We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sharon Byers. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with sharon below.

Sharon, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?

Legacy is a funny word to me as it feels egotistical so let me change the question to be focused on what I try to represent every day in hopes that will describe me when I am looking down from above. To me, there is a significant difference between being a manager and being a leader. As a manager, people are assigned to you but being leader, people choose to follow you. True leaders are able to elevate individual differences as assets, and turn them into successful teams. This is what I do every day. I take great pride in listening to my current and past teams saying “you have made me better.”

Sharon, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Throughout my career, I have focused on the power of people working together with their diverse skills and talents to accomplish great things. Some examples include at Coca-Cola, my team innovated the way sports marketing was executed throughout college campuses by introducing experiential marketing to “THE best seat in the house” on ESPN Gameday. Instead of simply making Coke products available in cafeterias, our team created on campus recycling (back in the day we were the first), events during football games including concerts, and many other ahead of its time marketing. Today, companies view colleges as a marketing platform mainly from what our team did on campuses in the early 2000s. Another example is at the American Cancer Society, our team brought the power of sports and entertainment to fundraising from platforms with the Migos, LL Cool J and his wife to the NFL crucial catch and all in between. Both examples had teams filled with different genders, ages, races, education and many other differences but all the differences created magic and changed industries. To me this is my special power to value differences and be able to lead these differences to accomplish amazing things.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

When I decided to change careers from a corporation to a non profit, the most important item I needed to “unlearn” was moving too fast to accomplish goals. In Corporate America, as leaders we have specific goals and objectives to drive profitability and the faster the better. At times, humanity can be lost because you are drilled about one singular goal – how much money did the widget cost and how much revenue did it drive. In non profit worlds, of course costs and revenues are important but you are not selling widgets you are building relationships to gain donations. The comparison is Corporate America is all in your head whereas non profits is all in your heart.

Have you ever had to pivot?

During covid, I would say it really made me to STOP. I mean really STOP and think about what made me happy. Although I had successful careers at Coca-Cola and the American Cancer Society, I didnt feel like I was enjoying the rat race of day long meetings on topics that are never resolved or the political “be seen to be heard” methodology of “moving up.” So, I quit my C level executive job and started a consulting business and opened a small business in Exuma, Bahamas. For the first time, I was able to organize MY time in a way that drove value for me personally and professionally. Now, its not all unicorns and rainbows because it is really hard to be an entrepreneur but the hard work over times pays off in spades.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.exumaontherocks.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/exumaontherocks/
• Facebook: @exumaontherocks
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonbyers50
• Twitter: @sharonbyers50

Image Credits

all personal photos