Episode 13:

Marnie Ochs-Raleigh is a sixth-generation entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Evolve Systems, an agency specializing in branding, design, digital marketing, and website development. She has been a featured speaker at the University of St. Thomas and the James J. Hill Library, as well as a guest on What’s Next With Diana Pierce, the eWomen Network, and the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO). She has been a panelist speaking on leveraging technology for Best Buy, and she has been a part of a special task force for the Girl Scouts. Marnie is the Past President of NAWBO’s Minnesota chapter, and she is also a community service activist who has volunteered more than 5,500 hours within the local community. Marnie is an incredibly active woman in business and mother who finds a way to balance the many complexities in her life with love and grace.

What You Will Learn:

• Marnie shares her family’s entrepreneurial history going back six generations, and she talks about her children’s entrepreneurial interests. She shares the pride she takes in coming from such a long line of entrepreneurs.
• Marnie shares how her daughter has always shown special compassion for animals and always expressed that she wanted to work for Cargill, Inc., and she shares how Cargill has been a major sponsor for women in business. Marnie relates how the connection created opportunities for her daughter to speak with leaders at Cargill.
• Marnie discusses meeting a neighborhood kid with special home life challenges and ultimately bringing him into the family as one of their own. She shares the remarkable story of navigating such a delicate situation.
• Marnie shares how the idea of balancing being a business leader and a mom is fiction, and she offers her feelings on the vital importance of family time, setting goals, and involving the kids in the business and its growth.
• Marnie shares a time when she felt truly unf♥<kwithable in her career as a leader after her company fully integrated the transformational Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) into their work.
• Marnie shares her company’s core values, and she explains team-building exercises that she and her company employed to clearly define the company’s core values and how they worked for the team.
• Marnie talks about the importance of accountability and transitioning people out of roles they are in that aren’t fitting them, and she discusses the importance of mentors to help her navigate difficult personnel issues.
• Marnie shares how she copes with tough days through gratitude and journaling. She describes journaling about the tough times and then looking back on them later to give herself perspective.

Resources:

• Website: https://evolve-systems.com/
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/marnieochsraleigh/

Intentional Greatness in Design and Digital Marketing and as a Supermom

You’re here because you know that learning never ends. You’re the kind of entrepreneur, business owner or leader who realizes that the pursuit of a perfect life, while a worthy goal, is also an impossible one. You know there is no end to the race, and you’re ready to power through anyway. You know that the climb to the top is endless, and you’re going to make the climb anyway. In short, you’re ready to become an unf♥<kwithable leader.

I was recently joined by my friend Marnie Ochs-Raleigh for an episode of the Intentional Greatness podcast. Marnie is the founder and CEO of Evolve Systems, an agency specializing in branding, design, digital marketing, and website development. She is also incredibly active and engaged in her community, having volunteered over 5,500 hours of her time to help strengthen and improve the community. On top of all of this, Marnie is also an unf♥<kwithable and unstoppable supermom.

In this episode, Marnie discusses how her family got one child bigger after they welcomed a neighborhood boy with a difficult home life into their family with open arms, and she discusses navigating the challenges of raising someone else’s child. Marnie also talks about being a sixth-generation entrepreneur and the challenges and opportunities of being the CEO of a family business while trying to raise her children. Marnie Ochs-Raleigh is one of the most giving and inspiring women leaders I know, and I hope you leave our conversation feeling empowered and ready to take on anything.

A Woman Leader from a Long Line of Entrepreneurs

Marnie is a sixth-generation entrepreneur. In addition to the challenges of being a woman in business and a mom, Marnie also has to deal with the extra layer of the challenge of running a family business. Marnie says part of the secret to her success in balancing this complexity was to involve her kids in the business right from the start. From a very young age, Marnie brought the kids to work and taught them the importance of success and satisfying clients. Not only did this instill a great work ethic in the kids, but it also allowed them to feel connected to the business.

Marnie used strategies like tying financial success for the business to family adventures, showing the kids that hard work reaped rewards. This obviously had a profound effect on her kids; Marnie’s daughter began dreaming at a young age about working at agricultural commodities conglomerate Cargill Inc., due to her love of horses and other animals. Marnie was able to leverage professional connections to give her daughter the opportunity to follow this passion by talking directly with company leaders about the mission and operations of Cargill. Marnie’s daughter is already becoming her own woman in business.

A Family Built on Love and Inclusion

One of the most remarkable parts of Marnie’s story is found in her family life. Marnie shared with us how her family met a young neighborhood boy and became friends with him, increasingly involving him in their family life until he eventually came to live with them. The boy’s father was absent and his mother wasn’t able to be the parent he needed, and so Marnie and her family opened their home and hearts. They raised him without ever having a legal claim to do so, in a very unusual relationship with his mother down the road.

Marnie’s family became such a part of this young man’s life that at age 28 he made the decision to legally change his last name to Raleigh. The whole story is a remarkable demonstration of the kind of love Marnie brings into the world, and of the profound values, she and her husband have been able to instill in their family about inclusion and compassion.

Marnie Ochs-Raleigh is an example of the power we as women leaders have to touch the lives of those around us both personally and professionally. She is truly an example of someone who chooses to conquer the mountain rather than go around it, and as someone who brings both strength and compassion to her role as a woman in business and leader. I hope you are as inspired by Marnie as I am.

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