Leslie Vickrey believes that women need opportunities to share their stories and often says, “If you see it, you can be it.” Fueled by a passion to create opportunities for the next generation to see what they can be, as CEO and founder of ClearEdge Marketing, Vickrey is committed to reducing the gap for women in the workplace by creating platforms through which they can make their voices heard — platforms which, she notes, didn’t exist a generation ago.
To that end, Vickrey and two of her friends in 2013 co-founded ARA Mentors, an organization dedicated to attracting, retaining and advancing women in business. She notes that in the staffing industry, there tends to be a 50/50 split between men and women in entry-level roles — but “something happens in that gap period where women are dropping out,” she adds, “not given opportunity, not speaking up for themselves. My work is to solve that, to lessen the gap and get more equality in the C-suite … which will in turn create better opportunity for those coming into the industry.”
Over the pandemic, Vickrey co-created the Lady Leaders Book Club, comprising other female industry leaders. The group collectively co-authored the book Together We Rise, which contains 15 true stories of the members’ professional experience and which they hope inspires others to stand up and be heard.
Vickrey and the other Lady Leaders speak at various professional events, often recounting their experiences with inappropriate speech or behaviors in the workplace. “It’s opening the eyes of our male allies,” she says. They’re asking, “‘How can I make sure [our daughters’] environments are better?’ … We want to work together with men to make things better for the next generation.” It is critical to keep the conversations going, she adds, so that the current and next generations know they have the right to speak up for themselves. “If we don’t talk about it, it won’t get better.”
And becoming a workplace that is empathetic to women triggers more conversations. “It’s [becoming] a better place for women; they can feel comfortable talking about their situations,” Vickrey says. In addition to the Lady Leaders, she has also created a DE&I group for executive women in staffing and hosts “TheEdge,” a podcast that highlights women in staffing and recruitment.
2023 DE&I Influencers List