Whole Women. Whole Leadership.

“Women who.” It sounds unfinished until you meet the women who complete the sentence. Women who open a door and widen it. Women who speak truth with tenderness, work with rigor, and make room for others as a matter of practice. In our cohort, I’m honored to witness five such leaders whose paths are distinct and whose impact overlaps: Christian Massey, Karen Lyles, Belinda Murray, Dr. Juaneka L. Thomas, and Alexis Watts. Each is a graduate of A Seat At The Table’s Undivided Cohort (“Whole Women. Whole Leadership.”) and each is living proof that when we invest in women beyond their current place, they build futures that lift us all.

As a community, we don’t stop at graduation. Through alumni coaching, peer circles, and targeted skill-building, we continue to pour into women leaders so they can refine their vision, strengthen their systems, and scale their impact, sustainably and with care. These five stories show what that looks like in motion.

Christian Massey: Breathing Us Back to Ourselves

Some revolutions begin with a breath. As a yoga instructor, Christian Massey creates culturally attuned wellness spaces where Black men and women can move, rest, and remember themselves. “Safe space” isn’t a slogan in her classes; it’s the texture of the room—warm welcomes, options to modify, playlists that sound like home, and a teacher who treats dignity as the baseline.

As an Undivided Cohort alumna, Christian sharpened the operational backbone behind her calling, clarifying her wellness model, pricing with integrity, and building boundaries that protect both mission and mental health. The cohort’s leadership labs and peer accountability helped her translate care into structure, so her rooms keep feeling like refuge even as demand grows. Instructors cue poses; Christian also cues belonging. The collective exhale that rises in her classes becomes community and, quietly, power.

By centering wellbeing, she’s not offering a break from the work; she’s building capacity for it.

Karen Lyles: Connecting People, Protecting Dreams

If impact had a map, Karen Lyles would be its most trusted guide. For more than 20 years, she’s been more than an insurance agent; she’s been a steady advocate for families and small businesses, pairing expertise with empathy to ensure entrepreneurs protect what they’ve worked so hard to build. As a proud mompreneur, Karen knows the daily balance of family, business, and growth; that lived wisdom shows up in every consultation, policy review, and kitchen-table conversation.

Her mission stretches beyond coverage. In 2024, Karen launched a Protégé Mentorship Program, a 6–12 month pathway for future entrepreneurs and agency owners. Since then, she’s graduated two protégés in Indiana; another opens her office in March 2025, with three more entering the program this fall. That’s not just a pipeline, it’s a legacy.

As an Undivided Cohort graduate, Karen used the cohort’s strategy sprints to refine the mentorship curriculum, build evaluation checkpoints, and codify her “warmth-with-rigor” approach into repeatable systems. She also leveraged our networking forums to connect protégés with lenders, coaches, and legal resources. Karen safeguards businesses, shapes leaders, and nurtures communities, all with the clear-eyed plan that helps every dreamer secure the future they’re building and claim their seat at the table.

Belinda Murray: Turning Scrolls into Showing Up

The internet is noisy; Belinda Murray makes meaning cut through. As a social media content creator, she doesn’t chase trends for attention; she curates narratives for alignment. Belinda translates complex missions into accessible, visually resonant stories that honor both message and audience. Her feeds feel like conversation, not broadcast.

In the Undivided Cohort, Belinda deepened her brand architecture, tightening her value proposition, mapping audience journeys, and practicing on-your-feet pitch work that turns “like and share” into “sign up and show up.” The alumni community continues to be a live testbed for collaboration, fundraisers amplified, partners spotlighted, and neighborhood initiatives pushed past the algorithm. Representation and reach are her dual commitments. The result? Followers don’t just watch; they act.

In Belinda’s hands, a caption becomes an invitation to participate and a reel becomes a bridge between information and action.

Dr. Juaneka L. Thomas: Building Health and Hope, Block by Block

Some leaders solve problems in clusters. Dr. Juaneka L. Thomas, a physician and daycare owner serving Haughville, stands at the intersection of health care and early childhood education, where families’ daily realities meet systems that often overlook them.

