Transforming Lives and Bridging Gaps: My Journey from Commercial Operations to Leading a Mission
I’ve spent 25 years in commercial operations across multiple small, mid-sized and Fortune 500 companies and have dedicated my life’s work to innovative surgical heart disease solutions by creating awareness around critical issues of cardiac disease states and garnering support for better outcomes. After nearly three decades, I’m excited to enter a new season of life that I call preferment.
Preferment means doing things that I prefer, and for me, this means continuing to make a meaningful contribution to this world. But now I’m doing it in a way that is purely from the heart and is making a significant impact toward something for which I carry a deep passion. I have long felt a calling to help vulnerable children who are being exploited and victimized. It seems fitting that I now seek to channel my corporate expertise and wisdom into a nonprofit venture, aiming to affect positive change on a global scale that addresses this issue.
As a corporate executive, I ran commercial operations and led U.S. sales and marketing teams for multiple organizations that introduced first-to-market therapies requiring education and training to clinicians, hospitals, and patients. We provided data-driven evidence to inform a greater understanding of cardiac disease state mechanism of action and improved solutions that advanced better care and patient outcomes. For patients to receive these new therapies, we had to build beliefs among clinicians and hospitals, instill confidence for them to invest in building a program around these new therapies, and teach them how to implement the program to ensure patients experienced the outcomes they expected.
Much to my surprise, this process has prepared me well for my next mission – combatting sex trafficking of minors. Just as I strived to improve the lives of patients with cardiac disease, I am now dedicated to improving the lives of young and vulnerable women who’ve been brutally victimized. By shining a brighter light on this misunderstood and incredibly complex issue, we hope to bring transformative opportunities to these youth that may change the course of their lives. The investment of resources needed to bring these services mirrors that complexity.
My preferment led me to Corrie’s House, first as a board member, then Chairman of the Board and now as Executive Director. At Corrie’s House, our mission is twofold: to prevent sex trafficking through education and awareness of the growing menace of child sex trafficking in Minnesota and to provide a much-needed haven for healing. I’m honored to be helping to lead this mission and to provide a much-needed service: A long term, safe place of healing for young female victims, ages 12-17, that offers trauma-informed care and comprehensive services to bring transformation and restoration to their lives.
According to the 2021 Women and Girl’s Index (WGI), the only comprehensive index that measures charitable giving to women’s and girl’s organizations in the US, charitable giving to women’s and girls’ organizations represents only 1.9% of total US charitable giving. We seek to close this gap and ask for greater support to help transform minor girls who’ve been trafficked from victims to survivors.
I’m excited to announce that our board of directors has approved the acquisition of a home by 2024. We’re 70% of the way through our program development and required policies and procedures to operate a home for minor girls who’ve experienced complex trauma. With these two elements in place by next year, we’ll be able to initiate the licensing process through the state of Minnesota. Our goal will be to begin hiring highly trained staff to support our residents in 2025. This is only the beginning of our goals for 2024 and beyond.
If you’d like to learn more about Corrie’s House and how you or your organization can become involved, please reach out to me. We’d welcome the opportunity for you to get involved!
With Gratitude,
-Renee