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​​​RETREAT SPEAKERS​​​
​​​Monday, September 14​
​​​Tuesday, September 15​
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​Dr. Michelle Schmerge, President and Founder, Equity Health
The Second Half Strategy: Health & Wellness for Women Building Legacies
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Dr. Michelle Schmerge founded Equity Health to provide patients access to high-quality care, anywhere.
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After spending over a decade as a front-line nurse practitioner in post-acute care, she knows what truly drives clinical outcomes and patient-centered solutions: placing the patient at the center of the healthcare experience and promoting value for each person. Beyond clinical quality, Dr. Schmerge provides vision, promotes innovation, and creates a positive working environment, because exceptional patient care starts with a culture of wellness and resilience for clinicians.
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Equity Health is a mission-driven team of providers and clinicians delivering high-quality primary care—wherever and whenever it’s needed. We cut through a fragmented healthcare system by providing seamless access to primary care, proactive care navigation, and comprehensive advanced care planning. The result is a smarter, more connected care model that reduces hospitalizations and emergency room visits while elevating the experience for patients and their families.
MOLLY GRANTHAM
Bet On Yourself: Look Forward, Take Initiative, Lead Confidently
4x-Emmy winner. 3x-author. National speaker. Charity auctioneer. Proud mom.
Molly Grantham has been named “TV News Reporter of the Year” and juggles life with humor and poise, bringing clever wit to diverse crowds. She delivers hundreds of keynotes and has interviewed over 15,000 people in her 25-years of television news.
Molly left her journalism career when at the top of her game—the #1-rated anchor in a top 20 American media market, doing 20 live shows a week—to reinvent and motivate audiences across the country to “Bet On Yourself.”
She is adept at speaking live to 100,000 people a night, sitting beside Hollywood celebrities, NFL stars, and throughout her career worked at ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates. She appeared on CNN, Today Show, CBS News, the CBS Morning Show, and in Huffington Post and People Magazine. Her social media is its own channel, with more than 200,000 combined followers. In late 2024, she founded the “Bet On Yourself Summit,” a soul-filling experience to help women uncover power in themselves. It made history as the first women’s event inside the Carolina Panthers NFL stadium.
Molly is also a trained and active charity auctioneer, bringing non-profits around the country to earn record-breaking amounts.
Her three books are a popular series described as “raw and relatable” about not losing yourself while loving your career and raising children. She and her husband, Wes, have three children under the age of 14.
In her next life, Molly says she wants to be a mermaid.
More on Molly in her video here.
MICHELE NIDIFFER, The Visibility Stylist
The Visibility Breakthrough Workshop
Mary Michele Nidiffer — The Visibility Stylist™ — is a Master Style & Confidence Coach and the creator of the StyleFinder ID® System. She helps women reclaim their presence by aligning identity, voice, and personal style so they stop shrinking and go from invisible to unforgettable.
A sought-after speaker, author, and podcast host, Mary Michele is the founder of The Art of Becoming Visible, her signature framework for women ready to be seen without performing, pleasing, or apologizing. Her work transforms more than wardrobes - it reshapes how women see themselves and how the world responds to them.
Her message is simple and powerful: You’re not invisible. You’re unexpressed. And it’s not too late - this is your time to shine.
​MARA WHITENER, WHITENER PROFESSINAL SERVICES
Built to Last or Built on You? Your Studio Systems Reality Check and Thursday's bonus workshopping session: The Build-Out Workshop: Your Systems Implementation Plan
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Mara Whitener is a trusted advisor to growth-stage founders navigating the complexity of scaling past $600K–$1M+. With over two decades of experience building and operating successful service-based companies, she helps CEOs reclaim control by tightening strategy, aligning leadership, and stabilizing internal operations for long-term, sustainable growth.
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Her specialty lies in solving what others overlook: the internal bottlenecks that silently erode momentum: misaligned teams, broken systems, scattered priorities, and founder over-functioning. More often than not, Mara spots the bottlenecks breaking growth that Founders can’t spot on their own. She brings a rare combination of strategic insight and operational rigor, delivering hands-on partnership that moves businesses from reactive to reliable.
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Clients turn to Mara when their business has outgrown its foundation—and their success is creating more friction than freedom. She’s not here to offer advice from the sidelines. She’s a Strategic Growth Partner who works inside your business to implement the structure, leadership clarity, and operating rhythm that drive scale without burnout.
Her approach is sharp, efficient, and always customized. No fluff. No filler. Just the infrastructure, insight, and execution support your business actually needs to grow with confidence.
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Outside of business, Mara is a lifelong advocate and community leader, with five Congressional Awards for leadership impact. She’s also a foster pet parent and behind-the-scenes introvert who finds joy in turning big visions into clean, scalable systems.
Wednesday, September 16​
Yajaira Tiscareño, MBA
Titans Tax and Accounting Services
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She grew up in California and has made North Carolina her home since 2010. She received her Undergraduate degree from the University of California Riverside and graduated with her Master’s degree in Business Administration from Lenoir-Rhyne University.
