You know an event is about female empowerment when the event space converts most of the men’s rooms to additional women’s rooms. So it was at the Hyatt Regency Greenwich on Friday, Oct. 27, as more than 700 women – and more than a few good men as well – gathered for the Women’s Business Development Council’s (WBDC) “Women Rising 2023” award luncheon and fundraiser.
The event drew such heavy hitters as Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, Lieut. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and keynote speaker Katrina Adams, the groundbreaking former president and chair of the United States Tennis Association (USTA) in White Plains and president and executive director of the Harlem Junior Tennis & Education Program (HJTEP).
Blumenthal said he was just back from the war-plagued Middle East, where he met with women who are nonetheless looking to the United States for leadership on women’s issues. They can find it, he added, in organizations like the WBDC. Since its founding in 1997, WBDC has served more than 18,430 clients, helping women to launch or scale up more than 13,820 businesses. That translates to 29,980-plus jobs created or sustained and $655 million in client-earned revenue.
Just as the WBDC has galvanized women business leaders, who in turn have employed and inspired others, the event was electric, with enough standing ovations to make you feel as if you had gotten in your exercise for the day and earned the Hyatt luncheon of assorted cheeses, multigrain raisin rolls and grapes; chicken breast and autumnal salad; and a crowd-pleasing tiramisu.
“I wish I had a 10th of the interest, power and energy in this room,” Blumenthal added. “I could use it in Congress.”
Lamont was equally pumped up, describing Connecticut as a state where “women make the determination when they want to have a family, not some bureaucrat in Tallahassee.” More people are moving into the Nutmeg State, he said, partly because of its supportive attitude toward women, with such services as paid family medical leave.
Lamont; Bysiewicz, who introduced him; and Fran Pastore, WBDC’s CEO, all talked about the partnership among the WBDC, state and municipal governments, the state’s Congressional delegation and the business community that has led WBDC to provide small businesses throughout the state with 806 grants totaling $8 million since 2020. This includes 216 Equity Match Grants of between $2,500 and $10,000 each for specific projects, totaling $2 million; and 509 grants from the Child Care Opportunity Fund, totaling $5.7 million – offering a leg up to women of color and the underserved in particular. Lamont also mentioned the Tidal River Fund – created by his wife, venture capitalist Annie Lamont; and Alison Malloy, director of investments at Connecticut Innovations and niece of former Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy – to encourage women investors in early-stage companies.
Indeed, if there were one thread that ran through the afternoon, it was women, and male allies, helping women to succeed in business. Leander Dolphin, the first woman to serve as managing partner of Shipman & Goodwin LLP, with more than 140 lawyers in offices throughout Connecticut and New York state, received an Impact Award for her firm’s commitment to gender equality. (It has been a top 10 firm nationally for women lawyers and partners since 2008 and was named a Ceiling Smasher in Law360’s Ceiling Report for “its representation of women in equity partnership.”
“Being yourself is your superpower,” she said, adding that we find ourselves in service to others.
The other Impact Award winner was Jeffrey A. Flaks, president and CEO of Hartford HealthCare, the second largest private employer in Connecticut, a $5.4 billion enterprise with 42% of the employees being women. In addition to its 1.7 million patients and consumers, Flaks said, Hartford HealthCare is committed to achieving true gender equality – 50% women employees.
WBDC board chair Elana Milianta, director and investment management consultant of Banyan Partners/Alex Brown, a division of Raymond James in Greenwich, presented the Patricia Billie Miller Award for outstanding community service to Joanne Brunn, Ph.D., CEO of software company XLerant, who’s been part of WBDC’s mentoring program since its initial launch in 2009.
Mentoring has played an important part in the life of Katrina Adams, a collegiate and then professional tennis star who became the first African-American, first former professional player and youngest person to serve as USTA president and chair. Her mentors along the way included not only her parents, Chicago educators James and Yvonne Adams, but the legendary player and activist Billie Jean King.
We might not all have King’s serve, Adams said, but we can all have her call to service.
The fruits of mentoring were seen in the six recipients of the Women Rising Award, entrepreneurs whose video introductions explored the key role WBDC played in the development of their businesses. They were Liz Ceppos, Cross Culture Kombucha, Danbury; Melissa-Sue Johns, Lauren Simone Publishing House, East Hartford; Emmanuella Lauture, Ma Maison Childcare LLC, Stamford; Neisa Medina Nunez, The Learning Barn Childcare Center & Preschool LLC, Naugatuck; Shellena Pitterson, Orchid Maids Cleaning Service, Norwich; and Kristin Vece, Elevate Healing Arts, Cromwell.
We had the pleasure of sitting next to Johns at the event, whose sponsors included Westfair Communications Inc., parent company of the Westfair Business Journal. A social psychologist by training, Johns despaired at the paucity of books geared to children of color – until her daughter told her in effect to be the change she wanted to see, and she became a publisher of diverse and inclusive children’s books.
“’You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated,’” WBDC board chair Milianta said in her remarks, quoting author Maya Angelou.
Far from being defeated, the award recipients inspired some of those exiting the event at the end to say they were ready to take on the world.
The Women’s Business Development Council (WBDC) is holding a free “Coffee & Conversation” 10 to 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 9, at 132 Grand St., Waterbury. You can register up to 8 a.m. Nov. 9 here.
