A Closer Look at 2020 Women in Business Honoree Jen Bellmont

The Minneapolis/St. Paul Busi­ness Jour­nal rec­og­nized 52 2020 Women in Busi­ness hon­orees at a vir­tu­al event today, includ­ing our very own Jen Bell­mont. While her MSPBJ pro­file focus­es on how she’s “prov­ing that doing well and doing good can go hand in hand” and “cul­ti­vat­ing pos­i­tive cul­ture, in and out of the office,” we asked for some more details from the peo­ple who know her best, her col­leagues. Here’s what they had to say:

“I’m so lucky I get to work for and along­side Jen Bell­mont. She cares so deeply about oth­er human beings, is one of the smartest busi­ness own­ers I know AND is extreme­ly fun to be around. She’s exact­ly the type of leader I had no idea actu­al­ly exist­ed, but one who I had always hoped did.” – Hye­di Nelson

“Jen could teach a course in how to exude grace under pres­sure. Whether it’s the crunch time of year-end finan­cials, solv­ing a client cool­er cri­sis at the Super Bowl Expe­ri­ence or play­ing piano (mar­velous­ly) for an impor­tant event, she remains even-keeled, thought­ful and always sees that the task gets done. In all these sit­u­a­tions, she dis­plays poise and a con­ta­gious pos­i­tiv­i­ty that shows why she tru­ly is one of the best lead­ers around.” – Sara Gras­mon

“Jen is our finance and oper­a­tions extra­or­di­naire! She is tru­ly our fear­less leader in all things num­bers-ori­ent­ed, which is all the more impres­sive giv­en her deep com­mu­ni­ca­tions exper­tise. She’s the back­bone of Bell­mont Part­ners and I feel very lucky to work with her every day!” – Johan­na Holub

“How do you sum up Jen’s amaz­ing exis­tence in one sen­tence? You can’t. She sees and under­stands the human­ness in peo­ple bet­ter than anyone…which is why she makes such an incred­i­ble busi­ness leader, com­mu­ni­ca­tor, strate­gist and boss – one that every sin­gle employ­ee knows undoubt­ed­ly is in their cor­ner.” – Michelle Grif­fith

“Jen Bell­mont serves as such a fan­tas­tic role mod­el for me and our entire team at Bell­mont Part­ners. She’s calm under pres­sure, smart as whip and shows such com­pas­sion for us – not just as employ­ees but as human beings. (Plus, she’s has some hilar­i­ous one-lin­ers that just crack me up.) I’m so proud to work with her and also call her my friend.” – Megan Ander­son

“Jen is one of the most empa­thet­ic, patient and sup­port­ive peo­ple I’ve ever known. On both a per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al lev­el, she’s been a con­sis­tent cheer­leader for my suc­cess­es and a piv­otal part of help­ing nav­i­gate chal­lenges.” – Bri­ana Gruenewald

“What I admire the most about Jen is the way in which she always presents her­self in a calm and very thought­ful manner—even under high lev­els of pres­sure and stress. I’ve worked with Jen on sev­er­al fast-paced and very unpre­dictable projects over the past 4.5 years at Bell­mont Part­ners and even when the sit­u­a­tion seems impos­si­ble, Jen mod­els a pos­i­tive, can-do atti­tude that is not only a good exam­ple for the team, but also moti­vates and empow­ers us to get cre­ative, find solu­tions and go above and beyond to serve our clients and the agency. She’s nev­er hes­i­tant to jump in and help in any way that she can. A great exam­ple of this is at one event where the team was hav­ing issues with a key ele­ment need­ed to make the event a suc­cess. After hours of trou­ble-shoot­ing, Jen sent the exhaust­ed team home and stayed at the event site ALL NIGHT until it was fixed. Lead­ing by exam­ple and show­ing that she is will­ing to do what it takes to first and fore­most, sup­port her team, but also to ensure that we’ve done absolute­ly every­thing we can for our clients. She’s a tremen­dous leader and we are all very lucky to have the priv­i­lege to work with her each and every day.” – Bre­an­na Welke

“Jen Bell­mont is one of the kind­est women you will ever meet. She is tru­ly a real life “won­der woman,” run­ning a suc­cess­ful PR firm along with being an amaz­ing wife, moth­er, friend, men­tor, daugh­ter, and did I men­tion a vol­un­teer giv­ing back to the com­mu­ni­ty with her involve­ment in numer­ous local non­prof­its? She is an incred­i­ble role mod­el to her daugh­ters and her team. I am blessed to have her as a long­time friend and col­league! Con­grats Jen, even though you hate the recog­ni­tion, you deserve every ounce of it!” – Mau­reen Cahill

