06 Feb Member Spotlight: Suzi Youngberg
Suzi Youngberg is the Immediate Past President of BPW/Upper Keys and currently serves as the BPW/FL Technology Committee Chair. She also served as the BPW/FL Council of Presidents Delegate in 2021-22. She became a BPW/Upper Keys member in 2015, and in 2016 she joined that Board where she held positions of Vice President/Hospitality and President-Elect before accepting the Presidency in May 2020. Suzi was voted BPW/Upper Keys Woman of the Year in 2018 and 2021.
Born and raised in north Georgia and southeast Tennessee (Chattanooga area), Suzi moved to the Florida Keys with her husband Scott in 1997. Both had self-proclaimed “Caribbean Souls” and being a musician, Scott’s career blossomed in the restaurants and resorts of the Upper Keys.
Suzi spent more than 25 years in corporate financial insurance sales, traveling to clients all over the southeast. She was known as one of the foremost experts in flood insurance and lender placed insurance in the southeast United States. When Scott was diagnosed with cancer in 2014, she decided to make some changes. Going through almost a year of treatment with him in Boston MA put life in perspective and the time spent working on the road became much less attractive. Thankfully his treatment was successful, and he is now healthy and cancer free. As he returned to work, Suzi began looking at other career options that would allow her to stay closer to home.
Suzi is currently the Director and Rescue Coordinator at MarrVelous pet Rescues, a foster based animal rescue in Key Largo giving a second chance to surrendered and abandoned pets.
Her first “local” job was working for a Florida Keys network of eight radio stations, selling advertising. After a short time, she realized that she loved being on the radio! She became a radio personality for a while, hosting several in studio shows as well as a couple of live on-location radio shows. She is still considered “family” at the radio station and manages to get on the air every chance she gets! For several years Suzi worked for the American Cancer Society as Community Development Manager in the Florida Keys, and worked briefly for The History of Diving Museum as the Community Outreach Specialist. After years in corporate sales, Suzi says she enjoys working in positions that also give back to the community in some way.
When Suzi first decided to stop traveling for a living, she joined BPW/Upper Keys. She had seen posts about the organization on Facebook from women in the community she admired and thought it was a great place to start networking. She semi-jokingly says that she made more friends and connections her first year in BPW than she had made in her first 20 years in the Keys while she was traveling for a living. She seriously credits BPW with helping develop her network and finding her Tribe!
A fun fact about Suzi is that her big white cat SugarBear walks on a leash and travels regularly to Tennessee and Georgia, and has even been to Colorado and back!
