Joelle Conway Jamvold

I've had a lot of people in my professional career who have helped me make it to where I am today. I have a very long list of names, but I really recognize the power of having a strong support system and a good network. That has helped me take my career to the next level. My current CEO, who is also my previous boss, Allison Maisie, has been particularly instrumental as a mentor in my journey.

I'm going to go back to my college days and my advisor of Student Media, who really shaped the trajectory of who I am professionally. I doubted myself a lot and felt like I had no business being there, but she told me, if you keep telling yourself that you don't belong in the room, you will never get in the room. At that point, I was like, wait, I keep telling myself I can't, I can't, I shouldn't. You know, what's stopping me? And if somebody says no, now I just find another door to open. You know, maybe that room wasn't for me, but another one will be.

Initially, I want to piggyback off what my mentors have told me, which is what I said earlier. I think, especially as young women, it's so easy for us to tell ourselves that we can't, or to not take our place. But there is space for us, and it's just waiting for us to take that opportunity.

The challenges always seem to pop up first. I would say, especially for trade associations, it's been an industry-wide trend of declining membership while also having higher operating costs. You know, it costs a lot of money to provide the resources and training that we do to our industry professionals. So I think with that challenge then comes the opportunity of highlighting why it's so important to be involved with your trade association. It's not just about the membership benefit package, but the networking that you receive, the opportunities that come from being at events, or being plugged into a network of peers across the country that can help you take your business to a new level. And especially post-COVID, when a lot of things are virtual, we kind of lost that sense of community. So I think bringing that back, it looks different than it did pre-COVID, but it's still here, and it's just waiting for you.

I'd say integrity. I think integrity is an all-encompassing value, you know, because you have to be honest, you have to be reliable, and if you say you're going to do something, then you hold yourself to that standard. So I really try to bring integrity into everything that I do. And also empathy.