Empowering Women in Financial Services | WCF Conference Insights | Ep. 237

Katalina Dawson (00:07)
Hello everybody, Katalina Dawson here with an episode of Receivables Podcast. This is actually the first Receivables Podcast that I am hosting and I am super excited to be here. Today I am with industry legend Stephanie Eidelman, who is the founder and CEO of the Women in Consumer Finance. And I also have the incredible Lisa Rozelle, who is the Director of Women in Consumer Finance. Ladies, thank you so much for being on with me today. We are so excited to have you.

Stephanie Eidelman (00:34)
We were really looking forward to this, so very excited. And no legends on the call.

Lisa Rozzelle (00:36)
Yeah, we're excited to be here. Thanks for having us.

Katalina Dawson (00:38)
So.

Lisa Rozzelle (00:41)
Ha

Katalina Dawson (00:42)
don't know about that. I'd call you a legend. We'll go with it. We'll roll with that. So you both know how this goes. We're going to start with a quick question to each of you about telling us about yourself and how you got to the seat that you're in today.

Lisa Rozzelle (00:45)
Me too, me too, we'll go with it.

Stephanie Eidelman (00:57)
Gosh, are you looking to me to go first? ⁓ go for it.

Lisa Rozzelle (00:59)
go first. will be shorter. Mine will be shorter. So

Katalina Dawson (01:00)
one. Lisa, there you go.

Lisa Rozzelle (01:05)
I was working just specifically, I'll deal with the last maybe five years, keep it simple. I was working for a phenomenal organization and we were attending Women in Consumer Finance and we were having a great time. I actually started as an attendee in 2020 during the pandemic. So you know we were online. Stephanie was super creative about creating a space for us in the time when we probably needed it the absolute most.

And I kept thinking, how interesting can this be? You know, we've been doing podcasts and webinars and, you know, assimilating our lives to what virtual would look like. And it was all new, but I was like, what's a conference going to look like? How much fun can that be? And I'm at an office, so I can't even pay attention. When I tell you, I shut everything down. I was in breakout rooms. We were crying. We were laughing. We were growing. We were connecting. And it literally felt like, you know, life-affirming situation. I kept thinking to myself, if it's this good online and virtual, how much better is it going to be in person?

Lisa Rozzelle (01:53)
I was fortunate enough to be able to come the next year and every year after that. And then at some point, you know, because I was so dedicated and supported and excited about this, Stephanie and I began to connect. She was my mentor and we were working together and talking about different things I wanted in my life. And she always kind of met me where I was and was always so supportive. And then she asked me one day, she said, do you want to come over and do this with me? And I was like, you know what? If you're serious, yes, I absolutely do.

Lisa Rozzelle (02:20)
So that's how I became the Director of Women in Consumer Finance. I'm not just the director. I've been an attendee. I've worked both ends of it. And I'm super excited about the things we have going on.

Katalina Dawson (02:29)
Yes, and the face-to-face contact that there's nothing else like it. Absolutely. It's what we always say is the true way to network and to build relationships is through shared experiences and having that face-to-face time and those in-person conversations. It's so valuable. It just can't be replaced.

Lisa Rozzelle (02:33)

Absolutely, I agree. Your turn.

Stephanie Eidelman (02:50)
I agree

Katalina Dawson (02:51)
Stephanie.

Stephanie Eidelman (02:51)
too.

Okay, well, following along with limiting the number of years that I'll cover, I will say I used to be the owner of Inside ARM, or as everyone else in the industry calls it, InsideARM. I owned the company from 2013 to 2023. I sold it to Auriemma Roundtables, which is shout out, great company.

Lisa Rozzelle (03:00)
you

Stephanie Eidelman (03:17)
largely because a big part of InsideARM at that time was the Consumer Relations Consortium, which I started in 2012, 2013, actually even before I became the owner of InsideARM. And I spent seven years really working on the regulations with the CFPB on debt collection. So that was...

how I came to be with InsideARM or really what was going on at the time. In 2018, we were looking at expanding, doing something in addition to all of that wonderful work with the CFPB, which was very stimulating. And we said, gosh, 2018, what if we did a women's conference? And I said, oh my goodness, that's such a great idea because I noticed, honestly,

When I was working with all the industry leaders, mostly it was men in the industry. And there are a lot of fabulous women, especially lawyers, a lot of great lawyers, but, ⁓ and maybe compliance leaders. But when you're talking about who's running the companies, it was mostly men. And so it made all kinds of sense. And so we started this women's event in Baltimore in the winter in 2018.

