A series of 6 workshops equipping you with tools and ideas to grow a thriving venture.
Whether you’re self-employed or a budding entrepreneur seeking to start/grow an ethically responsible venture, this series of workshops is designed to equip you with tools, tactics, ideas, and mindsets that help you not only succeed, but find purpose and fulfillment.
With social/environmental/personal values, inner awareness, and community vision woven throughout, these workshops do more than give you tools and tactics. They help you be what you want — with purpose.
Each hands-on workshop is led by a topic expert (and the series facilitators) and includes a mindfulness exercise, individual exercises, and opportunities to share ideas with your peers throughout.
The Open Center is the premier urban destination for holistic learning, personal development, professional advancement and enrichment in NYC.
Who Should Attend?
- helping professionals
- coaches
- freelancers
- artists and makers
- nonprofiteers
- artisan retailers
- restaurateurs
- service businesses
Workshops
Apr 7/ Branding With Purpose
Scott Tillitt
aligning your brand with your purpose, creating a high-impact brand system
Apr 14/ Communicating Your Value(s)
Ajax Greene
mindful, goal-oriented selling of yourself through language (verbal and written), passion, and posture
Apr 21/ Marketing
Melissa Gibson
sales, advertising, online marketing and social media, marketing plan, marketing your values
Apr 28/ Legal Strategies
Gary Schuster
intellectual property, partner contracts, benefit corporations, crowdfunding
May 5/ Accounting + Finance Issues
Myriam Bouchard
What’s a P&L, a KPI? Learn how to create financial well-being for your business. Make friends with your numbers.
May 12/ Personal Leadership
Colette Ruoff
growing yourself to grow your business, giving feedback, engaging in difficult conversations
Schedule subject to change. People listed are the lead presenters (bios below). All workshops are co-facilitated by Ajax Greene and Scott Tillitt.
Workshops are Thursdays, 5:30 – 7:45 PM.
>> Register for a free intro on Thur, March 31, at 5:30 PM
Investment
6-workshop series: $375
Presenters
Myriam Bouchard
Bottom Line Business Services
Board Treasurer / Re>Think Local
An award-winning certified business advisor, Myriam has over 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur. She currently helps entrepreneurs find peace of mind by providing constructive and creative feedback to help them make knowledge-based day-to-day business decisions and increase their bottom line, while keeping an eye on the broader long-term goals. She is passionate about using her creativity in helping a business grow, whether it is reviewing a profit and loss statement to help with cash flow issues, discussing marketing and pricing strategies to increase revenues, or reviewing organizational charts to improve workflow. Myriam has helped thousands of entrepreneurs do feasibility analyses, often leading to successful endeavors and at other times, the numbers exposing the hurdles of starting or expanding a business. She has an MBA from Syracuse University.
Melissa Gibson
President/CEO / New In Town
Melissa is a seasoned marketing and business development professional with over 20 years of experience. With degrees in Agriculture Economics and Management from Cornell University and a Masters of Brand Management from the University of Georgia, Melissa began her career with a pioneering database marketing company and then went on to found her own business development consulting firm, New In Town. She continues to work with individuals, businesses and organizations seeking to acquire new customers and successfully nurture and build brand equity, with a special emphasis on grassroots growth platforms, small business collaborative marketing and innovative idea generation.
Ajax Greene
Founder/CEO / On Belay Business Advisors
Co-founder + Vice Chair / Re>Think Local
Ajax is a well-known and respected serial social entrepreneur, triple bottom line and localism evangelist, trusted generalist business advisor, and connector of confidential business transactions. He has turned his abundant creativity, talent and positive energy to building organizations and a community that expresses a deep commitment to being conscious of the triple bottom line of people, planet and prosperity. He is a co-producer of Social Venture Institute / Hudson Valley, a weekend retreat for world-changing social entrepreneurs.
Colette Ruoff
Founder / Terra Nova Facilitation and Consulting
President / SageArts
Colette is a seasoned Leadership Development specialist with 20 years experience in leading workshops for global corporations such as McKinsey, WPP, J&J as well as smaller organizations such as The Robin Hood Foundation, BALLE, New Island Capital and Earthjustice. Her organizational consulting and coaching firm, Terra Nova, provides consulting services, leadership development and coaching to social entrepreneurs to support them in building their leadership and aligning their people behind their mission. She has a MBA from NYU, is a Gestalt Psychotherapist and is a Certified Integral Coach. In 2014 Colette launched a local nonprofit arts organization called SageArts, which gives elders an artistic platform to share their life wisdom with the community.
Gary Schuster
Senior Counsel / Jacobowitz & Gubits, LLP
Co-founder + Board Secretary / Re>Think Local
Gary’s varied law practice includes formation, transactions and counseling for corporations, LLCs, partnerships and many kinds of not-for-profiits; purchases and sales of businesses; commercial and residential real estate transactions and leasing; franchising; estate planning, administration and litigation; guardianship proceedings; and media, copyright and trademark. He has been a leader in educating the public about New York’s new benefit corporation. He also has extensive experience in music and art, which includes past employment with ASCAP, The Songwriters Guild of America, Dunvagen Music Publishers (owned by the composer, Philip Glass) and Knoedler Publishing (publishers of the artist, LeRoy Neiman). He has represented clients in art, music, film, video, dance, theater, photography, fashion modeling, publishing, the internet, museums and arts centers.
Scott Tillitt
Founder / Antidote Collective + BEAHIVE
Co-founder + Board Chair / Re>Think Local
Equal parts strategist, publicist, marketer, social entrepreneur, nonprofit leader, and writer, Scott has an insatiable interest in big ideas and the behaviors that drive people, what resonates with them, and how to communicate with them. He has 20+ years of experience and a broad perspective promoting ideas, products and services in various culture-shaping domains. He's instrumental in a social enterprise, a nonprofit, and various projects and community engagements that are focused on making the Hudson Valley a more vibrant, sustainable, locally-rooted and human-scale place to live and work. Scott is a co-producer of Social Venture Institute / Hudson Valley, a weekend retreat for world-changing social entrepreneurs.