At Titans Tax & Consulting Services, Yajaira combines her love of numbers and helping others. She started in Consulting in 2011 and quickly realized how much businesses – especially startups – needed bookkeeping and business tax services. Fluent in Spanish and English, she works closely with each business, creating a plan specifically tailored to their needs.
“It makes me happy to see our client’s stress level drop after they turn over their books to us. It’s like they were waiting for someone to take that weight off their shoulders.”
Kelly Jesson, Small Business Attorney and Estate Planning
Jesson, Rains, PLLC
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Kelly focuses on estate planning, probate administration, and business law. She is a seasoned litigator and has tried numerous cases.
Kelly was named to the North Carolina Rising Stars list by Super Lawyers for Estate Planning every year from 2018-2022, and was named a Super Lawyer in the Estate Planning category for 2024. The Super Lawyer recognition is reserved for the top 5% of practicing attorneys who are over 40 and have been practicing for more than 10 years. She was also named to Business North Carolina Legal Elite for Tax/Estate Planning category every year from 2019-2024. Less than three percent of all practicing attorneys in the state were selected as Legal Elite. In May of 2023, The Charlotte Chapter of NAWBO, National Association of Women Business Owners, named Kelly Woman Business Owner of the Year. This award is presented to a member who has demonstrated strong leadership skills in growing and managing a successful business that is more than five years old.
Prior to joining Jesson & Rains, PLLC, she represented local governments and businesses in matters ranging from personal injury suits in state court to discrimination, police liability, and other constitutional law claims in federal court. Kelly served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Angel A. Cortiñas of the Florida Third District Court of Appeal in Miami.
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In law school, Kelly was very involved with professional ethics and public service programs. She was the recipient of a position in the highly competitive Department of Justice Honors Intern Program, where she worked in the Professional Responsibility Advisory Office.
Kelly volunteers through the NCBA's "Wills for Heroes" program, drafting testamentary documents for firefighters and police officers, and accepts periodic pro bono cases through the Mecklenburg County Bar Association's pro bono program.
Kelly is originally from North Carolina and worked as a paralegal in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina for several years before entering law school. She is also a former dance teacher.
Sarah K. Charles, Sanctuary Financial Planning
From Work to What's Next: Designing a Life You Don't Want to Retire From
Sarah K. Charles, CSRIC®, AIF®, is a financial planner, TEDx speaker, author, and professional myth-buster who believes money advice should sound like a conversation, not a lecture. After two decades in finance — and her own hard-won money awakening — she co-founded Sanctuary Financial Planning with her husband Jim to help people align money with meaning. She is the co-author of From Work to What’s Next: Designing a Life You Don’t Want to Retire From, and she spoke at TEDxSugar Creek Women on financial intimacy.
Sarah blends research, real talk, and humor to make the messy psychology of money feel clear and human. Her work rests on one idea: money is not a math problem. It’s a relationship — with yourself, your partner, your family, and your future.
Hillary Moulliet, The Creative Retailer
Your Best Marketing Assets Are Already in Your Life
Hillary was raised in New Hampshire by parents who owned several small businesses. (Their ski shop was her favorite; it was their greatest accomplishment, running it for over 20 years. Sidenote: the winter coat displays were the perfect hiding spot for Hillary and her sister and their fierce hide-and-seek games.) Growing up in small-town New England in the 70's and 80's there were no big box stores; neighbors and friends ran businesses. She truly only knew small business as a way of life.
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Her first studio, Pottery Works, opened in Jacksonville, Florida in 1997, after a honeymoon in Canada and the discovery of a small, slope-side studio. She sold Pottery Works five years later when a move with her Navy husband took them around the US for a bit. She was painting custom handprint pieces and started consulting with new studios (her first was a great shop in Ocean Springs, MS). The couple eventually landed in Charlotte, NC where Hillary opened her second studio, Art Space Studio. She sold Art Space Studio in late 2019, after running it for over twelve years.
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The Creative Retailer represents:
1 - Over 25 years in the pottery painting industry as a business owner, teacher, speaker and leader
2 - Love of graphic design, creativity, innovation and learning
3 - Passion for small business - because literally, that's been her life
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These three, as represented by TCR's logo, create the Sweet Spot that is The Creative Retailer.
Thursday, September 17​
Randy Mitchell, Senior Advisor, VR Business Sales
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Achieving the American Dream: Bringing buyers and sellers together in business transactions.
It's not just business, it's personal: You want someone working for you who is accomplished at executing the business transaction flawlessly. Who can strongly represent you in the negotiations, who has the mind for attending to the details, and who is backed up by a team of transaction experts with years of experience.
But when it comes to buying or selling a business or property, you also need an empathetic partner who will take the time to listen to you and understand what is important to YOU. After all, the business is your lifeblood and your source of financial strength.
Sure, it's "only" a business transaction. But it's also so much more than that.
• Business: Certified Business Intermediary with IBBA.
• Real Estate: licensed in NC and SC.
• Past President of local Chamber of Commerce.
• Named 'Business Person of the Year' in 2018 by Matthews Chamber of Commerce.
• Volunteer leader in area non-profits.
• Facilitator of small groups and teams to help them get things done!
• Eagle Scout (and father of one too!)
Crista Toler, Mayco Colors
​Coming soon!