The Charlotte Ledger 40 Over 40 Awards Celebration

The Croixstone team is joining The Charlotte Ledger and U.S. Bank on Thursday evening, April 28, to celebrate this year’s honorees of local Charlotte unsung heroes aged 40+ who are doing great things in our community. We are looking forward to a fun night honoring The Charlotte Ledger’s amazing 40 Over 40 winners from 2020, 2021, and this year.

The honorees from 2021 include our very own Patti Weber, CEO and co-founder. Read more about Patti here.

Congrats to 2022’s winners! We look forward to seeing you on Thursday!


We Have News!

We are excited to announce that our very own CEO and Co-Founder, Patti Weber, has been named a “Forty Over 40” award recipient by The Charlotte Ledger.  The awards, revealed in a special online presentation last evening, celebrate local unsung heroes aged 40+ who are doing great things in the Charlotte community.

This year’s group, representing the second-ever group of award recipients, was chosen by a distinguished panel of under-40 judges who reviewed many impressive nominations. 

Patti, who has long-term passion for STEAM, was recognized for driving outcomes in business, healthcare and social innovation.  In addition to serving as Croixstone’s CEO, Patti is a co-founder with the Charlotte Pancreatic Cancer Alliance (a community group that increases awareness for pancreatic cancer) and a Partner with Social Venture Partners Charlotte (a nonprofit group that passionately attacks social and economic inequality and promotes social innovation across the Charlotte region through venture philanthropy).

Learn more here.


“When Will Things Get Back to Normal?”

Economist Mariana Mazzucato (UCL Professor, Director of Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose and noted author) suggests that this is the wrong question to be asking as we work to reopen amidst COVID-19.

As she stated in a TED2020 virtual talk on Monday of this week, “Really, my view is that we need to do everything we can not to go back to normal, because normal was part of the problem.”

The Croixstone team wholeheartedly agrees with the concept that 2020 has delivered an opportunity to fix problematic corporate governance and business structures, and to reimagine ways to do capitalism differently. 

Today, we are focused on the art and science of reimagining the future to build stronger organizations, corporations and communities.


Make the Downturn Work For You

“The best companies do more than survive a downturn.  They position themselves to thrive during the subsequent upturn, guided again by a number of broad objectives.”
– Harvard Business Review (Febuary 2009)

Do you know where the opportunity lies for your company (and/or your career) during this time of great uncertainty?  In this blog post, we focus on the opportunities that await those determined to make the downturn work for them.

13 Massive Companies That Started During a Recession

“…if history proves to be any sort of reliable predictor, recessions have actually served as the launchpad for some of the world’s most incredible businesses.” – The Startup (Medium)
  Learn more here.

Turn Massive Challenges into Meaningful Change + Opportunities.

Accenture has done a remarkable job of effectively packaging insights from the firm’s experts in a simple and straightforward way to help organizations turn massive complexity into meaningful change.
Learn more here.


A Virtual View of the Skills Gap Dilemma

According to the just-released 2018 Employer Needs Survey, 50 percent of North Carolina businesses report hiring difficulties and 60 percent of NC STEM-related and manufacturing companies experience the same. A recent Deloitte study estimates 2.4 million positions may go unfilled over the next decade.

Immersive technologies, such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) or mixed reality (MR) [collectively called XR], are being used to address the skills gap behind those numbers. Charlotte-based Lowe’s finds VR particularly useful for simulating the numerous home environments a sales or service representative may encounter. Global shipping giant DHL Supply Chain reports an average 15 percent or greater improvement in productivity in its warehouses utilizing AR glasses, while also reducing onboarding and training time by 50 percent.

What does this mean for employee training? Read more on:  A Virtual View of the Skills Gap Dilemma.

About Our Guest Writer

Lorraine Russell is President/CEO of Room to Focus.  The firm provides the tools and content to help companies increase training retention, attract digital natives, and reduce time spent onboarding and facilitating routine training.  

Education Innovation

Did you know that Charlotte is one of six cities in the USA identified by The Brookings Institute (a nonprofit public policy organization) as a “major-emerging immigrant gateway“? With more than one quarter of a million immigrants, Charlotte’s ability to integrate immigrants (especially when it comes to education, occupational training, and English language ability) is critical for our city to make the most of its immigrant population and their mostly U.S.-born offspring.

Croixstone’s founder, Mark Weber, serves as Board Chair of ourBRIDGE for KIDS, an innovative, nonprofit afterschool program that serves more than 100 CMS families representing 20 cultures on Charlotte’s east side.  Sil Ganzó, ourBRIDGE founder and Executive Director, was recently profiled by StyleBlueprint as a “FACE of Charlotte.”


Healthcare Innovation Tribe

We enjoyed participating in this week’s “first ever” North Carolina Health Innovators’ CEO Roundtable. It was energizing to spend the afternoon with healthcare executives, thought leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs from across the Charlotte region. A huge shout out to Scott Pope of In Scope Ventures and Kelli Murray of MedSpeaks.com for sharing your vision on creating our own local “innovator tribe” here in the QC. And thanks to host Blair Primis of OrthoCarolina for your warm hospitality! #innovatehealthCLT