Host: Heather Dotchel, Corporate Communications
Guests: Brandi Heatherly, Vice President of Performance Excellence for Aramark Collegiate Hospitality; May Limbach, Vice President for Marketing for Aramark’s Avendra Group
It is time to Mark This!, a podcast in which we peel back the corporate curtain to reveal the cool and innovative people, programs and projects that are happening all over Aramark's varied lines of business.
I'm Heather Dotchel. As a member of Aramark's Communications team, I see and hear amazing things that are happening across our company every day. These remarkable initiatives happen because we have remarkable people behind them, building opportunity, building innovation, and building community.
Today the employee resource group, EMPOWER, is being featured. If you are a listener, you may remember that we talked about ERGs last year. They are voluntary, employee-led groups made up of individuals who come together based on common interests, backgrounds, or demographic factors. EMPOWER's mission is to empower and grow diverse leadership among women that drives results by promoting development, networking, and mentoring.
We are joined today by two of our EMPOWER leaders, chair, Brandi Heatherly, who is currently our Collegiate Hospitality Vice President of Performance Excellence and May Limbach, co-chair, who is Vice President for Marketing for our Avendra group. Brandi, can you please share your path here at Aramark and how you got involved with EMPOWER?
Brandi Heatherly (01:28):
Sure. Thanks, Heather. So I have been with Collegiate Hospitality for the past 29 years. I started as a student employee at a university that Aramark had recently began operating, the hospitality ecosystem there and so have had the opportunity to work throughout the country. Most recently, I was based out West and just this week relocated back to the East coast. And one of the most really fun things that I've had the opportunity to do is to lead EMPOWER as the chair.
I actually joined an earlier version of EMPOWER within Aramark called the WBRN many years ago in the early 2000s, which similarly focused as you listed our mission for EMPOWER, very similarly focused. But as my career has progressed and developed, the opportunity came up to be the chair and lead the next generation, if you will, of the EMPOWER Group and so have been doing that. This March will be my third National Women's History Month programming series, and so I'm thrilled to have that opportunity as part of my career development. Thank you.
What about you, May? What is your professional history and EMPOWER story?
Sure. Thank you so much too, Heather for having us today. I am so excited to be here and, of course, I want to share my journey, but I want to also say how much in awe I am of Brandi. And your journey, Brandi, it's really inspired me and speaks so much to the opportunity that is here at Aramark for growth. Brandi's been an incredible leader, a cheerleader of mine, and so much of my success and growth has been a result of the connections that I've made from this ERG with Brandi and others. So just wanted to take a moment to say that.
My professional journey has probably, I would say, taken on more of a non-linear path. I spent my earlier career in marketing roles within the financial services industry. I went lateral. I went backwards. I went forward. You name it, I did it all. And then I decided to move back to Philly and pursue my MBA, and that's around the time I landed my role at Aramark. So I've been here for seven years and in the first half I was a marketing director in facilities. The latter half, I was a brand marketing director for convenience retail. But this journey here at Aramark also comprised lateral and upward moves. So that's led me to where I am today, where in September I was promoted to vice president of marketing communications for Avendra. It's been challenging, exciting and so rewarding and I am so happy to be there.
But interestingly, I would say my journey with EMPOWER parallels my time at Aramark and Brandi spoke to it, a little bit about WBRN. But I helped reinvigorate, I guess you could say, WBRN in 2017, right around the time I joined, and then again in 2020 when we rebranded as EMPOWER. I would say I am deeply passionate about DEI, Diversity, Equity Inclusion here at Aramark, and I really have let that passion fuel my ongoing commitment. For the majority of those years that I've been here at Aramark, I've led those communication efforts in EMPOWER. And last year I've mentioned I became the co-chair along with Melissa Merkel and under the leadership of Brandi. And I absolutely love this new adventure. I recently returned from maternity leave and I am so eager to jump back in the seat and kick off Women's History Month.
Well, welcome to both of you. You both referred to former versions of EMPOWER in your introductions here, so May, I'm going to ask you to explain the history of the EMPOWER ERG. I'll give a spoiler. I know it's our oldest ERG here at Aramark. So what else can you tell us about that?
