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Oct 9,2000 Posts Section
NETWORKING
What's
a girl to do when she leaves Goldman Sachs, one of Wall Street's
most venerated investment banks?
Log
on to 85broads.com. The site, whose name is a takeoff of Goldman's
Manhattan address, 85 Broad Street, is for current and former
employees of Goldman Sachs and provides a place for female financiers
to bond in an industry that's still run like a boy's club. "It's
like a clubhouse," says founder and ex-Goldmanite Janet Hanson,
who now runs her own asset management company Milestone Capital.
Members can browse categories such as "Show Me The Money," a
place to troll for venture capital, and "R&R," where members
swap travel tips. "Top Broads" details the stories of women
who have started their own companies, both investment-related
(HerDollar.com) and charitable (JustGive.org).
Except for a news section, all the categories are populated
by members' tips, comments and suggestions.
Two
weeks ago, Hanson took the community offline for a conference
and cocktails at South Street Seaport near Wall Street. The
conference, abuzz with networking and discussions of women's
experience in the workplace, attracted outsiders, too. Senate
candidate and former Goldman CEO Jon Corzine showed up, as did
Columbia Business School professor Laurie Hodrick, who advised
the crowd to use financial analysis techniques when making career
decisions. Dry stuff, perhaps, but not to Hanson: "Hearing one
another is what creates excitement and really activates the
network," she says.
