Raised in West Alabama, residing in South Alabama and still growing multiple businesses in Central Alabama, Lindsey Miller has her hands full but hasn’t missed a beat.

Entrepreneur, partner, mother, friend and mentor, Miller is queen of being and doing “all the things.” It’s her ability to do a lot and to do a lot well that lands her on this year’s list of 2021 Women of Impact honorees.

The secret sauce? “Working smarter not harder as cliche as it might sound,” says Miller. She doesn’t claim to have it all together all the time, but attributes much of her current victories to past mistakes and having to learn things the hard way. Now, she’s on a mission to make it a little easier for women following in her footsteps.

Lindsey Miller came from a humble beginning, growing up on a catfish farm in Greensboro, Alabama, a town of just 2,300 people. She says, “[I]t was just me and my sisters. We were farm girls who worked like boys.” That mindset gave a young girl the grit she would need to eventually lead the private equity purchase of Zoës Kitchen as its CFO. It’s what gave Miller the outlook in her career that she could do anything a man could do. She could be a CEO, start multiple businesses, lead board meetings, get promoted, create healthy team culture, and balance it all with a growing family too.

After spending over a decade with Zoës Kitchen, working her way from general manager to regional director of Operations overseeing more than 40 restaurant units in the southeast, it was in 2014 that Miller rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange after Zoës initial public offering. Since then, Miller has established herself as a local mogul in the state. Alongside her childhood friend and now business partner, Leah Drury, the pair conceptualized an innovative fitness concept and launched into the fast-growing, Birmingham-based, Battle Republic. But the list goes on.

Not only does Lindsey co-own Battle Republic, but she also founded Mpire Concepts in early 2018 with partner JR Frey, an executive consulting firm offering full-service accounting, marketing and HR solutions for businesses. Miller is a key investor and partner in Hale and Parley, a real-estate investment company as well as an investor in Campesino Rum. And to top it all off, a co-founder of a coffee shop and restaurant in her hometown.

These days, Miller spends a lot of time thinking about implementing the same principles that have worked in her career into her new phase of life as a working mother. After welcoming her first child this summer, she is “learning to lean on people in a whole new way.” As someone who is focused on “team,” she doesn’t just talk the talk; she walks the walk too. Passionate about balance, Miller has become increasingly intentional about “developing women the right way” by creating roles in her companies that offer flexibility and accountability so that all people have the same opportunity to succeed.

She says “it’s about taking care of people.”

More specifically, “blending the financial side of business without sacrificing culture” has become a personal mission of Miller’s. Battle Republic launched an annual International Women’s Day event, the Contenders Collective, alongside Bham Femme in 2020 to train and inspire career women in the Birmingham community. The gathering is meant to give back by empowering its attendees with the opportunity to learn from a panel of noteworthy leaders, as well as give all the proceeds to a local non-profit. The event has been a sold-out success two years running and promises nothing less in 2022.

Miller is committed to growing her own companies “the right way” by creating spaces where teams and employees want to show up their best. With her make-it-happen attitude, Lindsey Miller is developing the next generation of fierce and female entrepreneurs, CEOs, mothers, partners and business leaders.

Yellowhammer News is proud to name Lindsey Miller a 2021 Woman of Impact.

Courtney Hancock is creative director for Yellowhammer News and Soul-Grown.com.  She can be reached at [email protected].