Sure, sure. How much time do you have? I love talking about it. EMPOWER actually began, like we said, as WBRN, which stood for Women's Business Resource Network and that began in April of 2011. So that was actually Aramark's first employee resource group. It's really, really inspiring for me to think about the women who rallied together in 2011 as they saw a need for women in the workplace over a decade ago. Without their efforts, EMPOWER would not be where it is today. So I know and believe and feel it's so important to acknowledge the women who cultivated this path for us and some of whom are actually still with Aramark today. So hats off to them.
We rebranded for Women's Equality Day in August 2020 as EMPOWER with a new look, feel and mission. We are at the heart of Aramark's gender equity efforts and work to empower and grow diverse leadership among women that drives results by promoting career development, networking, and mentoring alongside allies from others across the business. So it is really incredible and amazing to see how far we've come. But I do want to talk a little bit more about some of those milestones that we've achieved since 2020. And Brandi, feel free to chime in here if you have anything else to add. But we have accomplished so much since that time.
We have hosted over three EMPOWER symposiums and Women History Month celebrations. We have published countless videos, newsletters, member spotlights, and more with our incredibly talented and dynamic Communications team. We've launched several hubs across the country and internationally and we're continuing to grow. And Brandi, I know that we want to speak to that as well. We've planned and executed dozens and dozens of professional events both in person and virtually alongside hosting various networking events with our sister ERGs as well as Aramark's leadership team. We've had initiatives such as book clubs and new event series like EMPOWER hours, which is solely run by our hub. We facilitated EMPOWER member attendance at industry and DEI conferences and other speaker events.
We've collaborated with our sister ERGs on numerous professional programs to emphasize intersectionality and allyship. We've engaged in global community outreach programs. We've partnered with and provided grants to outstanding local and national nonprofits, and we've grown our membership base considerably year over year and there's so much more. But I also wanted to take the time too to commend and acknowledge our sister ERGs who have really been exceptional partners and we always appreciate the opportunity to work together and double the efforts, reach an impact.
Brandi Heatherly (08:29):
May, you said jump in if I had something I wanted to share. And I just would love to highlight last year how we exceeded our membership goal. And so although, as Heather referenced, we are the oldest, we are constantly striving to build our membership and we really do that. And I know we're going to talk about it a little more with our hub strategy, but just wanted to say thanks to our team who may be listening today, our membership group and our leadership team who have continued to work tirelessly to continue to build on our membership goals. But we did exceed our goal last year, Heather, so I just wanted to make sure we highlighted that.
Love to hear when those goals are exceeded. Also, Brandi, hubs. May promised that you would elaborate on this a bit and I know we have expanded in recent years. What are the new hubs and what does it take to add a hub for ERGs?
Brandi Heatherly (09:25):
Sure, thanks Heather. And as May mentioned, the hub development and expansion has really been key to our strategy over the last several years. And so we are thrilled that just recently that we've added new international hubs such as Germany and even nationally, most recently with the Carolinas hub, bringing us to a total of 16 hubs. And so within EMPOWER, we target our hubs and expansion in geographies where there are individuals who would like to be a part, our support of our mission by engaging within their communities often with cross lines of business. And so again, that hub strategy for us is extremely important.
Brandi, who was responsible for stewarding the hub expansion?
Brandi Heatherly (10:10):
So as May and I have mentioned, the hub strategy expansion has been a part of our strategic goals over the last several years, but I would really like to take a minute to send special thanks to our hub leadership group, which is made up of Jim, Aaron and Robin. Those three individuals who work amongst our team have really been the team behind the team in bringing this vision and mission to life and helped us to grow to the 16 hubs that exist today. So thanks so much. And just tremendous thanks, Jim, Aaron, and Robin for all you do to help us in that hub expansion.
So it is March and it is Women's History Month. Our EMPOWER group is very active, of course, with programming during the month of March. May, what is on tap for EMPOWER this year?
My gosh, yes. I'm so excited to share what is to come. So this year we are thrilled to be partnering with our sister ERGs, Salutes and Nourish, for our signature EMPOWER hour programming this March. So this particular event is going to focus on navigating career changes, which includes the transition from military service to civilian workforce. So in that we'll be hearing how the military prepared our panelists for this transition. They're going to speak to some of those transferable lessons and how being open to change can advance your career. So these are some seriously impactful lessons and the individuals who are part of this panel are so inspiring. We absolutely cannot wait to share this with you.
