GINA SARAN, principal and founder of Precision Stone Design, didn’t know she would one day lead her own woman-owned business. But her mother did. “When I was 23 years old with only two years into my work life, my mom visited me once at my workplace,” Saran says. “Later that night she said to me, ‘You would do well if you opened your own business’. I told her I didn’t have any business idea or money or inclination to open up my business, and that was that.” Fifteen years later, what started as a project at Saran’s dining room table in between jobs, grew into her own thriving business with more than 10,000 projects successfully completed to date. Precision Stone Design is a premier fabricator of granite and quartz countertops, and natural stone and porcelain. The company features onsite fabrication with precision laser technology and vein-match visualization software. Saran’s BA in Economics and Masters in Business and Economics give her the strong foundation to run her own shop, motivate her team, and manage the bottom line. “I run our business with help of EOS tools (Entrepreneurial Operating System), and management by objectives,” she says. “I like to give our team quarterly rocks and annual objectives, so that we are all accountable and working towards a common goal.” Seems like Saran’s mother was right about her daughter, “My mom was a teacher by profession but an entrepreneur at heart. She would always find ways to encourage, motivate, nurture, and fuel ambition in the people around her.”

Precision Stone Design is located at 945 Lively Boulevard in Elk Grove Village, 312-427-8663, precisionstonedesigns.com.