Jennifer Dean’s company, Dean Professional Services, has been winning Best and Brightest Companies to Work For awards for years.
Kristina Montalto, the owner of Kristina’s Catering, just won her first award – a Best of MichBusiness honor – in 2024.
The veteran winner and the rookie both have one thing in common: They’re grateful for the recognition.
“I think it means a great deal,” said Dean, the founder and president of Houston-based Dean’s Professional Services, which provides staffing, staff development and consulting in the healthcare industry. “When my clients look at how many times I’ve won, they think I have a secret sauce to something, and they will ask.
“It’s a great program,” she added. “I think they do a lot. I enjoy them quite a bit because I’ve learned a great deal from them. But the employees are very proud to say we’ve won Best and Brightest, very proud.”
Montalto, meanwhile, accepted an award as a “Taste Sensation” winner on behalf of her Shelby Township-based catering company, Kristina’s Catering, at the Best of MichBusiness celebration at The Gem Theater in downtown Detroit.
Not only was this her first win, but it was unexpected. She was originally attending the event to support her brother, whose construction company was also a winner.
“I’m incredibly grateful (for the award), and for having my team recognized,” Montalto said. “It takes a whole team, and they’re all dedicated to serving our clients. It’s important to surround yourself with people who share your passion.”
How it all works
Winners of the Best and Brightest awards and the other awards from the National Association for Business Resources – the parent company for both the Best & Brightest Programs and MichBusiness – epitomize exceptional workplaces and leadership that stand out for their commitment to advancing operational excellence, cultivating positive work environments, and prioritizing their team members and communities.
The Best and Brightest Programs cultivate a robust community comprising of the nation’s elite leaders. This community serves as a platform where elite minds exchange ideas, share best practices, and showcase their status as companies of choice.
Through competitive initiatives such as The Best and Brightest Companies To Work For, The Best and Brightest In Wellness, The Best and Brightest Leadership Teams in the Nation, and The Best and Brightest CEOs in the Nation, these programs systematically identify and celebrate excellence throughout the United States.
The Best and Brightest Companies to Work For identifies and honors companies that deliver exceptional employment practices and demonstrate an impressive commitment to their employees.
Organizations are assessed based on categories such as Leadership, Strategy, and Company Performance; Community Initiatives and Corporate Responsibility; Recruitment and Selection; and Work-Life Blend. Throughout the assessment process, participants will engage in comprehensive surveys. These assessments offer opportunities for analytical reports, comparisons with other companies across the nation, and opportunities to share knowledge.
“These companies have shown fortitude and have inspired others to make critical decisions for the betterment of their teams,” said Jennifer Kluge, President and CEO, National Association for Business Resources and the Best and Brightest Programs. “They focus on the needs of their employees as a primary objective and are the leaders of the Metropolitan Detroit community.
“(Winning) companies are truly remarkable,” Kluge added. “These companies have proven they are elite thinkers, and this honor demonstrates their commitment to excellence. We are very proud of this powerful community of the nation’s elite leaders who share ideas, practices, and have proven they are employers of choice.”
Multiple winner Jennifer Dean loves football and, in a roundabout way, her passion for the game is one of the factors in her multiple wins.
She’s a Houston Texans fan – “They have a lot of things they could do and do better, but the mindset is they want to win and that matters,” Dean said – and loves the Kansas City Chiefs because she’s a huge Patrick Mahomes fan.
But, for Dean, the thing about football is that she likens the business world to the football field.
To succeed you need a good coach, including special teams coaches, you have to work with a team, and that team needs to execute the play the way the coach calls it to succeed.
“There’s a good business mind, too, being out there with all these people and the only reason you’re there is to win and learn from your losses, I would hope,” said Dean, who owns bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science from the University of Houston. “I think about that with business. I think I have a Super Bowl team … We win some, we lose some but, like I told them recently, we finished strong.
“Winning is a real mindset,” she added. “It’s something you have to put in your mind and say, ‘I’m capable.’ And then you have to demonstrate that. So, we are finishing strong.”
Dean has been in the staffing and staff development industry for more than 30 years. Dean’s Professional Services, which has been in business for 32 years, now has more than 1,000 employees in 23 states throughout the U.S.
It’s a staffing, staff development and consulting service providing a customzied solution for staffing and onsite project management for staffing, in Revenue Cycle, Hospitality, Healthcare, Event Services and Ambulatory Services.
Dean has also been a national speaker and a national customer service coach for the past 25 years. She has authored a couple of books – “An Energy Drink for the Soul the 1st Sip” and “Energy Drink for the Soul 30-day Journal” – and has written 20 training workbooks for Training.
Dean isn’t doing what she originally wanted to do – “I wanted to be a surgeon, but that takes too long, and I have no patience,” she said – but she believes she’s doing what she was meant to be doing.
