Catherine Dixon has seen it all: colossal failure, bland mediocrity and soaring triumph.

The principal at ghSMART was keynote speaker for the fourth annual Women’s Leadership Colloquium Friday, March 17. The event, organized by Brenau Women’s College, was held in the Hosch Theatre in the John S. Burd Center for the Performing Arts and featured successful female leaders sharing their career stories, passion and advice for others who aspire to lead.

In her work with ghSMART, Dixon serves major corporate and private equity clients, often in the context of merger and acquisition activity. The company uses employee knowledge of business and human behavior to help boards, executives and investors address pressing leadership challenges.

In other words, Dixon is an expert at helping companies and individuals use their strengths successfully. She drew on this expertise in her keynote address, “Path to Purpose: Leveraging Your Unique Strengths to Create a Successful Life.”

“My wish for you is triumph,” Dixon said to the Brenau students and the crowd of mostly women gathered at the colloquium. “It takes work to get there, but you can. … Every day I see people using their strengths, and they achieve greatness.”

Dixon challenged the young women in the audience to identify their true strengths, know the origins of those strengths and sense where their weaknesses lie. She said there is a positive side to struggle and adversity, and shared the ups and downs of her own career, including being let go from one position and using it as an opportunity to pursue another.

Along with Dixon, guest presenters included Mary Kathryn Wells, WC ’00, chief executive officer of Wells Marketing Agency; Kelley Castlin-Gacutan, BU ‘95, educational consultant and former superintendent of Birmingham City Schools; and Brenau University Board of Trustees members Amy Whitley, retired vice president of human resources and chief diversity and inclusion officer for UPS; and retired Rear Adm. Patty Wolfe, BU ‘87, of the U.S. Navy Supply Corps.

All five women shared their stories and experiences as female leaders in the workforce. Wells, the Brenau Alumni Association guest lecturer, discussed the roles both luck and skill played in her career. “It takes a bit of both to be successful,” Wells said.

Whitley related her story of working 30 years for UPS, retiring and joining Brenau’s Board of Trustees in 2016 after expressing interest in the university to other board members.
“By putting yourself out there and expressing your interests, you can help put yourself in a position for success and, ultimately, to reach your own goals,” Whitley said.

Both Whitley and Wolfe had lengthy tenures in their respective organizations. Wolfe said she originally joined the Navy for the scholarship money to go to college. She stayed with it for 32 years, developing her own leadership style along the way.

“Those first years in the Navy were about learning how to be a leader,” Wolfe said. “I pass along today the way my leadership style evolved. It took a long time. It wasn’t something I innately knew when I started my career, but it became a part of me.”

Castlin-Gacutan discussed the importance of leading with purpose. She shared her story of losing her daughter, Kennedy, and first husband, Rodney, within two years of each other. She found purpose in her career and in supporting her other children. “Each one of us has a purpose in life,” she said.

Castlin-Gacutan said she knew she wanted to become a teacher from the time she was 6 years old. The interest was sparked by her first-grade teacher, who provided Castlin-Gacutan with the purpose and drive that would lead her career.

Debra Dobkins, dean of the Brenau Women’s College, praised the caliber of speakers for the 2017 colloquium.

“These women are passionate about the work they do and dedicated to the people they serve,” Dobkins said. “Each speaker brings expertise, experience and a dynamic engagement with the world, not just in their roles as working women but also in their roles as mothers and daughters, sisters and mentors.”