Dr. Tanya Baldwin on leadership, Black women’s health, faith, sisterhood and creating a pathway for those who come next.

Entrepreneur Kathryn Tucker believes successful businesses are built on more than great ideas. They are built through strong leadership, operational excellence, and a willingness to roll up your sleeves.

Dr. Valerie Walston has spent more than thirty-five years in education, and she has the titles to prove it. What people in Toledo tend to remember, though, is how she makes a room feel alive. They call her Dr. Val. She can host a gala one night and lead a prayer-centered workshop the next morning, and to her the two are the same job: getting people to believe they can keep going.

January arrives with this collective fantasy: clean slate, new energy, everything resets. We're supposed to feel the possibility. Momentum. The chance to do it differently this time. Except some of us enter the new year already exhausted..

Every year around this time, the world tells us to be merry. The lights go up, the commercials start shouting, and suddenly it feels like you’re supposed to be cheerful on command. But this year, that feels harder than usual... celebrate anyway

This article is about Toledo producing a “Boss Lady,” Dionne Phillips. Boss Lady is a colloquial term for a woman who is confident, assertive, and in control of her professional and personal life. The term implies strength, independence, and success. It’s used to describe someone positive, determined, creative, resilient and who inspires others. All attributes that describe Dionne.

I don’t even remember where we were standing. Maybe it was a conference hallway? Perhaps it was one of those moments that felt casual until it rearranged my life. I can’t quite remember, but she looked me dead in the eye and said, “You don’t need permission.” Not “you can do it,” not “you should try.” Just: you don’t need permission.

For women, especially in the professional realm, likability has been sold to us as a form of currency. If they like you, they’ll keep you around. If they like you, they’ll listen. If they like you, they’ll promote you. We’ve been conditioned to believe that likability is the key to opportunity. The truth? It’s a moving target, and chasing it will drain you faster than any project deadline.

They won’t say it out loud, but they’ve been laying us off for months. Behind the headlines about “strong job growth,” the truth is staggering: nearly 300,000 Black women left the workforce in just a few months in 2025. But why? It’s not that we lack talent. In fact, we are overqualified in many cases.