In addition to various business development and sales roles in a variety of industries, she has participated in non-profit roles and boards including Girls, Inc., Dress for Success, Kappa Alpha Theta and Go Red for Women. She was a founding member and board member of the Indianapolis Chapter of Commercial Real Estate Women (IndyCREW) where she chaired the National Committee that authored the whitepaper “Glass Ceiling or Sticky Floor – The State of Women’s Advancement in Commercial Real Estate.”

Alison is retired from the Indianapolis roller derby term and is a tennis player and golfer of little consequence Her 12-year old daughter keeps her humble, is her IT support desk, and will likely be her boss someday.

Describe the six months you spend in the Bloombase Experience for Advanced Women Leaders (AWL)
Going through the AWL experience was both tougher and more meaningful that I could have imagined. I started to treat my monthly AWL sessions as sacred and protected time just for me, almost like setting aside time for self care, workouts, etc. I definitely looked forward to going into that protected space that fed me and developed me, but the sessions were also a street fight of my intellectual mind against my emotional one. Making the time to do this work for myself is still rippling through my professional and personal life today.

Describe the benefits of the AWL Experience
When I talk about Bloombase, I usually tell the person that I’m talking to something along the lines of “I had NO IDEA what I was getting into!” The AWL experience was a catalyst for me to do some deep searching into my values, my abilities, and my goals – and also pushed me to execute on next steps as I built a roadmap of my future. And the experience gave me additional skills to be a more engaged, thoughtful and transformative leader, but also gave me a new language that I needed in order to journey through emotional intelligence and self- awareness as a person. It has impacted my personal life just as much as my professional one, and I continue to discover the ways that I am still changing and evolving as a result of the experience and continued engagement with Bloombase. Since my cohort ended, I have started MBA school, earned 2 promotions, and was able to change “swim lanes” to a different strategic role within my current company.

Describe the benefits of being a part of the post AWL Community
As an alumnae, becoming part of the Bloombase community of women is like waking up one morning with superpowers. The diverse organizations, areas of expertise, sectors and levels that the AWL women represent is a powerful resource that you have the ability to engage when you have questions, need points of view or need connectivity. I don’t hesitate to call in women from AWL cohorts to find answers, get connected, hear a point of view, or in my case recently, to find a speaker for an event!

Describe your experience working with the Bloombase Founders
Bloombase Advanced Women Leaders was different for me because it was the first program where not only did I learn skills to support the advancement of my leadership journey, but that I was also accountable for the work of applying them to my life, right then. Creating that plan in order to execute next steps in my journey really propelled me in a way that I hadn’t been able to create forward motion in the past.

Having access to Sheri and Anne as ongoing sounding boards and coaches (and holders of mirrors that you sometimes need to see) has been an impactful benefit of the AWL program – there is no end to the amount of time that they have to give to us in the name of helping us develop, succeed and thrive.