Tag Archive for: Intrepid Women

Elena Kim: VP Business Development, TV/OTT at Global Music Rights

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Elena Kim“I found a different lease on my otherness. I can’t chase everybody’s projection of me,” says Elena Kim, “but the more I recognize the uniqueness of my own experience, the more I feel I have to offer.”

Kim speaks to how she learned to dream, connecting through differences, emotional regulation and integrating masculine and feminine aspects of leadership.

How the Invitation To Dream Changed Everything

Kim spent the first six years of her career in investment banking in Moscow, before the financial crisis of 2008. She decided to take the ‘opportunity’ of the market slump to invest in herself by pursuing an MBA. While filling out the application, she had to answer where she envisioned herself in five years, which she had never considered: “It quickly became a self-discovery journey for me.”

When Kim pondered what she cared or was passionate about, she realized she didn’t know what she really wanted.

“It was the first time when I allowed myself to dream as if anything was possible,” reflects Kim. “At that time, it was films and TV series – my window into the bigger world, into a different world. Growing up in Uzbekistan, I never had allowed myself to even consider the possibility of working in entertainment.”

She received her MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management in Los Angeles when digital media was becoming prevalent in media and entertainment, which created a permissive playing field of newbies. Jumping on the rising wave of digital transformation as major players were just coming onto the scene, she joined a startup and began to reinvent her career path.

For several years, she acquired film and TV content for digital platforms, such as Hulu, Vimeo and iflix. For the past three years, she has negotiated and licensed music rights for programming across broadcast, cable, local TV networks and streaming platforms, which gives her a bird’s eye view of the whole TV and film industry.

“What I’m passionate about is figuring out what makes people’s hearts beat faster. What do they really love to watch and what determines that?” she says.

Having worked across emerging markets, she observed the obvious: whereas what people prefer to watch in Latin America might differ from that in Eastern Europe, Middle East, Africa or Southeast Asia, the love for stories about human experience is shared universally.

The Curiosity to Learn

Early on, Kim believes that her strongest asset was curiosity and willingness to dig deep into a subject. She notes she had amazing teachers who taught her the structure of learning a new skill and how to dissect a new concept to understand it.

“So how do you learn a new industry, for example? You look at the main players and their business models: how do people make money? What is the current political, economic, legislative environment impacting the industry? What are the major trends? What stands behind the main buzzwords?” asks Kim. “As you learn the basics, you then start tuning into where the opportunity is. What forms core competitive advantage, and what is driving the opportunity, what needs to hold true to fully unleash value? etc.”

When she was coming from Russia to the U.S., shifting from banking to media, she applied this process: “It became very clear to me that the wind was blowing towards online viewing, and I knew I wanted a job that had something to do with digital distribution.”

She loves how digital distribution of content included many more voices in a global dialogue. Regardless of where you are from and what you believe, you can connect over Game of Thrones or Friends.

The Value In Our Differences

As an avid globe trotter (over 60 countries and counting), she finds traveling therapeutic. She especially enjoys interacting with local people who don’t speak her language, figuring out ways to communicate beyond verbal. She holds such memories dear to her heart after surviving an earthquake in Nepal, sharing music with children from indigenous tribes in Indonesia, self-driving through Botswana and Namibia with local hitchhikers, getting help from local police after being robbed in Argentina, for example.

During one such trip, she traveled to Peru and had her first experience with plant medicine under the guidance of a local shaman, who held space with due reverence to ancient practices and traditions: “This was learning on a cosmic level. I won’t even attempt to describe it in words. If my spiritual inquiry started with understanding the concepts of neuroplasticity (who you are today is not a verdict), my awakening was turbo charged by living through the learning during this psychedelic experience.”

Kim continues, “One of the things now running through my veins is the knowing that what makes me connect with people is the ways in which we are similar, what intrigues and draws me to people is the ways in which we are different.”

“My personal journey with ‘otherness’ has been an emotional roller coaster. I am Korean ethnically, born in a Muslim country of Uzbekistan, mentally grew up in Russian culture in the Russian society,” says Kim. “Now I live in the U.S. as a gay woman, a scientifically-inclined spiritual psychonaut, where I’m ‘too woo woo’ in analytical circles and ‘too in my head’ in esoteric environments, etc. Of course, these are mostly distorted self-assessments.”

Growing up, she felt the disconnection of being Asian in Russia by not ‘presenting’ as Russian. Yet she speaks Russian, not Korean or Chinese, for which she’s regularly mistaken. Last year, prior to the current geopolitical crisis, she spent time in Russia, where she identified a piece in herself that she feels is Russian: her sense of depth. She does not give people any box to put her in anymore: “I don’t even fit the labels I have for myself,” she notes, “I’ve stopped explaining. ‘I’m from Russia’ is all I say now.”

To Kim, whatever makes us different is what helps us to represent a specific side of humanity as part of the whole. She resonates with Jerome Braggs’s notion that if you believe in universal oneness, then excluding experiences that are unique leads to robbing others of a fuller wholeness. Therefore, the more different we’re perceived we are, the more important it is for us to show up in all areas of life – and she notes those differences are defined in so many ways beyond ethnicity, race, gender or sexual orientation.

Integrating Feminine and Masculine Traits in Leadership

In a previous role, Kim was encouraged to start an initiative to foster diversity, equality and inclusion across employees from 40+ different countries and cultural backgrounds, which activated for her the importance of so-to-speak “feminine” qualities of leadership, especially when dealing with something intangible like what gives people a collective sense of purpose, belonging, safety for authenticity, and striving for excellence.

Kim recounts we have historically glorified and rewarded traits of leadership that are labeled as “masculine” – assertiveness, linear thinking, clarity without questioning and go-getting. But traits that we assign as “feminine” – such as empathy, collaboration, creating constructive atmosphere – are considered nice-to-have but not necessarily perceived as attributes of leadership or rewarded.

“The DE&I initiative quickly led me to a path of dissecting and challenging the leadership paradigm that we were operating under,” reflects Kim. “It’s so clear to me that to be successful in a multicultural organization, you have to have an acute level of empathy and cultural awareness. And the soft skills are increasingly becoming must-have.”

She has come to see that “feminine” leadership qualities are a necessary complement to “masculine” qualities, not a compromise or trade-of. “I used to hold this myth that once you start being softer, you lose your edge, an ability to reach goals in a timely manner. I had this notion you either be like a robot or you float in the clouds, and that was a misconception.”

