Like A Boss From The Portland Press Herald

If you enjoyed our Like a Boss series, please join us for Open Door. Open Door features personal reflections from local leaders about their careers, management styles and lessons they’ve learned along the way. Steve Mills, CEO of Maine Beer Company sat down with Maine Trust for Local News Managing Director Stefanie Manning for a conversation at the Roux Institute at Northeastern University on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. About Steve Steve Mills has taken on many leadership roles throughout his over thirty years in the craft beer industry. As CEO of Maine Beer Company, Mills expands on the company’s purpose of “doing good through great beer” which the company was founded on in 2009. His priorities are to take care of the company’s employees, give to environmental and local nonprofits, and make exceptional beer. Under his leadership, Maine Beer Company has outpaced most peers as far as growth. It is now in the top 100 of the more than 9,500 US breweries. Mills is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps where he spent

About Safa Zaki Copyright Jessica Scranton Safa R. Zaki is the sixteenth president of Bowdoin College, a renowned psychologist and cognitive scientist, and the first woman to lead the College since its founding in 1794. Safa’s research focuses on how people divide the world into categories, using computational approaches to model cognitive processes in order to enrich our understanding of the human mind.

On Wednesday, March 6, Portland Press Herald CEO and Publisher Lisa DeSisto interviewed Tate’s Bakeshop CEO, Esi Seng at The Roux Institute at Northeastern University. About Esi Seng Esi Seng is a proven, inspirational global leader with more than two decades of accelerating business growth and building high-performing CPG businesses and teams across the globe including Switzerland, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brazil and the United States. Currently she is the Chief Executive Officer of Tate’s Bakeshop, the iconic cookie brand that disrupted the category and continues to be one of the fastest growing cookies in the aisle. Before taking on the cookie kingdom, Esi was all about toothpaste as the General Manager for Tom’s of Maine. Here she focused on elevating the Purpose to Purchase model. Under her leadership, Tom’s of Maine, a BCorp, developed the first-of-its-kind recyclable tube toothpaste, which was recognized as one of The Best Inventions of 2020 by TIME Magazine and launched a 100% plastic free deod

Like A Boss is a live Q&A business event where you can hear insightful, first-hand accounts of the realities of running a business. Our CEO and Publisher Lisa DeSisto interviews local CEOs and business leaders for a behind the scenes look at their career paths, the ups and downs of running their businesses and the trends shaping them. Maine State Director of AARP, Noël Bonam sat down with Portland Press Herald CEO Lisa DeSisto for a conversation at The Roux Institute at Northeastern University on Wednesday, October 18. Noël Bonam has been AARP Maine’s State Director since July 2021. Before joining AARP, Noël had been the head of The Global Institute, a public benefit organization (with operational hubs in Denmark, India and the US), specializing in social equity, leadership development and organizational sustainability. Before his tenure with The Global Institute, he was the Director for the Bureau of Multicultural Affairs for the State of Maine. Noël is a graduate of the Senior Executive in State and Lo

President of The Boulos Company, Jessica Estes sat down with Portland Press Herald CEO Lisa DeSisto for a conversation at The Roux Institute at Northeastern University on Tuesday, April 4.

President and CEO of Central Maine Power, Joe Purington sat down with Portland Press Herald CEO Lisa DeSisto for a conversation at The Roux Institute on Wednesday, March 1. About Joe Purington Joe Purington was appointed President and CEO of Central Maine Power (CMP) in September 2021. CMP serves approximately 646,000 electricity customers in an 11,000 square-mile service area in central and southern Maine. The appointment brings Purington home to Maine and to CMP where he began his career in utility operations.

