The third episode of our Moving Business Forward series takes us to Girls Inc. of Chattanooga, which is currently celebrating the organization’s 60th anniversary of service to the Chattanooga community. You’ll hear our wide-ranging conversation with Toccora Johnson-Petersen, the CEO of Girls, Inc. of Chattanooga. Joining the organization 12 years ago, Toccora shares her career path within Girls Inc. and you’ll also hear how her passion for service ultimately led Toccora to be selected by the organization's Board of Directors as the CEO of Girls Inc. in February of 2021. Our discussion on the podcast includes a look back at the history of Girls, Inc. of Chattanooga and how the organization has evolved through the decades in the ongoing effort to meet the needs of girls and their families. In addition to offering a historical perspective and talking about what Girls, Inc. does today with its current programming, Toccora spends part of our discussion looking ahead to the future of the organization.

For our second episode of the series, we make a visit to CoLab just days before the official beginning of Chattanooga’s Startup Week 2021. During this podcast, we’ll be talking with Chloé Morrison and Lya Kimbrough, who are part of the new team at CoLab. Chloé serves as the Director of Communications for the organization, and Lya is the Manager of Capital Access and Community Engagement. In addition to our conversation covering Startup Week, you’ll hear how the respective career paths for Chloé and Lya led them to CoLab. You’ll also hear how the new team is working to move the organization forward.

In the debut episode of the series, we talk in-depth with Rodney Van Valkenburg, the Executive Director of the Chattanooga Theatre Centre. Rodney began his new leadership role with the Theatre Center in early August of 2020 – which, of course, was still in the pre-vaccine days of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Rodney tells us about the adjustments he and his team at Theatre Centre have made over the past year. As you’ll hear, Rodney explains how the entire Theatre Centre team has responded, becoming quite innovative with a number of new approaches to carrying out their mission in the community.

Moving Business Forward is a new podcast from PodTopics.com set to debut in October. Our focus will be on talking to business leaders from across the Chattanooga area on how they have met the challenge of adapting to the times, innovating and moving their businesses and organizations forward. In this preview, you’ll hear more about our series and a brief excerpt from one of our interviews. We invite you to check out Moving Business Forward and subscribe to the newest podcast from PodTopics.com.