Reflecting on the evolution of her leadership style, she says: “Even if I was telling myself a different story, early on I was truly managing out of egoic fear of losing control. I was never a micro-manager, but I was a micro-controller. I had to know everything, call the shots, be the one interacting with management to control the narrative, etc.”

Kim realizes this came from being extremely demanding on herself, and meant she came off polished and unapproachable. As she steps up as a leader, her focus is increasingly shifting to creating opportunities for others to push their growth edges, normalizing making mistakes while minimizing their impact.

Now she finds herself at a company that’s thriving despite the global pandemic. “We have set clear goals, roles, strategy and timeline, while the flow and interaction within the team remains fluid, supportive and trusting. I don’t need to chase anyone to get their job done, rather keep communicating progress, so folks can self-direct their work streams to deliver on time. This release of control within set boundaries is still work in progress as my ego peeks its head constantly. With that, I find myself being successful at my job, really supported by my team and a much happier me.”

Emotional Regulation and Co-Creation

Kim feels the pandemic, socio-economic inequity, and current geopolitical crises have brought a set of unique challenges around managing people’s mental and emotional states. Leaders are not necessarily equipped with due skillsets, protocols or guidelines to attend to people’s emotional turbulence. She is increasingly interested in the area of emotional self-regulation and has heard many executives speak to challenges of operating in toxic environments where stress and reactivity are the norms: “Even in my relatively emotionally intelligent company, without the acquired self-regulation practices I’ve exposed myself to in the last couple of years, I could not have managed some of the incidents that have come up inside and outside of the company. A simple thing like taking a deep breath might lead to a more beneficial outcome in an emotionally charged situation. These tools are teachable and the impact is quickly palpable.”

Her latest fascinations include Web 3.0 and decentralization, and she’s presently teaching a blockchain fundamentals course at chief.com to a network for executive women.

By Aimee Hansen

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Dr. Sarah Carrier, MD: Emergency Physician, JH Quillen VA Medical Center

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Sarah Carrier“Medicine is both an Art and a Science,” says Sarah Carrier, MD. “The science is knowing what kind of disease the patient has. The art is knowing what kind of patient has the disease.”

Carrier speaks of the call to become a doctor, establishing herself as a peer among men and why soft skills matter especially in her profession.

Heeding the “Burden” to Pursue Medicine

Carrier did not come from a medical family (her parents were in engineering and real estate), but recalls being drawn from an early age. After being a volunteer “candy striper” in high school, she began to think of a career in medicine. Her mother’s solid advice was to get her foothold in nursing before seeing if she wanted to invest her study and finances in becoming a doctor.

“I spent ten years in nursing. But there’s an expression in this part of the country that people are ‘called to preach.’ They have a burden to preach, meaning they can’t not do it,” she notes. “Well, in my case, I felt called to medicine. I had a burden to be a doctor and it would not go away.”

What catalyzed the decisive moment to embark on becoming a physician, as a thirty-year old working nurse with small children four and six years, was the shock of losing a good friend in a car accident: “When she tragically died, I thought we never know how much time we’ve got on this planet, so I really don’t want to go to my grave without having tried to do what I felt I was called to.”

Despite the bewilderment of her friends, she spent a year preparing for the MCAT entrance exam and then entered medical school while raising what became three children, still practicing nursing during some of her summers.

From Nurse To “Female” Doctor

Having been a nurse before becoming a doctor gave Carrier a kindred respect for nurses: “I think first being a nurse made me a better doctor, because I know what their job is like and I’m there to work with them. Whereas a lot of physicians come in acting like the boss, it’s a different demeanor and often more of an ego thing. I knew first hand that the nurses you work with can either make your job easy or they can make it hard. You should never forget that you are on a team. You may be the Captain but it is still a team. Everyone matters.”

Working in the South, in a generally more paternalistic culture, Carrier admits that the medical environment still carries a bit of pecking order about it, though there are many more women in emergency medicine than when she began. Nonetheless, she has had to regularly “out” herself as the doctor to her patients.

“When I started, I’d go into the room and patients would presume I was the nurse. I realized it was up to me to let them know that I was in fact the doctor,” says Sarah Carrier. “In my line of work, you are meeting people on the fly. No one comes to the ED because they’re having a good day, so that’s where we start. You have to get good at gaining trust and confidence.”

Carrier has never felt she is competing against male peers in the medical field, but she has organically developed tactics to quickly establish herself as a peer, especially when doctors are calling each other up to transfer patients or get patients admitted into specialist departments, and there is just her voice to go on.

“I want to make sure they know that I’m the doctor, not the transfer coordinator, so I use their first name to create more of a level playing field. Instead of saying ‘Dr. Smith’ for example, I’ll say ‘John, this is Sarah Carrier over here in the ER’,” she notes. “I’ve found the conversation comes more collegial with that small, simple thing.”

One mentor Carrier remembers was a chief surgeon at John Hopkins who exhibited tongue-in-cheek confidence. She would walk through the hallway announcing, “Okay, the girl doctor is making the rounds.” She advised Carrier to not take nonsense from anyone and importantly, to not expect perfection from herself.

Carrier has observed the peer dynamic between female physicians is surprisingly more supportive than she experienced as a nurse. She suspects that being fewer in number relatively increases camaraderie and forthcomingness to support each other.

It’s actually outside of the hospital, when working with other women on volunteer projects, that Carrier has felt her role as a physician can seem to affect the way women relate to her, and she might hold back on that detail when first connecting as friends.

The Soft Skills of Emergency Medicine

With a range of patients from pediatrics to geriatric, women are usually involved in emergency visits, from caregivers to mothers to spouses. Carrier has found that women seem to relate better to other women in these contexts of vulnerability, so being a woman is often an asset.

“Generally speaking, I think men will more often stand with the clipboard and take care of business. In my experience, they don’t tend to try to make the emotional connection as often,” she observes. “Whereas women tend to sit down in the room and talk to people and make the emotional connection.”

She notes, “You don’t have to spend a lot of extra time, but to just sit down and ask, ‘are you under a lot of stress?‘ or ‘what’s been going on besides the baby being sick?’ is enough to let them know that you identify with their situation.”

Carrier often has to speak transparently about health to patients she’s known for only five minutes before the tests, and while she values telling it like it is, she also says that in any profession there’s a delicate line to observe: “I think patients appreciate the fact that you’ll sit down and say, ‘I’ve got some things I’ve got to tell you. Some of them are going to be hard to listen to. Some are good. Some are not so good’. You can be honest, but you don’t have to be brutally honest. You don’t have to say,’ ‘you’ve got a lung mass and it’s probably cancer’. But you can say, ’there’s something there that doesn’t belong there, we need to get some more tests and here’s the five things that might be.'”

