March Practitioners

Honoring Women

BASSIMA MROUE

Bassima Mroue is the CEO and co-founder of SkinTē, the first-ever collagen sparkling tea positioned at the intersection of beauty, food and wellness. The brand is experiencing rapid growth, was Finalist for Best Ingestible 2 years in a row by IBE, and has been recognized by media including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Inc, Allure, Goop, US Weekly, Entrepreneur, PopSugar and WWD.

Prior to SkinTē, Bassima helped drive Ecosystem strategy for Spanx, the beloved brand that revolutionized shapewear. She also served as President of the Sara Blakely Foundation and currently sits on the Board. In 2014, she founded BHM Consulting to partner with organizations poised on the edge of business and social transformation. Bassima also spent a decade at Nike Inc., working in various roles such as IT, Supply Chain and Strategy which gave her broad experience and ignited her passion for building purpose-driven brands.

Bassima is Lebanese-American and grew up in West Africa and Canada. She considers herself a global citizen and is a big believer in the empowerment of women as embodied by her TEDx Portland talk in 2012 about the power of the Girl Effect. Bassima is often invited to speak about female empowerment, the entrepreneurial journey, beauty and leading with purpose.

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DR. AMY BADER

Amy Bader ND is an accomplished doctor, teacher, speaker, writer, and entrepreneur. She is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley as well as the National University of Natural Medicine (NUNM), where she is now an assistant professor and attending physician. She has a private practice in Vancouver, Washington where she works one on one with patients helping them achieve a higher level of health. Her passion for treating patients with complex chronic diseases is rooted in her extensive training in clinical nutrition, botanical medicine, and homeopathy.

Dr. Bader has been interviewed as an expert in natural medicine for radio, newspapers, magazines, and television. She has been a contributing expert columnist for The NaturalPath, an online natural health resource, as well as a founding co-director of NUNM’s Integrative Skin Care Clinic. She was also a distinguished member of the Advisory Board for Emerson Ecologics.

Dr. Bader is a co-founder of Real Beauty Food, LLC, the maker of SkinTē, where her love of natural medicine and whole-body wellness is the foundation of it’s nutritious (and delicious) sparkling collagen teas.

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GENIA SILVER

A Lowcountry icon, Genia Silver Trousdell designs fun, flirty, sophisticated jewelry that gets her clients noticed! Crafted from the finest semi-precious stones, freshwater pearls and 14 carat gold, Genia’s pieces are perfect for everyday wear or special occasions, and have been an endearing local favorite and featured in boutiques from Atlanta to Ponte Vedra to Los Angeles and beyond.

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JANET SCARBROUGH

In her own words:
I’ve always been an artist. Art, for me, has taken many forms from doodling the margins of my second-grade notebook to learning shape, shade and shadow in High school art class to drawing faces and nude bodies in college, sometimes modeling for my professors’ life drawing group. I’ve tried my hand at pen and ink, charcoal, pastels, and graphite. I was a sign artist for many years honing my skills in graphic design, hand lettering, gold leaf and airbrush. T-shirt Art was fun designing merch for country music artists and football teams. I took a 30-year detour away from artsy things to become a massage therapist but after retirement I am again fascinated with art, this time painting out loud in living color with acrylics, watercolor and ink. Shapes became more abstract, bodies and faces gave way to movement and vivid color. Where next? Time will tell.

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MELISSA LOGAN

Melissa Logan is Executive Pastry Chef for Montage Palmetto Bluff. In this role, Chef Melissa oversees all pastry operations for the Forbes five-star resort including a team of baking and pastry professionals for the property’s eight seasonally inspired restaurants and lounges, in-room dining and banquets and catering. With an appetite for turning gastronomy into art, and an enthusiastic personality to match, Chef Melissa ensures pastry concepts are carefully curated to deliver an unparalleled dining experience.

