Courtney Feider

We are pleased to feature Courtney Feider, seasoned businesswoman from Boise, ID. Courtney's background is in corporate marketing, advertising, and consumer engagement. Her education has roots in communication, marketing, and psychology. After a decade of doing this type of work for others, Courtney founded Adrian + Sabine in 2007, a full service, high-touch marketing and branding agency.

Introduce yourself to our audience. Tell us who you are and what you are currently focused on.

I am an interrupter. A disruptor. I have spent every day of my professional career creating, innovating, inventing, and re-inventing. I am 50% structure and 50% disruption. I have equal experience in corporate business and in creating art. By designing highly creative plans focused on documentation, systemic change, and return-on-investment, I help my clients weave even the riskiest and most cutting edge business and marketing shifts into sustainable business strategies. I have been fine-tuning stories through business organization, imagery, brand experiences, and communication plans for nearly 2 decades. I have been the marketer, the writer, the artist, the event designer, the corporate staff, the client, and the agency. Working with businesses, business leaders, and business owners, I structure the priority of embracing dramatic change and mastering audience engagement for long term connection, helping grow their strategies, their teamwork, and their brands.

What has been biggest challenge in career to date?

Starting my own business 8 years ago while pregnant with my first daughter, and maintaining a debt-free company through major recession conditions, and while raising and infant and having a second daughter. Starting a second successful debt-free business and several stand alone events, including 3 farmer's markets and a beer/wine/spirits tasting festival that is now becoming a community education centerpiece and it's own non-profit. Eventually, turning that into a consulting theory and method, which required me to put everything else on the line and re-invent again, but which allows me to bring thought leadership and business balance to professionals in all walks of business.

Constantly reinventing myself for business sustainability and survival, and maintaining the highest respect for myself and for my peers and collaborative partners in the process.

What was your biggest career breakthrough moment?

When I gambled on my own talent and won. When I believed in myself enough to start my own business, entirely based on my ethics and my creative rules, and found that people genuinely believed in my message, my method, and benefitted from it personally and professionally.

Reaching a place of thought leadership and having awake and aware peers who are also practicing the art of giving back in business is it's own massive reward.

Finish this sentence... "I knew I had 'made it' when..."

I realized that no matter how far out of my comfort zone I step, if I am true to myself, honest, and follow my intuition, the business will follow. The more I give to and support other women, the more that is returned to me. To me, "making it" is sort of like reaching milestones in age - one day, you just sort of wake and realize, "it's working!". At this moment, I have a successful consulting practice, and my retail product line is being picked up by Whole Foods Market and being considered by other national retailers. What I am doing makes a difference.

If you could go back and talk to your younger self (before your career really began), what professional advice would you give her?

Learn. Soak it in. Don't judge yourself or anyone else too harshly. This experience and any mistakes will shape you and create the serendipity of the path that's about to unfold for you.

Share your two cents about money. What lessons have you learned about money along the way?

The less I can think about it, the better off I am. I retain professional CPAs to watch it for me so that I don't have to. That works for me. The more I can stay debt-free and focused on how to make my business(es) self-funded and self-sufficient, the more often I'll have the emotional and literal freedom to move where the moment takes me, and to make the right decisions for myself, my family, and my future.

What is your secret to success?

Creating an idea, setting a plan, and manifesting it. If I follow those simple steps, work to keep myself focused and in check, and work in a spirit of collaboration and not competition, everything falls into place, and my work is a pleasure and a privilege.

Why are you a member of Ellevate?

Because I believe in people supporting people but specifically, women supporting women. Too often, I think women self-sabotage. Become afraid of their own success. Turn in on themselves and others when staying focused, generous, and open will more than likely open the best doors for them. I feel fortunate to be where I am, and I'd love to share what I've learned with others, and to learn from them. I believe in Ellevate's worldwide mission of connecting women, and I have greatly benefitted from the openness and connection Ellevate creates and facilitates.