Her Story
About Tiffany
I grew up in a rural area in North Carolina on a farm, and from an early age I knew I wanted to do more and leave that rural area. My dad was a truck driver who had use of only one arm, but he got up every day and went to work and took care of his family - that grit is what I attribute my success to. I launched my business on his birthday as my homage to him. I went to North Carolina State University and majored in history because since I was young, I wanted to be a lawyer. I took the LSAT, but my first paying job out of undergrad was in the Human Resources Department, and I fell in love with the human aspect of what makes a company work - getting the right people in the right places at the right time. I went to Duke University to get my HR management certification and continued to progress, taking opportunities that many didn't want and helping to create new roles for myself. My goal was to be a chief HR officer in a corporate environment, and I was able to accomplish that. After 25-26 years in the human resources and leadership development space working with C-suite executives, I founded Gholston Consulting Group in 2022. We help organizations navigate through change - we prepare them for change and help them as they navigate through it. One of my most notable achievements is helping transform what was a family-owned business into seeing themselves as an executive team running a business they want to scale, with systems in place to open multiple new locations.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Tiffany
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to grit. I grew up on a farm, and my dad was a truck driver. We didn't come from much, but he got up every day and he went to work. To the world, he's seen as being handicapped - he has use of only one arm - but he was a long-distance truck driver. So if he could do it, I could do it. You know, I went to college, I had an easier route, but I launched my business on his birthday. It was my homage to him, because he did what a lot of men and people don't do. He took care of his family. And so, yeah, it's grit. You gotta have that.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received was early on in my 20s - I turned 50 this year, but I remember I was working at an engineering firm, and this guy told me, bless his soul, Alvin, he said, 'Discipline yourself so others won't have to.' And it's brought me to this place in my life. I really live by that motto that he gave me.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Do the research. Do the research. At the end of the day, you have to get the sales, right? So, if you've got a nice concept, you got a nice website, you've got a nice logo - if you're not getting sales, you have a hobby. And so you must get the sales. And you have to make sure that you understand your product or your service inside out, and you must know your competitors as well, so you know what differentiates yourself from them.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
There's always the challenge of getting customers - it's the sales, it's making sure that I am aligned with what's happening in the work environment and making sure that I'm out networking. You know, when you're working a lot of times in your own space, you can get used to being in your own space, and it's important to know what's happening in your environment. So that's an ongoing challenge, is just to make sure that I'm looking ahead and reading and knowing what's happening in the environment. And of course, we're all talking about this space around AI, and understanding how that can help my clients to further grow their businesses.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Integrity is first and foremost, and it's what I look for in my clients. I have to make sure that they are aligned, that they do business the right way, that they value not only their customers but they value their employees. And so the same goes in my personal life as well - I'm very important about character and having that integrity. It'll take you far.
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