Stephanie Eidelman (04:39)
And so you know people really wanted to be there because it was a quick and easy, let's see if this works. And a hundred women showed up and we had the most amazing shared experience. We were doing leapfrog outside the elevator in the hotel and all kinds of things that people would never usually do, but it really broke the ice and it really built bonds and people still today.

Katalina Dawson (04:42)
Yeah, Baltimore in the middle of winter.

Stephanie Eidelman (05:07)
are connected with the people from that very first event. And it grew from there. And then as Lisa said, we had the pandemic and we went 100 % virtual and then we went back to in-person and this will be our eighth year now in Charlotte, North Carolina. And here we go. We're excited. We have all kinds of great things planned.

Katalina Dawson (05:26)
Yeah.

Well, congratulations on eight years. That's fantastic. And my gosh, also, what a lift to have changed everything to virtual during the pandemic and everything and had to change everything for a short period of time before coming back. That's incredible that you guys weathered that storm.

Stephanie Eidelman (05:42)
We along with everyone else, you know, who had to do their version of it, but ⁓ it was a big deal. And I will say that that's when I met Lisa, as she says. And if you are used to doing workshops online or podcasts or anything, you know, or speaking in any way, you want that person in the audience who is giving you back energy. And as you know, also being in the theater, you just, you...

Stephanie Eidelman (06:09)
feed off of that live energy. And Lisa was sitting there behind the screen looking like she is with that smile and shaking her head at everything that we said. And I felt like the most brilliant person in the world because of the energy that she gave me. It made me want to meet her in person too. And so yes, I took her on as my mentee, but really it was going both ways, 100%. It went.

Katalina Dawson (06:12)
Yes.

Lisa Rozzelle (06:19)
So.

Katalina Dawson (06:29)
That's fantastic. Yes. And Lisa, I totally feel that from you too. You have just, you have a radiance of energy. You really do. It's fantastic. I'm not surprised Stephanie just pinpointed on you and went, her.

Lisa Rozzelle (06:41)
thank you.

Thank you so much.

This is easy though, this topic is of my fave, so I can do this all day.

Katalina Dawson (06:52)
Good.

So yeah, can you guys tell me a little bit more about the Women in Consumer Finance Conference and why you are both so passionate about it?

Stephanie Eidelman (07:00)
Lisa, go for it.

Lisa Rozzelle (07:02)
Okay, so I'll take it from my perspective. The reason why I'm so excited about this conference and why it means so much to me personally is that I get an opportunity to see ladies and I've been this lady. been this person who, you know, I'm the only one in the room that looks like me. I'm the only person and the only voice and it's still not being heard. Even though you've got some polite allies in the room that are trying to support you. For whatever reason, the space doesn't feel like it's accommodating me or making room for me. But when I got attached to the ladies at Women in Consumer Finance, and I say that because I'm

Lisa Rozzelle (07:31)
absolutely attached to every woman that I've met throughout my process. We've got teams, I'll tell you more about that later. We've got all these mechanisms in place that help you to build these connections that will not only be there when you need them, but they'll show up when you're not even looking for them. So one thing about WCF that means just the world to me is that I get to see ladies come in one way,

and leave completely transformed because of the space that we create, because the experiences we curate, because of the opportunities we try to make sure we make available for them to be the best version of themselves. And it's not just because it's that easy to do, it's because it means that much to us. It's like we absolutely work on this all the time. We think about it all the time. How can we make this situation better? She's saying she has this kind of challenge. Are we addressing that? And if we're not, how do we get ahead of it and make sure that no woman has to feel that way?

Katalina Dawson (07:54)

Yeah.

Lisa Rozzelle (08:22)
ever again. So that's why it means everything to me. We're changing lives as much as we can, as much as they'll allow.

Katalina Dawson (08:23)
you

Absolutely. I even considered submitting something with Kylie for the event. And I could tell when I was talking with Kylie how she was like, all right, well, let's talk about how this would affect the women and all the different takeaways that just the passion behind making sure that everybody left with so much value is palpable in everything that you guys are doing. It's incredible. So Stephanie, I'd love to hear a little bit from you. Yeah, absolutely.