“I have to say I’m living my purpose, and my purpose is not about me,” Dean said. “This was my chosen purpose. I have a great deal of passion for it, and I’m at peace. So, if I never do anything else, I have lived my purpose.
“This is my purpose. I would’ve never chosen it for me, but it shows me, in my opinion, God chose it for me. He knew more than I did, but this is my purpose. I come to work with energy every day because I am living in my purpose. I have so much passion for it.”
Dean’s Professional Services has provided staffing, staff development and consulting in healthcare for 32 years. It provides customized partnerships for its clients in 23 states.
Why healthcare? Dean called it a “great question.”
“I don’t know. I was in healthcare prior to this business 32 years ago, and healthcare is an interesting business, which I enjoy quite a bit,” said Dean, who was a practice administrator. “My family’s in healthcare, so I guess I was just attracted to healthcare. It’s a very difficult business to get in today because it’s very expensive.”
Dean said the biggest challenge for her business is finding quality people to staff it. She doesn’t have trouble finding people – “We probably get 1,200 applications a day” – but it’s finding potential employees with the right kind of people.
“It’s a little more difficult after Covid to find people with really good work ethics that tend to care,” Dean said. “Our younger generation tends to be very entitled, and they work to live not to make a living. So, it’s a little more … challenging because you want to find the best people to go to work for you so that your liabilities are lower and you’re not just putting anybody out there to work.”
The First-Timer
With her family ties being what they are, it’s no surprise Kristina Montalto worked her way from the restaurant business into a catering company.
Montalto established Kristina’s Catering – whose full-service catering company caters social and corporate events – some 14 years ago. With a push from her father, she started out – after spending her younger career teaching dance and tending bar – as a restaurateur.
Her first experience came when she and her father bought a family dining restaurant in Shelby Township. They owned it for nearly 10 years.
“He invested some money and said, ‘Let’s do this,’ so we did,” Montalto recalled. “I learned a lot.”
The lessons were many, but her biggest takeaway was the discovery that she liked serving people, enjoyed “making people happy with food and great experiences.” She began doing things at her restaurant – events for kids, dinner shows and other events – that many restaurants didn’t do.
She got the entertaining bug at home, where her parents were “always cooking” and usually for parties of as many as 30 people. And her mentor, who worked at the restaurant at the time, was also doing some catering.
He taught Montalto – who comes from a Greek and Italian heritage – about catering, and she was off and running.
“He was a great mentor to me,” Montalto said. “I’m very fortunate to have some awesome people guide me throughout the way.”
She started small, catering lunches for pharmaceutical companies and, once she got that down, began catering graduation parties. Then came the weddings. At the restaurant, her staff included young people, and one of their parents suggested Montalto start advertising her catering on-line. Montalto was skeptical at first – “Who’s going to go on-line for that?” – but she did it, and it worked.
She got a voicemail from someone who had seen her on-line advertisement, saying they were “interested.”
“I listened to that voicemail like five times,” she said, laughing. “I thought somebody was playing a prank on me.”
She fought back her nerves, and, with the help of her mentor, who did the cooking, catered a wedding for 300 people. That family continued to use her and is to this day a good customer.
“It was over 300 people,” she said. “We did the food, the desserts, the tent rental, the chairs, the linens, you name it. We did everything. And 14 years later, I’m still catering for their family.”
She gets it all done with a staff that can run from 25 to as many as 60 people. Many of them are what she calls her “core people,” while the others are often called in depending on the size of the event the firm is catering.
“They’re all in my system and when they want to work, they can work,” Montalto said. “But I’ve had the same people working with me for a long time. We enjoy each other. We have a good time together. We work hard, but we laugh. And when it’s time to get serious, we get serious.
“But, after that, they just enjoy each other,” she added. “They’ve been with me for a while, they’re my people.”
Montalto acknowledges the key to success lies in the team she built. It’s important to her to know everyone who is working for her. It’s not just a bunch of random people; her employees “know they’re a part of the team.”
“You have to hire people that fit your mission and your goals and your values,” she said. “I think that is really important. And keep building relationships.”
As for the Best of MichBusiness award, Montalto said she wasn’t even aware her company had been nominated until she received an email announcing it.
She hadn’t previously heard of the award, and Kristina’s Catering had a 400-person event to cater for Nissan that same day. She decided to let her staff handle the Nissan event, and she got herself a ticket for the MichBusiness event.
Her brother called to tell her he had been named a winner – she was skeptical at first – and then she also got an email saying she’d been selected.
“I got an email about it,” she recalled. “I said, ‘Oh, I don’t think I won anything, but I got nominated, so that’s cool.’ Maybe a week before I open up an email and I called him to tell him I’m a winner, too.”
She was happier for her team – “It shows recognition of all the hard work that my team has done, not just me, because you can’t do it alone,” she said – than she was for herself.
“It just shows my team has really been doing an awesome job at kicking butt and acknowledging the community,” Montalto said. “I think it’s very exciting. This is just too cool.”
