Recent Blogs

We had a fabulous 85 Broads event at Hult in Cambridge on Thursday night. Got to meet some terrific MBA students and reconnect with some of our great members including Kathleen McQuiggan, Katherine Huang, Tara Faulkner, and Julia Yao Cooper. Hult is a little gem and if b-school is in your future you should definitely check out their program.

I also spoke at Tim Butler’s “New Path” program at HBS on Friday — was thoroughly jazzed by the women I met there and think Tim’s CareerLeader model is amazing.

I am always energized when I get the opportunity to speak and am more convinced th…

85 Broads is hosting an all day conference on Saturday, April 24, 2010 in partnership with (and at) the NYU Stern School of Business.

We have an awesome line up of speakers including Bobby Kennedy, Susan Lyne (CEO of Gilt) Niko Canner (former co-founder of Katzenbach Partners and current senior partner of Booz & Co.) Nomi Ghez, former II ranked analyst and Goldman Sachs partner, and Aswath Damodaran, finance guru and teacher at NYU Stern.

Also speaking: Cindy Padnos, founder of Illuminate Ventures who has written a terrific report on women launching high growth businesses in the tec…

I got an email from Alex Dietrich, one of the coolest women in our network, about a congressional gold medal ceremony in Washington DC on March 10th for Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS) who served their country during World War II.

Alex was a jet fighter pilot in the Navy and has asked that we get the word out about the ceremony and these amazing women.

She wrote: "Nearly 70 years have passed since WW II. In those critical days over a thousand women pilots took to the skies in military aircraft for the United States Army Air Forces to relieve desperately needed male pilots for c…

I am very excited about our partnership with the Harvard Business School Executive Education Program, “A New Path: Setting New Professional Directions.” 85 Broads will gift a 1-year Power Circle membership to members that participate in the program!

Rockstar 85 Broads member Sasha Grinshpun, Career and Executive Coach, interviewed Dr. Timothy Butler, the Senior Fellow and Director of Career Development Programs, MBA Program Administration at Harvard Business School, and faculty chair of “A New Path,” about the program:

Why does Harvard Business School have an executive education progra…

Sunday, January 31, 2010. I hope you will share Mary Ellen’s spectacular story with everyone you know. I was blown away.

Major Milestones and Turning Points:
My grandfather, Bubba, was the first person whom I truly loved to pass away. On the day of his funeral, I began to think about the impact Bubba had on my life. Looking out at the people from all different walks of life who had gathered for his service, I was reminded of the core principle that Bubba stood for: to always accept people for who they are, regardless of race, social standing or education. It is honoring this “Bubba P…

85 Broads has many awesome friends but few are more awesome than our friends at Barclays. Tom Kalaris, who runs Barclays Wealth Management, introduced me to Craig Jones who heads up Diversity. In a word, Craig totally ROCKS. He rocks because he is willing to experiment and try new things — he is one of the people I most respect and admire at Barclays.

I asked Craig if we could get Tim Bond, who is a truly brilliant global strategist, to do a live Jam Session with us. We wanted to hear Tim’s prognostications on the global economy for 2010. For one hour today he totally wowed our memb…

One of my favorite quotes is by John Petit-Senn:

“True courage is like a kite.. a contrary wind raises it higher.”

For the record, I had an amazing career at Goldman Sachs. I got to be part of one of the greatest franchises on the planet – over the last 3 decades I have had the opportunity to contribute to so many amazing organizations, my own family, and to 85 Broads — all because I got a shot at the title — to join a firm that allowed me to share my wealth with so many others.

While at Goldman Sachs, I worked with some of the best and brightest people in the business – I had…

In Afghanistan, where domestic violence is epidemic, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon speaks to young mothers who’ve survived abuse and want women’s rights to top the military’s agenda.

Sitting atop a burgundy pillow with her back pressed up against the bare white wall of the shelter she now calls home, Naseema pushes her polka-dot headscarf away from her eyes and begins to tell her story.

She was around 16 years old when her father, who suffered from mental illness, married her off without her consent, for a sum she does not know, to a man eight years her senior. Naseema’s mother had left her chil…

JOB CREATION: Look to Entrepreneurs

Editor’s note: Amy M. Wilkinson is a Senior Fellow at Harvard University Center for Business and Government and a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center. She is writing a book on next generation leaders.

Washington (CNN) — It’s the oldest trick in the political playbook: Call together a “summit” of fancy people so you’ll appear to be focused on work that must get done.

Thursday, the White House convened CEOs from companies such as Boeing, AT&T, Comcast and Dow Corning, top leaders of the United Steelworkers, United Food and Commercial…

I watched Larry King Live tonight — the topic of the hour was Tiger Woods — the takeaway was that none of the companies that endorse him will pull their endorsements and that he’ll come back bigger than ever — even bigger than Kobe Bryant.

Gillette won’t pull their endorsement because most of their razors are sold to men so no issue there and Nike — well… Tiger sells a lot of footwear.

Incredible that the talking heads said that “the only people who would be angry would be women’s groups.” Really? If that’s true then this country is in serious trouble. If guys think it’s o…