Seeing Her Role as Education

Carrier encourages questions and educating people in a way that empowers them in their own health. She has appeared on Discovery Channel’s “Untold Stories of the ER” four times, and while the show dramatizes the emergency room, it also allows her to educate people. An episode in which she throughly explains a heart attack, around a situation where a patient was resisting the diagnosis while going into cardiac arrest, has been viewed over 500,000 times and could save lives.

“I’m basically explaining the physiology of a heart attack, which is something I deal with nearly every day. But the average person doesn’t really understand how they get from feeling fine to being literally at death’s door,” notes Carrier. “So that particular episode where I could explain in very simple terms how a heart attack works matters.”

Appreciation and Presence

Working in a 24/7 emergency situation requires calm in navigating chaos. Carrier has learned how to compartmentalize and switch gears from an urgent situation to a more standard injury, while being present to each patient. Being an emergency physician during Covid has definitely stretched her stamina.

More than anything, her job is a constant reminder of the relative nature of problems, and to appreciate her life. Since returning to school with young children, preserving quality time with family mattered more to her than achieving perfect grades. And it still matters to make that time.

She enjoys being involved in organizations where she can work beside other women outside of the medical field, such as in volunteer groups and, presently, an art commission.

By Aimee Hansen

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Intrepid Woman: Liz Elting, Founder and CEO of the Elizabeth Elting Foundation

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Liz Eltingby Cathie Ericson

“Those who can help, should help.”

That’s the impetus behind Liz Elting’s mission, as founder and CEO of the Elizabeth Elting Foundation, which lifts up women and marginalized populations in education, health and other ways.

Using Her Success to Help Others

Elting’s philanthropic ability comes from previous work success. She always loved languages—learning four of them while living, studying and working in five countries. After graduating from college with a degree in world languages, she worked at a translation company in production and sales which prompted her to realize the practice could likely be done better. After three years she decided to go back to school and earned her MBA from NYU; shortly after graduating, she held a finance position in a French bank and quickly realized it wasn’t for her. “As the only woman professional there, whenever the phone rang, they would call for me,” she says.

That led her to strike out on her own, where she started her own translation company. Over the next 26 years she grew TransPerfect into the world’s largest language solutions company, with over $600 million in revenue, more than 5,000 employees and 11,000 clients and offices in more than 90 cities worldwide.

In 2018 she sold her half of the company in order to focus full time on philanthropy, launching the Elizabeth Elting Foundation, which revolves around pure philanthropy, but also supporting entrepreneurs.

A Wide-Ranging Mission

The foundation has recently launched the Halo Project to meet the needs of those affected by COVID-19. “It’s a public health and economic catastrophe unlike anything we’ve seen; not only did it spread like wildfire faster than we could understand, but it painfully underscored structural inequalities,” she says. The foundation aims to identify areas where they can have the best impact, and it was an easy pivot to focus on women since they are often on the front lines.

Other important areas the foundation services include public health, such as the International Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia Foundation, designed to help research and treat a rare kind of lymphoma, which Elting’s father has. He had been told he had five years to live and now the common diagnosis has expanded to 18 years, signifying satisfying and rewarding progress.

She also does work with the American Heart Association, helping to raise awareness of women’s heart issues, an important need given that most heart research is directed toward men. Thanks to her work with Go Red for Women and her participation with the board, she’s become connected with other groups to help spread the word about heart disease prevention. For example, the foundation has installed a blood pressure kiosk at the Campaign Against Hunger’s sites to help those populations get their blood pressure checked. She also has supplied Susan’s Place, a women’s shelter in Harlem, with equipment like blood pressure cuffs.

Other work includes donating to the National Organization for Women and helping support “Leftover Cuisine,” which takes extra restaurant meals directly to food banks. She was able to connect a friend who works with auto dealers to help supply the cars and drivers as a win-win to keep the dealerships’ teams employed while delivering much-needed food to the food banks.

In addition, Elting is active with her alma maters, including Trinity College where she attended undergraduate school and the NYU Business School. Her foundation gives four annual MBA scholarships for high-performing women, along with investing in two entrepreneurs a year.

As she considers areas where she can make a difference, Elting prioritizes research to make sure the money is going to the right causes and confirm exactly where the funds are going. So, for example, when she makes a cash donation to the food bank, she wants to make sure that every dollar goes to food. With the AHA, she made sure the donation directly funds the blood pressure station drive rather than being directed to a more general fund, and at NYU, she directly gives to the scholarships.

“It’s important to clarify where your money is going, which makes it more rewarding and fulfilling,” Elting notes.

In her spare time, Elting loves to read and is a self-described “news junkie.” With two teen sons, she loves to indulge in outdoorsy hobbies, like skiing and the beach, and looks forward to resuming travel when the time is right.

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Intrepid Woman: Nikki Barua, CEO, BeyondCurious

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Fear is imaginary, says entrepreneur Nikki Barua. “The more you focus on it, the more it grows, and the only way to overcome fear is to replace it with faith. I have always had faith in myself, my team and my purpose and that’s what fuels my confidence.”Nicki B

She finds that most people go through their lives worrying about losing love, money or job security. “That fear can keep you from taking risks. Imagine the life you could create if you weren’t gripped by fear. Imagine doing what you love and not worrying about how people view you or not being defined by other people’s expectations of you.”

A Career Built on Helping Companies Thrive in Disruption

Barua knows all too well the importance of moving past those fears. An immigrant from India, she came to America in 1997 for business school. After graduation, she built her career first in management consulting, and then in digital marketing, honing her skills as a digital innovator and a business leader in the corporate world.

As she helped global brands transform their business with digital solutions, she noticed that many clients struggled with the pace of change in technology, competition and customer expectations. Big brands needed to be more agile and adapt quickly to change and needed to think and act with the agility of a startup, she found. “They needed an entrepreneurial culture designed for change. That challenge fascinated me, and I was obsessed with a singular question, ‘How do you make elephants run?’”

That question led to her entrepreneurial journey: She left her corporate career and the prestige and security that accompanies that territory and started her business with no clients, no case studies and barely any capital.

“All I had was a clear purpose — to unlock the limitless potential of people and organizations. That clarity gave me the courage to take the steps forward despite my fears, learning to navigate through unknown territory,” she says.

