The WeSpire Blog

Saturday Spark #32 By Susan Hunt Stevens, Founder & CEO This past Monday was a “sorta” holiday in Boston. Schools, banks, and government were closed, but many businesses were not. As a worker in a city that has “the worst traffic in America,” the benefits that day were palpable. You got a seat on the […]

Saturday Spark #31 By Susan Hunt Stevens, Founder & CEO Four years ago, on a high-speed train trip from Amsterdam to Paris, a man armed with nearly 300 rounds of ammunition started shooting passengers. As panic and chaos ensued, three young American men on a backpacking trip through Europe, tackled and subdued the shooter. Although wounded […]

Saturday Spark #30 By Susan Hunt Stevens, Founder & CEO I started my career in management consulting. In the fall of 1992, I was living in New York City weekends and jetting up to client site in Boston weekdays. I had incredibly smart and fun colleagues and was learning a ton. I got my first […]

Saturday Spark #29 By Susan Hunt Stevens, Founder & CEO One of my favorite things to do is talk to strangers, particularly if those strangers happen to be sitting next to me at a bar. I’m by nature an extrovert, and striking up a conversation with the random person to my right is often the […]

Saturday Spark #28 By Susan Hunt Stevens, Founder & CEO Yesterday, thousands of kids all over the US joined in with millions of kids from another 117 countries in what was the largest Fridays for Future climate strike yet. In one of the more catalyzing actions, the Boston and New York public school systems, along […]

Saturday Spark #27 By Susan Hunt Stevens, Founder & CEO Growing up in a household with two academics, September seemed more like the start of the new year than January. Everything was fresh and exciting. Who would be in your classes or on your teams? What teacher(s) would you get? What clothes do you wear? […]

Saturday Spark #26 By Susan Hunt Stevens, Founder & CEO In 1995, grey wolves were introduced back into Yellowstone Park for the first time since the 1930’s. In the subsequent twenty-five years, scientists have documented a cascade of system-level changes, starting with a rebound in Aspen tree shoots, a growing population of beavers, and some […]

Saturday Spark #25 By Susan Hunt Stevens, Founder & CEO Like many leaders, I don’t completely stop working while on vacation. It’s partly the nature of entrepreneurship and running a small company. There are just certain things that can’t wait, nor is there someone else to do them. I also pride myself personally on being […]

Saturday Spark #24 By Susan Hunt Stevens, Founder & CEO Recently, I’ve been reading Michelle Obama’s autobiography to my daughter before bed. It’s been fascinating reading a book that frequently addresses the struggles that working mothers face to the child of a working mother. At points she has laughed and said, “that sounds JUST like […]

Saturday Spark #23 By Susan Hunt Stevens, Founder & CEO Have you ever taken a job that sounded amazing and then slowly, things just seemed a little off? You did the assigned work, but it was so much harder than normal? You needed longer conversations with your manager or your peers just to get anything […]

Saturday Spark #22 By Susan Hunt Stevens, Founder & CEO Would you know if burnout was having a significant impact on your life? As an entrepreneur, I have wondered from time to time when, or if, I might hit a wall. I’ve never felt particularly burnt out, but I’ve wondered whether it would be obvious […]

Saturday Spark #21 By Susan Hunt Stevens, Founder & CEO This weekend, like many of you celebrating the Fourth of July holiday, I am spending time with friends and family, enjoying cookouts, watching a LOT of youth baseball and feeling very grateful, in spite of our current challenges, to be a citizen of the United […]