Spring is finally here and you can most definitely feel the renewed excitement and energy in the air!

You could feel it at our TEMPO Madison board meeting this past week and you could most definitely feel it at our Project REACH event on April 11. “Personal Journeys to the Boardroom”, led by the Project REACH Committee, in conjunction with Milwaukee Women, Inc, involved a panel discussion with three inspiring Milwaukee leaders who shared their corporate board experiences. It was an inspiring and informative program. We truly have a gem in our Project REACH initiative, the mission being to get more women on corporate business boards. A special thank you to Kim Sponem and Kris Euclide, as Co-Founders of this most important initiative and to Shana Lewis and Patti Epstein for their roles as current Co-Chairs.

Project REACH has offered many highly valuable workshops to help our TEMPO Madison members who have an interest in serving on a corporate board. One of my personal favorites has been the “Project REACH Workshop: Write Your Corporate/Business Board Bio” with ML Wattman (FYI – I believe another one is in the planning stages). First and foremost, I will echo the comments of those who have participated in the workshop in that ML is AMAZING! If you haven’t worked with her, you’re in for a real treat. Participants leave these workshops with a complete (or almost complete) board bio that they can begin using immediately.

Our Project REACH database offers board brief and board bio documents on a broad pool of qualified candidates with diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise.

Project REACH – take a look on our TEMPO Madison website for more details and to see what’s coming up next.

A special thank you to everyone who has donated to our April Showers Match Challenge! As I write this column (on April 22), we are nearly at our goal of getting the full $4,000 matching grant from Joan Collins. Thank YOU so very much, Joan, for your generosity! As a result, we have the potential (and I’ve no doubt we’ll get there) to raise up to $8,000 for our TEMPO Madison Foundation Scholarship Program!

It’s no secret that TEMPO Madison members are most generous and also love a good challenge!

Our TEMPO Madison Annual Meeting will be here before we know it (don’t forget about the new date – Tuesday, June 20 – the 3rd Tuesday vs. our normal 2nd Tuesday of the month). The board had an exciting discussion this past week about what the event will entail. We’re refining the idea for our Speed Networking event – just for us, TEMPO Madison Members, that will be held just prior to the meeting. As the January head shot session was so well received, we’re planning to have Debbie Borth from Camera Kisses back with us to offer headshots during the June event, as well.

Don’t forget to mark your calendars for June 20! The TEMPO Madison Annual Meeting is an event that is looked forward to each year. This year will not disappoint!

At our recent board meeting, Theola Carter reminded me of my favorite way to describe TEMPO Madison (besides Synergy, of course) is that TEMPO Madison allows for you to be as involved as you want to be/can be, at any given time! TEMPO Madison has something for everyone.

So – who do you know who’s TEMPO Madison Ready? The next membership nomination deadline will be May 31.

I’m sure you’ll agree that there truly is no better place to network and is often the case, form life-long friendships (yes, it’s Synergy at its best)!

That said, I look forward to seeing you at one of our many upcoming events!

Michelle Vetterkind
2022-23 TEMPO Madison President