Meet Trudy Bourgeois

Trudy Bourgeois is the founder and President of Workforce Excellence. Her company focuses on providing individuals and organizations with strategies and solutions to bring out their best performance and effect positive change. Trudy has created this company to allow her to live her passion to teach and inspire others to become leaders who can transform corporate America into a business environment where employees of all diverse backgrounds can experience extraordinary success. Services emphasized focus on personal and professional development inclusive of: seminars/workshops, executive group and one-on-one coaching, core competency enrichment training/education and business consulting.

Trudy is an expert on developing hybrid leaders. She is the author of the book, The Hybrid Leader: Blending the Best of the Male and Female Leadership Styles to Transform Corporate America. As an expert she speaks to audiences across the country offering insights and tangible strategies to become a hybrid leader, building collaborative relationships and effect positive cultural changes.

The content that she shares is deep. She imparts knowledge based upon the lessons and experiences of nearly eighteen years in the corporate world combine with several years experience as a business coach. She was promoted seven times in eleven years while an employee of Brown & Williamson.

As a former senior sales/marketing executive she was responsible for a number of significant special projects including the design and implementation of the strategy, structure and trade marketing programs for the company’s first national account team. Under her leadership the company developed an account best practice program. B&W’s mother company B.A.T. adopted the concepts and principles of this program for worldwide implementation.

While at Brown & Williamson, she co-founded the first women’s leadership forum. As a result of this initiative the company was nominated for the Eve Award. This award is given to companies who have made significant progress in developing programs and opportunities to address diversity and female issues in the corporate environment.

Trudy played an integral role in the development and execution of B&W first category management platform. This effort resulted in B&W receiving the category captain position for two of the company’s most important accounts, Wal-Mart and Walgreen’s. During her time with B&W she created and delivered numerous sales, marketing and account management-training programs.

Before leaving B&W to start her entrepreneurial venture, Trudy held the position of Divisional Vice President National Accounts. Her business unit was responsible for more than $2 billion in sales revenue (annually). Under her leadership sales revenues were increased by 20% and marketing penetration grew from a low of 5% to a high of 16%. Previously, Trudy held the position of Area Vice President, Sales-Southeast where she led a team of six hundred employees. This area contributed more than $1 billion in annual sales revenue to the organization.

Born and raised in the Deep South, she knows of discrimination. Yet, her personal commitment and burning desire to overcome obstacles has enabled her to continue to experience breakthrough success. Trudy has been married to Mike Bourgeois for more than 22 years. They have two children and reside in Lewisville, Texas.