Postcards

The money behind Glenn Close's Oscar bid

Patricia Sellers — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:47:54 +0000

When I ran into Glenn Close at the Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) annual meeting last spring, she told me that the movie she had just completed, Albert Nobbs, was one of the most challenging projects of her career.

This morning, Close got an Academy Award nomination for her offbeat role in the film: Close plays a woman posing as a man in order to get a job and survive in nineteenth-century Dublin. Her acting, it turns out, is only half of her tour de force here: She raised all the money for Albert Nobbs herself.

"Not one cent of our budget, which was $8 million, came from Hollywood," the actress said at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. Interviewed by Ariel Investments President Mellody Hobson, Close explained that the seed of her labor of love was planted 20 years ago when she played Albert Nobbs on the stage in New York City. To make the movie she wanted to make, she realized she had best fund it herself. In fact, she used the money from the sale of her apartment in Manhattan for her initial investment.

Close knows her way around financial circles. She and her husband, businessman David Shaw, are pals with Warren Buffett—hence her pilgrimages to Omaha for Berkshire Hathaway annual meetings. Nonetheless, she and her Albert Nobbs' co-producer, Bonnie Curtis, had to scrounge for money to get their project to the screen. They found their other key financier in Fort Worth: Crescent Real Estate Holdings Chairman John Goff had never invested in a project like this, Close told the MPW Summit audience. But Goff decided to take a risk on her film because she had "skin in the game."

Here's more from Close on Albert Nobbs—and her take on how her character relates to women today:

Filed under: FORTUNE MPWomen, Postcards

Where the girls aren't: finance...and are? Healthcare

Patricia Sellers — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:39:24 +0000

Lisa Suennen is one of the few big-deal venture capitalists in health care. Not that this distinction makes her happy or proud.

Suennen, whose Psilos Group has $577 million under management, would rather see more of her kind in her industry, as she wrote today in a Guest Post on my colleague Dan Primack's Term Sheet. Attending JPMorgan's Healthcare Conference last week in San Francisco, Suennen noticed that only about 10% of the attendees were women. Meanwhile, the lineup of healthcare execs presenting at the confab was not so distressingly, dominantly male.

What gives? Suennen's observation is more evidence that finance is an increasingly dangerous and ever less desirable place for women. While one of JPMorgan Chase's (JPM) own, asset management chief Mary Erdoes, is the highest-ranking woman in banking, at No. 24 on Fortune's Most Powerful Women list, the truth is that more women have lost big jobs in banking (and fallen off our list) than in any other industry. Bank of America's (BAC) Sallie Krawcheck and Barbara Desoer are just two of the high-profile casualties.

Healthcare, meanwhile, is a relative land of opportunity. And Fortune's MPW list illustrates this. The 2011 rankings include WellPoint chief (WLP) Angela Braly, at N0. 5 in the rankings, and Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ) Sheri McCoy at No. 10. McCoy is a candidate to be J&J's next CEO. Also moving up our latest rankings: GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) Deirdre Connelly and UnitedHealth Group's (UNH) Gail Boudreaux.

Good news that women in healthcare are gaining ground. But if more women in finance could help them do their deals and build their businesses, I bet the pipeline of up-and-coming talent would be fuller than it is.

Filed under: FORTUNE MPWomen, Postcards

Handler and Huffington on managing stress and life

Patricia Sellers — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:23:19 +0000

Chelsea Handler showed us a new side of her media brand-ness last night on the premiere of the NBC (CMCSA) sitcom Are You There, Chelsea? The standup comic/late-night TV host/best-selling author/rising-star entrepreneur plays main character Chelsea's pregnant and proper sister on the show.

Let's be clear, this is not Handler's fantasy life. At the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in October, Arianna Huffington tried her best to convince Handler of the joys of motherhood. (Huffington, who heads the AOL (AOL) Huffington Post Media Group, has two daughters.) Handler, who seems focused on conquering the media universe, had zero interest. Still, these two MPW, who had never met before the Summit, hit it off and turned out to share plenty in common. Here are Handler and Huffington on mothers, meditation and managing stress:

Click here for the full transcript of Handler and Huffington's conversation at the 2011 MPW Summit.

