What Does Michele Thornton Ghee and Tom Brady Have in Common?

It was recently reported that football MVP Tom Brady is leaving the New England Patriots and is headed to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. After years of being the face of a legendary, winning team, and regardless of your love or hate for the Pats, his decision to walk away was certainly not easy. What does that have to do with me, you ask? Well, over the past few weeks, I’ve also made a big decision. I FINALLY have the courage to leave Corporate America and become the entrepreneur God called me to be. It's clear that life is short and nothing is guaranteed.

In 2015, something happened. God whispered the word “stratechic” and guided me to write my first book. In it, I encourage women to reclaim the power they naturally possess. Throughout the course of my life, I’ve found that women are innately strategic. Still, we find ourselves using our finite energy to care for others--our families, our companies, and our communities--while our dreams, goals and visions take a backseat. It’s so easy to operate like this, because for so long, it’s what society expected of us.

But for the last four years, I have been walking in Fear, not Faith. I tried to make Stratechic my part-time venture instead of a full-time calling. I wrote books telling women to create success on their terms, yet I wasn’t following my own advice. I taught audiences around the country to ask for what they’ve earned and not to accept anything less. I urged women to stop justifying the crumbs we are often offered and to push for parity. At some point in our careers, we have all been treated as invisible and not invaluable. But it’s worse when we dismiss and overlook ourselves. 

I can admit, when it came to my own career, I often found myself making every excuse in the world to do the opposite of those things when I couldn’t make the hard choice. 

Recently, I realized Stratechic wasn’t only for the other women I mentored and inspired; it was a direct call to action for me. So, now it’s time to chart a new path.

I’m taking my business acumen and pairing it with the Stratechic philosophy in order to activate and advance women professionals, entrepreneurs, and consumers. When we collectively elevate and amplify our voices, everyone wins. It’s time to do more to move diversity, inclusion and gender equality forward meaningfully, instead of keeping these principles as concepts on the periphery. We can no longer afford to wait, because in a rapidly evolving global economy, the power women wield in every area of society is virtually undeniable.

With that, I’m proud to introduce the Stratechic Alliance, a joint venture with two other incredible, bada$$ Black women business owners: Renita Bryant, CEO of SightsSet and Courtney Bowden, CEO of The Champ Media Agency. The Stratechic Alliance will empower companies to profitably activate and advance their most untapped human capital: Women.

With our combined experiences, the alliance is not only a consultancy - it’s a calling. We all believe our unique, intersectional approach will provide an abundance of ways for women to rise.