Business Doing Good: Engaging Women and Elevating Communities

Business Doing Good outlines six principles businesses can implement to effectively hire women who have experienced incarceration, poverty, addiction, and/or engagement in the sex trade. While making a difference to both women and communities, businesses will benefit from the many unique skills and perspectives these resilient women bring to work.

Shannon Deer, PhD, has fourteen years of experience as a professor and administrator in one of the top business schools in the country. Currently the assistant dean for graduate programs in Mays Business School at Texas A&M University, Deer has remained connected with industry through consulting, teaching executive development, and teaching in programs for working professional. Deer has served many roles at Mays Business School, including as the director of the full-time MBA program and clinical assistant professor teaching a variety of accounting and finance courses to undergraduate and graduate students. Before returning to Texas A&M University as a faculty member, Deer worked in public accounting auditing large SEC filers in the upstream oil and gas sectors. Deer was on the team that founded the Women’s Leadership Initiative conference, where 450 women gather each year for encouragement, inspiration, and information that will make them more successful in business. Deer is the recipient of numerous teaching awards, including the Association of Former Students Distinguished Teaching Award, the Ernst & Young Teaching Excellence Award, and the Baggett Teaching Award. She is also an entrepreneur and advises individuals considering starting a business or in the early phases of business development. Deer serves on the board of Mercy Project, a nonprofit organization with a mission to end child slavery in Ghana. Deer and her husband live in College Station, Texas, on ten acres with their dogs and chickens. Cheryl Miller has years of experience working in mediation, restorative justice, and community development. She has been married to Leslie Miller for 31 years, and they have four children and four grandchildren. Miller is the owner of Quantum Circles Consulting and Training. She provides training on topics that increase opportunities for transformation in three areas: economic development for the marginalized, effective communication focusing on the facilitation of conflict, and restorative justice. Miller was the executive director of Perpetual Help Home in Victoria, TX, for eighteen years. She was instrumental in launching the Center for Peace, a social enterprise run by the women of Perpetual Help Home. She is a credentialed advanced mediator through the Texas Mediator Credentialing Association since 2001. She is also a member of the Texas Mediator Trainers Roundtable for individuals facilitating standard mediation training. Miller also served on the board of the Christian Community Development Association for six years and was the vice-chair of that board for the past two.