Lisa Rozzelle (08:46)
Yeah. ⁓

It's required.

Stephanie Eidelman (08:55)
Well, Lisa said it wonderfully and it's great to be said by someone who experienced, you know, on the other side of it. I'll just add a few small things. I really built this event for someone like me. I'm the opposite of Lisa. For Lisa to go to an event and have a cocktail hour that she can go to where she's going to meet all kinds of new people, that's like...

Stephanie Eidelman (09:21)
Fabulous to Lisa. Okay. To me, if you tell me to go and start with a cocktail hour where I maybe only know a few people or I don't know anybody. And it's like, here, network. This is the worst thing in the world for me. I will do it. I have a loud voice and it's low and it sounds confident and I will do my best, but I will be exhausted afterwards and so uncomfortable during it.

Lisa Rozzelle (09:38)
Yeah.

Stephanie Eidelman (09:49)
And I just, really hate that. And so this is why I'd rather like speak in front of a thousand people. know for some people speaking is, there fear, but give me a job. If I have a role, that's so much better. It's like when you go to a dinner party and there are names at the place, you don't have to worry about where you're going to sit, you know, junior high all over again. So for me, it was so important to curate this event.

Katalina Dawson (10:12)
Yes.

Stephanie Eidelman (10:19)
so that no one had to worry, who am I gonna talk to? Who am I gonna meet? Are people gonna talk to me? Do I have to break into that little triad of people with a glass of wine? We take care of all of that. And no one will ever accuse me of taking the easy way out. In my whole professional life, I have done the hard thing because it was way more interesting.

Stephanie Eidelman (10:45)
It may or may not be more profitable, but it is always more interesting. And this is what I've done with this conference. We focus on these tiny little details that I've taught the whole team to do it. Because when you get in the space, it's what makes all the difference. And it does not work when you say, well, it'll work itself out. No, it will not. If you do not think through that detail, it will not work itself out. I can promise you that. It will work itself out. It will just sort of...

Stephanie Eidelman (11:15)
fall apart because no one thought about how things were gonna happen. So that's, you I get passionate about it because I know when people show up and they do with an open heart and to experience all that we've created, it's those transformations happen time and again, time and again.

Lisa Rozzelle (11:16)
Yeah.

Lisa Rozzelle (11:36)
Yeah.

And I was going to add, ⁓ based on Stephanie's vision, you know, and her lived experience and how we got here and why we do what we do, but not so much why, but how we do what we do. You know, she shared with me, because I'm a big personality. I'm as she said, I'm an extrovert. I'm like, if you tell me to wing it, that's my favorite scenario always, because I'm going to figure it out. It's going to be great because I'm going to have fun doing that part. But she had to help me see the other side of that, like for the people who aren't that comfortable in that space. You know, what does that look like? You know, for the folks who

Katalina Dawson (11:37)
And then.

Lisa Rozzelle (12:04)
can't walk up to a table of 10 and just have a seat where I'm the one that's saying, I scoot you in? Let me pull up a chair. Is there room here? Or if I'm sitting at a table, I see someone looking for a space, I'm the lady that's saying, hey, sit right here. You can come sit right here. And we've talked, she and I have shared throughout the years about how those little situations can land differently per the individual. So we spend a lot of time talking about the details because the details are what make the difference. though they are

very interesting and a lot of work. They also make the best impact when we're talking about changing lives and supporting ladies where they are. That's what makes the difference to me.

Katalina Dawson (12:40)
That is so quotable. The detail makes the difference. That is perfect. Lisa Rossell. There you go. And I love the analogy that you had said, Stephanie, about the place card and having your name at a seat, literally feeling like I have a place at this table and in this room and with these people because my name is literally at the seat. That's such a great analogy for that welcoming atmosphere that you guys work on and cultivate. That's incredible.

So let's talk a little bit more about how you do that and how for somebody, this is actually gonna be my first year going, I am so excited. So for somebody who is brand new and is going for the first time, how do I navigate that and what are recommendations you would make?

Lisa Rozzelle (13:16)
Yes.

