Speakers/Presenters - Bios
Alphabetical by Name
A - C | D - F | G
- J | K - M | N
- Q | R - T | U
- Z
Keynote Speaker
Marsha Petrie Sue
Marsha
Petrie Sue is the Muhammad Ali of communicators, especially in
dealing with difficult people. She can dance and look pretty, and
she uses the entire ring, but she knows how and when to land a knockout
punch. Think of her presentations as charm school with live ammunition.
Also known as The Accountability Master, Marsha dares people to take personal responsibility for their choices, success, and life. She is original, unique, and a one-of-a-kind professional speaker and author.
She gives you proven tactics for managing people, colleagues and clients - especially those difficult people that create perplexity, puzzlement, and pandemonium in your professional and personal life. Whether dealing with a slacker, liar, loser, or bully, her guiding principles bring sanity to a seemingly hopeless situation.
Marsha’s Keynote topics will include:- Personal responsibility
- Making smart choices in these tough times
- Energizing yourself and your business
- Branding your own uniqueness
- And much, much more!
A - E
Stacy Layne Bergsma
With
more than 24 years of progressive experience in several significant areas,
Stacy uses her title as a "Generalist" liberally! As the owner of VirtualStacy,
she thrives in the variety of work, the flexibility, and the knowledge that
she offers quality services to her clients. While she strives to stay on the
cutting edge of the market, she transitions along the side of technology through
continued education.
Stacy has what is called a "double structure" personality. She thrives
on creating systems. She loves to implement the structure necessary to run
that well-oiled-machine. With several years experience as Office Manager in
the Building & Design industry, and Real Estate she began her Virtual Assistant
business in 2006. In 2008, she joined the Dynamic Support Solutions Team, owned
and operated by Sandi Silva, and has since transitioned to Project Manager.
Stacy is a member of both IVAA and VA Networking.
Beth Caldwell
Beth Caldwell owns her own public relations firm in Greentree, PA where she
specializes in working with small business owners, solo and entrepreneurs.
She is a “40 under 40” Winner, having been recognized by Pittsburgh Magazine
as one of the city of Pittsburgh’s most influential young business leaders.
She has won numerous community and business awards, and is the author of "I
Wish I’d Known That!, Secrets to Success in Business from Women Who’ve Been
There."
Her passion is to empower and inspire business women to success.
Laurie Cantus
Laurie
Cantus amassed over a decade of high-level administrative experience in the
fast-paced industries of fashion and telecommunications before launching her
successful VA business, Go2Girls in 2006. Prior
to entering the corporate world, she spent over 12 years in the United States
Army, where she was exposed to a myriad of exciting and challenging situations.
Through these experiences, she developed superb organizational skills and creative
approaches to problem solving. Go2Girls transitioned from a single-VA practice
to a multi-VA team in May 2007.
D - F
Patty Dost
Patty Dost, owner of Time Is Of The
Es-Cents, has over 20 years experience in the corporate world and has
an extensive background as an Administrative Assistant. Since officially
opening her Virtual Assistant business in 2006, she has established herself
as ‘The VAs VA.’ In 2009, she wrote a book to, not only assist individuals
with their virtual assistant business, but also to share her experience
and knowledge so that others could learn what it takes to work with other
virtual assistants. Patty has used her background and also furthered
her skills so that she can assist her clients and establish long term
business relationships. Patty is the VP of Operations for VAnetworking
and has volunteered for the Online International Virtual Assistant Convention
(OIVAC) for four years. She was presented the 2007 VAccolade Business
Entrepreneur of the Year Award and was nominated for the Janet Jordan
Achievement Award in 2008.
Nina Feldman
Nina
Feldman is a veteran of 27 years of office support service ownership
and acts as a frequent consultant to other business support providers
and VAs on matters relating to business start-up, profitable pricing,
and estimating.
