A special advertising section championing our local women in business. In partnership with Cox Communications. Photo by Jessica Whitley.

Emily Hopkins, Director of Place 

Erin Keller, Vice President for Development 

Bethany Rogers, Director of Business and Real Estate Development 

Jolie Rowland, Finance Assistant 

Brittany Turner, AmeriCorps Member and Project Manager  

555 Poplar St., Macon, GA 31201 

478-722-9909 

downtown@newtownmacon.com 

 newtownmacon.com  

What is the mission of your business?

To attract, leverage and invest in the self-sustaining transformation of downtown Macon.  

Your advice for women wanting to start their own business in Macon?

In our work with entrepreneurs, we’ve adopted a saying: “We’re betting on the jockey, not the horse.” By that we mean your business concept, plan and financials are certainly fundamental to your success, but you, as a businesswoman, can make key personal choices to ensure the success and sustainability of your venture. Make the commitment to show up to business meetings on time; do your research; make good use of any collaborators time by being clear about the purpose of your meeting; and be passionate, resilient and, most importantly, coachable. In 2020, entrepreneurs must be willing to pivot to stay in sync with the needs of your market and the evolving technologies available to you. 

How do you define success?

Success is consistent and incremental progress. When we work with entrepreneurs or create our own new initiatives, we always ask ourselves “is this sustainable?” A business or an idea can launch with a bang, but if it doesn’t have staying power, it won’t be successful.   

What are you most excited about right now in our community?

The pace of new businesses opening in downtown Macon. NewTown Macon has been working for 24 years to achieve the momentum we have in downtown today. Through our collaborative partnerships, strategic investments and loan program, we are helping more entrepreneurs open sustainable businesses in our urban core. 

You might be surprised to know:

We have eight full-time people on staff and five of those staff members aren’t originally from Macon. This ratio shows that new people are moving to Macon who are passionate about this community and working beside lifelong Maconites to make real, positive, sustainable change. 

What is the most gratifying part of your job?

Working as a team to realize a community vision. Everyone on NewTown’s staff brings a unique skillset and perspective to help fulfill our mission. Seeing each staffer thrive and collaborating with one another to increase the number of lofts, finance innovative new businesses and create a sense of place in downtown Macon is extremely rewarding. 

I admire women who:

Remain humble. We often feel the need to boast our accomplishments (which is necessary at times) but allowing one’s work to speak for itself often sends a clearer message than any social media post we can write. 

What was the best business advice you ever received?

Always follow up. It seems like the easiest and simplest thing to do but sometimes it can be the hardest. Don’t delay following up difficult emails with a phone call or honoring a request. And if you can’t follow through, let someone know that as soon as possible.  

I hope more women will:

Have meaningful conversations with one another. Empathy is part of our power and talking to one another about opportunities to collaborate or our professional goals and challenges is a way for us to connect on a deeper level as we work toward bettering our community and ourselves.  

How could women better support each other?

Businesswomen face practical hurdles to building profitable businesses and we need to continue to seek out efficiencies in our personal and professional lives in order to thrive. That can be achieved by creating a purposeful network of female colleagues (like Macon Magazine’s Women in Business community). That network can share hard business lessons with one another, pool resources to get needed professional development, or make a commitment to attend a weekly yoga class together.   

I wish I had known:

Most women have not been taught to think of themselves as entrepreneurs, and whether you are planning to start your own business or work as part of a large corporation, we would all benefit from pushing ourselves to get more comfortable with being innovative and proposing big solutions to the problems all around us. We also need to empower ourselves by learning best practices for managing our personal and business finances, and realize we have the right to make money and build wealth, just like our male counterparts.