What do ride-alongs on a fire truck, making a broom, playing drums, and shadowing a principal all have in common?
They’re all experiences that graduates of Leadership Winston-Salem get to have during the Flagship program.
They’re all things that Jessica Aveyard, membership and operations manager for Sparq Coworking and graduate of the 2025 Leadership Winston-Salem cohort, found life-changing about the program.
Leadership Winston-Salem, a local non-profit organization, was created to help educate and motivate the future leaders of Winston-Salem to improve the city. Participants, like Aveyard, learn about a wide range of topics about the city–from healthcare to social services, from education to public safety.
When they graduate, these leaders are now better equipped to serve in their leadership roles in organizations of all kinds across the city–in places like the Innovation Quarter.
Introducing Jessica Aveyard
Three years ago, Jessica Aveyard joined a newly-formed coworking space, Sparq, in the iQ as membership and operations manager, after spending 15 years working in Minor League Baseball. This position was a chance for Aveyard to invest in something she’s passionate about.
“I love everything about the city,” Aveyard says.
That passion for her city is what led her to Leadership Winston-Salem.
Aveyard initially applied for the Leadership Winston-Salem program in 2021, but wasn’t accepted.
“I was so bummed after that,” Aveyard says. “It took me a couple years. I changed careers and wanted to really figure out my place in Winston now that I’m not necessarily working in the sports field anymore. And so once I got comfortable, I thought, ‘Let me dive back in and try this again.’”
This time, when Aveyard applied, she had the support of two colleagues–Lindsey Schwab and James Patterson of the iQ team–who had also graduated from the Leadership Winston-Salem Flagship program. And this time, Aveyard was accepted.
“I am grateful for the support of the Innovation Quarter and all of them allowing me to take the time and everything to do this,” Aveyard says. “I felt really passionate about it this time around, and was so thankful to be accepted. There is something that really pulls on your heartstrings when you walk into something that you are so passionate about.”
What is Leadership Winston-Salem’s Flagship Program?
In order to educate leaders about the city of Winston-Salem and the many areas that comprise the community, Leadership Winston-Salem has developed an intensive nine-month program for its participants.
“Leadership Winston-Salem exists to ignite passionate, committed leaders like Jess to serve and strengthen our community. We believe that by pouring into leaders—giving them space to learn, connect, and grow—we are investing in the future of Winston-Salem,” says Katherine Perry, executive director of Leadership Winston-Salem. “When leaders are informed, inspired, and empowered, the ripple effects reach every corner of our city.”
Over the nine months of the program, participants attend full-day sessions once a month, with each day focusing on an important aspect of the city: healthcare, education, human relations, arts and culture, social services, government, criminal justice and public safety.
“The Flagship program is basically what they call ‘a community MBA.’ At the end of your program, you should know enough about the city of Winston-Salem to be able to really speak into all facets and different departments of what happens in the city,” Aveyard says.
The Flagship program is for mid-level managers and leaders in the community–for people who have already demonstrated leadership, but are not at the apex of their leadership journey. Leadership Winston-Salem has a second program, INSIGHT Winston-Salem, for leaders at the executive level.
The 2025 cohort for the Flagship program was the largest to-date, with 70 people participating in the program.
“The Class of 2025 demonstrated tremendous dedication and heart, and we’re confident each of them is prepared to be a change agent and do amazing things for our community,” Perry says.
In addition to the regular days of learning, participants also had the opportunity to engage in a number of extracurricular activities, such as doing a ride-along in a fire truck, visiting a police dispatch center, and viewing documentaries. While optional, the activities help program participants get the most out of the experience.
“While a lot of the activities are optional, you get to the point where you really want to lean in, because as much as you want to put into the program is what you’re going to receive from it,” Aveyard says.
How Participants Give Back
Participating in the Flagship program is a big commitment. In addition to the full-day events each month, the participants are also given options for other activities and assigned to a team project for the duration of the program.
“It was difficult because it is so much every day, and all of us still have full-time jobs and families and lives and friends and other commitments and part-time jobs and hobbies,” Aveyard says.
This team project is called an action learning project, which supports the needs of other non-profit organizations in Forsyth County. Non-profits are invited to apply to be one of those action learning projects, and they can ask for help with anything–from membership models to branding, to marketing, to outreach.
On the second day of the program, participants are assigned to a project and form teams to accomplish whatever it is the non-profit needs. It’s an exercise in putting their resources and knowledge to work to help the community.
