Today we’d like to introduce you to Michele Thompson Rosario.
Michele, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I would love to say that where I am is all by personal design, but that isn’t my story.
Instead, I had a manager that saw something in me that I didn’t even realize at the time.
She gave me the opportunity to be the senior leader of a talent development group for a large financial institution. At the time, it was pretty scary because I didn’t have a lot of experience in this area and I had to move to take the position and lots of other challenges that a diverse leader faces in the corporate world. Despite all of that I loved my role, the contributions I made to the organization and more importantly to each bank employee that was impacted by the work of my team. My team and I were responsible for the professional development of over 25,000 employees. The role was scary, challenging and exciting all at the same time. As part of my responsibilities, I managed vendor relationships with companies like the one I run and own today that augmented my staff when we had learning initiatives beyond our bandwidth. When I saw what they did, and now knew what I could do and loved to do, then I took a leap of faith by starting my own business – Bright Effects Learning. As I look back on my life and career, everything I did – every role in some way prepared me for where I am today.
Of course, at the time I didn’t realize I was being prepared for anything. I was taking life one day at a time giving my best wherever I found myself.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
In your dreams! I’ve dealt with some of the same challenges many entrepreneurs encounter – lack of access to capital, lack of access to decision makers who can buy my services, my own internal barriers (self-doubt & fear) and wanting to give up when I grew weary & frustrated – knocking on doors and nobody answers and lots of rejection.
The road has had many challenges but it’s also what helped me grow personally and professionally. I wouldn’t change a thing.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
What we do is a mixture of creativity, education, and technology. Our two cores services – Custom Course Development and our signature training to address the unique challenges of diverse leaders.
We’ve worked with Fortune 500 and government organizations designing and developing courses on leadership, banking, sales, new hire orientation and other topics in an eLearning format for online courses, traditional classroom training, or virtual sessions. When it comes to Custom Course Development, we are the go to provider for organizations looking to train the modern 21st-century learner who is distracted, suffering from information overload and has very little time or patience to sit through another dull learning session.
We push past the way organizations have traditionally viewed learning using strategies such as microlearning, mobile learning, social learning, and game-based learning to name a few. We take a very learner centric approach. We want learners engaged and interactive with the content while learning and retaining in less training time so they go back to work with new skills and behaviors.
We’re known for designing, developing, and delivering learning solutions for diverse leaders. At a time when organizations are trying to improve the diversity of their leadership, they are running into roadblocks in getting a wish to be a reality. One of the biggest barriers is a lack of professional development for diverse leaders. Sure, a lot of companies have leadership development programs.
We have designed programs that specifically address the unique challenges of diverse leaders. One of the things I’m most proud of is our new series we launched in 2017- Executive Presence for Women. This series is designed to provide women with the knowledge, tools, and skills to project greater credibility, confidence, and competence in the workplace which opens the door for more opportunities. This is near and dear to my heart because many of the challenges we address in this series, I’ve had to deal with in my own professional development.
What were you like growing up?
Growing up I was the class clown. …I was the one always joking and disrupting the teaching because I liked to have a good time and ensure others did too. My friends would always say I’m crazy. I still get that from time to time. I originally wanted to give acting a try and dreamed of making it big on Broadway so I was the kid in the chorus, drama club, and always looking to perform. I was actually part of a girls singing group. Who knows I could have been the next Beyoncé had I continued. One of my nicknames used to be “Hollywood” 🙂
Contact Info:
- Address: 1447 Peachtree St. NE Suite 700
Atlanta, GA 30309 - Website: www.brighteffectslearning.com
- Phone: 404-419-6348
- Email: mthompson@brighteffectslearning.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brighteffectslearning/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrightEffectsHQ
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bright-effects-learning
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