2025 Client Appreciation Guest Speaker: Angie Hester Cook
We are in the final days, leading up to our Client Appreciation Event. And it is my deepest pleasure to introduce our keynote speaker and guest of honor: Angie Hester Cook, CEO of Hester & Cook.
Angie co-founded Hester & Cook with her husband Robbie 20 years ago. Twenty. So alongside her decades of entrepreneurial business experience, she brings another personality trait that our clients and ecosystem will admire: Angie is a Creative, through-and-through. She’ll be the first person to tell you that.
On Thursday, she’ll be presenting our keynote: Serving Up Hospitality. After all, Hester & Cook’s elegant tabletop products bring hospitality to life. I can’t help but share their mission: “We exist to serve, by elevating experiences that create meaningful connection.” Hopefully you’ll agree: there could be no better speaker, to teach and inspire Making Hospitality Your Differentiator. (When she first pitched her speaking content, I squealed with delight).
I met Angie, shortly after moving to Nashville, through… you guessed it: a connection. (Thank you, Brian and Mindy)! It was early days for me back in the US. I was still wide-eyed and enthusiastic to call Nashville our new home. But I was certainly floundering in some ways. One example: I couldn’t find people and resources like-minded in design and style. (This was in 2017).
Brian and Mindy were fast friends in our new home, and shortly after getting to know one another, I vividly remember Brian insisting that Hester & Cook was “my style.” Secretly, I was skeptical (especially for a male to proclaim such a judgement, ha). So when I finally made my way to an H&C retail location, I was floored. It was like my childhood arts & crafts closet had grown up into a (way more) elegant, sophisticated store of my dreams.
A couple months later, Brian and Mindy took me to an event and fundraiser for Angie and Robbie’s non-profit It’s a Wonderful Life Foundation. (Yep, Angie founded and manages this too). We met that night. I fell in love with H&C’s products and now the person behind them.
Over the past 7+ years, my personal and professional relationship with Angie has grown. And this feels so lovely and exciting to say: it’s primed to continue deepening and growing. I think of Angie as a colleague, mentor, and friend.
Those of you who know me, know that I wouldn’t say this sentence lightly:
There is no one like her in Nashville.
Her balance of hard work; endurance (she is here for the learning pits); creativity; grace; style; GENEROSITY is unmatched. In working together more closely on this event, I’m lucky to be receiving even new levels of all these things from her. Just when I thought she couldn’t be any more… There is. She is.
I’m flattered she’s sharing so much of us with her for this event. And I’m in awe to be positioned to share this woman with Ellevated Outcomes’ nearest and dearest.
So dear clients, we’ll see you Thursday. We have a seat, waiting just for you. And I promise: after hearing Angie Hester Cook speak, the way you set your table – literally and figuratively – will never be the same.
