Female Entrepreneurs Discuss Careers, Families

Four powerful female executives touted the progress women have made in the workplace to an audience at the Faculty Club yesterday, adding that balancing the personal with the professional is a difficult—but not insurmountable—challenge.

Some panelists spoke about moments in their lives when they have had to make personal decisions that hurt their careers.

“My definition of what power is and what it isn’t has changed dramatically,” said Beth Terrana, a former star stock picker for Fidelity Investments.

She said she left her job during its peak because her life was becoming “uni-dimensional.” Terrana now works for a number of philanthropic causes.

Renee Landers ’77, the president of the Boston Bar Association, told the audience of the weekly commute between Boston and Washington, D.C. she took with her two-year-old son when she worked at the Department of Justice.

“My son thought it was a normal thing to get on a plane every Friday to go see Dad for the weekend,” she said.

Landers said that one of the most empowering moments she has ever felt is the time she walked into a bathroom at a conference for government attorneys and saw Janet Reno, then U.S. Attorney General.

“It was the first time the head of the organization I was working for was using the same bathroom as me,” she said.

The panelists also discussed the challenges facing women who are climbing the corporate ladder, noting the “Old Boys’ Club” that exists at many law firms and businesses.

“It’s important to keep a sense of humor if you want office behavior to change,” said Vicky Sato ’68, president of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company.

She recounted her successful effort to get her male colleagues to relocate their meetings from the golf course to the office.

“Who’s got five hours to spend at the golf course?” Sato said.

Sato also spoke about the different approaches men and women have to positions of power.

“When I got the call to come speak at the panel, I thought, do I have power? And then I thought how a man would never ask himself that question,” she said. “Damn straight I have power!”

The panel, sponsored by the Seneca, a female social group on campus, was attended by more than 50 students, most of them women.

Doris C. Huang ’06 said that she was glad that the panelists openly discussed the challenges they dealt with. “At Harvard, women are encouraged to be high-powered, but we are not told about the obstacles that we will face,” said Doris C. Huang ’06.

The panelists’ stories inspired her, Huang said.

“It’s good to know that when I start my career, there will be an older generation of women to help me out,” she said. “They were the pioneers.”