Name: Elaine Lyerly
Leadership Charlotte (LC) Class: LC4
Title/Company: Lyerly Agency, CEO
Hometown: Charlotte, NC
Education: Associate Degree in Commercial Design & Advertising, CPCC
Current personal or leadership goals: To create and grow brands that empower people and organizations with integrity, purpose and loyalty. And to help lift women and girls in the process.
If you could describe your Leadership Charlotte experience in three words or phrases what would they be? Engaging, Informative, Collaborative & Friendly (that’s four words!)
1. What advice that you would you give to current Leadership Charlotte participants? Leadership Charlotte is a great way to build a network of friends and colleagues with common values and community goals. You will be amazed at how you will collaborate on boards and projects over your career.
2. What’s a lesson that you learned through LC that has stuck with you and why? In the early years of Leadership Charlotte, we participated in a weekend retreat called Simulated Society (SimSoc). We were assigned groups that immolated a real city and throughout the weekend exercise we were presented with challenges we had to overcome to make our society work. I was in the very poorest group. We had no voice, no money, no access to healthcare, no decent housing, no healthy food and no way to improve our standing no matter how hard we tried.
This has stuck with me and made me better understand the need for economic mobility and diversity, equity and inclusion to create a better world for everyone, starting in our own backyards.
3. How did your Leadership Charlotte experience affect what you’re doing today?
It has helped me understand the importance of getting involved on boards and in projects that really matter. We all have talents that we can share.
4. Greatest personal accomplishment and why: The adoption of my son from Capiata, Paraguay in South America.
5. What are you doing in the community these days? I serve on a number of boards including the American Red Cross, Women’s Impact Fund Board of Advisors, WTVI PBS Charlotte Community Advisory Council and Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden Board of Advisors.