SMITHFIELD – The next decade “will prove to be about rebuilding trust” in financial institutions, in corporate America, and in our government, Ellen Alemany, CEO and chairwoman of Citizens Financial Group Inc., told attendees at the 13th annual Women’s Summit.
Alemany was a keynote speaker at the Thursday event hosted by Bryant University that drew 975 participants. The daylong conference featured top national business leaders, including Bobbi Brown, founder of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics.
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Alemany offered the audience three succinct business lessons: Ask for what you really want; know your business inside and out; remember that clear, succinct, honest communication is the key to strong leadership. Integrity, she said, is a person’s most vital asset.
Alemany, as the leader of the 10th largest bank in the United States, with assets of $148 billion and 23,000 employees, defined good banking as good citizenship. “I always say to our employees: If our customers are happy, our employees will be satisfied, and if the communities we do business with prosper, financial results will follow.”
Brown, who delivered the keynote during lunch, was relaxed and informal as she told her life story as a show-and-tell in Powerpoint, including slides of her mother and father, her grandmother and grandfather, and her early days at college (“It was the 1970s, so I don’t remember anything”) as well as breaking into the fashion world.
In an Oprah-like gesture, Brown provided all participants with a free gift – Pink Buff lip gloss, as well as invitation for a complimentary make-up lesson at Nordstrom’s at the Providence Place mall. She then did a book-signing for participants. “All women are pretty without makeup. And with makeup, they’re powerful,” she said, explaining her new campaign, Pretty Powerful.
Brown’s business lessons to the audience were: Have an idea, know your competition, identify how your product is different, define your market, start small, and bring on the best team to work with you. She also stressed the importance of integrity, of being true to your ideas, and of eating good, healthy food.
Brown paid tribute to the support she received from her family. After dropping out of college twice and floundering, Brown said her mother asked: “Pretend it’s your birthday, and you can do anything you want in the world?” That’s how, she explained, she decided to become a makeup artist, and went to Emerson College.
When she went to New York after college to break into the fashion world, her family paid her apartment rent – $400 a month – for a year.
In turn, the focus of one of Brown’s principal charitable gifts is Dressed For Success, a group that supports women’s efforts to re-enter the work force. One of the most palpable moments at the conference occurred when a mother-and-daughter team, which recently began the Rhode Island chapter of Dressed for Success, introduced themselves during the question-and-answer period, and Brown reached out to them, saying : “Come talk to me after [the lunch].
Maryanne Cataldo, the CEO and founder of City Lights Electrical Co., the first-female owned electrical construction firm in Massachusetts, won the 2010 Bryant University Businesswoman of the Year award. Her company ranks as the 18th largest female-owned business in the Bay State.
Also featured were Miriam Nelson, Ph.D, an advocate for women’s health, in a power plenary session, and Judge Glenda Hatchett, author of “Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say.”
The 20 workshops session featured everything from “Buddhas in the Boardroom,” a session about the Wabi Sabi Way to reduce stress and increase energy, to “Targeting Transitions” in a changing world, and “Jumping into Social Media.”
Theresa Molloy, the controller at FM Global, said she found the conference – the first all-female business conference she had ever attended – very valuable. “It’s a good place to network,” she said.
The Providence native, who attended Bryant University as an undergraduate, chose to attend the afternoon workshop, “The View from the Top: Leading into the New Decade,” featuring to Rhode Island business leaders, Constance Howes, CEO and president of Women and Infants Hospital, and Merrill Sherman, CEO and president of Bancorp Rhode Island, Inc.
“Good companies,” Molloy said, “start with the view from the top.”
