Wanted: Women business leaders
Photo/Rebecca Goldfine
Susan Baracco is launching a Maine chapter of the Women Presidents' Organization and hopes to recruit at least 20 executives
When she first mulled over the idea of starting a group for women executives running high-worth companies in Maine, Susan Baracco admits she had a niggling doubt. "Can you have a group with just five people?" she worried.
But as she continued to research the idea, Baracco says she discovered that "there are more successful women in Maine than you would first guess."
Baracco is currently recruiting women for Maine's first Women Presidents' Organization chapter to be launched in October. She's hoping to attract 20 or so accomplished women to meet once a month for two to four hours to talk about business and function as an informal board of directors for one another's companies. WPO, based in New York City, is a national membership organization for women presidents, CEOs and managing directors of privately held, multi-million dollar companies.
Baracco already has experience in bringing women together: In 2009 she founded Echelon Circles, a private membership organization for women business leaders in Portland, and she's also the founder of the Maine Million Dollar Women's Forum.
"I saw a need, a place for successful women to connect and learn from each other," Baracco says about her women-focused work in Maine. "I find that when I bring really smart women together, really great things happen, over and over and over again."
At Echelon, Baracco's also been running a women's professional group, an experience she says fueled her desire to spin off a new group for women managing bigger companies. The WPO group will be similar to Echelon's group, which has high-level business women and entrepreneurs helping one another solve problems and talk about ideas. "When you're with your own peers, it's very powerful," Baracco says. The fact that participants come from different professions -- law, construction, finance, etc. -- doesn't matter as much as the shared experience of managing, she says.
Beth Sturtevant, president and principal owner of CCB Inc., a large construction company in Westbrook, joined Echelon's group when it started. "I liked the idea of a peer-to-peer group of women who are not related to my industry but who share similar types of challenges in our careers and in our businesses," she says. "There aren't that many women in my industry who do what I do." She says the group has helped her resolve employee issues as well as analyze strategic decisions.
Gail Richardson, president and CEO of Midcoast Federal Credit Union, based in Bath, is also a member of Echelon's group, which is the first group she's joined for women leaders. "I actually sit on a board with 10 other men," Richardson says, "and when you're dealing with women, some issues are different than with men. Women look at things differently."
With the Echelon and WPO groups, Baracco says women can request help from the group on specific issues, such as, for example, how to support a long-term employee diagnosed with terminal cancer after her benefits run out. They might also talk about partner exits, buyouts, mergers, where to find a good human-resources manager, as well as personal issues with children, partners, divorce, marriage and how to manage your family while keeping your career on track. Everything shared is confidential, Baracco says.
Sturtevant says she would consider switching over to the WPO group, saying she appreciates getting a break from her man's world to talk with female peers. She's observed that in mixed groups of men and women, the dynamic is different. "You will see women hold back and men who try to dominate and give way more advice than they're being asked to," Sturtevant says.
And women, she says, are more comfortable sharing vulnerabilities when they're with other women. "Women are not as comfortable laying out insecurities and faults [in a mixed group] and you can never get the men to admit that anyway," she says, with a bite of humor in her tone. "There is a place for a women's group."
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