She was one of the co-creators of the Industry Production Standards (IPS)
(published and distributed by the Office
Business Center International. She presents semi-annual workshops
on pricing and estimating in the San Francisco Bay Area and at national
conferences. Owner since 1981 of Nina Feldman Connections, a business-support/referral
service based in Oakland, California, Nina was voted Member of the Year
in 2001 by the members of the Association of Business Support Services
and is currently a moderator of the ABSSI and IVAA Yahoogroup listservs.
She published a resource book in the 1990s called How to
Run a Successful Homebased Word Processing/Desktop Publishing Business that
sold over 2,000 copies, and numerous articles in _Industry Focus_ magazine
and at Business Know-How.com.
Nina's mission as a coach is to help VAs value their skills and charge
what they are worth. Her aim is to help VAs handle pricing situations
with clients where their clients become their allies and partners rather
than their adversaries. More info at ninafeldman.com.
G - J
Terry Green
Terry
L. Green, is the owner and President of Fastype
VA Services, Inc. In business since 1991, Terry is a Certified
Master Virtual Assistant with more than 30 years of combined experience
in administrative support in both the corporate world and as the
owner of a successful Virtual Assistance practice. She is also
the recipient of the 2007 Thomas
Leonard International Virtual Assistant of Distinction Award.
Originally an office-based secretarial and resume service serving
local clients only in a small, rural village in Central Ohio, Fastype
is now a multi-VA practice with a team of qualified associates
specializing in supporting professional speakers and coaches worldwide;
with clients spanning the globe from across the United States to
as far away as New Zealand, Antigua, Singapore and now Sweden.
Alyssa Gregory
Alyssa
Gregory is the author of VA
Secrets Revealed! An Insider's Guide to Being a Successful Virtual
Assistant, and the owner of avertua, LLC, a full-service
virtual assistant firm in Stewartsville, NJ. Since 2003, Alyssa
and her team have been providing innovative solutions, exceptional
service and unrivaled quality to help small businesses run faster,
be stronger and work smarter across the board.
Alyssa has fulfilled her inherent desire to help other entrepreneurs by offering mentoring and guidance as a small business coach. She earned a B.A. in Communications with a major in Corporate Communications and minors in Business and Journalism from Susquehanna University, and she is currently in training to become an ICF-certified coach through the MentorCoach program. Alyssa is an IVAA Certified Virtual Assistant (CVA), and volunteers as the RFP Coordinator for the organization.
Karen Gridley
Karen
Gridley is the excuse removal expert™. She is uniquely qualified
to talk about removing excuses to achieve success because she herself
is a Recovering Excuse Maker™.
As a business owner, professional speaker, life coach and author, Karen empowers people by providing practical tools and solutions in order to achieve optimal performance. She leads people to own their choices as she exposes the excuses that prevent problem solving and block success. Author of Embrace Your Rights, Karen guides people who want to get out of their own way to live the life they
Whether dealing with issues in business or in life, her principles shed light on how to be more productive, effective and accountable. Karen works with companies, associations and individuals that want to remove excuses, improve performance, achieve goals, and increase the bottom line.
K - M
Sally Kuhlman
Sally
Kuhlman is the owner of Virtual Simplicity, located in the San Francisco
Bay Area. Virtual Simplicity offers administrative, marketing, technical
and social networking support to entrepreneurs. Sally works
with a team of Virtual Assistant’s who assist in providing support to
her clients. Sally has also mentored VAs through her Coach
Sally business and is active in many different Virtual Assistant networking
groups. She is a moderator at VAnetworking and a volunteer for IVAA (managing
the IVAA Facebook Fan Page). In addition, Sally recently volunteered
to be the vice president of public relations at her local Toastmasters
group. Sally is very active in the Virtual Assistant world and has
attended 3 VA conferences in person (2006 VA Conference in Dallas, Texas;
IVAA Summit in San Francisco, CA 2007 and FoVA in Toronto, Canada in
2008). Sally encourages all Virtual Assistant’s to get out of their
comfort zone and try new things.