Stephanie Eidelman (13:26)
Well, I'll just explain one thing we're doing this year that's new, and then I'll hand it over to Lisa also to add her thoughts, because she's really curating this event this year. We added something that we haven't done before, which is a first-timer orientation. And in the past, and we'll do it again this year as well, backing up, you may know that everyone who's coming has the opportunity to choose a team experience as part of this event.

Stephanie Eidelman (13:55)
And so you get on a team in advance and most people will meet their team on Zoom in advance of the conference. So you get to see some friendly faces and say, when are you arriving? When are you arriving? Right. So that, that helps to smooth that entry. but, and so on that initial team call, we have the team leaders talk about what to expect and what to wear and all the things. We're going to now up the ante.

And on the first day, or really the evening before the first day, we're going to have a first-timer orientation. So it's not a cocktail party. It is really an orientation where you will meet people and we will talk about what to expect, how to make the most of it, who to ask when you have questions, all the things that you need to know. And on top of that then, so this will be Sunday evening, if you arrived Sunday and maybe

Stephanie Eidelman (14:51)
you didn't have dinner plans on Sunday, we can be in the room and say, who doesn't have dinner plans? And we can pair you up. Because in the past it was, we just assumed it would happen that will you have a team and you'll make plans for dinner with people from that team. Well, sometimes that happened and sometimes it didn't happen. And that's one of the details.

Stephanie Eidelman (15:15)
It's if you were lucky enough to run into Lisa, you'd have dinner plans. She would you in. She would ask, first of all, and she'd bring you in. Not everybody would think to ask, and not everybody would bring you in. Maybe because they're being a mean girl, probably not. But maybe because it just didn't occur to them. Or they thought, you're so nice, you probably have plans. But this way, we will not leave that to chance, and we will take care.

Katalina Dawson (15:19)
Yes.

Lisa Rozzelle (15:20)
Yep.

Yep.

Yeah.

Katalina Dawson (15:42)
I love that. That's fantastic.

Stephanie Eidelman (15:44)
I will leave it there and Lisa will add, I know she.

Lisa Rozzelle (15:46)
Yeah, I

was gonna say, you know, my personal motto is no woman left behind. If I see you standing alone, I'm gonna check on you. I'm gonna say, hey, are good? You need something? You waiting on somebody? Do you need somebody to go with you? What's going on right now? You know, and that way I know if you need something, I can address it then. But just to add to what Stephanie said, you know, of course, you know, we kept all the favorites, the team structures, you know, because you get to arrive with at least nine friends. And then, you know, with the first timer orientation, we've got what you call experience captains. This is how deep it goes. Our experience captains, they're over...

Lisa Rozzelle (16:15)
the teams that have team leads that are over the attendees. So we've got layers and layers of support and love that are there to help to make sure, you know, if team leads something happens and they need to step away, somebody else can fill in for them. So their team is not lacking in any way. We've got experienced captains that'll help lead our first time orientation. Last year, we actually did some outreach calls. So anyone who was a first time attendee called, answered questions, see, you know, see if they had any special needs or requests, you know, just to try to meet them where they are.

Katalina Dawson (16:41)
Fantastic!

Lisa Rozzelle (16:44)
Literally every detail we can think of, we try to put together. The other part of it is when you talk about how, the how, our big how is, you know, at the end of every event, we do a post-event survey where we ask all the questions, like, what did you like, what didn't work, what would you like to see, you know, we incorporate that information with our beloved steering committee. I don't know how we survive without them. It's the committee group of ladies that jump on whatever section is interested to them, whether it be teams or, you know, networking or whatever.

area they'd like to be a part of and they come in and they bring their experience. They tell us what they heard. They tell us what they experienced. They tell us what they'd like to see happen. And we take all that information and that's what's informed on how we built out our agenda this year. Addressing some of the things that people said they wish they could see or things that they said they love. We knew we need to keep. Just to make sure each year we try to get a little bit better, a little bit closer and that we address almost.

It's hard to say we're gonna get everybody. We're not gonna be able to meet everybody, but it will not be for lack of trying, because we absolutely are doing our very best.

Katalina Dawson (17:39)
Yes, clearly,

yes. So if somebody is interested in joining one of those teams before the start of the conference, how do they go about that? When do those open up?

