This year, we introduce readers to women doing that work in very different ways. Our cover features include MaryO Ratcliffe, senior vice president of marketing and engagement for the YMCA of Western North Carolina; Zurilma Anuel, director of the Carolina Small Business Development Fund’s Western Women’s Business Center; Brittany Brady, president of the Henderson County Partnership for Economic Development; Bettina Roden, owner of Clean Mountain Escapes; and UNC Asheville Chancellor Kimberly van Noort. Elsewhere in the issue, Katherine Morosani talks about something nearly every working woman has wrestled with: the elusive idea of work-life balance and the importance of making room for a life outside of work.

Those conversations run alongside our industry spotlights on nonprofits, retirement and retail — three sectors that, in different ways, reveal just how much of our regional economy is ultimately about taking care of people.

I’ve always understood why this issue resonates with readers. But this year, it hits differently for me. Becoming a mother has changed my relationship to womanhood in ways I’m still discovering. One development is a newfound appreciation for our community and the people who nurture it. The future feels less abstract when you are responsible for someone who will live in it. Making our communities stronger, creating opportunities for other people, taking care of one another and leaving the world a little better than we found it feels like the most important work. 

So when I read the stories of the women in these pages this year, I see their efforts differently, too. The ambition is there, certainly, but so are the less easily measured things: persistence, care, responsibility, creativity, generosity, and the willingness to keep showing up when a lot is being asked of you.

Those qualities have always been a part of the Women in Business issue. This year, I’m seeing them with new eyes: the work of these women, and what it means for the communities they’re shaping, has never felt more vivid or more important. I hope our readers can feel that, too. 

—Emma Castleberry
Editor, WNC Business