Five Women Making History- Stephanie Flies, Founder & CEO of City Mom Collective

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March is Women’s History Month and we are excited to celebrate and share five amazing women and mothers who are making an impact in today’s world.   We encourage you to join us each week as we spotlight these hardworking and inspiring women!

Stephanie Flies:: Founder & CEO of City Mom Collective

Stephanie is the Founder & Director of City Mom Collective; growing the network after founding its original site, Scottsdale Moms Blog, in 2009. Now living in the greater Minneapolis area, she oversees the national network by spearheading growth strategies, sales initiatives, and shepherding and encouraging an ever-increasing number of moms managing individual local parenting websites. She is married to Alan and is the mom to three girls, Nora, Elsie, and Audrey. She loves throwing a great party, connecting people, and cooking with a glass of red wine in hand.

An Interview with Stephanie

What inspired you to launch City Mom Collective?  

I launched City Mom Collective in 2011 when I was a new mom with a baby on my hip. I found the new world of motherhood to be isolating yet lovely and terrifying yet fulfilling. I knew I couldn’t be alone in how I was feeling and so I turned my passion for encouraging and connecting moms into a purpose by first launching a mom blog site serving Scottsdale Moms. Scottsdale Moms was born out of a desire to connect moms in my own community.  Shortly after, women all over the country began approaching me to do the same thing in their cities. That’s when City Mom Blog Network was born.  We rebranded to City Mom Collective in 2019 because our services expanded way past blogs. We are now serving millions of moms each month in nearly 80 cities across the US. 

What does a typical workday look like for you? 

My typical workday has changed a lot over the years as my children have gotten older but currently, I get the kids on the bus and immediately sit down in my home office to start my workday.  Most days are full of meetings with our sister website owners as well as leadership calls with our national team and staff.  Between calls, you can find me managing our strategic partnerships, encouraging and supporting our sister site owners, recording our Just Add Sprinkles podcast and sipping on espresso to get me through the 2 pm brain fog until the kiddos get off of the bus. 

As a woman, what obstacles did you face or did you ever question whether you could achieve your goals?  

Carving out a space on the internet in the early years of blogging and social media came with significant challenges.  We spent years proving our worth to the business communities we worked in (both locally and nationally). And just when we thought we had it figured out, the industry would change and we’d be back at square one.
While admittedly I didn’t expect that I’d be able to turn a hobby into a business at the beginning (in fact, that’s where I’ve noticed a lot of women struggle and men not so much – believing in the possibilities of their businesses from the beginning!), the mom community quickly showed me otherwise.  Moms have a way of doing that.  Taking a challenge and infusing it with courage, energy and hope.  It’s a beautiful and powerful thing.

What is one piece of advice you wish you could give your pre-boss self? 

You can do more than you’ll ever know.  Keep working hard, serving others, and prioritizing your family.  Never lose hope. It will get hard (harder than you think you can even get through kind of hard) but on the other end of the hard seasons is incredible wisdom and lessons learned that will make you a stronger leader, a stronger mom, and a stronger woman.  

Stephanie Flies and Family

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