Featured Entrepreneur
By Lindsay Wickham
Growing up in a family with both a father and mother owning their own business and surrounded later in life by two sisters who have both owned their own companies, Suzanne Taddeo is no stranger to an entrepreneurial lifestyle. After completing her graduate degree in the field of nutritional science, Suzanne anticipated working in a hospital or organizational setting using those skills throughout her career.
While on hiatus from her hospital-based dietitian career to raise her children, the field of coaching became prominent in the professional industry. While she had never thought about becoming an entrepreneur, it quickly became a point of interest to her when she was ready to return to her career. She wanted to merge her expertise and knowledge of dietetics and nutrition with using a hands-on coaching model and after several years of testing the waters with family and friends as clients, she was visiting her hometown in New Jersey when she drove by a health club called Can Do Gym. “I wanted to use the words ‘can do’ in my business name because I believe that people can change,” says Suzanne.
Fast-forward three years—Suzanne’s mission is to help people get and stay healthy by providing hands-on education about healthy eating and cooking styles. Working with a counselor at the WISE Women’s Business Center has helped her hone in on her vision and focus by determining her target audience (and figuring out how to reach them). Suzanne is currently working on branding herself and the business, while developing new workshops and opportunities to deliver healthy lifestyle programming and education to individuals looking to make a change.
Her advice to those thinking about entrepreneurship as a career path is threefold: you have to love what you do, be skilled at what you do, and have perseverance to work hard to achieve your goals. “You’re either moving forward or you’re moving backward,” Suzanne says. SWM
For more information on the WISE Women’s Business Center, visit wisecenter.org.
