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From founding a business to corporate sales: Skills learned in Entrepreneur Scholar program serve Molly (Sexton) Gowan throughout her career

Alumni

Communication Studies

Franz Center

Portland Magazine

June 20, 2019

This article is part of a series of profiles of Entrepreneur Scholar alumni. University of Portland's Entrepreneur Scholars program is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2019. 

Molly (Sexton) Gowan

Class of 2000
Major: Organizational Communication

The Project

Molly Sexton GowanI created an executive management seminar, specifically business training for parish pastors/priests.

The Why

Pastors are responsible for running (sometimes) multi-million-dollar businesses, but they do not typically receive any business training. Priests were asking for this.

From There

I started “Windy Media” in Chicago, worked for a division of Infinity Broadcasting for two years, then moved to Reynolds and Reynolds, then medical sales, and am now selling for Dell Technologies.

Mindset

Anything is possible. The entrepreneurial spirit is alive in any career path you may choose—even if it entails working for someone else. An entrepreneur is a self-starter who finds creative ways to solve problems—those skills have served me well my entire career.

The Easy Part

Creating a vision, setting a path, and sharing them.

The Challenge

Risk.

Superpower/Weakness

I care. I truly care about people, their experiences with my company, and their impression of me and my level of support/ service. This quality is definitely both a strength and weakness—it keeps me up at night, but I directly attribute it to my success.

You Never Know

I met a woman on an airplane—we were both flying stand-by and got the last two seats. She worked for a well-known medical device company. That chance meeting led to a successful 11-year career.

PHOTO: Jimena Peck