We were lucky to catch up with Courtney Thomas recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Courtney, thanks for joining us today. Who is your hero and why? What lessons have you learned from them and how have they influenced your journey?
My Grandmomma will always be my hero. At the stage of her life when she should have been focused on traveling, thinking about winding down her career, and embracing her golden years, she decided to be a full-time mom again. While I was in her care back and forth from birth through college, when I was 13 I moved in fulltime with my Grandmomma.
She had a beauty shop in the lower level of her home, which allowed her to “be there” in more ways than just my support system. I got to watch her run a business, while also running a household. I witnessed her overcoming significant struggles in her life with resilience and grace. Her mother died right in front of her when she was eight-years old. In adulthood, she married a man who became violent with her and their children, and one of her children – my mother – became a drug addict and alcoholic. Despite all the things that could “bring her down,” she kept rising.
One of the greatest lessons my Grandmomma taught me was “you aren’t always in control of the things that happen to you or around you. But you are in control of how you respond and what happens next.” These wise words have helped me to keep sight of my goals and not allow tough situations to stop me – they are simply speedbumps that shape the outcomes. In my professional career, I am now known as a busines turn-around expert. So much of my innovative and entrepreneurial approach to solving problems and growing business blossomed by watching her. She passed away last year at 96, but her legacy lives on inside of me.
What I remind myself of everyday is, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life… what will you do with that gift?”
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an innovative approach to solving problems. In reality, I never really viewed “problems” as “problems,” but instead saw them as opportunities. “Problems” gave me the opportunity to architect a solution that could have multi-layered impact. Doing it the way it had always been done was foreign to me… isn’t that the definition of insanity?
I’m a leader at heart who is right-brained and left-brained. YAY! or YIKES! My DNA is that of a big picture visionary, complex problem solver, and I give and get energy through others, I move at a rapid pace and bring harmony to chaos. As a detail oriented person, I’m not only a dreamer but also an executor. This has positioned me to successfully lead four business turn-arounds during my career. Taking organizations from trying to thriving has been a significant part of my story!
The majority of my professional career has been spent in the non-profit sector. From leading our countries first bi-state animal welfare organization, to reinvigorating Kansas City’s oldest leadership development organization for women, to now serving at the helm of Kansas City’s first domestic violence shelter – transformation and elevating brand equity, operational excellence and organizational culture have been at the core of my value propositions.
In 2022, I decided to take the leap to fulfill a lifelong dream to own my own business, so I launched Thrive 360 – a growth acceleration practice. Our work is centered to position people and business to thrive all the way around. Whether it’s strategic planning, DEI, operational excellence, brand penetration, or revenue growth, our team will customize a package to achieve your greatest potential.
What fills me up is helping people and businesses grow! Where others see a roadblock, I see a path. For example, after growing up in a domestic violence household and being a FOREVER lover of animals, when the opportunity presented itself for me to work FT at a large animal welfare agency, I felt like I’d won the lottery! That’s where it all began in 2002. We shifted our business model completely which resulted in more lives saved, stronger community engagement, increased revenues, and a national reputation. When I encountered situations where those living in abusive homes wouldn’t leave their abusers because they didn’t have a safe place for their pets to go (72% of survivors say they would have left sooner if they’d had a place for their pets to go), we started our families in crisis program to house pets for survivors so they could get to safety more quickly. This path strengthened my passion for work with domestic violence survivors, and that’s how I ended up at Newhouse – Kansas City’s first domestic violence shelter.
My most outstanding career accomplishment is to have earned the title of “Business Turnaround Expert,” and to have been recruited by the boards of four nonprofit organizations to lead the turnaround and total transformation of the agencies. Although I didn’t set out with this specific career focus in mind, transforming organizations from “trying” to “thriving” has been my mastery and has been extremely rewarding. However, I don’t define the rewards in ways others might. To me the greatest rewards are not measured by title, compensation, or benefits, but instead the number of lives changed and how the community has benefitted from the work.
Results of my greatest career accomplishments as a “Business Turnaround Expert” include leading the merger of two nonprofits to form the country’s first bi-state animal welfare agency, growing sales 54% with a 48% profit margin, increasing the budget by 290% and mission impact by 350% during my tenure, 62% growth in donor contributions in a 15-month period, 127% growth in volunteers, growing net income of direct mail campaigns from $70K to $250K, pulling three organizations out of total or near bankruptcy, shifting six figure losses to positive net income in less than 12 months, growing revenues 79% in 12 months, and rebranding and leading the marketing strategy that resulted in national awards and recognition as a national industry leader.
How do I do it?
• Analyzing operations and the totality of the business practice with an entrepreneurial lens to uncover opportunities for efficiencies, cost savings, and new or enhanced revenue streams.
• Streamlining workflow to deliver a higher quality of service and expand the number of people who can be served.
• Leveraging strengths assessment tools as part of the process, I can help people identify their greatest attributes and apply those skills to support stabilization and growth of the business. Equally important, this assessment process helps me to quickly define who may not be “in the right seat on the bus,” or who may on the “wrong bus” altogether.
• Negotiating complex business deals with governmental entities, business owners, and donors has allowed me to broker six figure savings and bring new supporters to the mission.
• Being defined as “a mover and a shaker,” I can quickly assess situations and determine our best options for moving forward. Most importantly, I can bring people together around complex issues to create solutions.
• Stepping into “risk” doesn’t faze me. No challenge has been too big – yet – and I have the expertise to transform chaos into harmony.
If you asked those who have worked with me to describe me, they would say, “Courtney is a strategically wired visionary, complex problem solver, public speaker, and people motivator. Her entrepreneurial approach and leveraging innovation to grow both business and people have been the key ingredients to her successful career in business turnarounds. Courtney has transformed the customer + staff experience, delivered award-winning marketing campaigns, and has unlocked new revenue opportunities for four Kansas City organizations, while also being a wife, mom of three, and serving on boards of directors.”
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
After 20 years in the animal welfare industry, I found myself in a situation that challenged by personal ethics and integrity – which are never negotiable. I needed to make a change, but it was terrifying to think about because the industry had in essence become my identity. But making that shift was the best career decision I could have ever made!
The lesson is the work, the industry, your experiences, “the things” don’t define you – YOU define YOU! Being YOU is your SUPER POWER!
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
In 2021, amidst a world-wide pandemic, I lost my cousin, a friend completed suicide, my Grandmomma who raised me died, a dear friend died of ovarian cancer, and in July my husband was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer. Through it all, I had to continue to run Newhouse, be the mom of three children, be the caretaker to my husband, and somewhere along the way attempt to nurture my broken heart. I don’t know where the energy or the will came from… but it showed up.
My survival skills from childhood kicked in and I pushed through, recognizing that “everybody’s healing from something,” which is now the title of the book I’m writing. My hope is to use my experiences to help other people heal, too.
Image Credits
I own all credits to the photos