Women TIES Advisory Board

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Women TIES is a success because of the sage advice, enthusiasm, and insight of these outstanding business women. The Women TIES Advisory Board consists of women who are true believers in the success of other women, especially women entrepreneurs.

You can learn more about their companies by viewing their corporate listings in the membership directory. They are listed below in alphabetical order by first name.

Becky Bayne is a seasoned entrepreneur and owner of Becky's Graphic Design, a business she began in 1992 with a high school diploma and a belief in her talent as a calligrapher and artistic designer. As an independent graphic designer working from home, Becky was a pioneer in the home-based business model long before it became a topic of national interest.

A true entrepreneur, Becky found a way to make money using her natural abilities while maintaining the flexibility to be home with her two young children. Along the way, Becky developed professional skills by taking advantage of continuing education and by leveraging on the job training opportunities. For nearly 20 years, Becky has created images, logos, websites and newsletters for dozens of small businesses, not for profits and government agencies.

Her graphic design practice, now in its 17th year, has won numerous awards including the US Small Business Administration 2003 Excellence in Small Business Award and the 2004 Home Based Business Champion Award. Becky was the Publications Coordinator for the Women Business Owners Connection for 9 years, a Member of the Syracuse Chamber of Commerce, and a Women TIES Advisory Board member.

In May 2009, Becky moved to Nashville with her husband to be closer to their children and in a warmer climate. She continues to operate her business in CNY from Nashville and looks forward to building a new clientele in this new region.

Betsy L. Powers' career in the financial industry in central New York spans a 25-year period. Beginning at a major stock brokerage firm, her early experience included securities trading operations, internal compliance audits, and pension plan management. Subsequently, she worked with individual clients on asset accumulation strategies by educating them about asset allocation. An unexpected fiduciary responsibility within her family spurred her transition to Sagemark Consulting as a fee based financial planner. Sagemark's cross-disciplinary approach resulted in a broadening of her focus to include asset protection, insurance, business succession planning and estate distribution. Betsy is currently a Select Planner with the Private Wealth Services Group of Sagemark Consulting.

In particular, Betsy works with business owners who want to eventually and successfully exit from their business but aren't sure how to accomplish that goal. She applies a systematic process that integrates personal, financial and estate planning objectives with the goals of the business.

Betsy is former President of the CACDA (Cazenovia Area Community Development Association) Board of Directors. Betsy is a member of the Advisory Board for Women TIES and also is a current member and former officer of the Corinthian Club. As past Chairperson of the Greater Cazenovia Area Chamber of Commerce (GCACC), she also served as Chairman of the GCACC Economic Development Committee. She is a past Vice President of WBOC (Women Business Owner Connection), a former member of the WBOC Leadership Committee, and past member of the Syracuse YWCA Board of Directors. Betsy graduated cum laude from Syracuse University with a B.A. in Psychology.

Betsy was selected in each year from 2005 through 2009 as one of 65 out of 2200 financial planners across the nation to join the Select Planner Group of Lincoln Financial Advisors Corporation/Sagemark Consulting as a part of the firm's Private Wealth Services Group Program qualified to work with clients on highly complex financial solutions. Betsy was also among 20 women honored for her business and civic accomplishments at the sixth annual Women in Business awards for the greater Syracuse area (Women in Business Honoree).

Gwendolyn (Gwen) Webber-McLeod, M.S. is President/CEO of Gwen, Inc. She has over 30 years experience in leadership development, professional facilitation, and motivational speaking. Her clients are CEOs, executive and mid-level managers, and leadership teams in public, private, and education businesses and organizations throughout the state of New York.

A cum laude graduate of Potsdam University, Gwen is a serial entrepreneur who created two businesses, Treble Associates, and Gwen Webber-McLeod, Inspiring People to New Levels of Leadership. In 2008 she incorporated Gwen, Inc. housing her consulting business and two new products. Gwen, Inc. hallmark product The Leadership Connection®: A Resource Centered on Great Leadership opened as a regional resource center for leaders in January 2009. The resource center provides an array of services for emerging and established individual leaders through education, facilitated work sessions, technical assistance, and motivational events. In addition, her product line, gwenspirations launched in 2010 offering products celebrating the leadership profession. Gwen writes a monthly column, The Leadership Journey, for Auburn's hometown newspaper, The Citizen. In May of 2006 she received a Masters of Science in Management from Keuka College, graduating Magna Cum Laude.

She has been Director of Communications for Wells College; Communications/Development Director of the Seven Lakes Girl Scout Council; Executive Director of the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls; Executive Director of the Booker T. Washington Community Center in Auburn, and Coordinator of Human Services for the Cayuga/Seneca Community Action Agency.

Gwen is a recognized professional leader who has a very active civic life. She takes great pride in serving on boards of directors that enhance and improve the lives of people at the local, state, and national level.

Joan Powers is a Senior Business Adviser with the New York State Small Business Development Center. In her role as a business adviser she advises clients in the preparation of business plans and financial projections, funding packages, financial analysis, and marketing plans. Joan also provides guidance in preparation of payroll, payroll taxes, NYS sales taxes, and federal taxes that are required for government reporting. Prior to this Joan worked in the private sector for eighteen years in the accounting department of a Fortune 1000 corporation. She received her BA and MS degree in accounting from Syracuse University.

Joan received the SBA's Syracuse District Women's Business Champion Award for 2004 and the New York State Small Business Development Center 3rd Runner Up for Business Adviser of the Year in 2004, 2008 and 4th Runner Up in 2009.

Karen McMahon is a life coach, an online marketing consultant, and President and CEO of ShopforMuseums.com, an online shopping site where businesses and individuals can do their everyday shopping with hundreds of national retailers and at no extra cost, have a percentage of the purchase amount donated to a museum, park, zoo, nature center or other related organization of their choice.

Known for her creative insight, purpose-driven leadership, marketing skill and her ability to handle logistics, Karen now manages what is recognized nationally as the fastest growing museum fundraising program on the web. While building strong partnerships with museums, shoppers and leading e-commerce retailers including Ebay, Macy's, Best Buy, Amazon, Sears and many more, Karen encourages "shopping online with purpose." In the simplest of ways, we can each give back much-needed funds to our communities. Karen is a Women TIES Advisory Board member, is active in several state museum associations, volunteers at The Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation and helps out at Save the Animals, an organization that helps rescue abandoned animals in Central New York.

Shannon is a principal owner of Colden Corporation, a privately held company, wholly owned and managed by five senior professionals, all actively involved in the practice. Shannon serves as vice president of health sciences and co-chair of the litigation support practice. She aids clients in determining the origin and nature of workplace health concerns and provides litigation support in suspected cases of occupationally or environmentally induced illnesses. Over the course of 10+ years, Shannon has evaluated myriad industrial and nonindustrial settings and a wide range of health effects. She has investigated occupational and environmental clusters involving reproductive, cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory illness.

Shannon holds a doctor of science in environmental health from Harvard University with a concentration in occupational epidemiology. Her thesis focused on evaluating the cardiovascular health effects of airborne particulate air pollution. She also holds a master of public health in epidemiology and biostatistics from Boston University, a master of science in engineering science from Dartmouth College, and a bachelor of science in bioengineering from Syracuse University.

Shannon continues to perform air quality research and teaches and advises students through academic appointments at the Harvard School of Public Health, SUNY Upstate Medical Center and the L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science at Syracuse University where she is advising Engineers Without Borders students working on the health and safety aspects of developing a kitchen in an orphanage in Kenya. Shannon is also a member of the Women TIES Advisory Board.

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