“It’s very cool,” Aveyard says. “Your project is the second most important thing you do outside of the large program days with your whole group where you’re learning about a different facet of Winston-Salem.”
These action learning projects give the participants a chance to use their creativity and problem-solving, and the participating non-profits get help accomplishing projects that might require more manpower, time, or resources than the non-profit has to bring to bear on the problem.
Aveyard’s action learning project was for the Children’s Law Center of Central North Carolina, helping to create a comprehensive marketing plan and building a network of connections for future needs.
The Impact of the Experience
Participants of the Leadership Winston-Salem program often have their eyes opened to the number of activities happening around the city and also to all the effort that goes into the services that the city provides.
For Aveyard, one of her favorite program days was about arts and innovation. Over the course of the day, they went to Sawtooth School for Visual Art for drum workshops, visited MUSE Winston-Salem (which is open for scheduled events), experienced senior students performing their competition pieces at UNC School of the Arts, went on a gallery walk down Trade Street, and ended the day at The Ramkat to talk to a swath of non-traditional artists, like a culinary artist, a drag queen, and an art collective organizer.
“I am already obsessed with art and creativity and anything in that kind of world, but it’s so cool when you see it baked into all these different places in Winston,” Aveyard says. “There are so many different walks of life when you look at the art and how it’s present in the city.”
Not all education days were so light. Some dove into the harsh realities that people can face when navigating the social services of Winston-Salem.
“It was our last program day, and we did a simulator where you basically are pretending to be in a family, and that family has to survive, facing things like bills, law enforcement, weather, robberies,” Aveyard says.
From the smallest issues–like needing a bus ticket any time they wanted to travel anywhere for the family–to large ones like experiencing arrests or the death of a family member, the participants got a taste of the difficulties people experience and how small obstacles can become big ones.
“It was probably my favorite activity we did the entire time,” Aveyard says. “It is grossly realistic. It was a heavy day, and there was a lot of information. It was one of the times throughout the program where your emotions are challenged, and your views are challenged, and your eyes are opened, but we all got to live in it together.”
These kinds of experiences leaders of all kinds are taking back to organizations throughout the city, which is the whole goal of the program.
How Graduates Serve Their Community
Though the program is a long one, it eventually comes to an end. And then what? Graduates return to their full-time jobs and real lives, but the change isn’t supposed to end there.
“At the end of the program, they ask you essentially what your next steps are going to be, how you’re going to stay involved in the community, and how you’re going to engage with the future leaders who go through the program,” Aveyard says.
Graduates write mission statements for themselves, as a way to solidify what they’ve learned and how they intend to implement that knowledge in their own domains. Six months later, those mission statements are mailed back to them.
“You’ll get a reminder of the things you had committed to, just to make sure you’re actually committing to them,” Aveyard says.
In her position at Sparq, Aveyard feels particularly equipped to help people she sees on-the-job with the resources she now knows are available to them from her experience with Leadership Winston-Salem.
“My goal is to utilize my current role as a connector in the city with all of these people I know in my cohort, as well as all of the connections that we have baked into Advocate Health and the Innovation Quarter,” Aveyard says. “I want to be that connector and help in ways that maybe others might necessarily not think of.”
Aveyard has already started putting that desire into practice. In February 2025, Sparq was the host location for a Techstars Startup Weekend, bringing innovators and entrepreneurial spirits into the iQ for a weekend of creation and connection. Since the event took place in Sparq, Aveyard was on-hand for the entire weekend, and through that, made some important connections.
“One of the groups was actually talking about putting cameras on city vehicles in order to automatically assess when repairs were needed on our roadways,” Aveyard says. “So I called my friend Jeffrey Fansler, the director of transportation for the city of Winston-Salem, and said, ‘Hey, can you talk to these kids about this?’”
Having met Fansler during the program, Aveyard knew he would provide valuable insight for aspiring entrepreneurs.
“Without the program, those connections wouldn’t have existed,” Aveyard says. “I like using my creativity to find ways to continue to be that connector.”
On a more personal level, Aveyard says the Flagship program has influenced how she wants to spend her time when she’s not on the job.
“There are just so many other organizations and nonprofits, and they all need time. One of my biggest takeaways is that I can give my time, and I want to make sure I’m giving it back where it’s needed most,” Aveyard says.
To learn more about Leadership Winston-Salem, visit the nonprofit’s website and learn about how they partner with other groups to make a difference in the city of Winston-Salem. Or discover more about Sparq.