“Jen is an amaz­ing busi­ness leader, team play­er and col­league. She bal­ances her lead­er­ship respon­si­bil­i­ties with the warmth and kind­ness. A rare pro­fes­sion­al in this crazy world, we are all lucky to work with her!” – Michelle LeGros

“Jen has been an incred­i­ble men­tor to me since day one at Bell­mont Part­ners. Her empa­thet­ic approach and dri­ve for cul­ti­vat­ing ful­fill­ing and cre­ative work are qual­i­ties that make me grate­ful to call her both a trust­ed advis­er and friend.” – Syd­ney Schoeberle

“Jen is nev­er too busy to slow down and show com­pas­sion. Her atti­tude and actions always rein­force to me that she tru­ly val­ues peo­ple over any­thing else — and that’s just one of many rea­sons why she’s such an inspir­ing leader!” – Kalli Plump

“Jen is a true men­tor who leads by exam­ple in every­thing she does, and while she has so many pos­i­tive traits as a leader, it’s always her abil­i­ty to bring kind­ness and pos­i­tiv­i­ty to every sit­u­a­tion that impress­es me the most. It’s been an hon­or to work with and learn from her over the years.” – Brid­get Monroe

“Jen is a true role mod­el of every pos­i­tive char­ac­ter­is­tic we want our team to embody – not only is she an excel­lent com­mu­ni­ca­tor, leader and con­nec­tor, but she is a role mod­el as an invest­ed friend, mom and com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber. I don’t know how she does it all, but she is a super woman, and I am so glad to work under her and learn from her as she helps set the cul­ture for our team.” – Megan Derkey

“Jen leads with a think-glob­al­ly, live-empa­thet­i­cal­ly and work-strate­gi­cal­ly style. Her down-to-earth sen­si­bil­i­ty makes her a sought-after and trust­ed col­lab­o­ra­tor. I’m so very grate­ful I’ve been able to count on Jen for insight, ideas and men­tor­ship through­out my career.” – Bri­en­na Schuette

“When I joined the Bell­mont Part­ners team, I had very lit­tle PR expe­ri­ence. But Jen wel­comed me in and has been such a gra­cious teacher. She is always ready to lend a hand or some wis­dom and I’m so grate­ful for that!” – Julie Goulette

“525,600 min­utes
525,600 moments so dear
525,600 min­utes
How do you mea­sure, mea­sure a year?

“Tak­ing a page (of sheet music) from Jen’s favorite Broad­way show, Rent, the song “Sea­sons of Love” pro­ceeds to talk about mea­sur­ing a year in day­lights, sun­sets, mid­nights, cups of cof­fee, inch­es, miles, laugh­ter, strife, etc. But how do you mea­sure a career? I’ve had the priv­i­lege of work­ing along­side and know­ing Jen as a dear friend for 24 years (or rough­ly 12.6 mil­lion min­utes), and with Jen, it’s immea­sur­able. The infi­nite sup­port, empa­thy and altru­ism she has for her fam­i­ly, her team, her clients, the com­mu­ni­ty and world make her the high­ly trust­ed and rec­og­nized busi­ness leader and part­ner she is. And Jen is hands down the sharpest prob­lem-solver and a genius with num­bers and busi­ness deci­sions. I admire her strength, thought­ful­ness and calm demeanor, no mat­ter what com­plex task or issue she’s fac­ing. She does the hard work and research to ana­lyze and fig­ure it out, all while get­ting feed­back from those around her to help shape the out­come. Jen is one of my favorite peo­ple and I look for­ward to bil­lions more min­utes of work­ing, laugh­ing and con­tin­u­ing to grow and serve our team, clients and com­mu­ni­ty togeth­er!” – Shel­li Lissick

“What they said. It’s no sur­prise that all of us at Bell­mont Part­ners agree that Jen is an inno­v­a­tive and expert busi­ness strate­gist, PR prac­ti­tion­er and oper­a­tional whiz, but it’s espe­cial­ly grat­i­fy­ing to hear our team shine the spot­light on her empa­thet­ic, peo­ple-focused lead­er­ship approach and all the phe­nom­e­nal things that make her…her. Con­grat­u­la­tions on this well-deserved recog­ni­tion!” – Bri­an Bellmont