With almost two decades of professional culinary experience, Chef Melissa is no stranger to luxury, world-class service, drawing from an impressive career that expands from the West Coast and Hawaii, to the Bahamas and Grand Cayman. After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, Chef Melissa jump started her career in Las Vegas, as part of the opening team at The Venetian Resort & Casino, a 4,000 room hotel. Next, she took on executive positions at hotels such as The Grand Del Mar in San Diego, The Four Seasons Hualalai and Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman, where she has refined her culinary skills, menu development and staff management.

Outside of culinary, Chef Melissa is avid explorer, with a penchant for cross-country road trips. Her favorite destination is Hawaii, where she has lived on two different islands with her family and visited five of the eight islands in the archipelago. Along with her passions of snorkeling, paddle boarding, reading, watching mystery movies, knitting and crocheting, Chef Melissa says anything that gets her outdoors and away from technology is preferred. Her favorite pastime is spending time with her husband of 16 years, Vincent, and nine-year-old son, Malcolm.

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CHEF DEEDEE NIYOMKUL

Chef DeeDee Niyomkul began her career in the restaurant industry at a very young age. Growing up as the daughter of Atlanta Thai food legends Charlie & Nan Niyomkul (Nan Thai Fine Dining & Tamarind), DeeDee found herself working nearly every position in her family’s restaurants, including hosting, bartending, waitressing, and managing. However, she discovered that her real passion was working in the kitchen.

She spent most of her early childhood with her grandmother, an original street food vendor in Bangkok, Thailand. DeeDee spent countless hours in the kitchen with her grandmother at home, where she acquired many of her grandmother’s original recipes and cooking techniques. In her early twenties, DeeDee furthered her culinary infatuation by traveling to San Francisco, studying under French Master Chef Xavier Salomon, priming her for her first Executive Chef position alongside her mother at Nan Thai Fine Dining in 2006.

DeeDee spent years enchanting the palates of diners at the esteemed Nan Thai Fine Dining restaurant. In January 2010, she ventured out to open her restaurant Tuk Tuk Thai Food Loft, an award-winning concept that offers a variety of small plates done in a tapas-style and larger entrees that show-case her version of gourmet Thai Street Food. Tuk Tuk Thai Food Loft has since been named one of the Top Thai Restaurants in the United States by Travel + Leisure magazine.

In January 2018, Chef DeeDee opened her newest restaurant concept, Chai Yo Modern Thai, in Atlanta’s prestigious Buckhead neighborhood, where she constructs imaginative classical Thai dishes using modern techniques. Niyomkul’s menu at Chai Yo Modern Thai carefully focuses on delivering an inventive interplay of Thai flavors and textures, guiding the diner on a culinary exploration of provincial Thai dishes. Chef DeeDee has a passion for traveling and frequently voyages across Thailand’s diverse landscapes to become inspired by ingredients that give her carefully balanced recipes incredible flavor.

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FRANCOISE ANTECH GAZEAU

Françoise Antech Gazeau is the 6th generation powerhouse at the helm of her family’s winery, Maison Antech. She works to honor the terroir which makes Antech’s wine so special – Mauzac, an ancient varietal native to this part of the world, is a key component in the Maison’s wines. Françoise’s Crémants continue to win accolades year after year around the world, as a result of her commitment to an authentic winemaking style which respects the environment via eco-friendly viticulture.

In addition to her passionate love of family and her work, Françoise is an advocate for social and cultural change. She is an active member of the ViniFilles, a luminous group women winemakers in the Languedoc which support each other in their endeavors, joyfully celebrate life together, and honor their heritage. Their mission? “To get things done!” Their goals? “To share their knowledge and develop mutual aid between winegrowers, to preserve the terroir, landscape and environment they love, and to transmit the culture of wine, conviviality, and gastronomy by involving people from all walks of life”. Cheers to Françoise, the ViniFilles, and to celebrating life!

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MEGAN MILLER

With roots tracing back to a humble tea shop in London, England in 1872, Hale Tea Co. was brought to Savannah, Georgia in 1989 by the Hale family. Today, Hale Tea Co. is woman-owned and operated by a local Savannah College of Art and Design graduate, Megan Miller. Megan has over 8 years of experience in Marketing and Event Planning before acquiring the company. Her focus has always been on the food and beverage industry and her passion for tea made her owning and operating Hale Tea Co. the perfect fit.

