WOMEN IN BUSINESS

Absolute Living is dedicating our October issue to the women business owners who bring style, sophistication, and better living to central Indiana through their hard work and passion. Reading through the next few pages, you’ll find that for these women, running a business has very little to do with gender. For them, business is business. But it’s also about building relationships, meeting clients’ emotional needs, staying on top of the latest trends in their industry, and helping their communities to thrive.

SHARON MOORE

Tilly’s Tea Room is a modern-style English tearoom on the third floor of Saks Fifth Avenue in the Fashion Mall at Keystone Crossing. Open from late morning through to afternoon teatime, Tilly’s serves a full lunch menu of soups, salads, sandwiches and paninis, as well as a traditional English afternoon tea. Sharon Moore, Tilly’s owner, should know a thing about tea. After all, she is an Englishwoman. More than that, she’s an Englishwoman who demands the traditional teatime staple of scones with jam and clotted cream for herself and her customers. Considering its scarce availability in the United States, Sharon and her crew began making their own fresh, homemade clotted cream and are in the process of launching a wholesale business.  

​Tilly’s seats up to 180 people and hosts a variety of events, from baby showers and bridal showers to fashion presentations, wine pairing dinners, and networking and corporate events. And yes, men, too, are welcome and can even enjoy a proper tea. Sharon feels lucky to work in an environment without obvious gender divisions, surrounded by other encouraging entrepreneurs, building business while they build solid relationships.

CORY BROWN

Transitioning from her previous work in the health care industry to launch Franklin Window & Door was a challenge in some ways for owner Cori Brown, but today she counts herself fortunate to work with the top architects, builders and remodelers in the Indianapolis residential building trades market. In the beginning, she says she experienced some insecurity in being a woman in a male-dominated industry, feeling the need to prove her knowledge of the field. Today, however, she networks with window and door dealers across the country at conventions, and out of them all, only two are female owned. Gender doesn’t matter, as she says every dealer encounters the same challenges, needs and trade discussions.

Cori’s wish is for all local businesses—women-owned, minority-owned, male-owned—to succeed, strengthen the local economy, and support the communities of which we’re a part. Personally, she derives great satisfaction in helping to bring some of the most beautiful, unique homes in the metro region to perfect fruition.

CHERIE PALMA

SPENGA – Spin, Strength and Yoga – was founded in 2014 by a group of fitness professionals determined to create a highly efficient and effective 60-minute workout built on three main pillars of fitness—cardio, strength and flexibility. When Cherie Palma discovered it, she declared it the best workout ever. And this fall she’s opening Indiana’s first SPENGA location right here in Clay Terrace. With 25+ years of personal training experience, 20+ of spin instruction and 10+ of yoga teaching experience, Cherie had sought after the perfect combination of her three favorite workouts for a very long time. Having found SPENGA, she wanted to share it with everyone.  

In terms of women in business, Cherie enjoys partnering with other women-owned businesses to promote each other’s business on social media, share booths at local events, or host in-studio pop-up shops.

AMBER RAE

Connect with beauty+grace and encounter one of Carmel’s finest high-end, luxury apparel boutiques. At the same time, step into the world of owner Amber Rae’s photography studio. beauty+grace offers not only fashion-forward styles from the world’s most sought after designers, but specializes in providing a personal touch to every client experience. Hosting frequent in-shop events, Amber and her staff style every photography client, as well as providing one-on-one personal styling. 

Originally from California, via Amber Lights, MI, Amber brings a solid background in the fashion industry and many years spent styling photography clients. It’s been her passion to showcase the outward manifestation of each woman’s inner beauty for as long as she can remember, and she claims her inspiration is as simple as the roads she’s traveled and the connections made upon them.  
Amber understands fashion to be a feeling, and she believes that her clients not only would agree but also appreciate that sentiment.

NANCY HOMSY

Nancy Homsy was just 13 years old when her parents bought a small bridal shop and named it Nancy’s Bridal Boutique in honor of their daughter. As a teenage girl surrounded by beautiful dresses, Nancy says she was eager to work and learn from the very beginning. When she helped her mom to choose the shop’s best-selling gown of that first year, she had a sneaking suspicion that her destiny was wrapped up in the bridal industry. 
​
In addition to the “business” side of business, Nancy’s priorities lie in being kind, compassionate and understanding, in helping a bride to find the perfect gown, then move her smoothly through the process until she’s ready to walk down that aisle in the most important gown she’ll ever wear.  
Having been in the bridal boutique market for years now, Nancy says that continuous education to keep up with changing trends is the key to success. She looks to bridal markets, fashion events and wedding seminars to stay on top of the latest.

MARIA VAN DAM

BodysculptRx is a unique medical spa offering a variety of services and products to help clients reclaim body and health. Together, Maria Van Dam, RN, BSN—the spa’s co-founder and clinical manager—along with Michele Baker, MS, RDN, LD—staff nutritionist and dietician—create clinically sound health plans designed for clients’ specific goals and needs. They offer an all-natural approach to detox and weight loss with their Shape program, combined with natural supplements including medical formulated CBD. BodysculptRx also offers the premier non-surgical approach to permanent fat removal, Coolsculpting.
​ 
In Maria’s opinion, women tend to be more naturally conversational, and she and her team use that natural tendency, along with their solid medical credentials, to build trustworthy and honest relationships with their clients. She feels it’s important for clients to be able to speak freely about what’s weighing them down in life because she and her team understand the correlation between emotional well-being and overall physical health.  

When not changing client lives, Maria participates in Noblesville’s Chamber of Commerce and attends networking events such as Women in Noblesville. She’s always thinking about ways to network with neighbors and other community businesses.