Dawna Stone is the founder and publisher of Her Sports + Fitness, an award winning national sports and fitness magazine. She is a successful executive, entrepreneur, public speaker, and athlete whose experience and success has led her to write her first book, Winning Nice: How to Succeed in Business and Life Without Waging War.
In 2003 Dawna founded Her Sports +Fitness, a magazine that motivates women to achieve their fitness goals and stay healthy and active for life. Her Sports + Fitness has become the only magazine that targets and provides information to successful, healthy and active adult women. The magazine earned much praise and awards including the Charlie Award for Best New Magazine of the Year in 2004, recognition as one of the 30 Most Notable Launches (of over 1,000) in 2005, and an award for best-written magazine in 2006.
Dawna has had a successful and impressive career as an elite young businesswoman. In 1991, right out of college, Dawna began her career on Wall Street as a financial analyst for elite investment banking firm, Morgan Stanley. In 1995, after obtaining her MBA, Dawna worked for Deloitte Consulting Group in Los Angeles as a Manager for Strategy Consulting, advising senior executives for Fortune 500 companies.
Wanting to pursue a career in sports and fitness, in 1999 Dawna accepted a position as President/General Manager at PR*Nutrition, a $300 million publicly traded corporation. In 2000, she was recruited as the Senior Vice President of Operations for the Active Sports Network, the world’s largest online race registration company.
In 2001, Dawna became the Chief Marketing Officer for MarineMax, the world’s largest recreational boat retailer with more than 68 locations and over $700 million in annual revenues. At MarineMax, Dawna built a centralized marketing department and oversaw all marketing and advertising efforts for the company.
In 2005, Dawna appeared on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart. Her business skills and professional demeanor enabled her to win the competition and was hired as director of development for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia’s Body + Soul.
Dawna is a well-known public speaker and has a well-developed national platform to share both her business and healthy living philosophies. She has appeared on numerous television and radio programs, including her popular monthly health and fitness segment on Good Day Tampa Bay, and her Sirius Satellite radio show, Health and Fitness Talk with Dawna Stone. Dawna has also appeared on the NBC Today Show, MSNBC, MARTHA, and on regional and local television and radio programs in more than 20 states.
She has been published in Entrepreneur magazine, and has been featured in Forbes, Businessweek.com, Folio, Florida Trend, TV Guide, CitiLife, Bliss, Industry Magazine and People.
Dawna graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a BS degree in Business Administration/Finance degree. She received her MBA in Finance and Marketing from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA.
An avid athlete, Dawna regularly competes in sprint and Olympic distance triathlons. She is among an elite group to have finished the grueling Hawaii Ironman World Championship. Dawna lives in St. Petersburg, Florida with her husband, Matt, their two dogs, and has a baby due in September.
