Empowering Differences Inc, Tampa, Florida, United States: Ashley Brundage, President & CEO

Company: Empowering Differences Inc
Company Description: Empowering Differences is an organization founded on the 10 Empowering Actions used by founder Ashley T Brundage to advance her career in less than five years. The company was started in 2011 when Ashley recognized the need for leadership based training to empower and inspire organizations and diverse individuals.
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Social Change Maker of the Year - LGBTIQ

Nomination Title: Ashley Brundage

Briefly describe the nominated individual: history and past performance (up to 200 words):

Total 200 words used.

Ashley has worked tirelessly to be visible within the whole community bringing much needed positive attention to women of transgender experiance. She transitioned in 2008 and has not stopped fighting harassment and discrimination for all people. She overcame these obstacales along with homelessness to gain employment at PNC Bank as a part time bank teller. Then over the next 4 years she used her research on empowerment and differences to rise in her career to become the national vice president of diversity and inclusion at PNC Bank. Then over the next 6 years as she postioned PNC as a leader in DEI she was finishing all of her research and then publishing her work as an empowerment platform for all people to truly be empowering differences. This program led her to walk away from her corporate DEI job at the end of 2021 and boldly take a leap into running her company full time since Jan of 2022. She now shares her empowerment research and leadership development program with people around the world always making sure everyone has access to the digital assets. The empowerment and differences self assessments are available for free for anyone to download around the world.
Outline the nominee's achievements since July 1 2020 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):

Total 153 words used.

Became the Vice Chair of the National Board for GLAAD- GLAAD works to accelorate acceptance in the LGBTQ community around the world. This is a non paid board position. She also chairs the Development Committee for GLAAD bringing annual budget from 15MM to 30MM in this time frame. She boldly walked away from her job as VP of DEI at PNC Bank to run her own company called Empowering Differences She creates access for anyone who needs empowerment and leadership programming by offering hardship and free access to each program and event she hosts through her company. She was honored by Gov Ron Desantis in Florida June 2022 with the Spirit of Community Award from his commission on the status of women. This was due to her work in bringing 12MM dollars of economic impact to the state as well as her empowerment platform and program being offered to people throughout the state.
Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):

Total 43 words used.

Award from Florida Gov Ron Desantis- http://fcsw.net/spirit/
ABC News Feature- https://abc7ny.com/ashley-t-brundage-empowering-differences-author-of-four-steps-to-empowerment/11264915/
Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-employers-help-workers-affected-by-anti-lgbtq-news-bills-2022-6
Business Journal Opt ED- https://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/news/2022/06/03/embracing-differences-drives-economic.html
NBC News- https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/desantis-moves-ban-transition-care-transgender-youth-medicaid-recipien-rcna31736
Forbes Award- https://www.forbes.com/sites/laureldonnellan/2022/02/03/learn-to-be-a-better-leader-from-the-2022-compassionate-leaders-circle-awards-honorees/?sh=2152a99b1a8f
Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes, explaining the achievements since July 1, 2020 of the nominated woman, OR written answers to the questions? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video. If you are submitting written answers to the questions for this category, provide them in the spaces below:

Ashley moved her social impact for the LGBTQ community to new heights in the last year. She rose to lead the development committee of GLAAD as a full volunteer and the Vice Chair of the board. In this time frame GLAAD has now grow from a 12 million dollar non profit to almost 30 million dollar annual reveune. This fundraising has helped us launch the new social media safety index which just published the ratings for the first time in July 2022. This index tracks the overall safety for the LGBTQ community and all of the companies scored below 50 out of 100.
Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the nominee's past performance (up to 250 words):

Total 149 words used.

While in 2019 and 2020 Ashley focused on her message and community give back to trans and non binary people, she raised the stakes in the last year for all marginalized people. She provided free access to her empowerment platform through various initives. Creating a scholarship program for her new Voyage of Empowerment conference and for her new Empowerment Summit program as well. She has also matched coporate purchases of her empowerment program with free access to LGBTQ and other marginalized community organizations.

There are tons of trans and LGBTQ advocates doing great work, Ashley just presents her work in a different way by moving in major front facing lanes. She was featured in ABC News, NBC News, Business Insider, Forbes, Chief, and several local media outlets responding to numerous issues facing the LGBTQ community recently. All of these can be found on google or in reference section below.

Attachments/Videos/Links:

Ashley Brundage
	fcsw.net/spirit/