Recent Blogs

By way of introduction, Connie Duckworth and I worked together at Goldman Sachs. Connie was one of the stars at GS and it was not long before the firm made her a partner. She had a splendid career run at GS.

Like many GS partners, Connie kept blazing ambitious new trails after she left. She founded ARZU, which is an innovative model of social entrepreneurship that helps Afghan women weavers and their families break the cycle of poverty by providing them steady income and access to education and healthcare by sourcing and selling the rugs they weave. While structured as a 501©(3) in…

This is a very long blog but it’s definitely worth reading — Alison’s feat, weeks after her safe return, still takes my breath away! BEST LINE: “It is important to remember the summit is only the half-way point.” THINK ABOUT IT!

After our drop-back down valley we return to BC. We are told that there will be a good weather window with no jetstream from May 22-26th, and we want to beat the crowds up high, so we leave BC at 4am on the 17th so that we are in position at the Col to go for it when the window opens. It takes us 12 hours to get to Camp 2. We are not speedy, but we are solid. W…

A recent interview with Diane Blackman (President and co-Founder of BR Public Relations) which truly captures my passion for the women in 85 Broads!

Q: Why should women join 85 Broads?

JH: The primary reason the network exists is simple: smart women want to collaborate and partner with each other in a number of exciting professional and personal ways. But first they need to be encouraged to do that. When women see other women pursuing their goals with passion and vision, they redouble their own efforts. The magic of 85 Broads is that we are a talent cultivator and a business accelerato…

STATS:

Gary has over 850,000 followers on Twitter.

He LOVES his mother and credits her with his mindblowing success. (How awesome is that??)

Gary Veeisms:

“Facebook and Twitter are the plumbing of social media.”

“Don’t chase trends!”

“Push marketing is OVER. We are in the dawn of PULL MARKETING.”

“To be truly successful, you have to LOVE the process.”

At the end of the day, this is a guy who is a GIVER. We were so incredibly lucky to get him to speak — and equally lucky to get our friends at Bloomberg LP to host. Gary’s main message — be smart, be passionate, and al…

If you’re in the tri-state area today you are enjoying one of the most beautiful days of 2010. Being a BC survivor, I am grateful to (still) have two extraordinary kids, two crazy dogs, a beautiful home in Bedford, and a network of fab women and many cool guy friends in my life.

This evening I will be attending a memorial service at Sloan Kettering for Meg Berte Owen, who lost her battle for life last October at the age of 37. As I love to say, Meg was pure sunshine. Meg was the bluest of blue skies. Alison Levine, who just got back from climbing Mt. Everest in Meg’s memory, will be …

Besty led an amazing live Jam Session for our members on how to get into B-School. Here is Betsy’s unique philosophy:

“Getting accepted by a business school you’ve always dreamed of does not require you to graduate as valedictorian of your university class. You don’t have to earn perfect scores on your GMAT, nor must you start your own million-dollar business and win the Nobel peace prize. Rather, I believe that every candidate to business school owns an exceptional story, and that story is the key to your application.”

Master Admissions is Betsy’s very cool biz — to learn more go…

85 Broads was originally launched in 1997 for current and former Goldman Sachs women who worked at 85 Broad Street in NYC. We became 85Broads.com in 1999 and in 2000, expanded beyond GS when we invited women at the leading graduate business schools to join the network.

In 2004, we invited women at the leading undergraduate colleges and universities to join as well, along with women who were alumnae of those schools.

In 2007, we invited all smart women to join 85 Broads. These were women who had a passion to succeed and who wanted to blaze new trails for other amazing women to follo…

Met with Kevin Ryan today at his office at Gilt Groupe. Kevin is one of the founders of DoubleClick and was one of the early investors in The Ladders… his latest brainchild is [Gilt.com] which he founded with two rockstar members of 85 Broads - Alexis Maybank and Alexandra Wilson - Kevin attributes his success to being lucky but believe me, his IQ totally trumps his rabbit’s foot.

Kevin gave me one hour of his professional time for free — figure one hour of his “mind time” – if put on the auction block — is worth $50k minimum. He is THAT SMART.

Stay tuned to see what we do n…

Alison is just hours away from reaching the summit on Everest. She is climbing in memory of Meg Berte Owen — when she reaches the summit she’s going to plant her ice ax, with Meg’s name carved on it, in Meg’s spectacular memory.

This is an extraordinary, breathtaking victory. Alison was 36 when she made her first summit bid in 2002 — she’s been on the speaking tour for the past few years and I think it would be fair to say that her training for this expedition was the equivalent of cramming for an exam.

What propelled Alison to the top of the highest peak in the world was not h…

I had the opportunity to have coffee with Gretchen Wallace this morning in Hanover. Gretchen is a very cool member of 85 Broads. She is the founder of an organization that helps, and therefore profits, a lot of women in Rwanda which is why I’m hard pressed to call her org a “non-profit.” Global Grassroots is truly best of class.

As everyone knows, donor dollars are extremely hard to come by. Thousands of organizations have been launched in the past decade to help make the world a better place but “more” is not necessarily synonymous with “better.”

What we need: consolidation a…