Hale Tea Co. is proud to have brought a variety of tea blends into the hands of locals by partnering with over 40 retail partners in the Savannah, Bluffton and Hilton Head areas. Inspired by the beautiful Lowcountry, Megan and her all women team strive to make pieces that are not only enjoyable to drink with the highest quality ingredients, but are displayed to highlight the beauty and rich history of the region. Megan also puts a huge emphasis on community by sitting on several non-profit boards as well as supporting local charities.

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NEELY WOODSON POWELL

Charleston Shoe Company has reimagined women’s footwear with versatile, comfortable, and stylish shoes designed for every occasion. We are a women-owned “cobblestones to cocktails” footwear brand with nearly 25 retail stores across the United States and a large extended family of artisan cobblers in Mexico. We operate as a lean, entrepreneurial, founder-driven team geared toward designing shoes for the everyday, modern woman.

Growing up, Neely Woodson Powell, had creative inspiration everywhere. Both of her parents were entrepreneurs – her father developed Little Palm Island in the Florida Keys and her mother started the wholesale interior furnishings mecca, Worlds Away. It seems she comes by her passion naturally, but her story is one of hustle, hard work and great shoes.

In the summer of 1996, while in Central Mexico, Neely met a cobbler who made stylish yet comfortable shoes. It was there that her journey truly began. Impressed with the style and versatility, Neely started selling shoes alongside her mother’s furniture markets – and these women, working the tradeshows, standing on their feet all day became her first of many loyal customers. Drawn to building relationships and serving customers, Neely effortlessly pivoted from selling shoes in furniture markets to having wholesale accounts across the country.

In 2009, Neely took another important step in her journey – she enrolled in the Savannah College of Art & Design in Savannah, GA to learn more about the shoe design process. Armed with her years of creative inspiration, customer research and design knowledge, Neely opened her very first retail storefront on Broughton Street in iconic Savannah. Then, in less than six months, she opened a small storefront on the historic section of King Street in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. From there, she quickly followed by the opening a storefront in Charleston’s newly renovated City Market.

After establishing locations in Charleston, Savannah, and on both Florida coasts, the demand for the “cobblestones to cocktails” shoes continued to reach new heights. In an effort to expand past retail, Neely created a true wholesale line that launched in January 2011. Since then, stores around the US have welcomed the chance to sell her wide range of styles and The Charleston Shoe Co. line is now sold in over 200 boutiques in the US.

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CHLOE ZMOLEK

Southern Peel was founded by Chloe Zmolek in May 2020. Chloe has more than 6 years of experience in the food and beverage industry. She happened to fall in love with pizza and a brick oven working at an award-winning Pizza Bar, which has created her expertise in the field. She thrives in settings in which she gets to cater to people and bring them immense joy through food. With the use of a mobile brick oven, she loves creating pizza, collaborating with clients and adding necessary passion to elevate the experience for the guests.

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CAMBER LAY

Camber Lay is an accomplished Lead Bartender and Restaurant Coordinator with a career spanning over 20 years. She began her restaurant career in the mountains of Colorado doing pastry work and found her way to the big city of San Francisco. She fell in love with the thriving restaurant and cocktail scene and made her home amongst the new generation of mixologists who use imagination and the best ingredients to take mixed spirits to the next level. Camber has held down the bar at Frisson, a restaurant-lounge under the helm of Chef Daniel Patterson, Range, where she helped them earn a second Michelin star, Town Hall, Epic Steak and The Ritz Carlton. She has been named by the San Francisco Chronicle a Rising Star Mixologist and awarded the Award of Excellence by The Ritz Carlton. She is currently practicing her craft at Wit & Wisdom, Chef Michael Mina’s first venture into wine country in Sonoma, CA. Camber lives in Napa, CA with her husband, 7 year old son, a dog, a cat, a few fish and snails and a garden that keeps her mind expanding on the possibilities of delicious flavor combinations.

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