Welcome to Where & Why, a podcast where we surface the origin stories of community leaders and influencers.

Today our guest is Ivy Council. She is chairman of the board of Goodwill of Southeast Georgia, a member of the board of directors for the Savannah Book Festival and the YMCA.

Council recently retired from CitiTrends, a Savannah-based urban clothing retailer where she spent the last 16 years as EVP Human Resources and Chief Compliance Officer. Before that she was with Wendys, Ross Stores and AraMark.

She grew up in Philadelphia and went to Chatham University in Pittsburgh. So she knows about diplomacy, although she had to learn it …