Maggie Briggs, 31

Maggie Briggs learned from an early age that there is no limit to one’s potential. Her mentor, Lori Ross, started as a bank teller at the First National Bank of Mount Dora at age 19 and steadily ascended the ranks to COO: the first woman to hold a C-suite role in the bank’s 100-year history. 

“My mom showed me through hard work, grit, integrity and all of those beautiful things that you can achieve whatever you dream and achieve your full potential,” Briggs says. 

Photo by Mark Wemple

In her youth, Briggs was along for the ride with her parents at the office and at different volunteer events around town, which instilled a strong sense of community in her and other lessons she brings to her role as a business development director for Charles Perry Partners, a general contractor based in Gainesville with other offices in Florida, including Tampa. 

“They taught me what true leadership looked like outside of just being a professional but also giving back to the community in a variety of aspects,” she says. To that end, Briggs is an Athena certified leadership consultant, a past president of the Junior League of Lakeland and is currently enrolled in Leadership Tampa, to name a few ways she’s involved.

Briggs started out as a young marketing executive at branding and digital marketing firm CNP in Winter Haven. By the time of her exit, she was managing 20 clients at any given time. Brad Lunz, president of the Lunz Group, an architecture and interior design firm, approached her with a job opportunity, and within a few years she was managing seven market sectors and helping shepherd the Lakeland company through mergers and acquisitions, all while expanding the firm's revenue streams and helping launch an entirely new company. 

Not afraid to take on the next challenge, she then accepted her current position at Charles Perry, where she is now tasked with expanding the brand south of its Gainesville headquarters.

“Life has a very odd way of dropping opportunities at your feet, and I tend to probably say yes a little bit more sometimes, because sometimes I bite off way more than I can chew,” Briggs says, “But I haven't been disappointed to date at saying yes to something that seemed probably a little outside of what I would have normally done.”