The Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce (GNFCC), North Fulton’s only regional Chamber serving the cities of Alpharetta, Johns Creek, Milton, Mountain Park, Roswell and Sandy Springs, announced the winners of the 2021 North Fulton Women INfluencing Business Awards.

The Business Woman Rising Star Award was presented to Amy Bell, Vice Present, Georgia Architecture for Goodwyn Mills & Cawood (GMC). While GMC's focus is designing powerful infrastructure projects that help communities, Amy and her team take this a step further by supporting and ‘building’ up communities internally and externally with projects like raising money for ear buds for Fulton County students during the pandemic, cleaning trash from the trails near her office, hosting student art shows at her office, and volunteering for Junior Achievement.

"I am a lady doing a historically male dominated job. I want this to be a thing of the past,” said Amy. “The more leaders who come from diverse backgrounds, the better and stronger our society will be. I can only hope that my influence spans across all people I come in contact with. I want to be a positive role model for all young professionals who aspire to do more, whatever their ‘more’ is.”

The Nonprofit Woman of Excellence Award was presented to Holly Ranney, President and Co-Founder of Sunshine on a Ranney Day, an organization that renovate homes for children with special needs. The nonprofit focuses on wheelchair accessible bathrooms, in-home therapy rooms and dream bedrooms. To date, over 140 homes and multiple large community projects like the renovation of CHOA’s parent sleep rooms, and therapy rooms at Camp Twin Lakes and Summit Counseling Center, have been completed. In addition to the nonprofit, Holly is also co-founder of Sunny & Ranney Home Furnishings and Décor in Roswell where all profits from sales go toward funding Sunshine on a Ranney Day makeovers.

“My husband and I were inspired by a church sermon to use our networks and resources to help others. With my furniture & design background and my husband’s construction background we started the charity,” said Holly. “Leaving the corporate world to take this on full time took many sacrifices and hard work but each ‘reveal’ we have where you witness the emotion and impact makes every day worth it.”

The Business Woman of Excellence Award was presented to Linda Coyle, Business Development Officer with LGE Community Credit Union. Linda is actively involved in the North Fulton community, serving on the Milton High School Governance Council, Innovation Academy’s Advisory Council, Rivers Academy Advisory Board, the Wellstar Women’s Leadership Council and the Milton Business Council (where she will serve as chairperson in 2022), just to name a few. She was also recently elected to the North Fulton Chamber’s 2022 Board of Directors and will serve a 3-year term. Linda works to empower others in the community by teaching financial education at LGE’s partner schools and businesses, and financial coaching for the residents at The Drake House.

Linda said, “One of the many parts of my job that I love is teaching financial education at our partner schools and businesses. Basic knowledge of personal finance empowers students to begin their financial career making wise decisions, and we have helped coach members from low credit scores to qualifying for a home mortgage!”

The Business Woman of Excellence Living Legacy Award was presented to Janet Rodgers, President and CEO of the Alpharetta Convention & Visitors Bureau. Janet has spent more than two decades making her community a viable place that people would want to live, work, play and stay. She is a co-founder of “Hospitality Highway” in 2005 and was the inspirational force behind creating a program that promoted the Georgia 400 corridor in the tourism and hospitality industry. Highlighting the seven communities that flank State Route 400 on the north side of Atlanta, the program directly provided those cities with an influx of growth in their respective markets. Through the creation of a website, print collateral, public relations efforts and social media, each of the communities from Buckhead to Dahlonega, have benefitted from her passion for tourism and partnership. The organizations she has supported with time, money and talent include: Alpharetta Rotary, Innovation Academy, North Fulton Community Charities, and The Lionheart School, among many, many others. Under her leadership, Alpharetta Convention and Visitors Bureau recently received a gold level ‘Benchmark of Excellence’ certification from the Georgia Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus (GACVB) for the fifth time. In recognizing Janet, the Awards Selection Committee noted she is truly a community champion.

“The benchmark Janet sets for her team is ‘excellence’ and she models that in all she accomplishes,” said Gloria Mattei, Chair of the Awards Selection Committee and Co-Chair of the Chamber’s Women Influencing Business Committee.

The GNFCC’s 2021 North Fulton Women INfluencing Business Awards were presented at the Chamber’s WellStar Monthly Luncheon Series on Tuesday, October 26, 2021, at the Westin Atlanta Perimeter North.

Women INfluencing Business (WIB) is a committee of the Greater North Fulton Chamber focused on advancing and connecting women in the North Fulton business community. Awards were selected by a committee of past winners. WIB programming and networking events are presented by Verizon.