Lindsay Phillips is the 25-year-old founder of SwitchFlops by Lindsay Phillips, Inc., and winner of a Stevie Award for Best Entrepreneur in a Non-Services Business in the 2009 Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

What item of news recently caught your eye and why?
The other weekend I read an interesting article in the New York Times: “But Will it Make You Happy?” by Stephanie Rosenbloom. It talks about how bigger is not always better and that people seem to be happier when they spend money on experiences instead of material objects. I liked this article because my generation in particular needs to stop thinking about what we don’t have and focus on the things we do have.  We really don’t need a lot to be happy!

What book are you currently reading?
Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos. Tony talks about everything that went into creating Zappos, and the constant risk and daily struggles he went through while building the company. The corporate culture he has created at Zappos is mind-blowing. If you are an entrepreneur you need to read this book. Just remember: If what Tony did had been easy, everyone would be doing it. Personally, I am inspired by his story and what he has accomplished.

What was the last movie you saw, and would you recommend it?
The last movie I saw was Knight and Day starring Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise. I thought it was entertaining and would definitely recommend it.

What is your favorite sport or hobby?
Anything that involves the ocean!

Who is your favorite historical figure?
Thomas Jefferson. He was America’s equivalent of a Renaissance man like Leonardo da Vinci. He was a man of letters, the arts, and science. He was someone who could write the Declaration of Independence, design incredible buildings, and could appreciate the great wines of France. He is my idol!

Who is your favorite living person?
My parents and my husband. Is this a trick question?!

If you could choose another profession, what would it be?
My dream growing up was to manage a rock band, and I still think this would be a fun. Another part of me would like to travel the world helping others and giving back my time. I have always wanted to go on a mission trip.

What quality or qualities do you most value in your business associates?
I would have to say passion and honesty. At the end of the day all you have is your reputation.

What do you think is the worst bad habit to have at work?
Texting or talking on the phone while in a meeting. I also don’t approve of using personal GTalk or IM while at work. It’s distracting and takes away one’s focus.

As someone at the top of your profession, what keeps you inspired or makes you hit the ground running in the morning?
Having store owners tell me that my product has kept them afloat during these hard times. 

What do you consider has been your greatest achievement in business?
Every October the company produces a shoe to raise money for breast cancer research.  Twenty-five percent of sales proceeds are donated to two different breast cancer research organizations. It’s the most rewarding thing I have ever done! When you see the money your company has raised helping others in need, that is the best feeling in the world.

What advice or useful tip would you give to someone who is just starting out in business?
I have a whole laundry list, but here is a selection:
- If you believe in yourself and your idea, you are destined to make it happen.
- Don't be afraid to be persistent. The worst thing someone can say to you is no.
- Don't be afraid to hire people who are more experienced and smarter than you are. I have done this, and my entire team has taken me to a new level.
- Trust your instincts.
- We all have strengths and weaknesses, so use your strengths to your advantage and hire others to help cover the areas you are weak in.
- Be who you are and not who others want you to be.
- Give back. Stand for something. I promise that you will feel good about yourself before you go to bed if you do this.

About Lindsay Phillips
Lindsay Phillips is the founder and inspiration behind SwitchFlops, a footwear concept evolved from a high school art project. Amazed by the response, Phillips began designing functional flops with colorful straps, each adorned by a unique button. Her idea evolved when she realized that by using Velcro she could create one shoe with many straps—unlimited choices with minimal effort. This simple innovation was the birth of SwitchFlops.

Phillips applied for a patent on her idea in 2002, before she had even left high school. She perfected her interchangeable design during her college years (she graduated from Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida). Travel to Europe for classes and a voyage around the world on a “Semester at Sea” exposed her to a kaleidoscope of cultures, colors, and patterns that would influence her strap designs. Phillips honed her design, merchandising, and manufacturing skills working summers at Polo Ralph Lauren's leather goods division in New York City. After her patent was granted in 2004, Phillips joined forces with her mother to start the business and find a manufacturer.  SwitchFlops made their retail debut in January 2007 at the Surf Expo Trade Show in Orlando. Orders started rolling in and the first product was shipped in April 2007.

A Florida native, Lindsay still lives in the sunshine state but spends much of her time commuting to her corporate office in New Jersey and traveling to promote her namesake brand.

About Lindsay Phillips, Inc.
Lindsay Phillips, Inc., of Cedar Knolls, New Jersey, is a leading manufacturer, marketer, and wholesaler of interchangeable footwear fashion and accessories. Its products are sold in over 4,000 stores throughout the United States and Canada. For more information visit the retail website at www.switchflops.com.

Garanti Bank in Istanbul, Turkey has won the Stevie Award for Corporate Social Responsibility Program of the Year in Europe in The 2010 International Business Awards.  Martha Hooper, representative for The Stevie Awards in Turkey, sent us the following report on how the bank is encouraging women entrepreneurs in Turkey.

