The Power of WE Celebrates Women Entrepreneurs, Embraces Philosophy of DANCE – by Carly Winchell
“When we’re dancing and singing and telling our stories, when we’re being truly authentic, we step into this truly magical place.”
Olivia Omega delivers the morning keynote address at the 2024 Power of WE conference in Salida. Photo by Carly Winchell.
Crowds gathered on Friday, May 17 to celebrate women in business at the annual Power of WE (Women Entrepreneurs) Conference. The conference was nearly sold out and featured women from many different backgrounds both as speakers and attendees. One thing that remained consistent throughout the day and the many speakers, was an emphasis on authenticity.
Morning Keynote: “Dance to the beat of your brand.”
Sporting a glittering dress and her signature disco balls, Olivia Omega delivered an energetic morning keynote address.
Olivia Omega’s disco balls used as a decoration and a metaphor during her keynote speech at the 2024 Power of WE Conference. Photo by Carly Winchell.
Omega is a branding strategist and entrepreneur with more than 20 years of brand positioning, digital marketing, communications, and advertising experience across startup, nonprofit, public, and private sectors.
She serves as Senior Director of Marketing and Communications at the Denver Scholarship Foundation, a nonprofit public charity whose mission is to inspire and empower Denver Public School students to achieve their college goals through college access, promise-based scholarships, and college success.
Omega is a TEDx speaker, diversity and inclusion advocate, and author. She says personal brand identity and authentic expression of one’s unique individuality played a large role in her career paths as described in her book Beautifully Branded: The Girl’s Guide to Understanding the Anatomy of Brand You, of which each WE attendee received a copy.
She opened her speech with a thirty-second dance break as she held the microphone to a button she’d purchased online. The audience jumped up and joined in for the quick party, and Omega kept the energy going as she shared her story and advice for using one’s authentic self to create a brand nobody else can copy.
She advocated for people to find the courage to share their own stories. “A lot of times we have a story in us and it’s dying to come out and for whatever reason we hold it in,” said Omega. “When you have a story inside of yourself, it really starts to become heavy.”
She used one of her own disco balls as an example. The disco ball had been hung incorrectly and fell to the floor, breaking into pieces. Rather than throwing it away, Omega repaired with tape and glue. Omega explained that the breaks, made the ball completely unique.
“There is no other disco ball like this in the world, that was broken this way, that was healed and patched up this way,” explained Omega, who equated the item’s unique journey with everyone’s personal story. The story of how the disco ball brought her joy during a difficult time in her life, how it broke and was repaired. That story and those details cannot be copied and pasted.
“If I’m authentically myself, my brand has no competition. There is no other you in the world,” explained Omega, who encouraged everyone to tap into what makes them unique to build a brand that can never be copied. “There’s like literally thousands of brand strategists. Hundreds of women brand strategists. Women of color brand strategists. Women of color brand strategists that live in Colorado, but there’s no Olivia with disco ball shoes.”
Continuing with the disco theme, Omega encouraged attendees to follow a philosophy of DANCE. Her message could be distilled into an acronym:
Olivia Omega’s philosophy of DANCE at the 2024 Power of WE Conference. Photo by Carly Winchell.
Do it scared.
Anticipate your audience.
Nudity is a must. (With vulnerability, not necessarily sans clothing.)
Create a signature move.
Eliminate generalizations.
During her speech, Omega shared a camera phone video of a festival. One person started enthusiastically dancing. He had no shirt, no shoes, just his authentic self. A second person joined. Then another. It wasn’t long before a large group had gathered around the original dancer, embracing their authentic joy as they danced together all thanks to that first and, just as importantly, that second person.
“Even more importantly, remember the second person. Nothing would have happened without the second person. Everyone in this room, you have a second person. . . It’s that second person that encouraged the first person to keep going and that drew in the third person.”
Breakout Session: The Self Rescue Goddess
Between the morning and afternoon sections of the conference, a number of breakout sessions were available for attendees to choose among. Coach, author, and speaker Jess Bonasso conducted one of these sessions in a tent just outside the SteamPlant.
The Self Rescue Goddess Jess Bonasso conducts a breakout session during the 2024 Power of WE conference. Photo by Carly Winchell.
Bonasso focused on how to cultivate gratitude, growth, and grace in work and life. She explained how people can rescue themselves from toxic situations and attitudes; sharing her personal story of how her own negative attitude isolated her and led to lost friendships, until she found the strength to rescue herself by asking, “What’s the gift?”
Extreme burnout had driven Bonasso into a negative mental state that she says she didn’t recognize until a friend confronted her and she stepped back. “Coming to this pivotal state was a game changer for me,” said Bonasso.
