Lacey (MacIntyre) Kellenbenz, Ed.D.

I attribute my success to the women who came before me, the ones who left the door open behind them and helped other women like me through. One of my biggest, and hardest, realizations in my career has been that not all women champion other women, and not all women support other women. It's a very hard reality, but recognizing it and inspiring other women to celebrate one another has become a personal mission of mine. Because those who do will help grow the next generation of leaders and I can't think of a more meaningful legacy than that. When it's my time to move on, I want to leave that door open for those who are going to come next the way my mentors did for me.

The best career advice I've ever received is that vulnerability should not really be viewed as a weakness. Rather, it's an opportunity to really engage people. Being transparent and being vulnerable helps further inclusion, in my opinion, and I really take that advice to heart. That's where opening up and talking about the challenges of working motherhood really stemmed from. I realized you can build a really strong community of moms by opening up and speaking truth to the challenges that we face.

My mentor, Dr. Maravene Loeschke, who was president of Mansfield University and then went on to Towson University, was pivotal in teaching me to be genuinely happy for other women, to speak their name in rooms that they're not in. She was the true definition of a leader, celebrating others even when she had remarkable honors and accolades of her own to relish in. She will forever be one of the most humble and selfless people I've been blessed enough to learn from. I remember her legacy everyday and try to mirror those values in how I live, parent, and work.

Keep learning. Even when you finish your formal education, it can't be the end of your knowledge journey. This world has moved at a pace that I could have never anticipated. Every single day, my eyes are opening to new and different technologies, and it can either be used against us, or it can be an opportunity for us to be able to be part of this transformation and shift that we're all experiencing, especially when it comes to AI. The more that we are willing to learn, and the more that we're willing to step up and dig our heels into things like AI, digital transformation, and the like, the more that we're able to be part of what comes next. I think that's really important, especially for women, that we get a say and that we get an active leadership role in what this looks like, and also to help make sure that it's responsible for the next generation.

Many organizations are throwing AI tools at employees without proper communication, change management, strategy and context. This is a challenge because people don’t know how to actually use them in their jobs, leaders aren’t modeling behavior adoption and there's no narrative tying AI to “how we work together now." The biggest opportunity in my field right now is owning the intersection of AI, behavior change and internal storytelling because most companies are doing all three poorly or separately.

Authenticity and transparency are huge values for me. Being vulnerable helps further engagement, and I believe that's our most powerful superpower as professionals: the ability to connect and the ability to meaningfully interact. When you can engage people effectively, you really have an opportunity to further your career and to further your brand. In building a community on LinkedIn, for example, I have been able to build meaningful relationships with parents around the world because I dig deep within myself and speak truth to issues many working parents face but often don't speak openly about. It's opened doors, and most importantly it has helped people come together and have honest conversations that they weren't having before. That's where the true value comes alive, because that's when change starts to happen.