What could be better than a corporate responsibility program that focuses on social issues aligned with economic needs? Turkey’s Garanti Bank has done just that by creating its Women Entrepreneurship Program: a program that aims to promote entrepreneurship for women while at the same time furthering the bank’s goal to help improve the overall business performance of its customers. 

This program has been hugely successful in helping to enhance the business capacities of women entrepreneurs in Turkey, and is providing additional economic benefits throughout the communities where these women operate.  But what motivated Garanti to accomplish this achievement?

Conspicuous in their Absence
Garanti has sponsored conferences for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) for a number of years. During these conferences, it became clear to Garanti that businesswomen were conspicuous by their absence from the Turkish business world.  The bank came to the logical conclusion that in order to fill this deficiency in the Turkish business community, women needed more support. 

Research conducted by Garanti’s SME Banking division, under the leadership of Executive Vice President Nafiz Karadere, revealed that financial support, education for professional development, and encouragement were just some of the factors needed to increase the numbers of women entrepreneurs and their contribution to the Turkish economy.

Garanti became the first bank in Turkey to classify women entrepreneurs as a distinct business segment. Today, Garanti reaches women entrepreneurs through SME Customer Relationship Managers at Garanti branches in 76 cities.

More Than Just Financial Support
There were two compelling issues that spurred this corporate responsibility program: In Turkey, only one in four women were employed; and the percentage of women entrepreneurs in Turkey made up a mere 14.7% of the business community.

The overall strategy of Garanti’s program was to improve economic opportunities for women by providing support to female entrepreneurs. The program was more than just a financial support project, however. A key driver was the sustainability of women’s contributions to the economies of the communities in which they lived and worked.

In planning the program, Garanti determined that its priority was social responsibility, not just financial services.  The mission of the program was to increase the number and quality of women entrepreneurs who create value throughout the Turkish economy.  Financing, know-how, and courage were the operating values.

The broader program goals were to raise the level of women in the Turkish workforce to that of developed countries; to provide fundamental business-management information to women entrepreneurs; to facilitate the creation of new business opportunities for women; to encourage women to become key players in Turkey’s economy; and to enhance their ability to compete in global markets.

In order to achieve these goals, Garanti organized seminars, a competition, and an international summit conference, among other incentives.

Business Training
Starting in 2008, Garanti teamed up with a Non-Government Organization named KAGIDER, the Woman Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey, to run a series of “Women Entrepreneur Gatherings” in cities around Turkey. The purpose of these informal seminars has been to advise women entrepreneurs and encourage them to create new opportunities at their businesses by highlighting their contribution to the economy. The women were connected with role models with similar backgrounds, sharing tips about marketing, management, technology, future trends, and EU integration.  The anticipated attendance for the 2008 seminars was 750, but they attracted over a thousand attendees.

Competition
Together with the Ekonomist magazine—and with the support of KAGIDER—Garanti organized a competition in 2007 for Turkish women entrepreneurs aimed at encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit among women.  In addition to selecting the top three economic entrepreneurs, an award was also given to “Turkey’s Most Socially-Minded Woman Entrepreneur” for success in using entrepreneurial methods to develop solutions to social issues.  This year’s competition—its fourth—received entries from more than 3,600 women in 69 cities around the country.

Summit
Garanti is the main sponsor of the annual International Women Entrepreneurship and Leadership Summit, organized by KAGIDER.  This summit, first held in 2009, aims to promote Turkish women entrepreneurs and to create business opportunities by bringing together international and Turkish women entrepreneurs.

The 2010 summit was held in May in Istanbul with the slogan “More Empowered Women, More Prosperity.”  Women entrepreneurship and leadership issues were discussed by global, regional, and national political leaders, entrepreneurs, businesswomen, academicians, and media representatives. Some 350 women attended the summit.

Financial Support
Through Garanti’s Women Entrepreneur Support Package, women entrepreneurs have been eligible since 2006 for low interest loans to expand their businesses and compete in the international business arena. The package allows women who are already business owners to borrow money at low interest rates and with easy repayment terms.   By the end of July 2010, Garanti had made over 10,000 loans through this program.

Website
Garanti recently introduced a new website—www.garantikadingirisimci.com, the first web site created by a Turkish bank for women entrepreneurs—which consists of information about the Women Entrepreneur Support Package; videos and presentations from the Women Entrepreneur Gatherings for those who could not attend; information about the Women Entrepreneur Competition; and a Women Entrepreneur Forum where women entrepreneurs can communicate with each other and share their questions.

Exceeding Its Objectives
By combining training, mentoring, networking with both Turkish and international women entrepreneurs, and providing small business loans, Garanti’s Women Entrepreneurship Program has proved to be an unparalleled success. This has also been reflected in enthusiastic coverage by the Turkish media, which has been a tremendous help in promoting the program.

Since its inception, the program has reached out and given incentive to more than 10,000 Turkish women entrepreneurs. By the end of July 2010, Garanti had granted women entrepreneurs the equivalent of nearly $205 million in loans.

All aspects of Garanti’s initiative have more than exceeded expectations, enabling thousands of women to find their personal paths towards success in their business endeavors. Best of all, the program is actively enabling Turkish women to compete in the international business arena.

