Elizabeth W. Gordon, President of Flourishing Business®

Elizabeth Gordon built Flourishing Business to help entrepreneurs grow companies through solid planning and sound advice based on proven business fundamentals and a holistic balanced approach to the marketplace. Consulting engagements, seminars, workshops, and programs leveraging the Flourishing Business Methodology have helped our clients reach their goals faster and easier.

Elizabeth's practice grew in prominence with the release of her 2008 book, 52-week Internationally acclaimed Amazon.com best-seller The Chic Entrepreneur: Put Your Business in Higher Heels www.chicentrepreneur.com is the business strategy book for female entrepreneurs who want to succeed with style, offering “a proven formula for thinking and acting to build a fast-growing, profitable business in any market.”

Gordon founded Flourishing Business after gaining over a decade of consulting, banking, operations, and management experience in the corporate world. A Senior Associate position at The Hackett Group boutique consulting firm gave her direct experience working with Fortune 500 and government client senior leadership on major initiatives for improving their efficiency and effectiveness in back office processes relative to competitors using benchmarking and best practices research.

Prior to that she held a progressive variety of positions at Arrow Electronics, the semiconductor distribution giant, playing a key role in the development, market education and awareness and sale of their intellectual property using a sophisticated web-based solution that allowed companies to better manage their supply chain, revolutionizing the way engineering and purchasing departments search for and choose electronic components. Her contributions spearheaded a significant change in the industry's value proposition as well as improved time-to-market and reduced obsolescence issues for thousands of customers around the country. She improved supply chain management for hundred of clients from mom and pop machine shops to the US Army, illuminating the internet's capabilities for rapid adoption across engineering, purchasing and senior management.

Before Arrow, Elizabeth held leaderships roles overseeing a warehouse of over 400,000 products, as Manager of Shipping, Receiving, Order Filling and Inventory Management, and later Manager of the Sales Call Center, Marketing and Finance departments at McMaster-Carr Supply Company a 100-year old niche leader in industrial distribution.

Elizabeth has consulted for companies like Krispy Kreme, Bank of America, 24 Hour Fitness, the Province of British Columbia, Ameriquest Mortgage, Wachovia and hundreds of mid-size businesses in industries ranging from high tech to machine shop. Her other employment credits include Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in Charlotte, NC, Smith Barney in Philadelphia, The Northern Trust Company in Chicago, and consulting stints for the State of New Jersey and Pennsylvania State House of Representatives.

Elizabeth has keynoted conferences and events around the country and teaches entrepreneurs to elevate their vision and bridge the gap between being self-employed and owning an asset of inherent value. Events where she has been the featured speaker have included the mayoral declaration of Female Entrepreneurship Day for Evansville, Indiana, the Advancing Hoosier Woman seminar in Jasper, Indiana, the Mind Your Own Business Conference in Charlotte, NC, and at Canyon Ranch in Arizona. Additional speaking venues have included PRO-Win, eWomenNetwork, the Atlanta Management Society, Duke Energy, American Business Women’s Association, Women in Nuclear, Georgian Club, 191 Club, Buckhead Club, Panta Rei. Elizabeth has also spoken to Agnes Scott College, Georgia State University, the University of Georgia, Clayton State University and the University of Alabama. Her Heel to Heel We Rise network is building broad bridges to the boardroom for businesswomen around the world.

A recipient of The Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 40 Under 40 Up & Comer Award for Atlanta’s best and brightest professionals under the age of 40 for her business achievements, civic involvement and impact, she has served on numerous boards of directors including NAWBO and AAUW, Panta Rei, and helped found Georgia State University's Marketing Alumni Society and Zonta Buckhead, and se has mentored students through Family Refugee Services and 21st Century Leaders.

Elizabeth graduated Magna Cum Laude from Wake Forest University, where she earned a BS in Business with a concentration in Finance and minor in Economics. She received her master's degree in Marketing from Georgia State University.