Founded in 2013 by two businesswomen, Women Empowering Women (WEW)’s purpose is to bring like-minded people together to encourage and support one another. Taking networking to a new level, enabling women to build quality connections and empowering them to achieve their desired goals and personal / professional growth.
We strive to utilize the diversity of our membership and chapters to enable our members to benefit from the different insight they can gain from each other. The environment is open to both males and females to support women from college age and beyond into retirement age.
Collaborating on a joint purpose of empowering women and each other, our chapters and meetings can accommodate members within the same industry. Simply put, our primary focus for Women Empowering Women is collaboration NOT competition!
“A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform.” — Diane Mariechild
As we celebrate our 10th anniversary, we recognize that the current climate for women has added new challenges. WEW is ready to overcome those challenges by:
- Foster an environment encouraging our members to support each other and provide authentic and knowledgeable referrals and leads.
- Curate spaces where women can openly discuss struggles and successes while also collaborating with and mentoring one another.
- Expanding our efforts across the country, building chapters that can function independently but at the same time able to benefit from the value of a larger network.
- Create a global network that will allow us to grow to our fullest potential no matter where we are.
- Collaborating to find ways to work together and empower each other.
- Provide leadership tools and resources to develop our members professionally and personally.
- Being a liaison for business and volunteer opportunities.
- Tailoring memberships to meet the needs of our members by providing a platform for national and international reach.
Michell Stockmann
Founder & Chief Executive Officer,
Women Empowering Women
Owner of TechKnow Solutions, Inc
O: 618.526.1600 | michell@tksdesignteam.com
Anna L. Garcia
Chief Strategy Officer,
Women Empowering Women
Owner of ALG Consulting
C: 832.607.5733 | anna@annalgarcia.com
Learn More about Anna
Anna L Garcia is an accomplished leader who led a successful career in the telecommunications and technology industry for over 27 years. She is proud of the vast impact she made both in her corporate senior sales executive role and non-profit leadership in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion space, through her “passion work,” leading one of the largest Latino Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) in the nation.
She began her career at Southwestern Bell in Houston, TX working in the bilingual call center. After navigating various roles in different segments, she recently retired as a senior sales executive at AT&T working with national and international portfolios. In addition to her professional role, Anna has found a passion in advocating for diversity, equity and inclusion to help advance the next generation of leaders.
She focused on initiatives and programs that would benefit the many students and women in minority or underrepresented communities which lack guidance or examples of success in STEM careers or pursuing a college education. This passion and self-driven desire to help, was recognized by HACEMOS ERG leadership in Houston where she was approached to lead. After serving as VP-Finance, Membership, and Operations, Anna became the local chapter president for the city of Houston.
During her leadership, the HACEMOS Houston Chapter increased in membership, engagement and more than doubled the impact from prior years, outpacing the long-time leading Dallas chapter, where corporate headquarters is located. This performance led to her nomination and election as Southwest Regional President and as National President/CEO in 2020. Despite being elected during the worldwide pandemic, HACEMOS excelled and earned more than 10 awards at the national level, including Top 15 ERGs 2020 & 2021, Latina Style Magazine; Employee Resource Group of the Year 2021, USHCC; and the ERG’s initiative Latino Talks won Best Overall 2021 at the Employee Group Annual Conference and raised over $20,000 for initiatives. This was a first for HACEMOS.
Anna has served on several non-profit boards, advisory boards, committees, and has mentored hundreds of students, colleagues, small-business, and non-profit leaders throughout her career. She has earned several recognitions for her leadership and received the Presidential Volunteer Service Awards at the Gold and Silver levels for the last ten years.
Upon completion of her career at AT&T, she was approached by several organizations to serve as a strategy consultant and in November 2022, just one month after her departure from AT&T, Anna L Garcia Consulting, LLC was established.
Anna holds a degree in Business Studies from Dallas Baptist University and a Master of Business Administration-Global Business from the University of Phoenix. She is the wife of 25 years to Edgar and the mother to three young-adult children, one of which is preparing to welcome her first grandson. She enjoys traveling with her family and exploring National Parks.
Highlights of Community Impact – Anna L Garcia
- Championed multiple award-winning initiatives for HACEMOS, including Latino Talks, Emerging Latina Leadership Program, C.R.E.C.E.R mentorship program, and Surplus Survival.
- Empowered over 50 Latinas in 2021-2022 to negotiate a new role and higher salary
- 2022 Chase Your Dreams Award- Human Trafficking Awareness
- 2022 Houston Business Journal Nominee for Women Who Mean Business
- 2022 Advocate for Change Award – Over 100 Students Mentored
- 2021 Supplier Diversity Award – Collaboration Cross Industries
- 2017 DiversityFirst Leader Award- Texas Diversity Council
- Prior Advisory Board member for Power on Heels Fund, Inc., Texas Diversity Council, Primeway Federal Credit Union, El Zocalo, DEI Council of Texas.