Filed under: Brands, Entrepreneurs, FORTUNE MPWomen, Postcards

Social media success Rx: "Be a little crazy"

Patricia Sellers — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:22:32 +0000

Clara Shih is an early achiever. At age five, she arrived in the U.S., from Hong Kong, with her parents. With no access to bilingual education, she was initially placed in special classes for kids with speech impediments and advanced so rapidly that she scored a 1420 on her SATs -- in eighth grade. She started her company, Hearsay Social, at age 27, made Fortune's list of Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs last year, and married her neurologist boyfriend in October (delaying her honeymoon to attend the Fortune MPW Summit.) Last month, Shih was tapped to replace Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on the Starbucks (SBUX) board. And today, she turns 30 years old. There is no better timing for the Hearsay Social CEO to share, well, lessons from her youth:

I head an enterprise software company called Hearsay Social, which I founded two years ago after realizing that social media is a fundamentally new business paradigm -- as big as, or even bigger than, the Internet was a decade ago. Hearsay is a platform that helps companies -- retailers, financial services firms, and anyone else with a lot of employees in a lot of locations --manage Facebook, LinkedIn (LNKD), Twitter, and Google+ (GOOG). We've raised $21 million in venture capital from Sequoia Capital and New Enterprise Associates. We employ more than 60 people, and we were cash-flow positive in 2010, our first year of operation.

We think of our growth as a testament to the transformational power of social business. Consider this: A year ago, there were 500 million Facebook users, 100 million Twitter users, 50 million LinkedIn users, and 0 Google+ users (it did not yet exist). Today, there are over 1 billion people on Facebook, and the other networks too have more than doubled in size.

But our growth also reflects what I've learned along the way. I began my social-media journey in 2007, when I developed the first business application on Facebook, called Faceforce. It was this experience -- after working as an engineer at Microsoft (MSFT), in product strategy at Google, and then as head of the AppExchange at Salesforce.com (CRM) -- that led me to write a New York Times bestseller, The Facebook Era. Both the app and the book, which forecasted the rise of social business, helped me identify gaps in the market and pursue my real dream: building a startup.

Today, my business partner is Steve Garrity, whom I had met a decade ago in an introductory computer programming class at Stanford. He quit a safe job at Microsoft to join me in this venture. Steve is chief technology officer of Hearsay Social. I'm the CEO. Since we started the business in my apartment in the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, here are a few key lessons we've picked up:

1. Move fast. In the rapidly evolving technology arena, it's critical to test and iterate new ideas quickly. Often, it's the fastest and most agile learner rather than the best first attempt that wins.

2. Focus. We work exclusively with corporate-to-local brands—major companies that have local branches or representatives. Our laser focus makes us prioritize our scarce startup resources and guides every decision we make, from what to build to how to sell to whom to employ. I believe this is one of our greatest strengths.

3. Listen more than you talk. We named the company "Hearsay" because, in the social media era, it's important for everyone in business to listen before they talk. I strive to do this with my team. In turn, our company does this with our customers. And we urge our customers to adopt this approach with their customers. It's a virtuous circle.

4. Lead by example. I know that only by being open, transparent, and collaborative can I inspire these same traits in others -- and attract more great people to Hearsay Social. So, everyday I try to get online as early as my first East-coast salesperson. And I stay as late in the office as our most bleary-eyed engineer.

5. Be a little crazy. People thought I was crazy when I was quoted in 2007 as saying that "five years from now, no enterprise application won't be social." That idea seemed unfathomable then, but what I have come to realize is that, in Silicon Valley, anything is possible. As entrepreneurs, we must constantly dream and have the conviction and obsession to transform our dreams into reality – to create a future that never existed before.

Filed under: Entrepreneurs, FORTUNE MPWomen, Guest Post, Postcards

On Buffett's wish list for 2012: Google and...

Patricia Sellers — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:35:46 +0000

What companies did Warren Buffett put on his wish list for Santa Claus?

The secret is out.

The Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) chief sent a photo of himself, perched on Santa's lap, and named several companies that he apparently believes will be great stocks to own in 2012.