Although she had managed P&Ls and led people, she nevertheless felt unprepared for the challenges of building a business from scratch. As she describes it, each day was filled with untold challenges and gut- wrenching setbacks, followed by big successes and unexpected victories. As she kept learning and adapting, BeyondCurious soon became a successful business, and Barua reveled in her successful transition from corporate leader to entrepreneur.

Along the way, she discovered an important truth that has been the foundation of her success: Whether you work in a big corporation or run your own business, the fundamentals are the same — delight your customer, inspire your team and keep innovating.

Bold Dreams Will Define Your Success

Barua remembers daydreaming about her future as a young girl in India, and how big the dreams seemed at the time. But eventually those dreams came true so she dreamed bigger and bigger. “The lesson I learned is that you only achieve what you dream of, so if your dreams aren’t big, your achievements won’t be either,” Barua notes. “When you dream big, your creativity is unleashed; your confidence grows; your potential is unlocked; and you break barriers of what you thought was possible for yourself and for the world.”

As her company has succeeded, she has found that her biggest challenge is growing herself along with the organization. She advises other entrepreneurs to stay hungry, keep learning and get comfortable being uncomfortable. “When you embrace the discomfort of not knowing, you are able to learn at an exponential rate,” she says.

Along with dreams comes action, and Barua believes firmly you have to stand for what you believe in. “Be authentic in your culture and leadership, and build a tribe of believers that have a shared sense of purpose and core values,” she says. “A movement is more powerful than any organization.”

Proving Herself as a Change Agent

Today’s world is experiencing disruption across the board — in society, government, technology and culture. “When the things we believed in and the rules we lived by no longer hold true, it presents an opportunity to create something better and more meaningful,” Barua says, adding that leaders have the privilege and the responsibility of shaping the world the way they wish it to be.

That’s why it’s so important not to just be business leaders or entrepreneurs, but to be inspiring role models and purpose-driven change agents.

She believes the ultimate purpose of leadership is to unlock the potential in others by giving people a platform to be their best and creating an environment where people thrive because they are constantly learning, growing and breaking barriers. She has found that when people are aligned around shared values and connections, they are more fulfilled.

She herself has a mission to unlock the potential of a billion people – talk about dreaming big!

“I believe we are all limitless, but we are held back when we lack the clarity, courage or conviction to go beyond our barriers,” she says.

“I am deeply passionate about being a catalyst that helps people unlock that limitless potential. It’s what I love to do above all else and what has fueled all my career success,” she says.

“As an entrepreneur, educator, public speaker, author and social activist, everything I do is aligned to that singular mission. Every day is about taking courageous action, learning, adapting and never giving up.”

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Intrepid Woman: Marie Heron, Executive Director at On-Track Career and Employment Services

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As part of disability awareness month, we are giving a platform to women to tell their stories. Marie Heron

Successful, career oriented, and a visionary, Marie Heron has transformed her $100,000 funded agency into multiple delivery sites and more than 1.5 million dollars in funding. Over the years, she has been an adult educator, career counsellor and eventually an Executive Director. Heron’s career path, however, was far from barrier free.

At the age of 24, Heron worked as a sales representative for an International Personnel Agency. A self described over achiever, Heron strived to climb the career ladder to become a site manager. Her life, however, was about to take an unexpected turn, beginning with an emergency visit to St. Michael’s Hospital. After three days of testing, Heron was diagnosed as having the chronic illness Multiple Sclerosis.

Left with more questions than answers, Heron returned to work, where she quickly learned that life was not what it was before. ”After the initial diagnosis, I had three successive relapses, which required time off of work,” said Heron. “My employer had to let me go because I was taking so much time off work.”

Taking a Step Back to Move Forward

Not wanting to repeat this experience, Heron made the decision to take on shorter-term contracts while she adapted to life with a chronic illness. Although, it was a choice that resulted in significantly less money, it was a necessary step to gain a better understanding of her illness and what she would need to do to adapt. Over time, Heron realized that she could either sit and wallow in self pity or proceed forward with her dreams. And so, she moved forward, determined to construct her own career path. “Physically I was having periodic episodes of vertigo, vision loss and falls, intermixed with periods of remission,” said Heron. “I recognized that I was the only one responsible for my career, so I took control.” The answer for Heron was to start her own business, the Art of Reception, a training company for receptionists.   The business started out small, with a few key staff members that she could trust to take the lead during periods of relapse.

After a few years, Heron recognized the company’s potential for growth, but to do so she would require additional capital. “I went to a local politician’s office, every week, for a year and half, with the hopes of obtaining federal funding,” said Heron. Her perseverance paid off. “I was the youngest and first woman to get that much federal funding,” said Heron. “But it was what my contact said when the funding was received that was both surprising and inspiring.” The politician shared that he had helped to knock down the doors, but what Heron did beyond the doors was up to her.

And that is exactly what she did, continuing to break down barriers and expand her company. With the growth of the company, Heron became less forthcoming about her illness to her staff. “When people heard that I had multiple sclerosis, immediately they started to research and develop biases that impacted our interactions,” said Heron. “And so, I made the decisions to not tell people about my illness, as it did not define who I was.”

Strange Side Effects of the Illness

Navigating a career with a chronic illness, equipped Heron with both a positive attitude and perseverance that helped to both inspire and motivate her clients. Because she had such high expectations for herself, she, found herself expecting her staff to follow her example. “Because I had done so much myself, “said Heron. “I found that I had developed extremely high expectations for my employees.” To help manage her expectations, Heron hired a human resources consultant to assist her with both management techniques and to develop policies and procedures for her company.

Over the years, Heron has learned a lot about growing her career and the importance of self-care, but this wasn’t always the case. In her twenties and thirties, Heron, would often find herself working overtime, including weekends, to get in documents days before the deadline. Today, she’s learned to take things a bit slower, still ensuring that the deadline is met, but also taking the time to rest and rejuvenate.

“I recently read an article by Jack Osborne, who shared that there is a silver lining with being diagnosed“, said Heron. “He said, that if you can maintain your positivity, you can steer your progression. It resonated with me because I’ve always tried to be positive.” Although, multiple sclerosis does not define Heron, there is no question that it has helped evolve her to the person that she is today.

About Marie-Heron

Marie Heron, Executive Director at On-Track Career & Employment Services, was diagnosed with M.S. at 24. She has created a new podcast, “Truth Be Told” so that young people living with M.S. can find a safe resource for hope, inspiration, and advocacy.

