Financial adviser Barbara Bart remembers a time early in her career, just after receiving her Ph.D., when she hesitated to take a job opportunity out of concern it would interfere with becoming a mother.
It was 1978, a time when fewer women had Ph.D.s, and she’d been offered a faculty position at New York University, which her husband had fully supported.
“I was 26 and I said, ‘I can’t do that. I want to have children one day,’” recalled Bart, who went on to teach economics at Georgia Southern University until retiring in 2005. She now works at Merrill Lynch.
Bart said she doesn’t regret the choice to decline the NYU job but called it a “lean back” moment, a reference to Facebook C.O.O. Sheryl Sandberg’s bestselling book “Lean In.”
In the book, Sandberg writes about gender inequality in the workplace and examples of women who “lean back” instead of seizing an opportunity. She encourages more women to “lean in” and make their voices heard.
Inspired by Sandberg’s work, Bart along with other local businesswomen — Cindy Petitt, Daisy White, Amy Henderson and Nina Eidell— are forming a new group to encourage and coach women in Savannah on their way up the career ladder (or “jungle gym,” as Sandberg describes it).
Calling their organization WomenWILL, four small groups of 10-12 women each will meet during January to discuss challenges they face in professional advancement. Each group will have a facilitator and will tackle some of the issues women face in trying to reach senior positions, from success and likeability to the myth of “having it all.”
“What we really want to get into is the issues that are providing challenges to our members,” said Nina Eidell, who will co-lead one of the circles with her friend Murem Sharpe. “Whatever professional or leadership challenge that’s facing them, they’re not alone. Someone has walked that path before. They can rely on the members of the group to come up with a plan that works best for them.”
“We see WomenWILL as an entrepreneurial venture,” said Sharpe, whose background includes senior executive positions at Fortune 500 companies and who now runs a digital software company. “We’re going to make it unique to Savannah.”
Bart and her co-facilitators met for the first time last November and were surprised at the turnout at 7:30 a.m. on a Monday. About 70 women, some who had read Sandberg’s book and others who had not, gathered at the Creative Coast on York Street to hear a panel discussion of “Lean In.”
Nationwide, groups like WomenWILL have been popping up all over since Sandberg’s book, which sparked a national dialogue on the still paltry number of women in leadership positions. Sandberg cites national statistics such as women holding only 14 percent of executive officer seats and 18 percent of elected congressional offices. Only 21 of the Fortune 500 CEOs are women, she writes.
Bart and her co-facilitators believe the Savannah area would benefit from more mentoring opportunities for women, especially those interested in the executive track, as well as honest dialogue on what holds them back.
“I read it, and it just hit me like a ton of bricks,” said Daisy White, who runs an executive coaching company with her husband.
White and the other facilitators arrived at successful careers with leadership roles through various and diverse paths, but all of them recognize the importance of mentorship in professional development.
Many of the facilitators now hold second careers as executive coaches or leadership consultants, like Cindy Petitt, a former human resources executive who now works as a consultant for the World Bank.
“I was told early in my career that if I wanted to move up … I needed to act like a man,” said Petitt. “I became quite assertive, but in the course of doing that, I lost a lot of myself.”
While there are plenty of networking groups available to women, Petitt said, one of the goals of WomenWILL is empowerment.
“(These) circles are about investing in women, not about promoting their business,” said Petitt. “Using the collective thoughts of the group to help women better position themselves to support, challenge and celebrate each other.”
Amy Henderson, a lawyer at Bart, Meyer & Co., is another facilitator of one of the circles meeting later this month. She said she was fortunate to have had law partners who worked with her when she decided to have children, but recognized not everyone has that flexibility.
She said cutting back her hours when her kids were younger allowed her to continue her career uninterrupted, which gave her more confidence.
“A lot of the time, we don’t take risks because we don’t have the confidence,” said Henderson, describing some of her friends who struggled with self-doubt after returning to the workforce.
“We can be successful, but we don’t need to be successful in the same way that men are,” said Henderson. “We have a lot to bring to the table to complement each other.”
Bart said they may hold another kickoff event in early February for those still interested in joining a group or who missed out on the first panel discussion.
“Everyone has had those ‘lean back’ moments,” said Bart. “They have these internal conflicts about who they are and what their goals really are.”
Bart hopes the circles will help Savannah’s businesswomen reach new heights.
“This is for women who want to get to the top; they want to be partner or owner. It’s a little different.”
FOR MORE INFO
For more information on WomenWILL, contact Barbara Bart at bbart1@gmail.com or Daisy White at daisynelsonwhite@gmail.com.