Leveraging Business Certifications to Grow and Scale Your Business with Pat Gibson, Merry Korn & Noni Banks
NAWBO Columbus is pleased to welcome Pat Gibson, Senior Advisor to SBA Administrator at the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), to Columbus. Ms. Gibson has a wealth of entrepreneurial experience in the nonprofit and business sectors, having founded and operated two successful businesses. Thanks to the passage of HB494 in November 2018 by the Ohio Legislature, we now have the first-ever Women's Business Enterprise (WBE) Certification for Ohio in place.
Pat, a friend and mentor to many women entrepreneurs in Columbus, will share practical ways to leverage business certifications at all levels - national, state and local. Additionally, she will discuss how the SBA can assist women in growing and scaling your greatest asset - your business.
Pat will be joined by Merry Korn, CEO of Pearl Interactive and Noni Banks, CEO of The Diva Movement, who will share personal stories about the ways they have grown successful businesses by leveraging certifications.
Register today! Space is limited.
About the Speaker:
Gibson has been a nonprofit senior executive, an entrepreneur and strategic communications consultant who founded and operated two companies. Prior to joining SBA, she served as an interim Chief Operating Officer for a nonprofit organization, realigning messaging, outreach and strategy. As Chief Communications Officer for DIA (the Drug Information Association), she led the introduction of a new branding and 
communications strategy, and reorganized operations supporting marketing, membership and publications.
Gibson was a partner and co-founder of Healthcare Integrity Group, an early stage venture, where she led a team of healthcare industry and IT experts in designing a commercially viable product enabling a patient engagement process standard across medical and non-medical disciplines, leveraging innovative healthcare IT. She spent 23 years growing and evolving PMG Communications, a strategic communications agency, into a million-dollar business with clients spanning Fortune 500 companies, nonprofit associations and state and federal government.
Gibson has served on the global Board of Directors for the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) and was the founding President of Women for Economic & Leadership Development (WELD), a multi state nonprofit focused on leadership development for women. Gibson received her B.S. degree in Communications and Business from Indiana University in Bloomington, IN.
Noni is the inspiring founder of The Diva Movement, a business and leadership development organization for women. The rapid growth of this organization, is a result of her gift to nurture the strengths and passions of women .
With a passion for uplifting and encouraging women, Noni Banks founded The DIVA Movement with the mission of empowering, inspiring and motivating women to thrive.
Founded in 2012, The Diva Movement was created to provide support, tools and resources to help women succeed. Noni has created a diverse community of women who are taking their lives to new levels by being women of purpose and action.
Noni is known for building relationships, expanding community connections and advancing the mission of organizations including Mothers Against Drunk Driving and HandsOn Central Ohio, where she served as Senior Victim Advocate and Director. She is a nationally recognized and accomplished community organizer ,trainer and professional development professional. As a grassroots organizer, community leader and bridge builder, she worked to create relationships that created opportunities, access to resources and programs to protect some of the most vulnerable populations in Ohio.
Merry Korn, owner, an experienced businesswoman with a master’s degree in social work, honed her business skills as senior vice president of marketing for American Health 
Holding, Inc. – a national medical management firm based in Worthington, Ohio. As part of a team of four founders, Korn grew American Health’s business from a startup company in 1993 to a firm that today has over 300 employees and 20 offices nationwide.
During Korn’s tenure with American Health Holding, she coordinated a multi-disciplinary team to develop a national disease and demand management program. These programs provided protocols on preventive health care and progressive disease states. Specially-trained nurses provided contact center health and disease education services to inbound callers wanting education and resource referrals.
In 2004, she founded Pearl Interactive Network, a social enterprise that blends a for-profit business with a social mission that provides work opportunities to the most challenged populations. Through her leadership, the company has grown to more than 500 employees in 26 states. Pearl gained traction among the world’s largest federal government contractors, and positioned the company as a niche staffing and project management firm that provides federal prime contractors with mandated certifications and a GSA schedule. Korn is actively working with her team to develop a presence in the insurance and IT verticals.
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TICKETS
$10.00 NAWBO Member Ticket
$10.00 NAWBO Corporate Partner Ticket
$25.00 Guest Ticket
Special Pricing for VERSA and Diva Movement Members. Registration code required.