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Intrepid Woman: Dr. Marilyn Fraser, CEO, Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health (AAIUH)

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By Cathie EricsonDr Fraser

Dr. Marilyn Fraser has always had a passion for patient education and talking to people about health, considering it one of her favorite aspects of medicine. That’s why when she was facing a crossroads regarding career direction after completing medical school, she was delighted to hear of the opportunity at the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health (AAIUH), located at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. The more she went into the community to talk about health, the more she realized it was a career path where she would stay.

The Institute was founded by Arthur Ashe, an activist, tennis champion and humanitarian interested in addressing health inequities, including the underrepresentation of people of color in the health profession, and implementing innovative community outreach programs. The Institute has a stated long-term goal of reducing morbidity and mortality by improving health knowledge, facilitating behavior change and expanding access to care among the most vulnerable populations in urban areas.

A central component of the mission is to create partnerships and research the needs of communities, then develop best practices or make policy recommendations to address the issues, she adds. The Brooklyn Health Disparities Center, a key collaboration of the Institute with SUNY Downstate and the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President, is a great example of such a partnership.

Tackling Challenges to Advance the Mission

From growing up in the West Indies to her time living in Brooklyn, Fraser knows firsthand that there are communities that are underserved, with limited access to care. In addition, education is sorely needed as some people are not aware of resources that are available. “We try to link them to those resources because sometimes they can’t afford the care they need or lack access to care,” she points out.

In addition, groups like AAIUH play a key role in dispelling myths about health and disease. “We want people to be aware of what’s going on in their bodies and not be afraid,” she says, adding that they are realizing that even simple conversations can provide clues to social issues that might be coming into play and hampering the ability of the community to access healthcare.

“One of our biggest challenges is funding and how to conduct effective programs, including research as budgets are often cut with no warning,” she says.

Recently, the AAIUH, under Dr. Fraser’s leadership, was awarded a grant to lead a consortium to develop a strategic plan for community-based organizations (CBOs) to share their knowledge. The program, part of Delivery Systems Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) program received a $2.5 million dollar grant to work with community-based organizations to lead a consortium to build the capacity of CBOs to address the DSRIP deliverables focused on improving health outcomes .

They are currently a little more than halfway through the one-year grant, which they hope will promote sustainability and also create systems to address healthcare inequalities. “The award recognized the Institute’s leadership, and I personally found that being acknowledged by peers and selected to carry out this important mission is one of the greatest honors anyone could have,” Fraser says.

Relationships Are the Key

Fraser has helped keep her passion alive by building relationships within communities. But she adds, “It’s important to realize that we must stay mindful of the fact that the people who live these experiences are the experts, and you can’t come in with preconceived notions. In medical school they taught us to listen to our patients because it can be all too easy to rely on our own ideas and discount what is actually being said.”

She acknowledges that nothing is done overnight and that it takes time to foster relationships, especially while also handling administrative needs. “You have to find a balance between the many relationships and create and maintain a culture that speaks to people with varying needs, priorities and agendas,” she says. While she knew that politics would play a big role, she has come to realize just how important it is – and how much time is needed to devote to political issues, compared to her former deputy role.

As the years go by, Fraser says she finds that the general public isn’t as aware of Ashe and his mission, which is why they work to keep his legacy in the forefront. “If we are cognizant of making sure that we maintain the essence of who he was and why he created the Institute, I am confident we will do the work in the same vein that it was intended and sustain it, which is the important factor,” she says. She particularly appreciates how her role is made easier because of the support she is offered from her entire team, including the board.

Dr. Fraser carries her love of cultures over into a passion for travel, always wanting to experience new places and people. One of the Institute’s programs has been replicated in Trinidad & Tobago, in collaboration with the University of the West Indies. In addition, she notes that a big part of everything she does is spurred on by her faith, and she finds that her family, including her nieces and nephews, keep her grounded. Friends play a key role too. “In addition to prayer, cooking is my stress reliever and I love to invite groups over to join me,” she says.

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Intrepid Woman: Linda Davies, Banker to Bestselling Author

Linda DavisNew York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author Linda Davies wrote this guest article for theglasshammer.com about how she succeeded as an investment banker and then made the leap from corporate life into full-time self employment as a novelist. This is surely a dream that many people share, but is it really that easy?

The GH: Linda, tell us about your career in finance in the city of London?

Linda: When I first stepped into the hallowed streets of the City of London as a callow twenty one year old graduate fresh out of Oxford, I only ever intended to stay for a few years.From when I was a little girl, I had always wanted to be a writer.Corporate life was a means to that end.

In the City, I had two objectives: one was to make as much money as I could legally in as short space of time as possible, and the second was to prove a point to myself and whoever I fancied might be watching.

The City lured you in with the promise of money but it had another USP that appealed to my young and foolish ego: it prided itself on its hair-cloth-shirt toughness, insinuating that you had to be something of a superhero to survive let alone thrive.

There weren’t any super heroines back then in the American investment bank I went to work for.I was the first woman they employed in European corporate finance.Back then, the glass ceiling was at entry-level and I was thrilled to have smashed it.
The work was an intellectual challenge, but the environment was not a fit for me..

Dealing in astronomical sums of money and being lavishly rewarded can be very corrupting, can lead you to think that you deserve the money, that you are entitled to the money, and that you need that amount of money to live a satisfactory life.

I had a plan and I stuck to it. I deviated occasionally and allowed myself indulgences, but the greatest indulgence of all is time and money buys time in my opinion. After seven years as a leveraged buyout and high-risk specialist, it was time to leave.

I had for several years been searching for a plot, and then, one day, I was sitting at my desk, feeling particularly annoyed with my boss, and wondering idly how much trouble I could cause financially, when the bare bones of a story leapt into my head.

It was a totally illegal plan, it would have made a lot of money, but I like to sleep easy at night, and so instead of doing it, I wrote about it. After six months, I knew that this plot could turn into a book.

I was young, free, and single. After seven years I had saved up enough money. It was time to take a risk, to turn my back on my large six-figure salary and bonus, and the status and security that went with it.
I remember the day I handed in my notice. I felt as if I had jumped out of an airplane without a parachute. It seemed like I was in freefall for weeks afterwards. It was a gloriously heady feeling.

The GH: Ok, so that is definitely a moment that some people would consider scary, possibly even risky! How did you go from quitting your day job to realizing your dream?

I wrote for 18 months, refining the plot until it was time to test the reality of my dream. Through a friend of a friend I was introduced to a literary agent. I went to see him, handed over my manuscript. It was a Thursday.

Then in some strange feat of serendipity, a kind of fortune favors the brave moment, a bizarre thing happened over the weekend.

