TMA Florida NOW Presents - Women Who Build Value: Real-World Perspectives on Risk, Trust, Leadership & Execution
📅 Thursday, September 24 | 🕕 5:30 – 7:30 PM
📍St Petersburg Yacht Club, St Petersburg
Join TMA Florida NOW for an engaging panel discussion featuring accomplished women leaders from across the turnaround, restructuring, lending, legal, advisory, and corporate sectors.
In today's rapidly evolving business environment, organizations need leaders who can build trust, navigate uncertainty, execute with discipline, and inspire confidence. This conversation will explore the leadership principles that create measurable business value, drawing from the real-world experiences of women who lead through complex situations, drive transformation, and deliver results.
Panelists will share practical insights on topics including:
- Taking calculated risks and making difficult decisions
- Building trust with clients, investors, lenders, and teams
- Leading with confidence while overcoming self-doubt
- Turning strategy into execution through accountability and operational discipline
- Adapting to change while fostering resilient, high-performing organizations
Through candid discussion and personal experiences, attendees will gain actionable leadership insights applicable across every stage of business, from growth and transformation to turnaround and renewal.
Whether you are an experienced executive, an emerging leader, or a professional looking to strengthen your leadership skills, this program will provide valuable perspectives on building influence, creating lasting impact, and leading with confidence.
Registration:
- Members: $60
- Non-Members: $85
* Registration includes drink tickets and appetizers.
Sponsorship: $250 - Sponsorship includes: One complimentary registration, logo on event page and promotional material and sponsor signage at the event and recognition at the event (email Florida@turnaround.org to secure sponsorship)
Please note that registrations are non-refundable. Substitutions or event credits may be accommodated if requested in advance.
Panel:
Janet Jarrett - Senior Advisor, Gordon Brothers
Janet Jarrett is a Senior Advisor at Gordon Brothers supporting the firm’s growth and expansion plans. Janet provides advice and counsel to the business, strengthens relationships across banking and private credit and helps drive ABL originations, as well as serves as a mentor to team members across the firm. She is also a member of the firm’s Management Lending Investment Committee.
Janet has over 25 years of experience in corporate and investment banking, specializing in asset-based lending, structured finance and leveraged transactions. She has deep expertise includes asset-based lending, securitization, equipment finance and supply chain finance.
Prior to joining Gordon Brothers, Janet was managing director and head of the Asset Finance Group at Truist Securities where she led origination, structuring and portfolio management across multiple secured asset classes.
Janet has a Bachelor of Science in Business and a Master of Business Administration from Wake Forest University. She is as a member of the board for the Secured Finance Foundation.
Christine Jones, Co-Founder, Blue Highway, an SBIC fund based out of Philadelphia
Christine is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Blue Highway Capital. Chris has 25 years of expertise in sourcing, structuring, and managing investments through two funds she co-founded. Her investment portfolio includes small middle market companies across a broad range of industries including business services, health care services, telecommunications, transportation and logistics, consumer products, and manufacturing. These investments have been made in rapidly growing businesses and structured to support growth, acquisition and recapitalization strategies.
Chris has served on the boards of numerous portfolio companies and various industry associations. Ms. Jones was a member of the Board of Directors of the St. John’s International School in Waterloo, Belgium and its Foundation in the United States.
Chris holds a B.A. degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Linda Stephens, CPA - Managing Director, at Sun Harbor Advisors
Linda Stephens, CPA, is Managing Director at Sun Harbor Advisors, where she provides strategic financial leadership and advisory services to business owners, boards of directors, lenders, and private equity stakeholders. With more than two decades of executive financial and operational leadership experience, she specializes in helping organizations navigate growth, transformation, and change by aligning financial strategy with operational execution to drive sustainable performance and enterprise value creation.
Throughout her career, Linda has held senior finance and operational leadership positions across private equity-backed, publicly traded, and growth-oriented organizations. Her experience spans a broad range of industries, including retail, manufacturing, aerospace and defense, and financial services. She has led complex initiatives involving treasury and liquidity management, strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, debt and lender relations, ERP implementations, organizational restructuring, and board-level financial reporting and governance. Linda has extensive experience helping companies improve financial visibility, strengthen internal controls, enhance accountability, and build scalable financial infrastructures that support long-term growth and operational excellence.
Known for her collaborative leadership style and results-oriented approach, Linda works closely with executive teams to translate financial data into actionable business strategies. She has successfully guided organizations through periods of rapid growth, operational restructuring, transaction readiness, and business transformation, helping leadership teams make informed decisions and execute with confidence.
At Sun Harbor Advisors, she focuses on interim and fractional CFO leadership, strategic advisory services, turnaround and restructuring support, and helping businesses position themselves for sustainable growth and successful transactions.
Linda holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of South Florida and is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in the State of Florida. She is committed to helping business leaders achieve clarity, strengthen financial performance, and create lasting value through disciplined execution and strategic financial leadership.