President of Baxter Brewing, Jenn Lever joined Portland Press Herald CEO Lisa DeSisto for a conversation at The Roux Institute on October 19, 2022 Jenn is an Auburn, Maine native who graduated from Edward Little High School in 2004, and then attended Hobart and William Smith Colleges, earning a BA in Economics and Sociology. In 2008, Lever ignited her career in the Food & Beverage Industry when she accepted a Warehouse Supervisor role with Pepsi Co. Her upward trajectory included successive leadership positions that took her from New York to Virginia, before returning to Maine in 2014, where she worked for three years in fresh cut vegetable processing with the Curran Company, later Growers Express. She left the role as President to take on a Director of Operations position with Baxter Brewing in 2017 and in September of 2019 she was promoted to President of Baxter Brewing. In her very first year as President, she led Baxter Brewing through the COVID-19 pandemic, launching a successful rebrand and expandin

Don Perkins has served as GMRI‘s President/CEO since 1995. Don works with GMRI’s staff, board, and external partners to drive GMRI’s evolution as a strategic science, education, and community institution that serves the Gulf of Maine bioregion and to scale GMRI’s impact beyond.

Like a Boss conversation between Lisa DeSisto, Publisher of the Portland Press Herald and CEO of Masthead Maine and Andrew Mueller, CEO of MaineHealth on Friday, April 29, 2022

Josh Broder serves as CEO of Tilson, which under his leadership, has grown from fewer than 10 employees to 600, earning a top spot on the Inc. 5000 list for the past 11 years. He is also the founder of Tilson’s public utility affiliate, which develops, owns and leases back 5G infrastructure including poles, towers and fiber nationwide. 

Mr. Mazelsky has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of IDEXX since October 2019. Prior to that, Mr. Mazelsky served as Interim President and Chief Executive Officer from June 2019 to October 2019, and he was an Executive Vice President responsible for the North American Companion Animal Group Commercial Organization and key elements of the innovation portfolio, including the IDEXX VetLab in-house diagnostics, Diagnostic Imaging, Veterinary Software and Services, Rapid Assay and Telemedicine lines of business from August 2012 to June 2019. Before joining IDEXX, Mr. Mazelsky was a Senior Vice President and General Manager from 2010 to 2012 of Computed Tomography, Nuclear Medicine and Radiation Therapy Planning at Philips Healthcare, a subsidiary of Royal Philips Electronics. Previously he held a series of other leadership roles with increasing responsibilities during his tenure at Philips beginning in 2001. Prior to joining Philips, Mr. Mazelsky was at Agilent Technologies, where he was an Executiv

Like A Boss is a live Q&A business event where you can hear insightful, first-hand accounts of the realities of running a business. Our CEO and Publisher Lisa DeSisto interviews local CEOs and business leaders for a behind the scenes look at their career paths, the ups and downs of running their businesses and the trends shaping them. About Clayton Rose Clayton S. Rose, who was inaugurated as Bowdoin’s fifteenth president on October 17, 2015, has consistently underscored the value and essential importance of a liberal arts education for living lives of meaning, for thoughtful engagement in civic life, and for satisfaction and success in work.

Like A Boss Now is a series of live webinar interviews where you can hear insightful, first-hand accounts of the realities of running a business. Portland Press Herald CEO and Publisher Lisa DeSisto will interview Maine CEOs for insights on how they are managing, adapting, and problem solving in these ever-changing times.   As a lifelong advocate for ending food insecurity, Kristen Miale, president of Good Shepherd Food Bank, has worked tirelessly to grow organizational partnerships throughout the state of Maine. She and her team of 80 work with a network of more than 400 nonprofit organizations to distribute 25 million meals a year, making Good Shepherd Food Bank Maine’s largest hunger relief organization.

