NH Business Review forum Nov. 7 will feature five accomplished leaders

The 2023 Powered by Women panelists, from left: Dr. Holly Mintz chief medical officer of ambulatory services at Elliot Health System; Jennifer Delisle co-founder of Inspire Realty Group; Talesha Saint-Marc, Esq., magistrate judge United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire; Diane Fitzpatrick, CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of Manchester; and Courtney Morin, vice president of actuarial and underwriting for Northeast Delta Dental.

NH Business Review will host a forum Nov. 7 featuring five highly accomplished women.

I’m having major FOMO about it. My fear of missing out on our seventh annual Powered by Women event will be something I will have to endure. I’ll be in Venice, Florida, that morning at a funeral service for another powerful woman — my mom — who died in August.

While I am disappointed I will not get to experience this year’s Powered by Women panelists talk about their journeys and field questions from managing editor Amanda Andrews, I know with certainty this event will be a great success.

That’s because I’ve already gotten a great preview of their stories.

Recruiting this year’s panel began back in February at an economic forum hosted by the Chamber Collaborative of Portsmouth. Jennifer Desrosiers, founder and CEO of Altitude Brands, participated on a panel featuring local business people. Desrosiers — whose businesses include Laney & Lu restaurants in Portsmouth and Exeter and Ginger Fox bakery in Stratham — talked about how rising food prices were crimping her ability to make a profit. I knew her story about how she started her company from scratch would resonate with our Powered by Women audience.

I met Cyndee Gruden, dean of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of New Hampshire, a couple of weeks later, hundreds of miles from the Durham campus. Gruden was among a contingent of faculty and staff who traveled to Venice, Florida, for a UNH alumni luncheon I attended while visiting my mom for her 85th birthday.

What I learned during our lunch conversation: The Goffstown native, civil engineer and UNH grad returned to the Granite State a few years ago to become the first woman dean of the engineering school in the university’s history.

Our next recruit was Dr. Jennifer MacDonald, chief operating officer of the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI) in Manchester. MacDonald, an Army veteran and family physician, gave up her executive-level role at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C., to help lead the effort in the Manchester Millyard to mass produce human cells and tissue for regenerative medicine. MacDonald is a frequent speaker at forums about ARMI.

Nicole Bluefort, managing partner of the Law Offices of Nicole Bluefort, is the newest arrival to New Hampshire among the panelists. Bluefort opened law offices in her native Lynn, Massachusetts, and then the Boston Seaport before expanding into the Granite State with an office in Manchester.

While I spent some time on the phone interviewing Bluefort for a previous column, I didn’t learn one of the most fascinating parts of her story until I heard her tell it during the grand opening of her Elm Street office. When job offers were slow to come after she graduated from law school, Bluefort decided to take a different path: With the help of a mentor, she opened her own practice.

One of my colleagues recommended Josephine Moran, president and CEO of Ledyard Financial Group Inc. Moran, who has more than two decades of leadership in community banking and investment services, joined Ledyard in 2022. The Upper Valley-based bank and financial advisory company operates several locations in New Hampshire.

I know from our email exchanges that Moran was excited to join the four panelists we had already announced. I had yet to meet her in person until the recent Business and Industry Association annual dinner in Manchester. There was just enough break in the action for me to say “hi” and hand her a business card during dinner — she just happened to be seated at the table next door to ours.

Here’s the power of serendipity times five.

You can learn more about our panelists in the special “Powered by Women” section on page 20. More importantly, you can hear their stories in person on Nov. 7 at the Manchester Country Club over breakfast from 8:30 to 11 a.m. (To register, visit the events tab at NHBR.com.)

Afterward, you can tell me everything I missed. I’m still trying to shake that FOMO.