Founder, 85 Broads and Milestone Capital Management
www.85broads.com
Hanson was the first woman to be promoted to sales management at Goldman Sachs and was next in line for partner – until she committed ‘career suicide,’ as she calls it. That experience led her to launch 85 Broads, a Web-based network that connects current and former female Goldman Sachs employees. (’85 Broads’ being a play on the address of Goldman Sachs headquarters at 85 Broad Street in New York.)
She also launched Broad2Broad, a network connecting MBA students and graduates, and Broad2Be, a network that connects female undergrads with MBAs and the 85 Broads network. Her new book, ‘More Than 85 Broads,’ (McGraw-Hill) provides insights from her elite network about what it really takes to succeed as a businesswoman today.
And speaking of success… after years of struggling, Hanson and her husband started Milestone Capital Management (www.milecap.com),which now has $2 billion in assets under management and was recently among Working Mother magazine’s Top 25 best small companies for working mothers, and in 2004 she began serving as a managing director at Lehman Brothers.
Not the Best B-School Candidate
“I had gone to Columbia Business School at the age of 22 – I wasn’t an exceptional candidate for business school. I was quantitatively ignorant – I didn’t have quantitative skills. But I had drive, energy and I was curious.”
How Refreshing! Someone Who Reveals Her Connections
“I survived my two years at Columbia and joined the fixed income division at Goldman Sachs. That happened because John Whitehead hired me. I knew his daughter from Mills College, where I had spent my junior year of college, in California. She said, ‘Janet, do you want to go on this incredibly boring sailing trip with me and my parents?’ And I said, ‘I’m there!’ During the trip, John evaluated whether I was Goldman Sachs material based on my ability as a bridge player, which I wasn’t very good at, but I was a pretty good conversationalist and I could talk about the Navy. My Dad had been in the Navy during World War II, as had John. At the end of the trip, he said, ‘I would love to have you join Goldman if you ever decide to go to business school.’”
When There Were Few Women at Goldman
“I went to business school having been talked into it by one of my Dad’s friends, and was then hired at Goldman Sachs in 1977. I was only the second woman that they had hired in the fixed income division. People always make erroneous assumptions that if there are no other women, it must be horrible. It was great because it was a highly entrepreneurial culture, which was in many ways gender blind.”
Walking Out on Goldman and Regretting It
“I left Goldman Sachs in 1987 when I was next in line to be made a partner in the division. Bob Rubin (who would go on to become Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton) had promoted me to be a sales manager, which sounds like the most mundane thing in the world until you realize there had never been a woman promoted to sales management in Goldman’s history. So that was very exciting, but after 11 years and a failed marriage to a guy who sat directly across from me on the trading floor, I knew that no job could make up for having a non-existent personal life. For that reason, I made the decision to leave the firm.”
Feeling Humiliated
“I spent five months doing something I thought I could be proud of – I trained to be a tri-athlete. But I missed my life at Goldman Sachs. When Peter Mathias, who was an internal consultant at Goldman Sachs. called me to see if I was interested in coming back to the firm, I jumped at the chance.
“Coming back to Goldman was my most humbling experience. I went from being a big-hitter in fixed income to being nobody. People would ask me, ‘Why did you leave (such a high-level position) so that you could come back and work in personnel? What were you thinking?’ It taught me humility. I couldn’t help but think, ‘You’re only as good as your last trade. ‘ I realized that life would never again be the same.”
From Living It Up on Wall Street – To Hating It in Tarrytown
“Then I met Jeff Hanson (who also worked for Goldman) and we got engaged three weeks after we met. We got married at City Hall. I had never saved any money – I spent it all, gave it all away, and at 35 years old, I didn’t have any money. Jeff didn’t have any money. We lived in a tiny little house in Tarrytown, New York, and I found myself at home with my new baby daughter, Meredith. I had no one to talk to… no Internet, no Blackberry, the only way to stay connected was to call my friends, and they would routinely say ‘I can’t talk to you now, it’s business hours.”
‘My Life Is Over’
“So I wrote a letter in 1989 to Jon Corzine at Goldman saying, ‘Please let me come back to Goldman Sachs so I can be an ombudsman for other women so they don’t end up committing career suicide like I did.’ But they didn’t see the need for someone like me to play that role. I was really depressed. My son Christopher was born in 1990 and now I was 38 years old at home with two infants. By then, our financial situation was really dire.
“I thought… my life is over… I hate myself. I hate everything. I blew it. I woke up one day and said, ‘If I ever figure out how to right my own ship, I’m going to figure out how to launch a network so that this never happens to another woman at Goldman ever again.”
Starting a New Life – Going Up Against Goldman
“In 1991, Jon Corzine asked me to come back, but not in fixed income. He sent me to asset management, which wasn’t really an integral part of the firm. It was called the ‘female ghetto.’ I made myself very unpopular there because I was so arrogant. The next two and a half years was complete torture – they hated me and I had no respect for them. I thought to myself, ‘What am I going to do for my next act? I’m pushing 40 and if I don’t reinvent myself soon, I’m going to do a one-and-a-half off my roof.’
“I’ve always been good at looking at things as if I’m in a lab – ‘If I add this and remove this, then what would I have?’ Goldman used a one-size-fits-all approach to their institutional money market fund business. I thought, ‘I can compete with these guys. I think there’s enough business that I can start my own firm.’ It was the most insane thing I ever did.”
Starting Her Network – Like a Bad High School Reunion, at First
“By 1997, Milestone Capital was doing well, and one night, while I was out walking my dog, I thought, ‘I’m going to start my own network.’ I sent an invitation to 30 of my former colleagues at Goldman and said, ‘Let’s have dinner. I want to make a special announcement.’ Well, it was like a bad high school reunion. Everyone said, ‘Nice seeing you. See you again in five years.’ If networking was going to be dependent on having events like this one, it was never going to happen. Then lightning struck – the Internet answered our prayers. Now it was possible for women to stay connected 24/7.”
Greatest Biz Success – Connecting 14,000 Powerful Women
“People always ask, ‘What do you want to have on your tombstone?’ and I think this network (of 14,000 women who are members of 85Broads, Broad2Broad and Broad2Be) is a shining example of women leveraging each other’s intellectual capital to the max. Women leave a lot on the table if they don’t figure out how to partner with each other. We’ve done it across generations – our youngest member is 17 and our oldest member is 60.”
What’s Messed Up about Mentoring
“What is messed up about the whole conversation that people have today about mentoring – it so cheapens what you need to succeed. You cannot meet with someone for an hour each week over coffee to discuss what you need to succeed. You need to be in the co-pilot’s seat if you want to learn how to fly the plane. I hate the traditional concept of mentoring because it always implies someone is older and has all the experience, and the mentee is young and inexperienced. In 85 Broads, we approach the relationship with women in Broad2Broad and Broad2Be as equals. I may have more experience, but these women have talents and skills that I simply don’t possess.”
Words of Advice: Kick Up Your Network
“If you have the benefit of other people’s insights, then how you see the world really changes. As you get older, what too often happens is that your exposure to other people, ages, opinions, and worldviews goes down. It should go up. Now (because of 85 Broads) I feel like I am influenced by all 14,000 women in the network – I have all of these people influencing my thought processes!’