Lisa Rozzelle (17:50)
So typically the steering committees are built right after the previous conference. So it's not too late though, because we still have a few more meetings where if somebody wanted to join, if you're in our mailing list, you would get that information and you can just join us for a call. It's usually a Zoom call for about an hour. Everybody jumps on. I have a slight agenda, but it's meant to be relaxed and open and conversational and just like everything else we do. And you're just able to show up with your ideas. And at this point, we're pretty set.

for where we're going, but you never know that one idea can make us pivot to something better. I'm always happy to pivot to something better.

Katalina Dawson (18:23)
Yeah.

Well, and now ladies know for next year, if you want to join right after WCF, make sure you get in one of the teams then. And then what about the teams for the conference this year? When do those go out?

Lisa Rozzelle (18:30)
Yeah.

So we typically, the funny thing is I'd love to send them super early, but there's so much movement with folks joining or signing up, folks maybe not being able to make it because there's changes in their lives. So I try to structure them and put them out as early as possible so there's more opportunity for connectivity, but they typically won't go out to maybe the 1st of October. And that gives you about...

Katalina Dawson (18:46)

Okay?

Lisa Rozzelle (18:56)
about six weeks to connect with your team, know, and get to know each other and plan your calls. know, if you're on, depending on what level of experience you've chosen, if it's a whole shebang, that group is gonna do certain things a little bit more involved than others, just enough. It's gonna be a different level of involvement as well. Everybody gets together for a team dinner the first day, the evening of the first day. So it gives you time to chat, gets connected. Some people meet just once, some people meet several times. Some people start connecting where they are, they're geographically close.

Lisa Rozzelle (19:25)
several opportunities to start building those connections before you even arrive on site.

Katalina Dawson (19:30)
Yeah, and now I'd love to hear a little bit more about the demographic of the different attendees. Stephanie, do you want to take that one?

Stephanie Eidelman (19:38)
Sure. So we have a fairly wide demographic. I would say, well, we'll start with age range, probably in the neighborhood of 25 to 65, not to count anybody out. There are certainly going to be outliers. And not that you're an outlier, but that's probably the general.

Lisa Rozzelle (19:58)
Right. Right.

Lisa Rozzelle (20:03)
Yeah,

the range is probably about right, yeah.

Stephanie Eidelman (20:05)
And

we have women at all phases of their career. They're just starting out. Obviously, if you're in your 20s, you're going to be starting out. And we have a lot of women who are experienced. We'll call them experienced leaders. Maybe they're in a leadership position. Maybe they're in an individual contributor position. But we call everybody a leader. And then there are women who are, we'll call them executive leaders more on the latter end of their career trajectory. Maybe they're not.

in the position of needing to build in the same way that they were earlier, but they're thinking about what's next. Maybe they have sort of one more career phase in them, or maybe they're thinking about retirement and what that looks like. And so what's nice is that we have ways to connect at the Eden NASS this just now, but I'll answer the question anyway as it comes. ⁓

Katalina Dawson (20:55)
Hahaha

Stephanie Eidelman (20:58)
We offer everyone at their different career phases ways to connect based on where you are. Some people are caring for young children, for instance, and having to balance that. Maybe there are single moms, maybe you're not single, but you're still really balancing childcare. Some people are caring for aging parents. Some people both. Some people are going into the menopause stage of their life. Some people, you know, it's all across the board. And so demographically, it's all across.

And then we also have women who are at lenders, banks, fintechs, credit unions, lenders of all types, credit card companies. We have servicers of all types and debt collectors and debt buyers and attorneys, tech companies that support all of the above. So it really is sort of the whole ecosystem of consumer finance. And sorry, one other thing aspect.

Katalina Dawson (21:48)
That's awesome. And Lee.

Stephanie Eidelman (21:50)
across all functions. There are marketing, sales, compliance, operations, risk, you know, all across the board.

Katalina Dawson (22:00)
And I love that not only do you have such an eclectic group that's able to attend, but that you support all those different subsections within it. It's incredible. And Lisa, did you have anything else to add to that? I feel like Stephanie covered a bunch, but yeah. Yeah, that was a fantastic answer. You even answered questions I didn't ask and I loved that. Always love that.

