Build It Yourself: Ro Nita and Donnica Hawes-Saunders on Ownership, Mistakes, and What We Pass Down

What do you do when the thing you want to build doesn’t exist yet…and no one is offering you a blueprint?

For Ro Nita and Donnica Hawes-Saunders, the answer has often been the same: build it yourself.

This week on Carry As You Climb, Nan Whaley sits down in Dayton with a mother-daughter pair whose careers span broadcasting, business, public affairs, the arts, law, government, and now podcasting. Ro Nita and Donnica have each built organizations in spaces where access was limited, and the path forward was anything but obvious.

But their conversation is just as much about what happens after you succeed: owning mistakes in front of your team, creating a culture people can carry without you in the room, knowing when to pivot, and deciding which lessons are worth passing to the next generation.

The leadership lesson at the center of this episode is that ownership is about more than building something of your own. It means taking responsibility for the culture, the mistakes, and the people who come after you.

Conversation Highlights:

• Build before there’s a blueprint: Ro Nita shares what it took to pursue an FCC broadcast license and create a radio station from the ground up when very few Black women had done it before her.
• Own the mistake out loud: why telling a team exactly where you got something wrong can create more trust, and more room for everyone else to take thoughtful risks.
• Build a culture that works without you: the employee creed, leadership habits, and unexpectedly revealing vacation that showed Ro Nita whether her organization’s values had actually taken hold..
• Build a culture that works without you: the employee creed, leadership habits, and unexpectedly revealing vacation that showed Ro Nita whether her organization’s values had actually taken hold.
• Leadership isn’t really about you: Donnica explains the realization that shifted how she leads…from carrying every answer herself to creating a vision other people want to help build.

Resources Mentioned:

• Raised By Her podcast — on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube
• The Averity Group
• Dayton Contemporary Dance Company
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

About Our Guests: Ro Nita and Donnica Hawes-Saunders are a mother and daughter from Dayton, Ohio, and co-hosts of the weekly podcast Raised By Her.

Ro Nita Hawes-Saunders is an executive leadership coach and former CEO of the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company. Earlier in her career, she became one of fewer than ten African American women in the United States to build a broadcast property from the ground up, launching WROU-FM in 1991 after a decade-long licensing effort.

Donnica Hawes-Saunders is the Founder and CEO of The Averity Group, a public affairs firm serving organizations in highly regulated industries. A lawyer by training, she built her career through Capitol Hill, corporate government affairs, and public policy.

About the Host: Nan Whaley is a longtime community leader and public servant. She's currently the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio. She served as Mayor of Dayton, Ohio, from 2014 - 2022. Nan has also presided over the United Conference of Mayors. She's a feminist, daughter, aunt, sister, and friend.

About the Show: Carry As You Climb focuses on elevating the voices of women in leadership from Ohio and across the United States. The podcast features guests who give special attention to not only busting through doors to lead but also hold the door open for more women behind them. In other words, they carry as they climb. We focus on leadership development and leadership lessons. Plus, we share personal experiences to inspire the inclusion of more diverse leaders in business, government and the nonprofit sector.

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Produced by: Collective Change Communications - Kelly Sakalas & Jeni Keeler

Note: The opinions expressed by host Nan Whaley on this podcast are hers alone, and do not represent any organization with which she is affiliated.