In our webinar with Women and Manufacturing (WiM), we explored the concept of how an employee can advance their career as part of organizational growth initiatives or innovation investment. Our three panelists shared their career journeys and how they took on projects both inside and outside of their companies to develop new skill sets or build expertise. The Center for Creative Leadership's research studies on executive growth and development confirmed that experience is the best teacher. In these studies, they found that various leadership challenges contribute to a managers' becoming experienced. But learning was not automatic. It was possible to have the knowledge but miss the meaning.

Next Level Northwest has helped a number of small- to mid-size businesses in northwest Chicagoland create jobs, expand facilities and grow revenue through entrepreneurial education.

There are nearly 200,000 middle-market businesses representing one-third of the U.S. economy. While definitions of this group vary, the National Center for the Middle Market categorizes it as businesses with top-line revenue between 10 Million and 1 Billion. These companies are private and public, family-owned, geographically diverse, employ approximately 48 million people and span across all industries.

It's hard not to get excited about something new - a fresh start, a birth, a new year. 2020 is over, so how can we take the lessons we learned and use them to our advantage this year?Our first