About four months earlier, I had written a speculative letter to the Sunday Times, where I suggested writing an article about my experiences in the City. I was contacted a few weeks later by the editor of the Sunday Times Magazine who said absolutely, yes please, do write an article for us about what it is like to be a woman in that extremely testosterone-fuelled environment.

I had no idea when the article would appear, but, as luck would have it, it came out, covering six pages, on the Sunday immediately following my Thursday meeting with the literary agent.

This produced two rather wonderful and wholly anticipated results: one, an auction ensued amongst a number of publishing houses to buy my novel and two, I was contacted by about six different highly prestigious and successful financial boutiques and offered jobs (I have to say at this point, nothing in my article suggested that I wished to return to finance.)

This was 20 years ago.The book was Nest of Vipers – an adrenaline fuelled insight into the life of an investment banker, Sarah Jensen, who was recruited by the Governor of the Bank of England to go undercover in her investment bank to investigate an insider-trading ring that stretched from a central bank to the Mafia. Unbeknownst to her, she was also working for MI6.The novel went on to be published in over thirty territories and to be optioned three times for movies.

I am now on book number 13. Jumping out of my investment banking career had been a risk worth taking on every level.

The GH: What advice would you give our readers today?

I suspect that a number of you reading this are contemplating or have contemplated leaving the corporate system and so my advice to you would go along the following lines:

* While you are inside the system, be wary of buying into it and into the lifestyle to match it if you are intending to leave it, particularly in highly paid professions such as investment banking. Investment banking is a great way to amass money, but only if you do not spend like an investment banker.

* Many women in corporate life can still in some ways feel like outsiders. As the first woman employed by Bankers Trust’s European corporate finance department, I was patently and obviously an outsider and always felt like one. That was a real advantage. Relish and use that feeling. It gives you perspective, the ability to stand aside and look at your position and your broader options in the outside world and gives you greater flexibility in terms of the choices you might go on to make. There is no wonderfully set career path stretching out ahead of you. You have far greater freedom to make it up as you go along.

It’s been shown in personality tests/behavioral profiles that entrepreneurs are overwhelmingly outsiders. Being too wedded to corporate life can blunt your desire and ability to take risks with your career. Being an able quantifier of risk for your organization often does not extend to being able to quantify risk as regards your own life.

I’m a contrarian by nature and it’s led to some odd but potentially beneficial opportunities: the first was my Sunday Times article which I had thought was a very public exercise in boat-burning, in deliberately removing any fallback position, any hint of a Plan B should Plan A fail.I believed that the very absence of a Plan B would make me work harder to ensure Plan A worked!

How contrary was it then that my article and my attitude produced all these offers. I’m sure had I gone knocking on their doors the week before those same doors would have remained closed to me.

Being an author these days really means that you are an entrepreneur so a lot of my experiences and the lessons I have drawn from them can be applied across the spectrum to different areas of entrepreneurship besides writing.I hope some of these above might be of help.For those of you who are budding writers here are a few tips that have helped me.

* Write a whole draft before you begin editing.Writing and editing at the same time is a dispiriting and inhibiting process.Just get the first draft down and then you can play around with it.

* Make use of the most current technology to help you.I don’t type really well or very quickly but I have always typed out my novels on my desktop computer.However, just over a year ago, an old friend of mine who is an investigative journalist told me I was mad not to write about the story of my kidnap and detention in Iran.I started to think about it, suggested it to my agent who leapt at the idea.He said, look if you can write it in the next two months, we can publish it at the same time as your latest thriller, Ark Storm, which was due to be published nine months later.

Two months is a tight deadline, especially for someone who cannot type very well.So I did something I had been contemplating for a while.I installed Dragon Dictate voice recognition software on my computer.And I dictated the book, the memoir, which would go on to be called Hostage, Kidnapped on high seas, the true story my captivity in Iran.And I discovered a very welcome side benefit.I had wanted this memoir to sound much more intimate than my novels. I wanted it to read as if it were a tale being told at a dinner party perhaps to someone I had just met, one of those rare and special human beings who manage to elicit the most candid of confessionals.

And it worked. The act of dictating bypassed the overthinking intellectual part of my brain and turned out to be some of the best writing I have ever done. Instead of having to do my customary ten drafts I did only three.

If you are writing Instead of dictating, still read your work aloud. You will pick up many infelicities and awkwardnesses in the writing that silent reading and editing just will not detect.

We all know the maxim, write what you know, but also research and use what you know. Dictate great snatches of fabulous dialogue that you have heard in the workplace into your phone and then email them to yourself to save them and use them.This hones your ear for dialogue and also keeps fresh the characterizing lexicon of whatever workplace you happen to be in and will render your book much more immediate and real to readers.

Remember, everything is material. As I found during my seven years in the City, there’s always a silver lining.

Linda Davies’ latest book, Longbowgirl, a novel for children and Young Adults, is published on September 3rd by Chicken House Books.

To find out more about Linda and her novels and her memoir, Hostage, please see: www.lindadavies.com
www.longbowgirl.com

You can also find her on Twitter @LindaDaviesAuth

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Intrepid Women: Lindsey Pluimer, Founder and CEO With My Own Two Hands

Lindsay Pluimer, With My Own Two HandsFrom playing basketball in the WMBA to founding a nonprofit to help women in Africa, Lindsey Pluimer is an intrepid woman.

While Lindsey Pluimer was playing basketball and studying communications at UCLA she wrote a paper on the lack of media presence during the genocide in Darfur and committed to one-day traveling to Africa. Little did she know that commitment would change the course of her life. That trip happened when after playing two years of professional basketball Lindsey joined a nonprofit volunteer trip to South Africa. It was on that trip that she decided she would retire from playing basketball in the WMBA and instead start a nonprofit committed to helping kids in need thrive as she instantly fell in love with the kids and saw firsthand how a little went a long way for the children.

Pluimer founded the organization “With My Own Two Hands” and they provide sustainable solutions to projects in Africa that help benefit orphaned and disadvantaged children and youth in need. She states,

“Our dream is to provide all children with an education in Africa, but we understand that in order to provide an education you must also provide water, food and shelter. Therefore, we are committed to providing aid within the areas of education, shelter, water, and agriculture.”

They have recently tackled the issue of forced marriages and female circumcision with the goal to provide young girls a safe refuge by building a rescue dormitory for the HELGA Rescue Project in Kajiado, Kenya. Two weeks after the grand opening we received word that the dormitory was already at full capacity (42 girls). Those 42 rescued girls are now safe from being forced into marriage and are provided access to education. We also just built a greenhouse with the St. Ann’s Orphanage in Kikopey, Kenya with collaboration from JCREW and EDUN fashion companies.

