The sixth “CEO Speaker Series - The Talk of the Town” will be presented on Thursday, June 11, from 8:00-9:30 a.m. at The Chattanoogan, 1201 Broad Street. Hosted by the Tennessee Small Business Development Center and The Company Lab, the CEO Series keynote speaker will be Sheila C. Boyington, co-founder and president of Thinking Media.
The CEO series is an opportunity for local business owners and others to hear from successful entrepreneurs who started small businesses and have grown their organizations into major corporations.
The keynote speakers share their growth challenges and successes in order to help mentor other area business owners. Cohutta Banking Company, a Division of Synovus Bank sponsors this event.
Thinking Media is the creator of Learning Blade that is designed to increase the pipeline of students interested in STEM careers starting at the middle school level. Ms. Boyington also serves as a national senior advisor to STEMconnector and Million Women Mentors where she serves as the co-chair of the National State Efforts with Lt. Gov. of Iowa Kim Reynolds.
As a successful entrepreneur, she and her husband Dane founded KeyTrain that was acquired by ACT (where she also served as vice president until 2012) and is one of the most effective systems for improving basic skills that has been used by millions of students/clients in high schools, community colleges, one stops and major corporations throughout the United States and abroad. She also created PictureRx and CharacterEd.Net, other technology tools. Ms. Boyington is well known for her passion, strong management and leadership skills. Those skills were used to gain high adoption of the Thinking Media tools.
Ms. Boyington has won numerous awards for her Entrepreneurship and Leadership including the Athena, Navigator of Entrepreneurship, DAR Citizen Award, Supernova, and Chattanooga Engineer Entrepreneur of the Year. She is a professional engineer, and holds a master's degree in Civil/Environmental Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Florida. She worked for environmental firms such as Black and Veatch and Parsons Engineering prior to founding Thinking Media.
While working with and for ACT, Ms. Boyington led efforts that developed programs focused on technical jobs that were part of the President’s Job Council, the National Association of Manufacturing’s – Manufacturing Institute, Veteran Programs among others. The Boyingtons have also served in numerous leadership roles including serving as the first chairs of the Parent’s Advisory Board at Georgia Tech, Engineering Dean's Leadership Council University of Tennessee of Chattanooga. They have sponsored activities related to STEM at University of Florida (Undergraduate Lab), Georgia Tech (President's Scholarships), Girls Incorporated (Programs focused on STEM), and Girls Preparatory School (STEM Curricula).
The CEO Series is a cooperative effort between The Tennessee Small Business Development Center, The Company Lab, Chattanooga State Community College, Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Small Business Administration. Reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities will be made if requested two weeks in advance. The registration fee for this event is $10 online or $15 at the door (cash only); the registration deadline is June 10 at 2:00 p.m. Register and pay online at www.tsbdc.org/chscc. (Click “View Upcoming Training,” Topic = Managing a Business)