Impact Comes in Many Forms
Editorial
In 2018, BusinessWest launched a new recognition program, one what would recognize the outstanding accomplishments of women across this region and tell stories that might otherwise go untold.
Over the first six years of this program, we have done that just, and this pattern continues with the class of 2024 — a very diverse group of eight women who have given back, and changed lives, in many different ways: by taking their business or nonprofit to new levels of success; by serving as a role model to others, but especially women and girls; by mentoring others and helping them find direction and purpose in their lives; by persevering through adversity; by doing, well … all of the above. They are:
• Alison Berman, council director of Girls on the Run Western Massachusetts, whose efforts to boost girls’ confidence and character have impacted not only thousands of program participants, but entire schools and communities;
• Dianne Fuller Doherty, co-founder of the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts and former director of the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center’s Regional Office, who has spent a lifetime not only being the 413’s biggest cheerleader, but tangibly improving its communities through a host of key leadership roles;
• JoAnne Finck, president of Friends of Cooley Dickinson, whose goal has always been to make a difference in the community and individual lives, and has found myriad roles through which to accomplish that;
• Kimberley Lee, chief of Creative Strategy and Development at MiraVista Behavioral Health Center, who has not only boosted the impact of numerous nonprofits, but has found many ways to help people, especially women, overcome barriers to self-sufficiency;
• Megan McDonough, executive director of Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity, whose work to advance homeownership in the region has improved the economic prospects for both individual families and the entire region;
• LaTonia Monroe Naylor, chief business educator at Monroe Naylor Consulting, LLC; and president and CEO of Parent Villages, who is not only helping entrepreneurs get their enterprises to the next level, but working on key issues of education and trauma resilience;
• Kristi Reale, partner at Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C., whose reputation as a local leader in her industry extends not only to her clients, but the many young people, especially young women, she has mentored; and
• Dr. Shirley Jackson Whitaker, a nephrologist and artist who brought lessons in patient histories and healing to her latest role, as the producer of an important, moving documentary about one of America’s deep, unhealed wounds.
Congratulations to the Women of Impact class of 2024.