Portland Press Herald Publisher and CEO Lisa DeSisto interviews Tony Shurman at the Portland House of Music in Portland Maine on February 28, 2020. Shurman is President and CEO of Jasper Wyman & Son (“Wyman’s”) the second largest brand in the retail frozen fruit category in the U.S. with its most notable product being wild blueberries. Founded in 1874, Wyman’s is a family-owned business headquartered in Down East Maine with an ongoing commitment to environmental stewardship, corporate social responsibility and product innovation. Prior to joining Wyman’s in 2017, Tony ran the Post Foods breakfast cereal business which includes brands such as Honey Bunches of Oats, Grape Nuts, Pebbles, and Post Shredded Wheat. Earlier in his career he worked in brand management roles in the gum/mint’s category as well as in consumer healthcare. He has experience working across geographies including Japan, Europe, and the U.S. Tony lives with his wife and two sons in Yarmouth, Maine

Lindsay Skilling is the CEO of Gifford’s Famous Ice Cream in Skowhegan, Maine. Gifford’s is a fifth-generation owned family business with roots back to the late 1800s. Today, Gifford’s sells almost 2 million gallons of ice cream, frozen yogurt, sherbet and sorbet each year and serves more than one million cones each summer from 5 family-owned and operated stands in Maine. You can find over 100 flavors in stores, restaurants and universities from Maine to Virginia to Nevada.

Press Herald CEO and publisher Lisa DeSisto sat down to interview BlueTarp Financial COO Shawn Cunningham Friday morning for our ‘Like a Boss’ series of interviews with local CEOs and business leaders. The series offers a behind-the-scenes look at their career paths, the ups and downs of running their businesses and the trends shaping them. BlueTarp Financial is a B2B credit management company in downtown Portland employing over 160 people. Founded in 1999, BlueTarp started with a credit program for building material suppliers, delivering cash flow up front so that they can invest in their business and grow sales while minimizing risk.

Like A Boss is a live Q&A business event where you can hear insightful, first-hand accounts of the realities of running a business. Our CEO and Publisher Lisa DeSisto interviews local CEOs and business leaders for a behind the scenes look at their career paths, the ups and downs of running their businesses and the trends shaping them. About Michelle Hood Michelle Hood is the president and CEO at Northern Light Health in Brewer, Maine. She came to Northern Light Health in 2006 after she served as president and CEO of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System, Montana Region, as well as president and CEO of its flagship hospital, St. Vincent Healthcare. As president and CEO of Northern Light Health, she focuses on health care policy and design models at the state and national levels, positioning the system to be successful in a rapidly changing healthcare environment.

Portland Press Herald CEO and publisher Lisa DeSisto sat down with Deanna Sherman, president and CEO of Dead River Co., on Friday, Oct. 26, to chat about her work in the energy industry. Sherman oversees one of the largest energy companies in Northern New England. Founded in 1909, Dead River Co. is family-owned with over 1,000 employees serving customers in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and northern Massachusetts. Sherman joined the company in 1986 and has worked in leadership roles including district manager, regional manager and vice president of the Energy Division. She became Dead River’s president and CEO in 2016. Sherman is active in the community through her present and past board involvement with United Way of Greater Portland, Educate Maine, Junior Achievement of Maine, the Maine Energy Marketers Association and the University of Southern Maine Foundation. Like A Boss is a live Q&A business event where you can hear insightful, first-hand accounts of the realities of running a business. DeSisto

On Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, publisher Lisa DeSisto sat down with Cummings, who began his academic career in Gorham as a high school history teacher and department head. He served as a faculty member at the Southern Maine Community College and was a long-serving member of the USM faculty. Prior to becoming president of USM, Cummings served as interim president of the University of Maine at Augusta. In 2010, he served former Pres. Barack Obama as deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Education and took over as president and executive director of the Good Will-Hinckley organization. Cummings is also a former Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, Majority Leader, and chairman of the state’s Joint Committee of Education and Cultural Affairs.

Portland Press Herald Publisher Lisa DeSisto talks with Andrew Silsby about his career at Kennebec Savings Bank, which he joined in 1993. Silsby discusses why email isn't the best medium for solving problems, the bank's move into Freeport, and just how far ahead he likes to be with new technology.  This interview was recorded July 27, 2017 in Augusta.