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February 18, 2003
Goodwin: 'Invisible Boundaries' for Women Can Be Opportunities
Speaking to a packed conference of MBA students and businesswomen on Feb. 14, 2003 at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business, C. Kim Goodwin, managing director of State Street Research and Management Company, described the “invisible boundaries” that she and other professional women have had to cross while working in the male-dominated world of investment banking.
The celebrated financial manager and frequent guest on “Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street” told the predominantly female audience, “The ‘Keep out’ signs are not posted, but they are still there.” Such obstacles, however, are often the best opportunities: “If the guys want to keep you out,” said Goodwin, “there’s probably something interesting going on.”
Goodwin’s keynote speech kicked off the 2003 Women in Business Leadership Conference at the McCombs School. The day-long conference, organized by McCombs MBAs and the school’s Bureau of Business Research, featured one of the most impressive rosters of women business leaders ever gathered in Texas. Nine panels featured 38 executive officers, vice presidents, founders and senior managers representing such firms as Dell Computer, Goldman Sachs, Deloitte & Touche, Citigroup, Frito Lay, JP Morgan, Ford, and Public Strategies.
Laura J Kilcrease, founder and managing director of Triton Venture Partners, L.P., a Texas-based venture capital fund specializing in high technology spin-off companies, won the 2003 Trailblazer Award for outstanding achievement by a woman in business. In her acceptance speech, Kilcrease sang the praises of women helping each other through networking. “When you do something for others,” she said, “it often comes back to you in ways you don't expect.”
Both Kilcrease (McCombs MBA ’92) and Goodwin (joint McCombs MBA and Public Affairs ’87) earned graduate degrees from the University of Texas at Austin.
Crossing boundaries served as the theme for all nine panels at the conference, which covered a range of topics from managing diversity to improving business ethics, networking, and the convergence of for-profit or not-for-profit business practices.
Founders and women entrepreneurs were well represented among the panelists, including Katherine Jones, principal and founder of Milkshake Media, Lisa Wescott Aufranc Sharples, co-founder of IronGrid, Inc., Robin Rather, founder of Mindwave Research, and Rebecca Esposito of Esposito Communications.
Esposito told the audience of “Life as an Entrepreneur” that for women in start-ups, “Persistence is important -- not knowing what the word ‘no’ means.” While all entrepreneurs share the need for this trait, Esposito added that she believes women often have a lower tolerance for risk than men do. But you will know a venture is right, she said, when “you can't think of not doing it.”
In one of the final panels, “Lifetime in Business,” speakers told stories of their professional lives and offered advice to young professionals. “Not choosing is a choice,” said Kelley Styring, Director of Consumer Strategy and Insight at Frito-Lay, but “making conscious decisions and choices can steer a woman down the right career path.”
For a complete overview of the event, visit the 2003 Women in Business Leadership Conference Web site.
Additional soundbites from keynote speaker C. Kim Goodwin:
“I’ve never tried to be like somebody else. I’ve been me the whole time.”
“I don’t want to be in a box. I wasn’t born in one.”
“The biggest mistake women make in business is trying to be like the guys.”
“It's lucrative [a career in financial services], but it’s not about the money, it's about the exhilaration of being an intimate part of the engine running the economy.”
“You can't base talent on the package.”
“It's a challenge to do an MBA: just because the welcome sign isn't out doesn't mean it's not something for you.”
For information on specific programs at the McCombs School, consult our contacts page. For media information, contact the Communications Director by phone at 512-471-3314 or by email at CommunicationsDirector@mccombs.utexas.edu.
