Tampa Bay Business Women Awards

Joy Gendusa is an entrepreneur, business owner, author, keynote speaker and philanthropist. PostcardMania has been featured on the Inc. 500 list, printed 2.3 billion postcards and helped 108,645 small business owners with their marketing. Gendusa has been featured in the pages of Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc. Magazine and Adweek. WHAT DOES WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT MEAN TO YOU?

Cammie Chatterton is owner, president and chief executive officer of Bay Food Brokerage, in Tampa. Chatterton was one of the first women in the U.S. to own a retail food brokerage business, having established Bay Food Brokerage in 1993. She has three decades of experience in perishable foods, predominately focusing on the meat, dairy, seafood

Carrie Charles is a thought leader on workforce trends, women in tech and workplace diversity and is the host of RCR Wireless News’ 5G Talent Talk, to a global audience of more than 150,000. Under Carrie’s leadership, Broadstaff’s growth has received numerous accolades including Inc. Magazine’s Inc. 5000 (2022, 2021, and 2020), the Tampa Bay

Dr. Tonjua Williams is St. Petersburg College’s seventh president. SPC employs 3,000 staff, who serve 40,000 students, across eleven learning sites throughout Pinellas County. Under Williams’ leadership, SPC has streamlined college operations, consolidated resources, improved organizational fiscal health, expanded short-term/rapid credentials and strengthened partnerships with Tampa Bay’s workforce leaders. The Chronicle of Higher Education named SPC a

Watermelon Swim’s mission is to grow a community full of safer swimmers and reduce the risks while increasing confidence in, and around, water. It was awarded the Tampa Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year Award, in 2018, for the 51-250 employee category. Seal got her start in the aquatics industry, in 1979, when

Rhea Law became the University of South Florida’s eighth president in March 2022. Over the course of her 35-year-plus career, she has held top leadership positions with many Florida-based organizations. Previously, Law served as chief executive officer and Chair of the Board of Fowler White Boggs, a Florida law firm. Currently, Law serves on the

Avril Walker Stinson is senior director of the Minority Business Accelerator and economic inclusion at the Tampa Bay Chamber.  She is currently a member of Leadership Tampa, class of 2023, and serves, and has served on, numerous local boards and community organizations’ task forces and special committees including The Florida Business Development Corporation, The Junior

Dr. Kanika Tomalin oversees the college’s operations, planning and emergency management; strategic planning; institutional effectiveness; external affairs; technology services; sustainability and resilience and the St. Pete Center for Civic Engagement and Social Impact. Prior to joining Eckerd College, she served as the deputy mayor and city administrator of the City of St. Petersburg. In these

Linda Olson is the chief executive officer and founder of the Tampa Bay Wave. Today, the Wave has a national, and international, reputation and recruits technology companies from across the United States and beyond, several of whom have relocated to the region. Since its launch, in 2013, the Wave has supported 450 startups and, collectively,

Elizabeth Dvorak is the chief executive officer for Workscapes. She began her career in commercial furniture in 1991, with a top furniture dealership in Atlanta, Georgia. Nearly six years later, she decided to go out on her own and founded Workscapes. She and her husband, Richard, purchased a dealership in Orlando and relocated there with

Joanne LeBlanc began her career at Colliers in 2008, at the start of the Great Recession. At the time, Colliers was only hiring for a marketing position. LeBlanc accepted the position and used it as a steppingstone to learn the trade. In 2012, she moved into the brokerage side of the business and, in 2015,

In 1986, as one of few female students in her high school drafting class, Melissa Seixas joined Florida Power (later to become Progress Energy and then Duke Energy) in distribution engineering.  After nearly four decades with the company, she has served in numerous roles with increasing leadership responsibilities. In February 2021, Seixas was selected to