A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION CHAMPIONING OUR LOCAL WOMEN IN BUSINESS. PHOTOGRAPY BY JESSICA WHITLEY.

Erin Keller, Vice President for Development

Bethany Rogers, Executive Director, NewTown Loans

Jolie Rowland, Director of Loan Operations, NewTown Loans

Annette Anderson, Financial Assistant

Emily Hopkins, Director of Place

555 Poplar St., Macon

478-722-9909

downtown@newtownmacon.com

newtownmacon.com

What is your mission, and how has it shifted due to covid-19?

Our mission is to attract, leverage and invest in the self-sustaining transformation of downtown Macon. Our focus shifted from curating a vibrant downtown experience to connecting downtown businesses with the federal relief they needed to survive the pandemic. We launched the Recovery Coaching Program, which consisted of weekly webinars about federal relief, individual coaching sessions for business owners and daily email updates about resources and safety guidelines. Due to our efforts, we can now re-focus on creating an exciting downtown experience because our businesses have successfully remained opened and continue to weather this storm. 

What is the most gratifying part of your job?

We love seeing entrepreneurs succeed downtown. Operating a business is not for the faint of heart and takes tenacity, passion and grit. Celebrating anniversaries with downtown business owners is a reminder of their resiliency and gives us gratification that 400+ businesses can be successful in Macon’s downtown district.

What are you most excited about right now in macon?

In 2020, more black-owned businesses opened downtown than in any year prior. We are thrilled to see the whole community supporting entrepreneurs of color more than ever before. Diversity and representation among downtown business owners helps us realize our goal of a more inclusive downtown.

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

In our work with entrepreneurs at NewTown, we’ve adopted a saying, “We’re betting on the jockey, not the horse.” And what we mean is that 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 coachable.

How can 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. 

How can men better support women business leaders?

Men, and women for that matter, need to recognize that passion comes with strong emotions. Our work and our workplaces do not need to be devoid of emotion because many of us are doing jobs and working with people that we care about and want to succeed. Joy, disappointment, anger, frustration, sadness and grief are things we experience as a result of our work and often need to be expressed. If a co-worker is experiencing a strong negative emotion as a result of their work, give them the space to explore it so they can come back renewed and ready for similar challenges. If they are elated by a win, celebrate with drinks or affirmations of their success. 

How do you define success?

Success is consistency and sustainability. A great idea is only successful if it can be replicated with consistency time and time again. This means you can be successful by focusing on ONE venture rather than having several side hustles. Burnout is real so focus on the quality product or service that you can deliver every time.

You might be surprised that: NewTown Macon is the parent company of NewTown Loans LLC, which is central Georgia’s first and only emerging Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) aiming to serve residents of low-income areas in Macon-Bibb and our black entrepreneur community through education, coaching and financial resources.

We admire women who: Make space for other women. There are so many female leaders in Macon who have used their success to help other women reach new milestones. Being advocates for one another helps us all succeed. As we like to say, a rising tide raises all ships!

We hope more women will: Be courageous, worry less about what others think and take the steps you know you should take in the direction of your life purpose and a more successful business venture.

Looking back, we wish we 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.