Marty McDonald: Her Impact Beyond Corporate

I don’t remember the exact date or time, but I had the privilege of being at the first Boss Women Who Brunch event at Neiman Marcus in Dallas, Texas, over a decade ago. If you have been following Marty McDonald, you have watched her build successful brands over the past decade. Along with her co-founder, Ashley Cash, she formed Boss Women Who Brunch, an opportunity for trailblazing women to gather over great food in a beautiful location and have real conversations that were not about networking as much as they were about cultivating true opportunities and connections.

Marty’s vision for what women-focused community organizations could look like outgrew Boss Women Who Brunch, so a few years later she built Boss Women Media, a media brand that has used boldness to merge empowerment with education. Now, Marty has added best-selling author to her portfolio with her latest book, Audacious, which teaches women how to unapologetically make the big ask. This wife and mother of three is also the founder of the lifestyle brand Elle Olivia, inspired by her oldest daughter, Elle. This fun, chic, and innovative children’s brand, sold in Target, boasts everything from an empowerment book for young Black and Brown girls to coloring books and children’s apparel.

To know Marty is to be empowered and to not accept no for an answer. It was an honor to interview Marty for our inaugural CEOMOM Dallas issue.

In Audacious, you write about taking risks, making bold asks, and betting on yourself. What was the most audacious decision you’ve made that ultimately changed the trajectory of your life or business?

I spent about ten or eleven years in corporate America telling myself that if I could just make it to Chief Marketing Officer, I would have arrived. That was the dream I had constructed for myself inside a system that I was working incredibly hard to climb.

And then one day I looked around, and I did not see a single person who looked like me in that role. Not one. Nobody who came from where I came from. I grew up in a small town in Tennessee that had a whole lot of lack and not a lot of proof that girls like me ended up in rooms like that. And when you cannot see it, it is almost impossible to believe it belongs to you.

But here is what happened. I started seeing something else online. I started seeing women who looked like me, who sounded like me, who did not come from money or connections or have the right last name, and they were building something of their own and winning at it. And something in me thought, maybe that is the door. Maybe the path I have been trying to force my way through was never mine to begin with.

So I made the decision to leave. And I want to be honest with you about what that felt like, because it was not a highlight-reel moment. I had panic attacks. There were days I literally could not breathe. The fear was real, and it was physical, and it did not go away just because I made a bold choice. But I was more determined than I was afraid, and that made all the difference.

And what I know now, eight years later, is that some of the big, hairy, audacious goals I wrote down back then, in that scared, hopeful season, are still coming true today. Still. Which means you cannot put your dreams on your own timeline. But you can put in the work, you can stay faithful to the vision, and you can trust that the thing you are believing for is making its way to you, even when you cannot see it yet.

One of the themes in the book is that “no” is often just the beginning of the conversation. Can you share a time when a rejection ultimately led to a bigger opportunity?

In 2018, I was pitching an experience. Not just a product, not just a post, but an actual in-store activation that would bring Black Girl Magic into physical spaces where women could feel it, touch it, and be part of it. And what came out of that pitch was a collaboration with Sugarfina to create the Black Girl Magic Gummy Bears. It was real, it was beautiful, and it launched in 2019. But I want to be transparent about what the deal actually was, because this is the part nobody talks about.

They did not pay me for the experiences. I made a significant personal investment to tour five cities and make as much noise as I possibly could in each one. I was betting on myself with my own money, my own energy, my own everything. And the cities that hit the hardest were Los Angeles, Dallas, and Houston. I showed up, I showed out, and I trusted that the exposure would compound into something.

And it did. The following year, I closed a six-figure deal with Capital One.

But here is what I need you to hear. That Capital One deal did not come out of nowhere. It came out of a Sugarfina activation that was not fully paid, which came out of a pitch that did not get everything I asked for. The no was not a door closing. It was a hallway. And I had to be willing to walk down it without knowing exactly where it led.

We spend so much energy trying to skip straight to the big moment. But the big moments are built on the small ones. The small ones are not consolation prizes. They are preparation. They are building your credibility, your confidence, your proof of concept, and your network all at the same time. If I had turned my nose up at an unpaid activation because it was not the six-figure check I wanted, I would have walked away from the exact thing that made me ready for the six-figure check.

Sometimes you are only supposed to have a small moment before you get to a big one. The question is whether you are willing to show up for it like it is everything, because it is.

For women who are building businesses while raising families, what are three non-negotiables that have helped you navigate entrepreneurship, motherhood, and leadership?

1. 01

   Surrender

   I do not mean giving up. I mean releasing the grip on how I think things are supposed to go and trusting that the vision is bigger than my plan. When I learned how to hold my business with open hands, I stopped white-knuckling every outcome and started moving with more discernment and a lot more peace.

2. 02

   Overcommunicate

   Not just the logistics, not just who is picking up who and what is on the calendar. But the big picture. What I am building, why it matters, where we are going as a family, and are we still on the same page. A business that grows but costs you your marriage is not a success story. The partnership at home has to stay current with the woman I am becoming.

3. 03

   Invest in Support

   There was a season when I had three children under the age of three and I was convinced I could not afford the support I needed. And I had to flip the question entirely. The question was never what does childcare cost. The question was what does it cost me to not have it. When I started calculating the cost of my limitations instead of the cost of my investments, everything changed.