W cubed - Westfair Communications

The weather turned from threatening to downright miserable just as the Westport-Weston Chamber of Commerce opened the doors for its second annual Working Women”™s Luncheon recently at Westport”™s The Inn at Longshore.

Chamber President and Executive Director Lisa Parrelli Gray perhaps had more cause for optimism than the rain was otherwise permitting. “I was married here,” she said. “This place has a lot of class.” And, sure enough, the crowd poured in, a full house of 130.

The agenda was titled “Being the CEO of Your Life.” Bankwell President and CEO Peyton R. Patterson, keynote speaker, offered her own trajectory as a template in a candid, highly personal address.

Lisa Parrelli Gray, president and executive director, Westport-Weston Chamber of Commerce.

Parrelli Gray said the success of last fall”™s inaugural women”™s lunch led to the second and to another and another after that. The 235-member chamber now hosts its single big luncheon in the fall and hosts a series of smaller lunches the first half of the year. January 2014 will feature a lunch at the HSBC bank in Westport.

“Collaboration” is the watchword. Said Parelli Gray, “We”™ve created additional women”™s lunches ”” panel lunches ”” every other month now to keep the momentum moving right through the spring.” She led off the introductions of chamber board members with the friendly admonition to listen up. “If I could ask the gentlemen in the room to be quiet,” she said to the mostly female audience.

In written remarks, she said, “Whether you are a top-notch executive, mother re-entering the workforce or just someone looking for a career change, know you are not alone in the search for growth. Career growth. Financial growth. Spiritual growth.”

Patterson, CEO of Bankwell, the region”™s newly rebranded bank headquartered in New Canaan, delivered the keynote address.

Patterson assumed the role of president and CEO of BNC Financial Group, the holding company for The Bank of New Canaan and The Bank of Fairfield, in September 2012. On Sept. 9 of this year, the company rebranded itself as Bankwell Financial Group and the new bank name is Bankwell. The Wilton Bank officially joined Bankwell Nov. 5.

Patterson has 25 years banking experience and is considered among the top female bank executives in the country, yet her address hewed closely to her life story. She urged attendees: “Be the CEO of your own life story.” Her address disregarded the separation of personal life from business life by citing her mother ”” a federal government career woman and single mother ”” as her greatest influence. Her mother always felt she should have been a bank president.

Patterson recalled that, while growing up, she was encouraged to “stand out in an extraordinary way” and told that “you can make it happen.” In 2008, as CEO of New Haven-based NewAlliance Bank, she was named the “Second Most Powerful Woman in Banking” by U.S. Banker magazine.

Event sponsors included Bankwell; Westport-based Baker Graphics Corp.; Aetna Insurance; Bethel-based Advantage Payroll Services and Westport-based publisher Moffly Media. The Aetna booth also featured the Chamber Insurance Trust, which administers health plans for 70 chambers of commerce in Connecticut and western Massachusetts, seeking economy of scale. “We work mostly with Aetna,” the Chamber Insurance Trust”™s Jamie Lombardy said.

Another sponsor, Westport-based Indulge by Mersene, presented its gift baskets both decoratively and as a raffle gift. Principal Mersene Norbom, a single mother of two, saw her store wiped out by Hurricane Sandy a year ago. She has reopened in a new space at 24 Railroad Place, saying, “I”™m passionate about kindness. The thing that makes me happy is, I love giving. My store is like a big general store, with something for everyone. If a kid comes in with just $2, we can do that, too. It”™s about coming from your heart.”