Pluimer comments that her motivation comes from her own upbringing, “I was fortunate enough to grow up with a loving family, safe community, and received an amazing education. I realized how fortunate I am and that it is my responsibility to be a part of a cause committed to giving children better access to education, health, water, and food.”

What are the biggest challenges? She states that being an international organization and getting people to connect to a cause outside of their local community can be tough. She says,
“We do not have the luxury of easily showing people our project sites unless they join us on our volunteer trips. We have to work very hard to show people directly how their donations go a long way for children in need.”

Advice for those interested in this path?

Pluimer encourages women interested in the nonprofit sector to remember how important their work is. She observes, “People who are called to this work have to have a big heart and a lot of drive, but when you know your career is changing lives, work becomes more meaningful and important. I would suggest finding a mentor. I have a couple great mentors that have been very helpful in guiding my efforts to grow my organization. Also remember to network! Relationships are everything!”

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Intrepid Women: Sandy Chaikin, Co-Founder of Chaikin Analytics

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Sandy ChaikinFrom cosmetics to commodities to travel and tourism, Sandy Chaikin has successfully re-invented herself and her career.Starting in marketing roles, she fine-tuned her skills to open her own consulting firm and a Bed & Breakfast in Connecticut.When the stock market fell in 2008 and she lost 40% of her investments, Chaikin decided it was time to transform once again. After co-founding Chaikin Analytics in 2009, she is now helping other women re-invent themselves as confident and profitable stock market investors.

After graduating from the University of Denver with degrees in Sociology and Psychology, Chaikin moved to New York and started her career in the cosmetics industry.She held senior marketing roles at L’Oreal and Elizabeth Arden. Chaikin then moved to her home-town, Philadelphia, and took a marketing role at The Franklin Mint.

“Marketing a service or product is the same formula in any industry – identify your audience, have a unique product, know how to promote, package and price your service,” she said.

In 1995, Chaikin moved to Connecticut and opened her own marketing consulting firm. It was also around this time that she segued into the travel and tourism business by opening a Bed and Breakfast.

“My personal experience owning a B&B attracted other inns and before I knew it, my consultancy was 100% focused on travel and tourism.You have to be immersed in something to market it and that’s why I was so successful, because it was my business, too.I was an innkeeper and I knew from my own experience how to market an inn – I knew what worked and what didn’t – which I then applied to my clients’ businesses.”

During her days as an innkeeper and marketing consultant, Chaikin invested in mutual funds.

“As my consulting business grew so did my 401K plan and I didn’t feel I had the inclination or knowledge to manage this myself,” she said. “On a recommendation, I met with a portfolio manager and hired a professional.”

When the markets fell in 2008, Chaikin became concerned about her investments.

“I asked him repeatedly if we should make some changes to my portfolio,” she recalled. “I remember calling him several times but he advised me to hold on to the investments. I didn’t have the confidence to over-ride his judgment.”

Chaikin ended up losing 40% of her 401K.

“This was a devastating turning point because I thought I was doing the right thing,” she said. “When you need advice, you go to a professional so I was upset this professional didn’t help me.I took the money out of his control and was determined to do this on my own.I put my money in Vanguard and started investing it myself.”

The Birth of Chaikin Analytics

Sandy’s personal losses in the stock market using a financial advisor was the inspiration behind the launch of Chaikin Analytics. She knew there was a need in the marketplace for novice investors like herself to have access to investment tools that professionals used so she could take control of her own investments.

Partnering with her husband, Marc Chaikin, a 40-year Wall Street veteran, they founded Chaikin Analytics.

“Before he retired, my husband Marc created tools for institutional investors on Wall Street.In 2009, he watched as millions of dollars were coming out of brokerage firms and into self-managed accounts like mine,” she explained.“We decided to take the tools he created for the pros and apply them to individual investors.”

The Chaikin Analytics model takes into consideration 20 different factors that professionals analyze when looking at a stock and boils everything down to one easy-to-understand rating.The ratings categorize a stock as bullish, bearish or neutral.The Chaikin Power Gauge model is also one of the only models that blends technical indicators with fundamentals. Most investors use either technical indicators OR fundamentals – Chaikin’s blends the two.

“I spend about 15 minutes a day monitoring my account and only invest in about 8-10 stocks at a time,” she explained.“I started investing in Comcast and Ebay, both had a bullish rating, and they went up 40-60%, so I was off to a good start. I also picked the two best-performing stocks in 2014, Southwest Air (LUV) and Skyworks (SWKS), and found them early on. I also knew when to get out at the top. 90% of my investments are in individual stocks.”

Chaikin said that if she can manage her own investments with no prior experience, other women can do this too.

Empowering Women in the Stock Market

While Chaikin Analytics is for all types of investors, she targets female baby boomers as well as emerging women.

Focusing on female investors is a smart move.According to BMO Wealth Institute, women currently control 51%, or $14 trillion, of personal wealth in the United States and are expected to control $22 trillion by 2020.

Chaikin Analytics is collaborating with NASDAQ to present frequent webinars educating their audience, of all levels, on how to invest in the market. Her curriculum includes knowing what to buy and sell, timing the ideal exit and entry points, how to avoid common pitfalls as well as how to shed insecurities about investing.

Chaikin cited a study done by Fidelity that only 28% of women feel confident making decisions about their financial investments on their own.This means that 72% of women don’t feel they have the knowledge to participate in the stock market.

“I have found that women are overwhelmed with financial information and find the stock market off-putting, which is believable because I found the stock market like that too. This is why we created this system, it puts everything together in one neat package…. I break it down to following 5 simple steps to build a killer portfolio.”

Besides collaborating to produce webinars, NASDAQ asked Chaikin Analytics to create 3 indices for the Exchange; the NASDAQ Chaikin Power US Large Cap Index, the NASDAQ Chaikin Power US Small Cap Index and the NASDAQ Power US Dividend Achievers.All the indices outperformed in 2014 by 52%, 77% and 49% respectively.

“We took the stocks that are in those funds, overlayed the Chaikin Power Gauge model, and then removed the non-performing stocks,” she explained. “We re-balance once a year.”

Chaikin e

xplains that the NASDAQ webinar collaboration is a pilot program and they hope to expand to other investor communities soon. Her most recent webinar has attracted about 900 attendees.