Bonasso encouraged attendees to share a challenge that they had recently faced and reframe it in a more positive light by looking at what they gained rather than lost from the experience, by asking that simple question. Identifying the gift received from a difficult experience helps to approach it with a different mindset and allows people to become their own heroes.
Bonasso’s model focused on achieving empowerment through making an effort to achieve conscious competence. “Guess what goes up when your competence goes up?” asked Bonasso. “Your confidence.”
“If you commit to growth and healing, you will change.” Bonasso offers assessments and guidance on how women can rescue themselves from situations they may find themselves in due to burnout and disempowerment.
More information on Bonasso is available on her website at JessBonasso.com. Since 2007, Bonasso has been a Brave Life Catalyst and Self-Rescue coach, author, and speaker seeking to empower “worn-out wonder women in need of self-rescue”.
Afternoon Keynote: Volunteering the Business Model
After a lunch and dance break, conference attendees gathered at the main stage for a series of afternoon speakers, including an afternoon keynote by Flavia Reis Kubricht. She shared the story of her life and provided an overview of the business model that she uses when advising small businesses.
Afternoon keynote speaker Flavia Reis Kubricht (middle) joins Emcee Heather Barron (left) and Central Mountain SBDC Director Jaime Billesbach (right) on the dance floor with others between sessions. Photo by Carly Winchell.
An international project manager for more than eighteen years, Kubricht has led companies and projects in Brazil, France, and the U.S. in mining, the arts, healthcare, innovation and technology, and government and global entrepreneurship.
Kubricht was born and raised in Brazil and is now a mentor, consultant, and member of international innovation, communication, and entrepreneurship boards and committees. While she has delivered plenty of speeches throughout her career, The Power of WE marked the first time Kubricht had given a keynote address in English.
Kubricht is a co-founder of startups in the U.S. and Brazil, which provide platforms supporting immigrant small businesses, children with ADHD, and women entrepreneurs. Kubricht, an immigrant entrepreneur deeply rooted in the Colorado community, volunteers her time and expertise to support a variety of organizations and initiatives.
“Besides thinking that my career was going good, I had this feeling of solitude,” explained Kubricht, who experienced sickness and burnout. “I made a decision and over the next three years embarked on a quest to prioritize my well-being while sustaining my professional trajectory.” At the age of thirty-seven, she began reshaping her entire identity.
Eventually, that quest led her to Denver. “Through volunteering, I uncovered a wealth of knowledge and made connections. . .Volunteering in my life built bridges and actually opened doors.”
Olivia Omega, the morning keynote speaker, served as Kubricht’s mentor in the Accelerator program. Kubricht now seeks to empower marginalized communities with a focus on women immigrant entrepreneurs.
“I was hearing their pain. Hearing their struggles, dreams, and hopes. That was also my journey. A journey of self-discovery.” Kubricht explained how she melded social impact and community engagement with entrepreneurship. She explained the concept of netweaving, different from the more commonly known networking. Netweaving occurs instead when one offers their skills to solve a specific problem rather than simply trying to make connections to advance only themselves.
“As an immigrant in a new country, every challenge became an opportunity of growth and self-discovery,” said Kubricht. “I embraced entrepreneurship as a means to drive positive change and personal fulfillment.”
Final Thoughts: Let Your Light Shine in the Dark
Other speakers included High Country Bank CEO Niki Stotler, Rocky Mountain Region administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration Aikta Marcoulier, The Twiggy Mother founder Thuy Nguyen, The Brand Guide Founder Kristine Carey, and other empowered women seeking to lift up their peers.
At the end of the conference, emcee Heather Barron addressed the crowd and received feedback from those who attended.
Barron also read a poem, “Bioluminescence” by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, which encapsulated the experience of the conference well:
Sometimes, when I fear
the small light I bring
isn’t big enough or bright
enough, I think of that night
on the beach years ago
when every step I took
in the cool wet sand turned
a glowing, iridescent blue—
and the waves themselves
were a flashing greenish hue—
imagine we could do
what 7.9 billion
one-celled plankton can do—
can shine when it’s dark,
can shine when agitated,
can shine with our own
inner light and trust when we all
bring the tiny light we have,
it’s enough to illumine
the long stretch of night.
“We all are those lights. And hopefully, your light got a little more stoked today, uncovered if you felt like it’s been hidden, more of an ember. Or if you were already flaming, that it is just being fed by the fuel of all of this good. But we are that light together,” said Barron. “Live with authenticity and follow your purpose. . . We belong here. We are ready, and we are not alone.”