About Nafiz Karadere
Nafiz Karadere is the Executive Vice President of Garanti’s SME Banking, Corporate Brand Management, and Marketing Communications. Karadere worked as a senior executive at various private banks before being appointed to his current position in 1999. He is also a Board member of Garanti Pension and Life, Garanti Payment Systems, and the Teachers Academy Foundation.

Karadere graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences’ Department of International Relations at Ankara University.

About Garanti Bank
Garanti Bank is Turkey's second largest private bank by asset size, with the highest capacity to generate recurrent banking revenues. As a universal bank with a leading presence in all business lines, Garanti serves approximately nine million corporate, commercial, SME, and consumer customers.  It offers fully integrated financial services through its nine financial subsidiaries, which include payment systems, pension, leasing, factoring, brokerage and asset management. For more information go to www.garanti.com.tr/en.

Early this year the Stevie Awards announced its year-long support of Oceana, the largest international organization promoting ocean conservation. Once a month in this space we'll update you on Oceana's activities, and how you can support their mission.

Oceana, the largest international organization focused solely on ocean conservation, has recently launched a two-month research expedition from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The expeditions aim is to assess the long-term impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico and its marine life as well as to document areas that could be impacted by the spill if oil becomes caught in certain sea currents.

This exciting expedition will be led by oceanographer Xavier Pastor, vice president for Oceana Europe, and will take place aboard the Oceana Latitude, a 170 foot vessel capable of sailing in both shallow and deep waters. Oceana will also collaborate with several U.S. universities, including the University of Miami and the University of Southern Mississippi, and plans to release reports that describe the impacts of oil on marine species.

During the expedition, Oceana scientists from both sides of the Atlantic, directed by Dr. Michael Hirshfield, senior vice president for North America and chief scientist at Oceana, will work with specialized divers, underwater photographers and videographers as well as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to analyze the magnitude of the oil spill and its effect on sensitive habitats and marine species such as coral. Oceana will also tag several shark and sea turtle species to monitor their migration patterns and study their ability to avoid oil contaminated areas as well as take samples of water, fish larvae, plankton and adult fish.

This is not Oceana’s first on the water expedition. Since 2005, Oceana’s Ranger has been able to document vulnerable marine habitats, discover new and rare species, document illegal fishing, take samples, evaluate the damages to the marine environment and more, all with the goal of achieving policy victories for the seas. The Ranger is truly one of Oceana’s  European office MVPs.

Since its first expedition in 2005, Oceana has achieved multiple victories with the help of Ranger’s on-the-water presence. Ranger set sail in spring 2008 to learn more about the Spanish seafloor, document illegal bottom trawlingand promote the creation of new marine protected areas.

Using an underwater robot that can dive down to 600 meters, Ranger made several exciting species discoveries on the Spanish seafloor. In the Bay of Biscay, the team photographed an ancient deep-sea white coralecosystem in the Aviles Canyon. This discovery was particularly significant because recent studies estimate that almost half of the deep-sea coral reefs in Europe have disappeared, due in part to destructive bottom trawling.

As a result of Ranger’s expeditions and findings, the Spanish government has committed to declaring six new marine protected areas in the waters surrounding Spain.

In fall 2008, Oceana also embarked on two expeditions to the cold-water fjords of Chilean Patagonia surrounding the community of Tortel. The team’s goals were to gather information about the species that inhabit the fjords, with the ultimate goal being to establish a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the region.

Using an underwater ROV, the team documented 151 marine species, including diverse corals, crustaceans and sea cucumbers. During each expedition, the team also engaged members of the Tortel community and garnered their support for Oceana’s efforts in the region.

In April 2009, Oceana completed a third research expedition to the fjords of Tortel, which again included underwater photography, the shooting of an HD documentary and the use of an ROV to document the biodiversity of this still unexplored area.
Oceana’s work on the water is a vital part of the work it does to protect the oceans through policy changes. By providing on the water stories and research, Oceana is able to make a difference.

The full-text of Stevie Award-winning nominations in The 2010 American Business Awards has now been published on the ABA web site. Browse the listings of 2010 honorees to read them.

Entries are now being accepted for the 5th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. There are quite a few new categories this year. The early-bird entry deadline is October 15.

The new 19-page 2010/11 Stevie Awards sponsorship prospectus is now available. Learn about the variety of sponsorship opportunities that are available across our four Stevie Awards programs.

Volunteer to be a preliminary-round judge in the Stevie Awards for Women in Business. Judging will open in September and continue through mid-October. You'll learn about how other entrepreneurs, executives, and organizations around the world are achieving success.

August 31: Entry deadline for 7th Stevie Awards for Women in Business

September 27: 7th annual International Business Awards banquet, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Istanbul, Turkey

September 30: Last day late entries will be accepted for 7th Stevie Awards for Women in Business

October 15: Early-bird entry deadline for 5th Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service

October: Entries open for 2011 American Business Awards