Elevate Ep 70: Leadership Elevated with Jaime Zawmon, Founder & President of Titan CEO and Titan 100

Jason Ulm (0:02)

Welcome to the Elevate Podcast, where every leader has a story. We bring you conversations with influential leaders who are shaping our local communities.

Hear about their path to leadership and experiences that define them, and how they're driving meaningful impact today.

Hey, everybody. Jason Ulm here with another episode of the Elevate Powered by Braden Podcast. And this one is a special episode. This is going to be a lot of fun to talk to Jaime and learn more about her organizations and what she's bringing to the great state of Indiana. And as you know, we've been doing these episodes since the beginning of January, talking to for-profits, nonprofits, organizations across the state of Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and now down into Kentucky. And this one's actually kind of fun because we're getting a chance to talk from Jaime's office out in Denver, I believe, is probably where she is. And so, Jaime, welcome to the show.

Jaime Zawmon (0:53)

Thanks so much for having me, Jason. Glad to be here.

Jason Ulm (0:57)

Awesome. All right. So before we go back and talk a little bit about your journey to where you are today, let's let everybody know the name of the organization and also your title with the organization. Yeah.

Jaime Zawmon (1:07)

So, Jaime Zawmon, President, Founder of Titan CEO and the Titan 100

Jason Ulm (1:14)

All right. Excited to talk about those two organizations. And I know we're really excited for what you're doing here in the state of Indiana with both of them. But that's not where you started. So let's go back to the beginning. Where are you from originally?

Jaime Zawmon (1:26)

I am born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. So I'm an East Coast girl. Love the water.

Jason Ulm (1:30)

Okay. So East Coast.

But you're now out in Denver. So tell me a little bit like high school, going to college, what were you thinking about doing? Where did your journey go from there?

Jaime Zawmon (1:42)

Wow. That's a long way back. So I went to high school and college on the East Coast. In fact, I grew up fully on the East Coast. I was recruited to a magazine publishing company a long time ago, and I did that to start selling advertising sales. So that's what it was.

It was supposed to be a stepping stone job in which I would end up doing medical sales. That's what I thought I wanted my career trajectory to be, but I fell in love with not just advertising sales. That's not what I fell in love with. I fell in love with what I was selling, which was a publication that wrote about CEOs and put them on the covers of the magazine, which I helped it expand to seven markets up and down the East Coast. So it was like an ink magazine, but on a regional level. So instead of reading about a company in California or Texas, we were writing about CEOs in the own local markets. So it started in Baltimore, Maryland, and I joined when it was just a few years young and then fell in love with it. I mean, I would read about the CEOs, I would meet them at events, I was inspired by the entrepreneurial community. So I spent 15 years there.

Jason Ulm (3:09)

No kidding.

Jaime Zawmon (3:11)

Growing from an account executive to the president of the company at one point.

I just fell in love with it. So I was able to surround myself with such an incredible community of visionaries and leaders, building community. So I like to consider myself a community builder. That's my passion and my purpose, and that's been a lot of what I've done in my career now, and especially here at Titan.

Jason Ulm (3:44)

No kidding.

Jaime Zawmon (3:46)

Yes, and I moved to Colorado where, if we back up, I was running the magazine and was on a ski trip here in Colorado, and I met my husband, so now husband, convinced him to move back to the East Coast for me because of the company, and then eventually we were able to move out here to Colorado. So that's how I went back and forth.

Jason Ulm (4:12)

Okay. All right. So 15 years there, but originally coming out of college, your thought was medical device sales, and ended up getting into sales, but really falling in love with the stories of CEOs that you guys were sharing. It's a really cool kind of opportunity for your first job and then being there for 15 years. You don't hear that story very often anymore. People generally make a change. So you're really loving what you're doing.