Susan’s record would be remarkable enough if it only detailed her business achievements. During her 23-year corporate career, she has held a series of increasingly responsible executive positions in the sales divisions of Fortune 500 companies including Verizon, CenturyLink, United Technologies, and FedEx. She’s led teams to sales records, beating objectives from $1 million to $600 million, ultimately as a Vice President. Along the way, she earned 11 annual President’s Club awards for leading teams to top performance.
During that era of corporate achievement she and her husband Phil were climbing the Seven Summits, the highest mountain on each of the world’s the seven continents. That remarkable journey culminated at the top of Mount Everest on May 16, 2002. With that climb, she and Phil became the first couple in history to climb the Seven Summits.
That feat earned them world-wide media attention, including Good Morning America, CNN, the Today Show, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times and many others.
In her first acclaimed book, Together on Top of the World; The Remarkable Story of the First Couple to Climb the Fabled Seven Summits, Susan shared her remarkable Everest adventure and the life lessons she learned on the mountain. Now, in her latest book, Conquering the Seven Summits of Sales: From Everest to Every Business, Achieving Peak Performance (published by HarperCollins), Susan examines the habits of success anyone can master to achieve peak performance in selling, business and leadership, using the same techniques and determination that empowered her to climb the world’s highest mountains.
Not a professional mountain climber, Susan trained by climbing the 35 stories in her high-rise office building on her lunch hour for a year – with a 40-pound pack on her back. She tells her electrifying story to audiences with clarity and passion. She lifts her audience’s ambitions by showing them how hard work, dedication, perseverance and a total commitment to excellence can pay off in reaching seemingly impossible goals.
As a business speaker, Susan illustrates how she utilized her experience as a sales leader as the foundation to her training for climbing mountains. She begins with visualizing a goal, no matter how difficult or seemingly out of reach. She continues with demonstrated techniques to improve focus, discipline and teamwork. She concludes with a passionate affirmation of the value of life and the thrill of celebrating your success from the top of the world.
Having climbed the mountain in work and in the world, Susan’s message stands apart for its credibility and power.