Paige Velasquez Budde, Co-Founder and CEO of Austin-based Zilker Media, won three major honors in two months last fall: the Austin Business Journal's Women in Business Award, its Best CEO Award, and the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce's Executive of the Year. A year later, as that first award reaches its anniversary, she reflects on what the recognition actually gave her: not applause, but permission to pause and finally take stock of a journey she'd never stopped to examine.
We conducted this conversation with Paige last November, days after her third award in two months. We're publishing it now because this month marks one year since the Austin Business Journal named her to its Women in Business list, the recognition that started it all. Some things are worth the wait to get right, and Paige agreed this was one of them.
"Why Am I Being Recognized?"
Paige has spent her career elevating other people's stories. As Co-Founder and CEO of Zilker Media, she's built her company's entire reputation on helping leaders see what they can't see in themselves, on making other people visible. Being the one in the spotlight was never where she operated.
So when the recognition landed on her, three ceremonies, three awards, two months, her first instinct wasn't pride. It was suspicion.
"On first beat, recognition can be a little uncomfortable," she told us, "because so much of what I've done in my career is being behind the scenes, elevating others. So when it gets turned on you, you're going, oh no, why am I being recognized?"
What she found underneath that discomfort surprised her: not vindication, but a pause she didn't know she needed. "It's really hard to pause and look around and recognize the journey along the way," she said. "I don't know if I would do it otherwise."
Leadership Doesn't Happen on Your Own
Ask Paige about any of the three awards and she does the same thing every time: she redirects the credit.
"Leadership doesn't happen on your own. It's not a solo act," she said. "And I think that's maybe a myth that some inspiring leaders believe. It's really about the people that you serve, the people that you surround yourself with, that make you a strong leader."
This isn't a talking point. It's how Zilker Media runs. The company's five core values, Good Vibes, Meaningful Relationships, Bold Integrity, Bettering Our Community, and Lead the Way, show up every week in a meeting segment the team calls Zilker Media Values in Action, where people recognize each other for living those values out loud.
"That list is the longest portion of our meeting," Paige said, "which just speaks to how much they focus on recognition."
At one award ceremony, she had the chance to speak. She used it to name the members of her team sitting in the room and to say plainly that none of the recognition would exist without them. At another, the whole team came, watching their company's name appear on the screen together. "It doesn't happen if one of us isn't here," she said.
The Good Thing of the Week
Before any meeting at Zilker Media gets down to business, someone asks a question: what's your good thing of the week?
Paige learned the practice from a high school teacher, Mr. Jones, who ran student government and taught a leadership class at Permian High School. "He instilled so much in me at a young age about what it looks like to be a servant leader," she said. "Starting with your good thing of the week, it's a complete detour from anything we're about to get into, but it centers people. It puts people in a different mindset when you start with gratitude."
She's carried it into every leadership role since. When Mr. Jones retired, she wrote him a note. At the time of this conversation, her new book, The Strategic Business Influencer, hadn't yet reached him, though he appears in its acknowledgments. "I'm going to write him a note and mail it directly to him," she told us then.
It's a small, specific detail, but it says something larger about how Paige treats recognition: not as a spotlight to be endured, but as a practice worth handing down.
What the Awards Themselves Did
When the conversation turned to the physical awards, Paige's language shifted. She stopped speaking like a CEO summarizing a milestone and started speaking like someone describing an object that had genuinely surprised her.
"The architecture of the award was just unlike anything I'd ever seen," she said. "It had weight to it. Most awards you see are the typical glass-looking type. This one was just so unique. It felt so personalized. Everything from the color to the design was just something you wanted to stare at for a very long time."
She described holding it: "It had a mass to it that was very different. And it felt like it was derived from nature."
The three awards now sit on a shelf at the entrance to Zilker Media's office, a space built in the spirit of the Texas hill country, full of natural light. "The beauty of the wood just blends so well and stands out so well with the reason why we wanted to build the office and have this look," Paige said. "It is something for our team to look at every day and remind us why we do what we do. Not to be recognized, but to make that greater impact. And that's what we are recognized for."
Confidence, Not Just Applause
Paige is disarmingly honest about what came next. "At first, I'll be very honest, there was a little bit of imposter syndrome. Did they get the right person? Why is this recognition happening? Do I belong here?" She paused. "And then I'm like, heck yeah, we are."
Her team noticed the shift before she fully named it herself. "Seeing my face on the ABJ Best CEO cover was just, ah!" she said, laughing. "Because I'm used to being behind the scenes."
But underneath the laugh was something more durable. "It gave me a moment to reflect in a really good way that I don't know if I would have ever done. On the journey, the growth, what I've gone through as a leader, what we've built," she said. "Confidence, to me, is one of the biggest outcomes of recognition. It's an energy. A push forward. A wonderful looking back, reflecting, but then also inspiring more success."
A Year Later
A year on, Paige says the season hasn't lost its shine. "It has been such a sweet season for our team to reflect on all the excitement of this past year," she says. "There remains a strong sense of camaraderie within our team every time we have the opportunity to pause and reflect."
She also has an update on Mr. Jones. She mailed him the book and the handwritten note she'd promised, the one acknowledging him in her acknowledgments. "When he received it, he sounded taken aback by the mention in the book," she says. "It was great to reconnect after all of these years."
The Award She'd Give
We asked Paige which person she'd honor, if she could present an award to anyone.
She didn't hesitate. "My parents. I don't think parents are recognized enough. I won the lottery with the family I was born into. They've seen the journey, they've been there for it all, they've given me confidence when I didn't believe in myself."
"We grew up in very humble means and it felt like we were the richest people," she said. "And now my mom is full-time helping with my children, so I'm so grateful to have her support in my life."
It's a fitting place to land. The people who taught Paige what recognition should feel like never wore a name tag or stood on a stage for it. They just showed up, for years, without needing to be thanked for it out loud.
