Gelie Akhenblit is most well known in her local community for the vision and execution of her unique networking platform, NetworkingPhoenix; which has revolutionized the landscape of networking in her hometown. She currently has the largest networking community of professionals in Phoenix, AZ with over 40K members.
In addition to running NetworkingPhoenix, Gelie consults companies and clients in helping them grow. Within the last 10 years, Gelie has been on many stages and media platforms speaking on the importance of having a strategy when engaging in face-to-face networking and the power of building and maintaining strategic relationships.
In 2015, Gelie delivered a TEDx talk on the topic of freedom. In her message, she shared her story of being a political refugee from the former Soviet Union and how her journey to freedom has evolved and led her to, relentlessly, chase after her dreams and happiness.
Following her own personal journey to freedom, Gelie chose to end her 17-year relationship and embrace being a single woman for the first time in her adult life. As she was living through the many challenges of divorce, co-parenting and running a business simultaneously – she started to document her journey in a personal blog (see her first post below the bio).
After one of her posts went viral, Gelie decided to keep documenting her “life pivot” and share her trials and tribulations, in a very raw and authentic style, to remind others experiencing similar situations that they are not alone.
When she’s not working on conquering the world or writing about some of her darkest moments, she’s spending time with her young daughter, working out and enjoying the guilty pleasure of Netflix binging.
In Gelie’s own words below as written in March 2016 …
Over 8 years ago I launched a startup. In my local city, it became wildly successful. However, our definitions of success might be different. While the startup gave me wings and taught me more than I can express in this short bio, it also came at a high price. I feel like I lost a lot of myself and most of the time I just feel lost – even though I truly believe this is my path.
My soon-to-be ex-husband is my tech co-founder. He is a vital part of the success and the story. I don’t think I would have ever asked him to leave, but about a month ago he volunteered himself out of the company … and so a new journey begins.
This is a great opportunity for me to pivot. It’s a great opportunity to re-structure and re-build with 8 years of knowledge. He has always been great at pushing me forward, and this was exactly the push that I needed in order to make my next move. So where do I go from here? Forward.
I’m starting this blog for a few reasons. One, I need to get my thoughts out in order to clear the clutter in my heard and let go of whatever it is that I’m holding on to. Two, I never documented my original journey and I wish I had. I hope to be able to capture this next chapter in my life and do it some justice.
Here we go!
Documenting my life pivot 