“Just like marketing an inn, you have to immerse yourself in the stock market if you want to be credible.This is why my webinars are so powerful,” she explained.“I use stocks I invest in as examples – I am one of them.”

Most Proud Accomplishment

While Chaikin has been able to reinvent and transform herself successfully throughout the years, she said conquering her insecurities about stock market investing is her greatest accomplishment.

“This was the one area of my life that I felt I didn’t manage successfully,” she said.“It’s great to have a profitable portfolio and to be making money investing. However, the benefit you can’t put a price on is the tremendous amount of confidence that you get by managing your money and your future.”

Chaikin will continue to produce webinars and help women gain the knowledge and confidence to manage their own investments.After re-inventing herself and her career throughout the years, she believes other women can transform themselves as well.

“It doesn’t matter how old you are,” she said. “Never stop learning and transitioning.”

By, Jessica Titlebaum

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Intrepid Woman: Star Jones, President, Professional Diversity Network

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Star JonesThough she’s widely known as a high-profile lawyer and former host of ABC’s The View, Star Jones doesn’t consider those her most important roles. Rather, she is proudest of the changes she is helping affect by serving as president of the Professional Diversity Network, Inc., which merged with the National Association of Professional Women in September 2014.

“As I have forged my career path, it was always with an eye toward a profound sense of service – knowing it would be about helping people,” says Jones.

As a young woman, Jones always wanted to be a big-city prosecutor and got what she considers her dream job straight out of law school. She rose to the level of senior prosecutor in the Kings County District Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, New York, when she was invited to start her career in media at NBC News. At the age of 30, she became the youngest person to be named the network’s Legal Correspondent. “It was such a compliment from the then-president of NBC News, who said I had the ability to make the law user-friendly,” she recalls.

She became an admired legal talk show host and then national talk show host on ABC’s The View, where she relished her ability to give voice to women and speak about issues that matter to her gender and community at large. Joining PDN/NAPW was the perfect next step allowing her to advocate on behalf of women, minorities, veterans and the disabled to put them to work. “We are changing lives one job at a time.”

Jones says that though her career has taken multiple twists and unexpected turns, she has stayed on the path intended for her by making the most of each opportunity. “Luck doesn’t just happen,” she says. “It’s the result of preparation meeting opportunity, and I have been prepared each step of the way.”

“Doesn’t Get the Attention it Deserves”

Jones’ overall top mission is to bring attention to diversity, inclusion and gender inequality. “It doesn’t get the amount of attention it deserves,” she says, citing the statistic that, on average, a women working full-time earns .78 to the dollar compared to a man in an equivalent job. Wage disparities are even greater among Black and Hispanic women.

“This is the biggest challenge to women, and the No. 1 problem I’m trying to address is equal pay for equal work.”

The business case is there, of course – research shows that when women executives run a company, they lead the business to increased revenue, making it not just right thing to do, but the smart thing to do.

Rising Tides Lift All Boats

Her passion stems from her upbringing in the projects of Trenton, New Jersey. Her close-knit family always encouraged her to be anything that she wanted. However, they didn’t focus on the fact that she was the most beautiful or most talented, but rather that she had everything she needed to do what she wanted.

Applying for every grant and scholarship that was available, she started college. When she realized that the work/study program only paid $3.55 an hour, she applied at the Brookings Institute as a second-semester freshman. A 90 word-per-minute typist, she earned a data input position at $10 an hour, which she held throughout college.

“I had acquired a skill, and that’s one of my mantras to young people: I feel strongly that I want to empower young people to achieve their dreams, but they have to have the skills necessary to do so,” Jones says. “I always had a voice telling me I could succeed, and I want to give that voice to other women.”

PDN was founded on two premises: empowering people and networking, which Jones says are the foundation of her successful career. “Women do need to help other women. Rising tides lift all boats, and when women help each other professionally — especially women at the top — everyone benefits,” she says, advocating that women who can, should focus on recommending other women for positions and act as mentors.

When NAPW and PDN merged, Jones was tasked with nominating new board members. She proudly boasts that with four women on the nine-member board, it is now one of the most diverse among publicly traded companies in the United States, second only to Macy’s. “Achieving women leadership at the board level allows it to trickle down to all levels,” she says.

Success Doesn’t Come Easy

Jones is the first to admit that fulfilling your dreams is hard work; even once you earn your success, you have to work even harder to maintain it.

“I’ve heard ‘no,’ but I’ve been patient and persistent and never gave up,” she says. In fact, she is proud that the song played for her at the recent “Go Red for Women Red Dress Fashion Show” was I’m a Survivor by Destiny’s Child.

“I’ve heard ‘no,’ but I’ve been patient and persistent and never gave up,”

Says Jones, “You can’t step on people to get ahead but you can get around them if they’re in your way. Each time you hear a ‘no’ or encounter a stumbling block, you have to figure out what you need to do to be ready for the next opportunity.”

Role Modeling Begins at Home

Often called a role model herself, Jones recommends that people seek role models in their own communities, where they can be touched every day. Her grandma and her mom are her role models – her grandma who is 96 years old, still “dresses” every day. And she says her mom filled her with just the right amount of attitude to make sure that no one takes advantage of her.

Jones remembers a guidance counselor who advised her not to rock the boat. “My mom told me that if you’re in the boat, you better turn it over,” says Jones. “My grandma’s ladylike qualities and my mom’s ‘vinegar’ have made me who I am today.”

Jones also cites as role models Donna Brazile, Vice Chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, one of PDN’s board members and a friend since she was 17; and Barbara Jordan, American politician and a leader of the Civil Rights movement.

She adds that she has the deepest respect and admiration for Hillary Clinton, who she says has the uncanny ability to find common ground, a skill she tries to mirror on a daily basis.

Feeding Her Passion

As a community advocate, Jones says her passion and purpose is with the American Heart Association. “My pastor told me that you often don’t know your purpose until you’re walking in it, and now I am.”

Five years ago, Jones had open heart surgery and due to this second chance at life, she has a new mission to educate the world about this disease that is the No. 1 killer of African Americans and women, but is 80 percent preventable with simple lifestyle changes.

“As a survivor I have an obligation to raise awareness,” she says, which is what inspired her to start the NAPW Foundation, the charitable arm of NAPW which now has more than 200 chapters. She knows that women love to network over causes they believe in, so she selected four philanthropic organizations that touch all aspects of women’s lives: the American Heart Association, The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Girls Inc. and Dress For Success.

And what does she do for fun? “Everything I am doing is fun,” she says. “My version of ‘play’ is feeding my passion.”

By Cathie Ericson

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