Podcast: Download

Andrea Krieger has served as the President/CEO of United Way of Escambia County since June of 2011.  Under her leadership, United Way has grown support of the local community to create a $3 to 1 return on investment.  In the recently completed 2015-2016 fiscal year, $3.8M in donor gifts, sponsorship and grants were leveraged through volunteer efforts and in-kind support to create an $14.8M impact on the local community.

Andrea has a strong commitment to making a difference in the lives of others and was taught early the value of service by her father who was a naval officer and aviator for 24 years.  She is the Past-President for the Rotary Club of Pensacola and a Paul Harris Fellow.  Additionally, she is the Program Chair for Rotary District 6940’s RYLA program.  Andrea also serves on the Board of Central Credit Union and on the Achieve Escambia Executive Board and Leadership Council.  She is a 2003 LeaP, 2006 Leadership Okaloosa and 2013 LeadersEdge graduate.  Prior to joining United Way of Escambia County, Andrea led the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Northwest Florida through a successful $5M expansion of service to a new 26-bedroom Ronald McDonald House.  She is honored and humbled by her ability to serve our community as the President of our local United Way.

Kolleen Edwards Chesley has 25 years of experience in the financial services industry and spent the majority of her career as a financial advisor. In that role, Kolleen was responsible for finding her own clients and quickly learned the value of networking, networking, and even more networking. It was in 2004 and during her sales career that she, along with two other professional business women met for lunch with the purpose of helping to motivate each other after Hurricane Ivan had blown through our area and changed not only the physical landscape of the area, but also impacted the business landscape as well. Out of that lunch was born what is now a thriving not-for-profit organization for business women.

Kolleen currently serves full-time as the Founding Director of what was originally called Women’s Business Lunch and is now known as Powerful Women of the Gulf Coast. The organization advocates a culture of confidence building, lifelong learning, collaboration, empowering others and a spirit of charitable giving. The mission of Powerful Women of the Gulf Coast is to promote, advance and improve women in business and the organization accomplishes these in a number of different ways.

–             Monthly networking meetings in Pensacola and Gulf Breeze. These are open to all women and free to attend. We run a structured meeting with open networking, an educational segment, a sponsor presentation, an opportunity to hear about the businesses of all attendees, and a whole lot of fun. We frequently hear from attendees that these meeting are chock full of value and a great way to build new relationships to help support their businesses.

–             Powerful Women of the Gulf Coast Magazine. We are in our third year of production of the magazine and our goal is for this to be a quarterly publication. Each edition features interviewees of local successful leaders in business who share their honest thoughts on leadership, success, obstacles, and inspiration as it relates to women in business. We also include other articles on leadership, networking, and other skill development. It is geared for anyone in business or looking for business motivation and tips.

–             Annual Pursue Your Passion Women’s conference. To help celebrate National Business Women’s Week, we hold a full day conference during the third week of October along with several other events leading up to the conference. We feature a national keynote speaker, several local successful leaders in business, along with Speed Networking, an Experience Hall, structured and unstructured networking exercises and plenty of laughter, relationship building and excitement. Our attendees are not only motivated by the conference but they leave with tangible tips they can take back and implement in their businesses to lead them to success.

–             Power Up Challenge is a 12 week educational series where we hold classes once a week for an hour and a half focused around four main areas of business: Networking, Marketing, Business Efficiency, and Sales Skills. Open to men and women and all classmates (whether they attend in person or not) receive the full audio recording of each class along with class notes, expanded notes, and extra resources. Classes are affordable and attendees are elated with the amount and quality of the information that is shared.

–             Women in Leadership radio podcast show – sponsored by Pensacola Business Radio X. We hold shows twice a month and bring in mostly women but some men for in-depth interviews. Interviewees share their advice on topics such as mentoring, keys to success, time management tools, personal mantras and favorite inspirations, and what men can do to help support women in business.

Membership in Powerful Women of the Gulf Coast is also available. Contact kolleen@powerfulwomengulfcoast.com for more information or visit our website at powerfulwomengulfcoast.com or Facebook at Powerful Women of the Gulf Coast.