And we're also going to be hosting a virtual food drive to honor National Nutrition Month in partnership with Nourish. Now this is our first virtual food drive. I am so excited to see what it's going to bring and I know that it's going to show us a lot of participation across the company. So I did want to mention that anybody can join. This is open to EMPOWER, Salute, Nourish, all ERGs and all members and employees of Aramark. So we invite everyone to attend. Also in March we always support WFF, the Women's Foodservice Forum. And Brandi, I think it would be great if you could speak a little bit more to that.
Brandi Heatherly (12:20):
Sure, thanks, May. So as you said, we're looking forward to returning to the WFF conference this March and are, again, hosting an event based on some feedback from the attendees from last year. We're taking a bit of a different approach and we will be there to welcome the attendees to WFF. We're going to be hosting a luncheon. There'll be a community aspect, service project aspect as well as an opportunity to meet and greet with the other attendees, meet some of our leadership and have some engagement prior to the start of the WFF conference.
So we are thrilled to be able to return and to impact the outcomes and the engagement with the Aramark attendees, which are represented of cross lines of business. Some folks are members of EMPOWER, others are not. We certainly look to increase our membership during that time as well if some of the attendees are not current members of EMPOWER and we'll have an opportunity to do that while we're there together in Dallas.
All right, well, that's fantastic to hear that we have such a robust slate of events coming up this month. I want to pivot a little bit though and talk about why having a group like EMPOWER is important to a company like Aramark. I mentioned to many people that when I came to Aramark a few years ago, one of my biggest delights was finding what a robust internal culture there was at Aramark, and that was largely fueled by the variety and active nature of the employee resource groups here. May, do you have a story that you can share that illustrates how EMPOWER is important to the people and is not just programming that gets trotted out in March?
Sure. I actually think it would be great too if I shared a little bit more personally about how EMPOWER and the ERGs have been so impactful for me. I would say I would not be here where I am today without the support, connections and friendships from EMPOWER and DEI. My passion for this space really ignited in my 20s when I felt professionally adrift. I felt like I was lacking direction and guidance and mentors. The organizations that I worked for didn't actually have resource groups, so I didn't even think this was possible. And I faced some personal challenges in the workplace that felt like I was really struggling to navigate.
I believe that having a stronger support network and like I said, mentors or a place or a group to lean on would have made a significant difference. When I joined Aramark, I made that promise to myself that I vowed I never want to feel that way again. And I also wanted to ensure that younger professionals, especially women, wouldn't go through the experiences that I had. I committed to prioritizing DEI and I really wanted to be a leader and an ally in this space. So EMPOWER has been absolutely integral to my professional success and honestly personal growth. And it's positively impacted many others as well that I know.
We're fortunate to have Lauren Harrington as our executive sponsor. She's always cheering us on and challenging us to do great things. And the support from many Aramark leaders really reflects in the organization's commitment to DEI. And the bond that the ERGs have cultivated led by Fenimore Fisher and his team is truly remarkable. It has been so incredible for me to witness the growth that has happened over seven years within EMPOWER, the DEI space and honestly myself. So I am just excited to see what lies ahead and eager to pass the baton in the years to come.
We appreciate you sharing your personal connection with EMPOWER and how that made a difference for you. Brandi, why is EMPOWER and ERGs in general such a critical piece of the framework of our culture here at Aramark?
Brandi Heatherly (16:31):
I think ERG groups, such as EMPOWER, are important for a number of reasons, building connectivity, personal and professional development, and they offer the opportunity for us as individuals to develop and foster allyship. May mention we work with some great partners in DEI with Fenimore and Chanel and Isabella and others that help us to bring this vision and mission of opportunity to life, which really highlights our organizational culture.
Well, I would like to thank the both of you for coming on this episode of Mark This! If our listeners would like to know more, please visit our newsroom at Aramark.com to access more information. And thanks as always to our listeners for being part of our conversation here at Mark This!
