Hello, Again

It’s March, three months into 2025. At times it seems like this new year has dragged in slow motion, and other weeks it’s flown by in warp speed.

For example, it’s hard to believe it’s only a couple of months since we announced a brand-new identity for WILMA’s leadership program. It feels like she’s been around for years.

In January, we announced the WILMA Leadership name as well as its updated look and branding thanks to editorial art director Suzi Drake. And while we still have some slip ups around the office, for the most part we’ve retired the Women to Watch name (except for our annual awards, which still proudly carries the label).

But this was more than just a New Year’s resolution.

The reboot comes during the 10th anniversary of WILMA launching its women’s leadership initiative. In 2015, the magazine expanded beyond its traditional media roles and delved into creating leadership programming and connections in person.

Starting in June of 2015, along with co-director Maggi Apel who also has been there from the jump, we offered up different ways for area women to become involved: mentoring matches, board of director training, an annual leadership conference.

We weren’t sure how it would all work or if it would work.

But we’re a decade in and still expanding, so safe to say it was a good bet. The programs have grown as has our team at WILMA who help bring them to life. Jamie Merrill and Alec Hall, from our events department, now also play a daily role in making all these parts move.

The flagship program, the nine-month WILMA Leadership Institute, started with just eight class members in 2015. Today, the annual class includes forty-eight women. Read more about the Institute and its alumnae here.

Overall, in the past decade, more than 4,000 women have participated in some Women to Watch – I mean WILMA Leadership – program, and we hope that number continues to grow, and the needle continues to move.

Normally we turn the focus outward on you all and cover amazing women in the community. (And this issue is certainly no exception, from Olympians to James Beard nominees to environmental stewards.)

So, thanks for letting us indulge in a little self-reflection on this one and in our anniversary lookbacks throughout this year.

And thanks to the thousands of women before and those still to come who have shared their leadership goals, advice, time, resources, support, and more to help build this idea to where it is now.

Vicky Janowski, WILMA editor
editor@wilmingtonbiz.com

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