Time and again, throughout my career, I’ve found myself underestimated.Until I’m not.Whether this underestimation is rooted in my being new to a particular industry, in my outsider status, or it exists in spite of my deep expertise in the subject at hand, whether it’s due to my gender or my humble upbringing, or perhaps exists for no real reason at all, few things thrill me more than defying expectations and achieving measurable, undeniable results in the face of doubts and naysayers.One thing, however, that does mimic that thrill, is identifying those with leadership potential that has perhaps gone unnoticed by the same people who may not have noticed me. I pride myself on my ability to spot talent, mentor, and develop future leaders. At multiple organizations, I’ve built a reputation for developing talent. At Starbucks, I promoted ~100 employees in 3 years and was gifted a literal bench in recognition of my work developing highly effective leaders and creating a “bench” of future managers. At Cava, all 11 of my direct reports are employees I’ve developed and elevated to General Managers.These new leaders are more than a bench from which others can hire, they are also the core of my own high-performing teams. My teams and I are often called upon to turn around struggling locations or test and develop new procedures. This is due to my long list of impressive accomplishments and effectiveness in diverse, challenging scenarios. Just a few of my major accomplishments include:✓ I converted 11 Zoës Kitchens into Cavas in 5 months, opening 32 new restaurants in total, without the departure of a single GM, outperforming the company’s post-acquisition GM retention rate by 50%.✓ I protected brand reputation by testing and launching an internal delivery operation, which was rolled out nationwide following its initial success, replacing reliance on 3 rd party drivers.✓ I led the roll out of a new training protocol for Starbucks, called Playbook, across North Texas and Oklahoma, visiting 400 locations in just 6 months to train District Managers and provide feedback on the progress of implementation.These accomplishments were all made possible by my ability to build high-performing teams through the development of leaders I both invest and believe in. Wherever my next destination, I look forward to supporting the teams I’ve yet to build. We will continue to defy expectations and accomplish extraordinary things.