- Mentors and consults with a variety of individuals seeking personal, professional, and organizational growth.
A. Lollie Ramirez-Bennett
Chief Operating Officer,
Women Empowering Women
C: 281-658-4023 | LollieRB@att.com
Learn More about Lollie
Lollie Ramirez-Bennett retired from AT&T at the end of 2022, after 38 years of service. Lollie is proud of her robust and memorable career with AT&T and the ability to lead a “dual volunteer career” in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion via community engagement for the past 33 years.
During her tenure at AT&T, Lollie excelled in varied positions including sales, performance management, trainer, and operations manager. She became a trusted and respected strategist for her senior leadership at AT&T – serving in a role of Results Manager and Trend Analyst for the past 20 years. She utilized her innate logic and problem-solving skills to assist in driving the business organization to continued success. During this time, she maintained her activism becoming a role model for women, multi-cultures and underserved communities.
Women’s Rights have always been a passion for Lollie. Over the years, she recognized that much effort was still needed to truly give women an equal footing. Women were underutilizing the power of the “sisterhood” and that this effort didn’t need to be fought only as women but with our male allies right next to us. With that in mind, 10 years ago, Lollie ran and was elected as the Houston President/ CEO for the Women of AT&T (WOA), then the regional President role for the Southwest. In 2020, she took on the National CEO for WOA role until her retirement. WOA is AT&T’s largest Employee Group with18K members worldwide and during 2022, celebrated their 50th Anniversary with a Leadership Conference & Celebration in Denver, Colorado. Lollie and the national Women of AT&T board were recognized by AT&T’s DE&I with the 2022 Excellence in Action Award for Leadership for their efforts on the 50th Anniversary for the Employee Group.
Those that know Lollie well, know that she has intense energy and is dedicated to “maximizing every moment” as she likes to say. This has allowed her to also serve AT&T Employee Groups throughout the years, giving back to our communities whenever and however possible. Lollie has mentored hundreds of students, employees, community partners and even non-profit leaders throughout the years. She earned multiple Presidential Volunteer Service Awards at the Gold, Silver and Bronze level. Last year – she was honored with the prestigious LIFETIME Presidential Volunteer Service Award by President Biden. A true collaborator, Lollie partnered with other national AT&T Employee Group leaders to force multiple the success they could achieve.
Not one to sit idly by, Lollie plans to pursue new adventures, working for another 5+ years and of course, advocating for women issues driving for inclusivity in all aspects of our world to level the playing field across all groups and sectors. Lollie is married to Dave and although they do not have any children, they enjoy spending time with their many nieces and nephews.
Highlights of Community Impact – L Ramirez-Bennett
- Dedicated to helping improve lives, “brought jobs to the people” by chairing two AT&T Houston Community Career / Resource Fairs and “brought people to the jobs” by assisting AT&T leadership in meeting their hiring needs of 375+ technicians in 1Q19 utilizing a strong community network.
- Created & delivered “Girls Be Wise – A Human Trafficking & Cyber Security Awareness” seminar to 700+ girl students at a Spring ISD middle school.
- Championed multiple award-winning programs for Women of AT&T, including Human Trafficking Awareness, Suicide Prevention Awareness and Surplus Survival.
- Led a cross-industry Women’s Advocacy Summit with MongoDB’s Women’s Group and Women in Samsung Electronics.
- Recipient of the prestigious LIFETIME Presidential Volunteer Service Award in 2022 by President Joe Biden for her work with local Houston non-profit Society of Royals dedicated promoting self-worth with our youth and suicide prevention awareness.
- Recognized with multiple awards for her work to raise awareness and eradicate Human Trafficking.
Awarded the prestigious AT&T Service Excellence Award in 2022. - Volunteered over 500 hours during 2017 Hurricane Harvey Clean-up and Rebuild, a project that earned WOA a national
- ERG Community Engagement Award and $15K.
- Served as an Advisory Board member for Power on Heels Fund, Inc. and Scholarship chair for 3 years resulting in over 30 professional women & students receiving funds to enhance earning potential & accelerate professional growth.
- Recognized by the Texas Diversity Council as a DiversityFirst Leader in 2018.
- Dedicated mentor, in a wide range of both personal and professional development – including scholastic, non-profit strategy, self-work and work-life planning.
- Current Advisory Board member for PrimeWay Federal Credit Union; Prior Board member of the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Citizen Schools Houston.