Lisa Rozzelle (22:14)
I think she's got it.

Stephanie Eidelman (22:21)
More than you asked for,

Katalina Dawson (22:24)
So I'd love to hear a little bit about the venue this year. Have you been at this venue before? Is this the one you always use?

Stephanie Eidelman (22:31)
No, Lisa, do you want to share our experience?

Lisa Rozzelle (22:34)
was gonna

say, no, we're actually at the West End in Charlotte, North Carolina, downtown, in the banking industry, right in the middle of it. It's a beautiful location. They've actually just recently renovated. I was just there not long ago in person. I was there for a family outing, but we decided to run through and it's gorgeous. It's a beautiful location. And we typically move around a little bit to try to accommodate everyone. think we did Palm Springs for a couple of years and I think Stephanie did Arizona.

Lisa Rozzelle (23:02)
for a couple years. So, but typically it moves around from from state to state. Then, you know, that way we don't have all our East coasters having to go across the country and vice versa. We can meet everybody kind of same thing. I'm going to say it again, meet everybody where they are.

Katalina Dawson (23:15)
Love it. You guys should do one in Chicago, just throwing that out there. Love that area. Good. yes. Awesome. Everybody come here. I'm a little biased, but I think it's the best city. it is also ⁓ true, true, not in the winter. So that's a fair point.

Stephanie Eidelman (23:19)
I happen to love Chicago. It's one of

Lisa Rozzelle (23:19)
Me too, me too.

Stephanie Eidelman (23:26)
Not in the winter, not in the winter, but it's pretty terrific in the fall

or the summer.

Katalina Dawson (23:34)
So prepping for the show, do you have any recommendations or things people should be looking out for? Obviously there's the joining the teams. I'd love for you to talk about the nominations so that people know that they can get those in there, other items like that.

Lisa Rozzelle (23:47)
Yeah, I'm going to say,

just to run down the list really quick, things to look out for. Absolutely, please think about awards. We encourage self-nominating. You can toot your own horn. You can brighten your light. You can tell everybody about how great you are. Go ahead and submit yourself. Or hopefully, if you know someone, submit yourself and some other young lady or attendee that you think would be great for that to support the awards ceremony. ⁓

Katalina Dawson (24:12)
And how many awards

total were there? I remember being on the page. There's like, there's a good amount, maybe nine.

Lisa Rozzelle (24:15)
I'm say, is it nine? I think it's

Stephanie Eidelman (24:18)
We have

Lisa Rozzelle (24:19)
nine. One of the most interesting ones to me is our allyship award. And that's for our guys. It's for our ladies as well. We have lady allies that support us. But we've got some guys out there that are phenomenal that are always talking about what they need to do and how they can support us and showing up. Not just talking about it, but absolutely showing up for us. So if you've got a male ally that you'd to shine a light on, this would be a great opportunity to do that.

Stephanie Eidelman (24:19)
nine categories.

Stephanie Eidelman (24:43)
Let me just add to this. So the awards ceremony, the awards program is going on now. The nominations are open until July 31st. So this is not exactly, yes, the awards ceremony happens at the conference, but it's sort of, and it's separate from the conference as well. So that's happening now. If you want to look into the awards program, go to our website, womenandconsumerfinance.com and there's a tab called awards.

Stephanie Eidelman (25:11)
Very apt in English.

Katalina Dawson (25:12)
Yeah, and if you

missed it for 2025, then you have it in your head now for 2026. You know when you need to be submitting.

Stephanie Eidelman (25:19)
Right, but there's no reason not to do it now. There's still a couple of weeks, so we encourage everyone to apply. So back to Lisa as far as what else to look out for.

Lisa Rozzelle (25:30)
Okay, so, and one thing I'll share about since we're on the awards is that the beautiful thing is that when we actually do the awards ceremony, it will be during, you know, right after our dinner. So it's gonna be great. It's gonna be kind of fancy and fun. And, you know, we'll get a chance to really celebrate those who were nominated as well as the winners. So we do nominees as well as actual winners. So we try to shine as much light as we can on those phenomenal women while we have the opportunity here. Yes, and the winner is.

Katalina Dawson (25:51)
I love that. That's very Oscar-esque where you read out the names and then you pull out the winner. I love that.

