Here at HQ, the Pepper team has been so busy crushing the business admin for all of our creative entrepreneurs while simultaneously growing fast and furious. We have some exciting things in the works and cannot wait for you to see it all unfold!
In the meantime, we thought it could be fun for you to get to know all of us – your badass business BFFs! We are all pretty normal(ish) peeps and I bet some of you can even relate to a few of our fun quirks!
Stace – Founder and CEO by Day/Boudoir Badass by Night
Where do I even start with this beauty?! She is straight-up one of the most badass women around! She knows her craft beer, collects cookbooks, gardens, and frequents farmers’ markets. Almost sounds like the makings of the perfect hippy… Come to think of it, one of her favorite snacks is homemade fruit leather! She is the creative heart and soul behind Pepper, Noir Stories, and Stacey Krolow Photography. Just a few freaking cool hats she juggles, no big deal!
In a zombie apocalypse, Stace would choose a spaceship as her “weapon”, would choose time travel as her superpower, and put Croatia at the top of her bucket list of places to see. And if her badass life was a song title, it would be a mashup of Rihanna’s “Work” and LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem”. Even her soundtrack is rocking that work/life balance!!
Random fun facts: warning label would read “may overwhelm you with positive energy”, her puppy Frida is her spirit animal because they share the same beautiful brown hair, both love people, but can also be stubborn and sassy AF. She also has a knack for making people feel comfortable, even in their birthday suits, and does not like having her head underwater (so I haven’t quite figured out how she washes her hair…)!
Kels – Badass Assistant to the CEO/Concert Go-er
My top bucket list place to see is Giraffe Manor in Kenya. I will cry the entire time because my favorite animal is a giraffe (and they are my spirit animal). They are so gentle, but incredibly strong when it comes to surviving. And they aren’t vicious by nature, but they also don’t take sh*t (like me)!
I work two jobs (here at Pepper and as a wedding coordinator with Brandy Maddison Event Planning & Design) not only to take care of my two beautiful daughters (ages 6 and 8) but also to fund my concert addiction. The top concerts I have seen (of hundreds) would be a tie between Elton John and Billy Joel together, Passenger, and Bear’s Den. Mumford & Sons is going to be up there after I see them this summer. From Crocodile Rocking to acoustic folk, I can’t be stopped!
Random fun facts: I am an Empath (which can be both a blessing and a curse), I write poetry (and slowly, but surely, am working on a book), eat way too much candy, and I say more inappropriate things than appropriate things.
Chels – Gangster Project Manager/Cliche Hipster
This 6 foot beauty is a fashion school graduate who has stacks of Vogue magazines in her house. She may also have a serious addiction to pizza! And while she loves her some pepperoni, don’t ever come at her with condiments. That’s right… This is her biggest fear. Condiphobia? That doesn’t stop her from being one of the strongest and most badass people we know!
One of Chelsey’s biggest passions is bringing awareness to mental health, primarily Bipolar Disorder. She wants to encourage everyone to end the stigma and talk openly about not only mental illnesses but also tips for keeping a healthy mind. For this reason, she would LOVE to sit down and chat with Kate Spade about all things fashion and how it feels to suffer so very deeply, and often so silently.
Random fun facts: has a three-year-old dog named Herbert and a cat named Pedro, she broke her hand falling out of a hot tub once, is working on her growing collection of tattoos, and she dreams of visiting Bali someday.
Hope – Gangster Project Manager/World Traveler
Once at a concert in the Netherlands, Paul McCartney sang “Happy Birthday” to this girl. Okay… Maybe he didn’t sing it directly TO her, but since it was her birthday and he did sing it, a girl can dream! Hope is addicted to cheese and trying every new kind of craft beer, but also to travel and adventure!
Hope lives by the quote “nothing worth doing is ever easy” and is so full of passion, adventure, and kindness. She wants to keep trying new things (even skydiving in spite of a major fear of heights) and is hoping to make it to Iceland someday. So it’s no surprise that her theme song is The Grand Optimist – by City and Colour!
Random fun facts: despite being full of adventure, her spirit animal is a sloth, she would not survive a zombie apocalypse (so we’ll stick her on Stacey’s spaceship!), believes that if you are not early, you are late, and is known for wearing ridic slippers at inappropriate times (is there even such thing as an inappropriate time?!)
Shelbie – Rockstar Virtual Assistant/Lover of Pretty Things
“Revel in the chaos”. This quote is tattooed (super permanently) on Shelbie because she lives by it. And honestly, it makes perfect sense! Life is crazy, so you either revel in it, or you get lost in it. Revelers unite! Speaking of tattoos, she also has her spirit animal inked on herself. The deer holds many meanings, but the spiritual meaning is that of gentleness and messenger.
When she’s not hiking, fishing, thrifting (yes… it’s a word), or doing downward dog, she might just be sipping a Canadian Caesar! And snacking on cheese. Her favorite concert was Eric Church (country music has her heart), and she asks that you please don’t talk before she has the coffee!
Random fun facts: knows every episode of Friends by heart, hoards oversized sweaters and hats, is a city-living country girl, and absolutely loves interior decorating and event planning.
Lindsey – Rockstar Virtual Assistant/Spirit Board Maker
Can you quote every Lord of the Rings movie? Didn’t think so! But Lindsey can and that makes her pretty damn cool! Maybe that’s why she chose a dragon as her weapon of choice in a zombie apocalypse. If she weren’t working at Pepper, she would be a Victim Services worker or Forensic Psychologist (cue the Criminal Minds music!) I kid! She would just want to use her amazing heart to help people through traumatic experiences.
Lindsey has some pretty unique hobbies, to say the least. Painting, photography, poetry, rock climbing, wood burning, coding, donut-making, hiking, camping and banjo plucking. Wait… Donut making?! Yeah, that’s going to come in handy around here! She loves goats and has chosen the farmer emoji as her Pepper stamp of acknowledgment in our team meeting minutes!
Random fun facts: If she had a warning label, it would read “don’t touch me”, being weird is her strongest personality trait, she has an affinity for green tea Kit Kats, and at the age of eight, she got a concussion from falling off an organ bench. Side note, she did not and still does not play the organ!
We hope you enjoyed your peek into the Pepper team’s unique personalities! We love getting to know all of you, too, so please drop us a line anytime!
Chat soon!
Kelsey Munson
Badass Assistant to the CEO
Pepper – Your Badass Business BFF Inc.
