Beth Chase: The Architect of Quiet Power

Inside the journey of an underestimated founder who learned to trust her gut, build cultures that last, and walk away stronger.

In a room full of sharp elbows and big egos, Beth Chase has always been the one to lean forward, listen hard, and find the way through. She’s a small-town Kentucky kid who landed at IBM before bootstrapping two consulting firms — one that became a multimillion-dollar success story. She’s walked out of a 50/50 partnership, built a culture that outlived her, and now gives her time to help the next generation of entrepreneurs find their footing.

Beth likes to say she’s “a left-handed, middle-child girl from a small redneck town in Kentucky.” Her hometown wasn’t the kind of place where big corporate dreams were common. But she had drive — and a racket in her hand nearly every day after school. “If I wasn’t hitting tennis balls, I was probably studying or trying to keep up with my older sister,” she says. That competitive streak paid off when tennis opened the door to Vanderbilt — “I wouldn’t have been able to afford it otherwise.”

At Vanderbilt, she majored in math and economics — not because she knew exactly what she’d do with it, but because she was drawn to anything that felt like a puzzle. “I’ve always loved finding the thread in something complicated,” she says. The university didn’t have a computer science degree back then, but Beth signed up for every CS class she could find. She didn’t know it yet, but she was building a foundation that would make her fluent in technology just as the industry was about to boom.

Her first real job was waitressing her way through college. “It taught me a lot about customer service — and people skills. I used to dream about getting to the table on time,” she laughs. But it was IBM that shaped her for good. She joined right after college — first interview, first offer — and stayed twelve years. It wasn’t glamorous at first, but IBM invested in their people deeply. “They put me through 26 weeks of training in my first year,” she says. “That’s a huge investment in a junior hire. I learned sales, negotiation, technology, and facilitation. That last one — being able to get all the voices in the room and push for alignment — that was my secret sauce.”

IBM taught her how big companies work — and how they don’t. She noticed who got promoted, who got stuck, and why culture always trumped strategy when it came to execution. She watched brilliant ideas stall out when teams couldn’t agree. She stored all that away — lessons she’d come back to when it was her own name on the door.

She loved consulting — the challenge of walking into a client’s business, seeing how they ticked, and helping untangle problems nobody else could see clearly. But the travel was brutal. She had young twin boys at home who’d stand at the door, arms up, whenever she left for yet another trip. So she took her first big leap: she and a mentor, twenty years older, left to launch their own local consulting firm. The idea was simple: solve business problems for local clients and sleep in your own bed at night.

They agreed to split ownership 50/50. It worked well — until it didn’t. Nine years in, they hit a wall. Her partner wanted to turn the company into an ESOP; she didn’t. He triggered the “dynamite clause” in their partnership. He named his price. She had sixty days to decide: buy him out or walk away. “I always thought I’d buy him out,” she says. “But when I opened up the hood, I realized — it wasn’t my company. It was his culture. And I didn’t want to spend my energy trying to fix that.”

She took the buyout, no non-compete, no strings. “I walked away with enough to start fresh. And the people I’d built real trust with — they came too. That told me I’d done something right.”

C3 Consulting was her clean slate. She held the majority stake this time, made the culture non-negotiable, and focused on hiring “A-players” who worked well together. She didn’t set out to build a giant firm — “My idea was five people, fun work, boutique projects,” she says. But the work kept coming. In the first year alone, they more than doubled their targets.

She liked the messy puzzles best — like the day she got called into a Fortune 500 boardroom to help executives who’d stalled on a decision for over a year. “One option was good for the bottom line but terrible for the people; the other was the opposite. They were deadlocked,” she says. With her at the whiteboard, they found a third way — an option that balanced both. It stuck. “I’ve always said you have to feel a company’s culture the minute you walk in,” she says. “And you have to adapt, not force it.”

C3 grew every year, even through the recession. But when the time came to plan life after C3, Beth did what she’d always done — looked ahead. They didn’t have a long-term succession plan, so she and her partners found an investment banker, vetted buyers, and said no to the highest bidder when the culture fit wasn’t right. They sold to a global firm that shared their values. The company and the people stayed strong.

Today, Beth sits on corporate boards — often the only woman in the room — and mentors up-and-coming founders at Nashville’s Entrepreneur Center every week. She gives her time to nonprofits that feed families, protect women, and nurture the city’s entrepreneurial spirit. “The work still feels meaningful,” she says. “It’s not just about business — it’s about developing great leaders. That’s the real legacy.”

If she could give her younger self — or any founder — one gift, it would be this:

“I wish I’d worried less about what I looked like, whether I belonged,” she says. “I spent so much time doubting myself. I want people to know you are enough. Right now. As you are.”

Her story is a reminder that quiet power counts — that listening deeply, caring about people, and building something that outlasts you is always worth it. And that some of the strongest entrepreneurs don’t need to shout to change the room.

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This story is part of A Minor In Reality, a series on the messy, magical leap from 0 to 1. Built for founders—both for-profit and nonprofit—these are real conversations with real builders.