Plaza Midwood — Charlotte, NC
One of the nicest humans you’ll ever meet and someone who gives artists and people a deserving chance, Jenny Vallimont pursued her passion and founded Gökotta. The consulting firm which assists others in establishing meaningful connections with their community has become her own little Disney. Jenny takes us on the journey to share how the universe put those experiences and lessons learned along the way to light.
Where did this all start for you? “I grew up in Raleigh; it’s so different than Charlotte, especially back then. I was very middle class and ended up attending college in Penn State. I was an engineer so the natural thing would have went to go to State from Broughton High School. I was already going there for a few classes and I really wanted to college experience so that’s why I went to Penn State. I got married straight out of college and then we moved to California, LA, I loved LA and I was doing construction. I wasn’t doing the stuff I am now back then. It’s so interesting because you can look back now and see all of the steps you took in your life to see where you are now. I loved LA but my husband did not. He was driving all over the place for work, like 2-hour drives every day, and we got to a point where we knew that was not going to work. We had two different experiences there. This was in 2005. Later that year, both of my Grandmothers were diagnosed with cancer. One passed and as soon as that happened, it was a moment where I hated being far away from my family. As much as I loved the West Coast, you can’t rewind time. We decided that it was time to come back to the east coast. In 2005 the construction boom was happening so we literally just quit our jobs and decided to move somewhere. Charlotte was that city where construction was booming. I am not sure if that was the smartest decision, packing up and moving without any jobs. Within two weeks, we both had full-time jobs, and they were jobs that set us up for our careers. I was working at Crosland, which was the Charlotte developer. I had no idea why they hired me because I had no development background, but I had done an internship at Disney Imagineering, and the guy who hired me came from Disney as well. He knew how competitive that program was so I knew he thought I was worth taking a shot on.”
“Fast forward 15 years. I went from Crosland to Bank of America and was doing sustainability work. I always wanted to do something special and unique. I tell you, Andy, everything happens for a reason; when everything crashed, I was still at Crosland. In 2009, our son was born, and we adopted him. We used all of our savings. Everything we had went to his adoption. January 1st, I was supposed to go to part-time at Crosland; on December 30th, we got a call that our birth mom was pregnant and she wanted us to adopt another child, and we had no money, like no money. There was another opportunity to go back to full-time with Bank of America, and we had to take that and then take a loan out to pay for our adoption. I had no maternity leave so I had to use all of my sick time so we had about a month.”
Where did this passion for community come from? Did you think this is where you would have ended up? "I love taking my engineering and construction background and seeing what we can do to take these small sculptures and create these monster installations — because I know the architects and the fabricator. I love connecting. I love being that thread that can pull it all together. I love meeting with artists and asking them not to necessarily show me their portfolio but to show me what isn't in that portfolio and what they have never been given the opportunity to create that they have always wanted to. I was finding ways to get there and learning what we can do to assist with leveling them up. My success and our company's success is because of that trust; I feel that we are super humble in terms of knowing nothing about the art world, but we want to create a model that gives everyone that success. I thought this was going to be a consulting company that was going to focus on sustainability work. I want to make sure we are doing good but doing good at all levels. Not just for the earth and our environment but for the people, for mental health, for the arts, you look around our neighborhoods and the art that's there, and everything is intentional."
What is that proud moment you can reflect on that has shaped you into the person you are today? “You got me in an interesting week to ask me this question. I’d say professional my internship at Disney; I had no idea how important that was back then. It opened doors that I never thought would open for me. It set the bar for what success and happiness in a professional environment looked like for me. I feel like I have created my own little Disney for myself. This weekend I’m flying out to LA for a celebration of life for one of my first mentors. She was really special. Most HR people, I don’t know if there is someone who could have touched more people than she did. When I got laid off, she called me and gave me a pep talk, and that gave me confidence. I needed an outside person to put things in perspective and to explain to me where my value was. It was the confidence to start my company. She just lost her battle with cancer a few weeks ago and this house and project we are working on is special because its for Deborah who also lost her battle. Sometimes the universe just puts these things together and in perspective to know that we have to ability to use our passions and skillsets to make everyone else happier and spread joy.”