Are people sitting there with their little cards trying to get the points like people do at the Oscar parties? I'm kidding. That'd be funny.

Lisa Rozzelle (26:04)
I wish!

Aside from that, we can look forward to team assignments. Again, I said those will probably come in October. We'll have several opportunities to connect. do orientations just for people who might have questions as they pack and plan and schedule. We'll remind folks about making sure you get your rooms. A lot of times folks register and forget to get their room assignments. Just little.

things to remember as you prepare to come and so you know what to do. One thing that we say all the time, I'll say it here and I'll probably say it about eight more times until November, is come as you are. You can be as comfortable as you'd like or as dressed up as you like. No judgment, show up in whatever makes you feel the best person you can be for the time that you're there. We've got ladies that wanna wear their high heels and they get dressed up because they don't get an opportunity to. And we've got some folks who are literally in yoga pants and sneakers and sweatshirts. And you're just, we're all in there together having the absolute best time.

Katalina Dawson (26:45)
I love it.

Fantastic, excellent. So before we wrap up, I want to hear from each of you. What is your absolute favorite part about the conference? Lisa, do you want to kick us off with that one?

Lisa Rozzelle (27:09)
Just one? ⁓

Katalina Dawson (27:12)
You can

give top three if you can't pick, but...

Lisa Rozzelle (27:15)
say for me, it's literally probably day one when everybody's coming in because there's just so much excitement and so much opportunity because we, you know, we start from the very moment you get there connecting folks and making sure they have opportunity to connect. And from the registration desk to every opportunity throughout our marketplace, we didn't get a chance to chat about that, but check us out on our website. You'll see what that's about. You know, there's we've created so many opportunities to connect speed dating, functional roundtables. But the moment people join us like

one of the ladies said once, she said, it almost feels wrong calling it a conference. It's more like a reunion. You know, it's like you've been waiting all year to get back in touch with the people that you care about and have supported you throughout whatever you've gone through professionally that year. It's so good to just connect, hug, see everybody, make sure everybody's okay. That's my favorite part, the moment we all get back together for the very first time.

Katalina Dawson (27:48)

was fantastic. And I don't want to skip over that. Let's hear a little bit about the marketplace. We'll use it extra minute or two here.

Lisa Rozzelle (28:11)
sure,

sure, absolutely. what we were trying to, kind of back to Stephanie's visions, you know, we keep thinking about ways to organically create opportunities for people to connect where it doesn't feel stressful or worrisome for anybody. So we created a marketplace and it's locally sourced vendors. They come in and they bring their goods and they're able to sell them. We've got, you know, we've got handbags, we've got scented items. We got all kinds of things that are available this year at the marketplace. They're all.

generally local to the Charlotte area. So we're able to give back to the community. Most of them are women-owned vendors. So we're able to give back in that way. And it's just a nice space where people can walk through and you can shop. you stand next to somebody and say, that's a cute bracelet, don't you think so? And just like that, we've made a connection. And it wasn't anything that you had to work on. It just happened because we were connecting over that bracelet. So I just love the fact that it happens just that easily when you create a space where it doesn't happen.

Katalina Dawson (28:55)
Yeah.

It goes back, yeah,

that goes back to the details. You guys cover every single detail. The detail makes the difference. And it also goes back to the concept of that shared experience. You guys are creating so many different ways and times and groups to have incredible shared experiences with to build various different relationships. I'm just enamored with the entire thing. I love this. And Stephanie.

Lisa Rozzelle (29:09)
return

Katalina Dawson (29:28)
What is your favorite part?

Stephanie Eidelman (29:30)
Well, I got the opportunity to think about it while Lisa was talking. So I will say this. It's hard to appreciate unless you've been there or really unless somebody has really told you about it a lot, know, who had been there. This is this really is different than a trade show. As you might have already guessed or people see from the agenda, we don't talk about

the latest regulations. don't talk about, we don't have sessions about trends in the industry and it is not a sales event in the way that people show up and there's no booths. We have this marketplace, but the marketplace is for like holiday shopping, know, we're shopping for yourself and to buy a bracelet or like Lisa said, to connect as ways to connect. It's just, it's fun. And

So the pressure isn't there to make a sale to...

look like the smartest person in the room, you know, when it comes to the CFPB or something like that. And, but even though we do provide opportunities to connect, like if you're a compliance person, you probably want to meet other compliance people and et cetera. And we do provide those opportunities, but that's not what the content is. The, the whole experience is designed so that you feel like you belong.

and that you feel like you are not alone and you can leave having a squad behind you. And so it lifts you up all year long when you, because then you get back into your space and you know what, this new compliance challenge, my God, how do I, how are other people, maybe your bosses, well, how are other people approaching it?