Under the header, "Santa - 2011," Buffett listed Exxon Mobil (XOM), Wells Fargo (WF)--both companies in which he already owns shares--and Google (GOOG). No public records indicate that Buffett has ever owned Google stock.

Does this mean that the Oracle of Omaha, who has mostly shunned investments in Silicon Valley, now has his sights set on Google?

Buffett answered in an email: "I just wrote out the list without much thought except to pick companies that we already owned as 'completed' and then just pulled the other names out of a hat--with an eye toward ridiculousness. The implication I hoped was that they were on a list designating those I hoped to own in their entirety, not just shares."

Hmm, owning Exxon Mobil and Google in their entirety does sound a bit ridiculous. But you can't accuse the man who built Berkshire Hathaway into America's seventh-largest company of thinking small.

Those "completed" companies that Buffett says Berkshire already owns in their entirety are GEICO, BNSF Railway, and McLane, a distribution giant that he bought from Wal-Mart (WMT) in 2003.

As for the last item on his Christmas list, "Youth Pills (for Charlie)," here Buffett is referring to Charlie Munger, his longtime business partner who turned 88 on New Years Day. Buffett is a relatively youthful 81.

And who is this Santa, upon whose lap Buffett sits? That is Michael Wilhelm, the brother of a good friend of Susie Buffett, Warren's daughter. Every Christmas, Wilhelm dyes his beard to play Santa and entertain the young 'uns in the Buffett crew--including Warren, we guess.

Filed under: CEOs, Postcards

How Michele Bachmann tries to be Margaret Thatcher

Patricia Sellers — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:15:56 +0000

Michele Bachmann appears destined for a single-digit portion of the votes in today's Iowa caucus, but low Presidential poll numbers are not stopping her from comparing herself to Margaret Thatcher. In a final plea to Iowa voters, she said, "We need to have someone who's going to campaign and govern in the image of a Ronald Reagan and a Margaret Thatcher."

Bachmann is no Ronald Reagan. But after Mary Civiello wrote a Guest Post assessing how Thatcher--as played by Meryl Streep in Iron Lady--lowered her voice tone to win audiences, I asked Civiello, a media and presentation coach, if Bachmann sounds anything like the former British leader she aspires to emulate. Referring to Bachmann as MB and Thatcher as MT, Civiello replies:

Michele would benefit from a little voice work, especially when she raises her volume.

Her voice doesn't hang in the screechy octaves that Thatcher's did in her earlier years, but she really has to watch it!

Visually, MB and MT are remarkably similar in style, gestures and eye contact, now that MB has figured out where the camera is.

Verbally, MB is very similar to MT in her staccato--the way she punches out a point and pauses.

See for yourself--Bachmann in Des Moines, explaining that she wants to be "America's Iron Lady":

Filed under: Leadership, Postcards

Streep's Iron Lady shows us how to win a crowd

Patricia Sellers — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:36:20 +0000

Last we heard from media and presentation coach Mary Civiello, she weighed in on lessons from the Oscar-winning The King's Speech. She's back in the movie theater studying another icon of British history: Margaret Thatcher, portrayed by Meryl Streep in Iron Lady. Civiello knows of what she speaks: She works with executives at such companies as Morgan Stanley (MS), American Express (AXP), DreamWorks Animation (DWA), Merck (MRK) and Fortune's parent, Time Inc. (TWX)--and in fact, worked with my colleagues and me to help us win the crowd at the 2011 Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. Here's Civiello's latest dispatch from the cinema:

In Iron Lady, Meryl Streep shows us how hard Margaret Thatcher worked to become Prime Minister of England. That hard work included lowering her voice tone.

Her handlers told her that no one wanted to listen to--let alone be led by--a "screeching woman." They also told her to ditch her pearls. And while Thatcher kept the jewelry, she did work with a voice coach to lower her tone.

In fact, two recent studies focus on the value of lower-pitched voices. One study found that voters rated lower-pitched speakers higher for leadership potential, honesty, intelligence and dominance. The other study suggested that people--both men and women--with lower voices do better at attracting the opposite sex.

