Hear from the Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance's new chair

Julie Fanning was honey badgering before it was cool. 

A honey badger, not just the mammal found mostly in Africa and Southwest Asia, has become something of a popular internet meme. It basically translates to someone fearless and resilient who, when hit with an obstacle, finds a different way in, through or over the problem. Domino’s Pizza, to cite one example, has a Team Honey Badger of the Year Award. It’s for an employee who embodies the company’s core values, which, the pizza delivery giant says, includes a “high bar, unyielding spirit,” and someone who “tackles adversity head on and inspires those around them through their selfless actions.” Going even further back, college football star and future Super Bowl winner Tyrann Mathieu picked up the nickname Honey Badger in 2011 for his ferocious style of play, often against bigger competitors.   

Fanning, say several colleagues and friends, both exemplifies a honey badger in her own life — she oversees marketing for Benderson Development and is an active civic leader, including serving on the boards of the Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance and Nate’s Honor Animal Rescue — and uses the meme to inspire people. “Oh, you mean the honey badger?” says Wayne Parrish, a longtime executive at Sarasota office equipment firm Rite Technology and fellow LWRBA board member when asked about Fanning’s leadership qualities. “She’s smart and professional and knows how to stay strong. She will not fold.” 

The honey badger image will come in handy for Fanning the next seven months as she navigates a big, and visible, career move: Being chairperson of the alliance, a membership-based organization that connects businesses and nonprofits with other entities through networking and is an advocate for the business community on local, state and sometimes national issues.  

LWRBA President and CEO Brittany Lamont, like Parrish, quickly mentions the honey badger when chatting about Fanning. Lamont recalls the pair recently ruminated about a project “that didn’t come together” the way they wanted. “Julie was really supportive,” Lamont says. “She was saying, ‘today you are a honey badger. You are tough, you are strong and you are going to get through this.’”

“Julie makes tough decisions, and is confident in her decisions,” Lamont adds, “but she does it with kindness and heart and warmth.”

Good work 

Fanning’s year as chair has extra significance, given 2025 is a milestone anniversary for the alliance: two decades. “To be at the helm of this organization for our 20-year anniversary is a really big honor,” Fanning says. 

More than just celebratory, Fanning’s goals for the organization are to sustain the recent growth and take it further for the 2026 chair, a role Parrish will fill. One example is in revenue, where the six-employee organization, which makes most of its money from events, sponsorships and memberships, passed $1 million for the first time in 2024. Another milestone lies in membership, where the goal is to have 800 members by 2026. It currently has some 750 members. 

Fanning also seeks to ensure current members are getting the most from their membership. Some members go back 15 or even 20 years; the organization says 27 members have been part of the alliance since at least 2010. Helping members get the most out of the LWRBA, in part, requires consistent communication and a stick-to-it marketing strategy. “Sometimes we get caught up in doing all the work internally,” Lamont says, “that we forget to let people know about all the work we’re doing.”

In other words, says Fanning, she doesn’t want the LWRBA and its offerings to be a best-kept secret. 

Go forward 

It helps that Fanning has some 20 years in marketing, branding and helping companies and nonprofits get the word out, internally and externally, about a host of happenings.  

She has spent the past six years with Benderson, first as senior marketing manager and, since 2021, director of marketing. She oversees a team of four employees in the role, which, at its core, involves marketing for all the events, news and more coming from east Manatee County-based Benderson. 

Prior to Benderson, Fanning worked nearly 14 years at an advertising, public relations and design firm with offices in West Palm Beach and New York City. Fanning grew up in South Florida and worked her way up at the firm, O’Donnell Agency, starting in event planning. She opened a Sarasota office for the firm about a decade ago. She and her husband, Tim Fanning, a restaurant executive, had moved to the region after Tim was named general manager of the Capital Grille at the Mall at UTC.

Photo by Jay Heater

Julie Fanning spent four years growing and building O’Donnell’s presence in the region, working from home — before Covid made WFH universal. But she also longed for more human connection. That led her to the alliance. Soon after she moved to town, Fanning reached out and had lunch with Heather Kasten, who was then LWRBA’s president and CEO; now Kasten has the same role with the Sarasota Chamber of Commerce. “I really felt the connection with them right away,” she says. “Everyone there was so helpful and welcoming.”

Lamont paid the lunch forward: When she was named CEO of the alliance in November 2021, one of the first people she reached out to for a conversational lunch was Fanning. 

Now the CEO and board chair text or talk, and sometimes both, at least once a day. Sometimes, but not always, the chats include honey badger references — always with an eye toward making the LWRBA better and stronger. “We want to continue building on the success that we’ve had,” Fanning says, “so this organization can continue to have success for the next two decades.”