Well, how would you know unless you had other people from outside your company who were your buds who would answer your call? Maybe you are a salesperson and you need to sell the thing that you're selling. And you, there are people at women and consumer finance that would be appropriate to sell it to, but you're not going to sell it to them there, but you know what? They're going to respond to your email when you reach out to them.

Stephanie Eidelman (31:49)
two weeks or two months or two years later because you had that shared experience. So the irony is that business happens anyway because first you've built that relationship and it was designed for that. And also because it's all of us girls. it really is, everyone shows up, I'll say this, if you've ever organized a wedding,

Stephanie Eidelman (32:18)
you know, or a family, then like a bar mitzvah, you know, or something, and you work on all the details and you hope that the event or the weekend, right, as these things happen over a whole weekend, you hope that magic will happen.

Magic happens really, it's about the people and the way they show up and their energy. And so you can do all the details, but people have to show up with the right energy. And finally, I trust it, after eight years, everyone shows up because they've heard that this is the expectation, this is how you show up. And there is no competition.

Lisa Rozzelle (32:42)
they do.

Stephanie Eidelman (32:55)
the women other than maybe among the teams for the trivia or that kind of thing. But people show up, they want to help each other, they want to support each other. It's the most fabulous environment and that's why they leave connected in the way that they do. And that's why business happens later and that's why they have the support that they need later. This is just, it is different than a trade show. It is totally different. It's a different category.

And it leads to, many cases, even, you know, it's not education in the same way or sales in the same way, but in many ways it leads to something even better. So that's my favorite part about

Katalina Dawson (33:30)

So, and I may sound like I'm off topic for a moment, but if you two weren't unaware, I'm not sure if I told you about this before, I used to be a professional magician. And I was often asked about like, why did I want to get into that? Why do I love it so much? And my answer is always because the magic gives other people. You can see grown adults who are tired and stressed and...

maybe even very jaded about things and you do a really good trick and you see their face light up like a little kid at Christmas. And it is one of the most beautiful things. And Stephanie, with what you were saying, that's the kind of feeling that I got from you is what matters to you is the way that women light up from this conference. And that's what you guys are giving people. You're giving almost a sense of revival within the industry.

Katalina Dawson (34:21)
you're creating these incredible support systems that are very unique, but very powerful, where both business can happen and kind of giving that life balance with it, being like, hey, we have single moms here too. We have people dealing with life problems and creating a system that supports both and re-energizes you. This is just absolutely incredible. Thank you both so much for sharing your insights and your experience and

all about this incredible conference. I am so excited to be going for the first time and I hope anybody who is watching this, who is considering, I hope this has convinced you to join us this year or if not this year, maybe next year. Before we wrap up, is there any last minute thoughts that either of you wanna share about the conference that we missed?

Lisa Rozzelle (35:08)
can't imagine what we didn't say, but just come, show up, be there, trust us, you will not wanna miss this.

Katalina Dawson (35:10)
Okay.

There you go, perfect. Stephanie, anything from you?

Stephanie Eidelman (35:17)
Absolutely.

I think we covered it. There are probably details we didn't say, but you wouldn't remember them anyway if we told you even more. So we covered the important stuff. Our website has it all, womenandconsumerfinance.com. You'll get all the information there.

Katalina Dawson (35:23)
Fair.

Perfect. Well, I look forward to seeing both of you lovely ladies there. I also look forward to seeing anybody in our audience. If you see Stephanie, Lisa, or I at the conference, please stop by, say hi. We'll try to say hi to all of you as well. And hopefully I can get both of them back on at least one more time to create some more great content for a great industry. Thank you both again, and we'll see everybody in the next episode. Bye.

Lisa Rozzelle (35:56)
Thank you. Bye bye.

Stephanie Eidelman (35:57)
Thanks so much, Katalina.