Georgia Pacific's Patricia Barnard speaks candidly about work/life balance.
Executive women of Goizueta launch programs
When Sarah O’Brien ’03EMBA first assessed her executive MBA classmates, she realized only ten out of the sixty were female. Not a bad thing, but some students, like O’Brien, director of medical for Recall North America, felt this
disparity carried through in the lack of executive women speakers in the program. Jeffrey Rosensweig, associate dean for corporate relations, asked the female students to help invite women executives to speak during his class. Rosensweig was also instrumental in organizing a “for women only” breakfast featuring Mylle Bell Mangum, a member of Goizueta’s advisory board.
Realizing the value of exposure to executive-level women, O’Brien leveraged her relationships with two other female classmates and created Executive Women of Goizueta (EWG). “We want the group to be about women empowering women,” explains O’Brien.
The group decided that the moniker Executive Women of Goizueta would help brand the group with the school. “Since we’re an alumni organization, we wanted to be recognized as connected with Goizueta.”
This past November, the group held its first conference, aptly titled, “Women Empowering Women.” Approximately one hundred women attended the event, which was anchored by speaker Gail Evans, executive vice president of domestic networks for the CNN News Group and author of She Wins, You Win and the business best seller, Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman.
Themes from Evans’ books filled her speech. “For every woman who succeeds, I succeed
a little. For every woman who fails, I fail a
little,” Evans said. “We need to mentor other women. . . . You have an obligation to help another woman.”
The conference kicked off with speaker Sara Blakely, Ernst & Young’s 2002 Entrepreneur of the Year and founder and president of Spanx, a footless pantyhose company. Blakely’s story of how she coupled her belief in an idea—that women wanted footless pantyhose—with her tenacity and created a vibrant business was as entertaining as it was inspirational.
After both speakers, attendees broke into hour-long focus groups, including “Work Life Balance,” “Building Your Personal Brand,” and “Lessons in Leadership.”
Earlier this year, the group’s first official event, a “Summer Breakfast Series,” offered female EMBA alumni the opportunity to interact with several top-tier female executives.
Patricia Barnard, executive vice president
of human resources for the Georgia-Pacific Company, was the series’ inaugural speaker. After Barnard chronicled her work history—from her start as a teacher to how she became the first female to occupy an office on Georgia-Pacific’s executive floor—she fielded questions ranging from managing business relationships to how she balanced family and career.
Other speakers included Margaret Green, president of regulatory and external affairs for BellSouth Corporation, and Vicki Escarra, executive vice president and CMO of Delta Air Lines. The EWG will hold four breakfasts per year, one each quarter. To keep the meetings informal, attendance for the series is limited to twenty women. In 2004, the group plans to host a panel event, dinners, and receptions.
For information on upcoming events, visit http://www.bus.emory.edu/ewg/ or contact Sarah O’Brien at sarah_obrien@bus.emory.edu or 678.898.1938.—Allison Shirreffs