Sherman, Howes offer insights on decision-making

A rapt audience of more than 130 participants jammed into an academic lecture hall to listen to an afternoon workshop at the 13th annual Women’s Summit at Bryant University entitled “The View from the Top: Leading into the New Decade.”
Two top business leaders, Merrill Sherman, CEO and president of Bancorp Rhode Island Inc. and Constance A. Howes, CEO and president of Women & Infants Hospital, candidly discussed their decision-making as they grappled with the challenging economic realities in the world of banks and health care.
Both Sherman and Howes, by coincidence, had been attorneys who changed careers after 17 years of practicing law. And both women said they viewed the challenge of dealing with unexpected change as something that was fun for them.
During a time when the entire banking industry had a black eye, Sherman spoke about the importance of “banking on people’s good will.” For Sherman, the keys to her success are surrounding oneself with the best people, being flexible, being decisive and supporting people who make mistakes. “The best people make big mistakes – but fewer of them,” she said.
Despite economic stresses in the financial world, Sherman spoke proudly of her bank being “a top SBA lender in Rhode Island” for the ninth consecutive year.
Howes, in turn, talked at the March 11 session about how you cannot lead through negativity. “I have a great job,” she said, praising her hospital as a great place to work, with 3,000 employees, and 9,000 babies born every year.
Based on current projections, Howes estimated that Women & Infants may find itself with a $30 million operating deficit by the end of year. She has asked her department heads to consider what it will mean to reduce their budgets by 10 percent. For Howes, it’s a challenge, and one that the people around her have responded to with “audacious” ideas. The summit served as a daylong fest of opportunities for businesswomen to network, learn, share, listen to advice, and hear leaders project what new directions business may take into the future.
The next decade “will prove to be about rebuilding trust” in financial institutions, in corporate America, and in our government, said Ellen Alemany, CEO and chairwoman of Citizens Financial Group Inc., as the opening keynote speaker for the summit, which drew 975 participants. The conference featured top national business leaders, including Bobbi Brown, founder of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics.
In her formal talk, Alemany offered the audience three simple 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, her early days at college and breaking into the fashion world.
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.
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 emotional 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 women-owned electrical construction firm in Massachusetts, won the 2010 Bryant University Businesswoman of the Year award. Her company ranks as the 18th largest woman-owned business in the Bay State.
The 20 workshop sessions 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.”
“Good companies,” Molloy said, “start with the view from the top.” •