3.24.23

Audra Dinell ’09 shares what makes Wichita so entrepreneur-friendly

Shocker profiles highlight the students, alumni, supporters, faculty and staff who make Shocker Nation all that it can be. These short Q&As allow you to hear from these remarkable individuals in their own words.

Audra Dinell

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Where do you work and what do you do there?
I am the founder of The Thread. We are a women’s leadership collective based here in Wichita, and we work with high-achieving and high-potential women to help them develop their confidence, gain soft skills that will help them in their professional world and expand their professional communities.

Tell us about your degree and your time at Wichita State.
I was an integrated marketing communications (IMC) major and I graduated in 2009, and my time at Wichita State was great. IMC was something unique at the time; I went to the University of Kansas for my first couple of years and decided to come back to Wichita State and be an IMC major. I loved so much that it incorporated so many different elements of marketing. Especially as an entrepreneur now, I tend to get bored with one thing if I’m always doing the same thing, so I loved that IMC gave me a little bit about a lot of different things about marketing.

Do you have a favorite memory from your time at WSU?
I actually married my high school sweetheart who went to WSU and he was really big into the basketball games. We got front row several times when Mark Turgeon was coach. We had some great times at Wichita State and in St. Louis traveling for the tournament.

I made some great friends who are lifelong friends, and even acquaintances in my IMC world who have become dear friends today, now that we are all working in the marketing world or have worked in the marketing world. So, really, it’s the relationships I made at Wichita State that stand out to me the most.

Running The Thread, how do you feel your time at WSU helped you prepare for this role?
Even though entrepreneurship became something that I pursued later, post-college, I think my time at Wichita State helped me learn to juggle all the different elements that an IMC major does – whether it be PR or digital marketing or graphic design – you wear a lot of hats when you’re an IMC major. As an entrepreneur, you also wear a lot of hats. You’re handling business strategy and finance and marketing, so of course my major at Wichita State helped me immensely when I was starting my business here in the marketing department.

What advice would you give to Shocker entrepreneurs?
If you’re thinking of starting a business, Wichita is absolutely an amazing place to start. Our community really rallies behind local owners. I’m a person who’s lived in different markets; I’ve lived in a market in Colorado, I’ve lived in Honolulu, Hawaii, and I just have never seen a community rally behind entrepreneurship the way that the Wichita community does. My suggestion for you, if you are a Shocker entrepreneur, is to really consider your hometown and utilize the resources that you have here. Utilize the connections that you’ve made at Wichita State. People in Wichita are very friendly, and they’re very willing to have coffee. Don’t hesitate to email them or text them. People love to say ‘yes’ here in Wichita, and that is such a gift, and it is unique to our city.

Can you tell us more about The Thread?
The Thread started two and a half years ago. I had recently boomerang-ed back here to Wichita after living in Honolulu, Hawaii, and I had this experience when I was in Honolulu of getting together with other women and being in a leadership program through the Young Women’s Christian Association down there. I had this idea to start something like I had experienced there back in my hometown.

We have served now over 100 women in the Wichita community. We have a six-month program that they’re a part of and they get to do professional development, build their own community and carve out space in their busy schedule to focus on themselves, their growth and their professional path.

After that six-month experience, we have a whole alum association, so they get to continue building new relationships, fostering the relationships that have already been built through their time, gaining more professional development experiences, and, of course, having a great time socially.

Tell me about the impact of The Thread, and why you believe it’s important to our community.
I think The Thread is important to our Wichita community because women deserve a place to have their voices heard, to be able to work on themselves. It’s important that we rally around women at this time because getting diversity in opinion in the leadership suite and perspective is something that will better all of us—not just women, but any diverse group. It is important that we continue to broaden our horizons and invite women to use their voice. Many of us have a seat at the table now, and some of us are still working on getting a seat at the table. It’s important that we encourage women to be confident in who they are, and being confident in who you are takes time and action and space to learn more about yourself. That’s why I think The Thread has been important to women in our community.

I’ve heard from some of my friends and mentors who are in their fifties, and they talk about how they had to fight for their seat at the table, whereas women who are coming up and coming into business these days are really trying to embrace this collaboration mentality. It’s the idea that when we work together, when we’re bettering each other, when we’re bettering ourselves, we all rise. If we have an opportunity, we put our hand down to bring the next person up.

What advice would you give to college seniors graduating for being able to advocate for themselves?
Representation is important. It’s easier to see yourself in these positions if you can see someone who may look like you. That’s why I think it’s so important that we continue to get more women in leadership roles in Wichita and beyond. Advice I would have for a young woman coming out of college who is learning to use her voice: Don’t worry about perfection. You don’t have to say the perfect thing. Give yourself five seconds—I really like Mel Robin’s five-second rule. If there’s a thought or an idea you have, don’t second-guess it—share it. You don’t always have to have the perfect ideas. Just generating ideas and sharing your perspective is helpful. It’s just a muscle that you have to use, and the more often you work on using your voice, doing the scary thing, saying the thing that you’re thinking, even if you’re maybe questioning it in your mind, the easier it is. You just have to keep at it, and not worry about being perfect.

What are you currently reading/watching/listening to?
I am currently reading Mel Robin’s “Five Second Rule.” I am also reading Beach Read by Emily Henry, so I’ve got a fiction one going. I am honestly in the middle of like five or six books. I’m reading “Traction”, which is an entrepreneurial operating system, so if you have a business or run a business, that has been a book that’s been adopted by a lot of my friends in the entrepreneurial community and worldwide.

What advice would you give to current Shockers?
College is a great time to try out different things and get out of your comfort zone. If I could go back and tell my Shocker self one piece of advice, it would be to say ‘yes’ to every opportunity that came my way, to go all-in on those opportunities because you never know where they might lead, and to practice getting out of your comfort zone.