Her journey began in 1997 at age 18, when she took a job first as the “snack lady” to support her daughter. She took the role to heart. As the program grew, so did her responsibilities. Within three years, she had learned every facet of operations, food and building services, infant/toddler care, preschool, school-age programming, and overall management, and became Program Director at 22. She helped evolve Charity from a traditional church daycare into a family-centered, research-based community asset, coupling experience with education all along the way.

Dr. Thomas’s credentials reflect that discipline: the CDA Credential, Director’s Credential, an Associate in Business Administration, a Bachelor’s in Early Childhood Education, a Master’s in Elementary Education, and a Doctorate of Social Science. Under her leadership, Charity achieved national accreditation, became the first Indiana ministry to reach Paths to Quality Level Four, was hailed as Best Daycare in the Nation, became debt-free while more than doubling appreciating assets, and emerged as a statewide model for high-quality ECE. Today, she serves in an executive capacity, overseeing program development and nurturing sustainable partnerships.

As an Undivided Cohort alumna, Dr. Thomas used our executive coaching to fortify board relations, succession planning, and data storytelling linking health and education outcomes to funding narratives without losing the human heartbeat. Above all, she prizes her roles as daughter, mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, and friend, aiming to leave a legacy of love through faith, family, community, and service. In her world, health isn’t only clinical, it's communal, measurable in both outcomes and the steadiness people feel when they’re seen.

Alexis Watts: Making Power Look Like Service

Public service is often miscast as spectacle. Alexis Watts, a state government leader with the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus (IBLC), brings it back to stewardship. Policy is where values get budgets and timelines; people-first leadership is how those policies stay anchored in real-life childcare and housing, language access and small-business survival, mental health and safety.

Through the Undivided Cohort, Alexis pressure-tested a leadership plan that pairs inside-the-capitol influence with personal development. The work isn’t glamorous: committee hearings, redlined drafts, early briefings, late-night amendments.

But it’s how real change gets made incrementally, accountably, and with neighbors in mind. Alexis doesn’t posture; she builds.

The Thread They Share—and How We Keep Pouring In

Spend time with Christian, Karen, Belinda, Dr. Thomas, and Alexis, and a pattern emerges. They do not hoard knowledge or treat scarcity as strategy. They invest along the way, not only after they “arrive.” Their generosity is an ethic:

• Uplift looks like Christian setting out an extra mat for the latecomer who still chose to show up.

• Inspire looks like Belinda messaging a new creator with tips instead of seeing her as competition.

• Challenge looks like Alexis asking, “Who’s missing?” and pausing the process until the room changes.

• Lift as you climb looks like Karen bringing a young protégé to the pitch so she can learn and be remembered next time.

• Sustain looks like Dr. Thomas building systems that outlast any one leader.

At A Seat At The Table, our commitment is to meet women where they are and then keep walking with them. Beyond graduation, we offer meet-ups, deeper connections, practical workshops, and a sisterhood that answers the late-night text and the early-morning call. We believe development isn’t a destination; it’s a discipline. When women have structure, strategy, and a circle, the ceiling moves.

A Shared, Beautiful Work

Legacy is not a photo at a gala; it’s the practice of building something that still serves someone years from now. It looks like minutes kept and meals shared, budgets balanced, and babies rocked; like the way people exhale when they see your name on the schedule because they know they’re safe in your care.

To Christian, Karen, Belinda, Dr. Juaneka L. Thomas, and Alexis: congratulations on graduating from the Undivided Cohort, and thank you for showing us what whole leadership looks like in the wild. Thank you for the unseen labor, the risks you took, the prayers, and the persistence. Thank you for being Women Who—who lift without keeping score, teach without shaming, and lead without losing yourselves.

And to every reader who wonders whether your consistency matters: it does. The class you teach, the introduction you make, the post you write, the policy you push, the child you welcome, the neighbor you greet, they accrue. They become culture. They become the reasons someone else believes they can try.

“Women who” is no longer unfinished. It’s a commitment: to breathe, to build, to tell the whole story, and to keep the ladder down for the next climber. I’m honored to witness these journeys and to keep pouring in, long after the caps are tossed and the cohort ends, because the view isn’t perfect, but it’s shared. And that’s what makes it beautiful.

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Written by Jordan Coleman

Images Courtesy of A Seat At The Table