Velvet Suite Inc.

Velvet Suite Inc. Advancing future-ready leaders at scale. We believe great brands are built from the inside out.

Velvet Suite is a leadership innovative firm accelerating growth and change, through the process of growing future-ready leaders at every level through personal brand strategy. For nearly two decades, we have empowered the world’s
most renowned brands with proven, tested and trusted diversified solutions to uncover leadership blind spots, build a pipeline of purpose-driven leaders and accelerate p

erformance. With purpose fueling our model for discovering stronger leaders and brands, it's our secret sauce for elevating your success.

19 Years of Building Leaders from the Inside OutFor 19 years, Velvet Suite has been reimagining what leadership can look...
10/15/2025

19 Years of Building Leaders from the Inside Out

For 19 years, Velvet Suite has been reimagining what leadership can look like — and feel like.

We’ve coached executives, built brands, and designed systems that prove one thing: the most sustainable growth begins within.

As leadership evolves, so do we.

Today, we’re stepping into a new chapter — one that meets the pace, pressure, and possibility of this moment.

Welcome to the Lion Heart Era.

A new way to lead.
A new way to live.
A new way to win…from within.™

Explore the new VelvetSuite.com — where Athleadership™ helps leaders perform at their highest potential, without losing themselves in the process.

10/10/2025

Yesterday’s conversation wasn’t just about women in sport and business... it was about what becomes possible when collective impact is the strategy, not the afterthought.

Loved reconnecting with familiar faces and friends.. and meeting new ones.

When leaders come together across sport, business, and beyond — we unlock new playbooks for progress.

We move from competition to collaboration. We stop waiting for permission and start building what doesn’t exist yet.

Deep gratitude to Women Business Collaborative and Mercury for the invitation and to Ellen Christman for including Velvet Suite, Inc.®  in this important conversation.

The work we do sits right at this intersection — bringing sport and leadership together to reimagine how we grow leaders, in every arena.

Let’s go...we’ve got work to do!

Our CEO Melissa Dawn Simkins will be hosting the SHRM Annual Conference. Now more than ever, we need new solutions for t...
09/08/2021

Our CEO Melissa Dawn Simkins will be hosting the SHRM Annual Conference. Now more than ever, we need new solutions for the changing workplace.

One of the best emails we received this year was from a D&I leader who sponsored a cohort of The Brand Leadership Instit...
09/11/2020

One of the best emails we received this year was from a D&I leader who sponsored a cohort of The Brand Leadership Institute (BLI). She reached out to share how an employee who was
selected for the BLI shared with her how our content came at a critical time in her career. The participant, who will remain anonymous, said this:

Now more, than ever, representation and retention matters at every level of your organization. I commend you for all you...
08/21/2020

Now more, than ever, representation and retention matters at every level of your organization. I commend you for all you do to champion change at work. Finding common ground in these crazy times can seem overwhelming.

As a thought-leader in future-ready leadership, I’ve led virtual keynote sessions AstraZeneca, Under Armour, Cox as well as WBENC this year, all helping to prepare us to lead through change and adversity with resilience.

Based on those experiences and discussions, we have built out a tool to help you start the hard conversations across your workplace. Change can start with one conversation.

Click below to sign-up for our free 12 point talk sheet to start the conversation, and help to bridge the diversity divide in your workplace.

This is a time of year that many look forward to the coming months and strategize. Right now, many leaders like yourself...
08/14/2020

This is a time of year that many look forward to the coming months and strategize. Right now, many leaders like yourself are assessing what’s working and what is not for your current talent development content.

Multicultural and women talent may start out strong, but the barriers stack up. Targeted support is needed to address, manage, mitigate, and remove the barriers.

Our framework for the Brand Leadership Institute revolves around the hidden barrier to leadership. Our 4 C approach identifies: clarity, confidence, competence and connections as the missing link for advancing multicultural and women talent.

We hear often that many companies are struggling with representation for women and multicultural talent. They are doing ...
08/07/2020

We hear often that many companies are struggling with representation for women and multicultural talent. They are doing great work, getting them into the organization...

Around what we call the “mid-level marathon” we see a fall off. They exit and you see the pipeline vanish before your eyes. They part ways with the organization and the organization deems the relationship not a good fit.

However, might there be a part of the story you are missing?

07/31/2020

“What do we do?”

What do you do in the midst of this diversity divide? The answer is you roll up your sleeves and do the hard work.

One of our significant contributions to healing the racial divide in the workplace is our Brand Leadership Institute (BLI) platform, a scalable, e-learning platform community with proven results to advance African American, multicultural and women further an faster than conventional programs. We are designed to bridge the diversity divide with this solution that is inclusive and can scale to all talent. Check out what some of our graduates have to say:

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12020 Sunrise Valley #100
Reston, VA
20191

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