This year, the Interchange Communicator of the Year Award was presented to Juliette Cowall, Marketing Director for Godwin Plumbing, in recognition of her of her innovative approach to developing a new kind of professional women's networking group.

Three years ago Juliette recognized the need for a new kind of a professional group that was exclusively for women. Women-to-women networking was not new, and small, loosely organized groups of women existed throughout West Michigan, but Juliette saw a much larger opportunity. Instead of creating a formalized association with dues, a board, and a static meeting location, Juliette’s vision was to create a group of professionals that could communicate their products and services in a friendly, non-threatening atmosphere of peers and in a variety of venues. The result is what Juliette calls Girls' Lunch.

The format is ingenious. Each month one woman is in charge and she chooses the meeting spot, inviting women from within her own network. The next month another woman hosts the lunch and invites women from her network, all prior attendees and anyone who has expressed interest in the group. As Juliette expected, the pool of professional women diversified and grew exponentially. For the past several months, attendance has been about 100 women, while keeping the cost for meal, beverage and tip to $12.

Also unique to Girls' Lunch is the “everyone is the speaker” format. At each lunch attendees are encouraged to bring something that they can give away (with no strings attached). With that small offering, the “giver” is entitled to a 30 second “commercial” about her business, service, or product. Those 30 seconds provide a chance to network… with everyone in the room… how’s that for communication!

Juliette would protest if she heard Girls' Lunch described as Juliette’s Girls' Lunch. “That is the antithesis of what the Girls' Lunch is all about,” Juliette would say. “Girls' Lunch is designed to give every professional woman in the room the power to market her product or service to women of like minds and with the mutual expectation of success and excellence. It’s about communicating, and women are naturally good at that!”

Juliette Cowall is well known to members of Interchange and WMPRSA, and is a past president of Interchange (2005-2006). Juliette is the Marketing Director for Godwin Plumbing.