Together, Sally and Yvonne Weld have co-authored Managing Your Thriving Business for Success, a book that provides tips and advice with respect to scheduling, time management, goal setting, stress management, determining return on investment and other management topics.
N - Q
Lauren Pibworth
Seeking a way to control her own destiny and to create a sustainable business
that stimulated her intellect and rewarded her pocketbook, Lauren Pibworth
founded Pibworth Professional Solutions (Pibworth) in 2007. Pibworth is
a Virtual Assistant company specializing in business facilitation and marketing
for Speakers, Trainers and other Road Warriors. Lauren draws on eight years
of successful business management in the Ontario wine industry, and more than
a decade in the financial and advertising industries, to build a strong VA
brand that is growing at an exponential rate.
To help her clients succeed, Lauren has established a series of strategic
partnerships with the media, with video-production companies, social/Internet
marketing specialists, as well as with writers, graphic designers and web developers. The
result is a business focused on helping her clients manage their customers’
perceptions. Pibworth helps its clients live their business dreams,
even while helping them create and manage that business.
Lauren is also a VA sales coach and author. Her new book, "Quacking
the Surface, Managing your Customer’s Perceptions" guides VAs and small business
owners alike through the maze of professional business set-up, branding, customer
service and reputation management.
R - T
Kylie Short
Kylie
Short, founder and manager of Tilda Virtual Services in Melbourne, Australia,
specializes in providing first-class Virtual Assistant services to a
broad range of industries. While these industries include information
portals, online stores, internet marketers, government auditor, business
coaches and marketing consultants, Kylie has a particular passion for
helping small business owners… a passion fuelled by the immense pleasure
she derives from her own business.
Donna Toothaker
A
leader within the VA community for many years, Donna Toothaker is the
CEO of 1stVA Virtual Online Marketing
Assistants, and Step It Up VA Coaching.
After a fulfilling career in the banking and financial industry, Donna’s entrepreneurial drive led her out on her own to create 1stVA during the initial growth of the virtual assisting industry. For years her passion for helping others thrive and expand their businesses has made her a sought-after online marketing VA expert for speakers, coaches and entrepreneurs from around the world. Donna's company expanded early on, and today includes an exceptional team of more than 10 employees and subcontractors.
U - Z
Yvonne Weld
Yvonne Weld is the owner of Able Virtual Assistant Services, located
just outside London, Ontario. Able Virtual Assistant Services is a multi-VA
business that provides bookkeeping and administrative support to Consultants
and other solopreneurs. As a graduate of the Small Business Centre, Yvonne
has the professional training to compliment her practical skills and
knows what it takes to run a successful business. Yvonne also coaches
and mentors VAs to reach their goals through her roles as a Success Partner
with Canadian Virtual Assistant Network (CVAN) and as VAinsider President
at VAnetworking.com. She is also a member of the VA Certified Board.
As an author of two books she has shared her knowledge with Virtual Assistants
in the areas of creating a Procedures Manual, Contingency Planning, scheduling,
goal setting, boundary setting and time management.
Rebekah Zobel Jones
Rebekah Zobel Jones, My Fabulous
VA, is a Membership Site creator, coordinator
and consultant. She assists coaches and consultants in adding Membership
Sites to their businesses, resulting in increased value to their clients
and increased cash flow.
A Military Spouse, Rebekah left the corporate world and opened her business in early 2008. She quickly filled her client roster and began getting involved as a volunteer with IVAA as well as attending live events across the country. As one of the only VAs in North America specializing in Membership Sites, Rebekah focuses on using WordPress and WishList Member to create dynamic Membership Sites for her clients. Rebekah received her WishList Member certification in 2010 and has been working with WordPress since 2008. Rebekah has presented for VANetworking.com, VA Virtuosos and the IVAA Online Summit.