So, lowering your voice tone can mean reaching the corner office and finding someone interesting to dine with! I often work with women executives to use the lower range of what's natural for them. Here are my top three tips:

1) Recognize your range. Women have a greater pitch range than men, which means they are less likely to be monotone but more likely to hit squeakier octaves. I will tape clients when they don't realize it to illustrate their range. Clients also see that a higher pitch is often connected to nerves. When they're in the spotlight, everything, including vocal chords, constricts.

2) Relax. Breathe deeply, lower your shoulders, and loosen up before you start to speak. A Columbia University study suggests that tight body language before your perform leads to a less confident performance.

3) Rehearse right. As you practice your presentation out loud, place your fingers lightly against your throat. You'll feel your vocal chords rise and fall with your pitch and you'll be able to monitor your own progress.

If you want to lower your voice tone, know that it requires work over time. But for those who have the Iron Lady's will, it can pay off.

Here's a clip of Iron Lady, which opens for limited release Friday:

Filed under: FORTUNE MPWomen, Global 500, Guest Post, Leadership

Powerful advice on proving yourself everyday

Patricia Sellers — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:32:47 +0000

Yesterday's Postcard asking if corporate women will ever be as powerful as corporate men prompted lots of discussion and a bit of inspiration.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg chimed in again, advising me to take credit and own my power. (Um, didn't I first chide Sandberg to own her power, according to Ken Auletta's New Yorker profile?)

Hilary Rosen, also quoted in yesterday's Postcard, pinged me to say that years ago when she was taking the top job at the Recording Industry Association of America, she got the best advice from Jack Valenti, the late president of the Motion Picture Association of America: ""Always believe you are absolutely the best person anyone could have selected to do your own job--and then prove it to yourself every day."

Nice. I can live by that.

And this comment came from eBay communication chief Alan Marks, reflecting on my notion that it's OK if women don't reach the top of corporations as quickly as men, as long as we strive for major impact elsewhere: "The end game for everyone should not only be about a single role and destination but also about each of us having the freedom to make the choices that matter to us most."

Indeed, choice is the essence of power. Marks, incidentally, knows about powerful women: He worked for Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) chief Meg Whitman when she ran eBay (EBAY).

Filed under: FORTUNE MPWomen, Postcards

Will women reach parity at the top? Sheryl Sandberg's take

Patricia Sellers — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 14:48:00 +0000

Over Christmas weekend, Sheryl Sandberg emailed me, sounding a bit distressed.

Referring to a big story about Fortune's Most Powerful Women in Sunday's Washington Post (WPO), the Facebook COO asked if I'd been misquoted in saying that I believe women will never have 50% of the top jobs in corporate America. "Don't depress me!" Sandberg wrote.

Sorry, Sheryl, the Post quoted me correctly.

I do, in fact, believe that women won't ever—ever!--reach parity at the top "not because of glass ceilings, not because of any kind of discrimination, but because women make different choices. And have more choices." As I told Sandberg in my reply to her email: "That's OK. It implies more female power distributed to other spheres beyond business. The trick is, we have to urge great women to rise to the top in the right places beyond business."

Sandberg's response? She worries that I'm right but added: "I really believe that there is no reason women can't have 50% of the jobs at every level and men can't run 50% of the homes. We all have to keep trying until we get there."

Right on. This is wise advice for starting 2012. At the moment, there are too many women of extraordinary drive and potential who feel too comfortable in support roles, who "lean back" in their careers, who "leave before they leave," as Sandberg put it perfectly in her classic Guest Post about women and careers.

It's true, even Fortune Most Powerful Women rising to Fortune 500 CEO posts—including Ginni Rometty, who takes the top job at IBM (IBM) next week—sometimes have to convince themselves to embrace the power that lies within them.

The Post story got me thinking about power and my own comfort with it. The piece is a terrific inside look at how we at Fortune developed the annual Most Powerful Women rankings and expanded the annual list into hot-ticket events and a growing community that does socially good work around the world. But what was supposed to be a MPW story focuses way too much on me--who was present at the creation in 1998 and happens to be the lead survivor.

The truth is, MPW thrives because of unwavering support at the top of Time Inc.—including Fortune managing editor Andy Serwer and former Time Inc. (TWX) CEO Ann Moore--plus the best conference team in the business (credit to Needham Partners) and my Most Powerful Women Summit co-chairs, Fortune Executive Editor Stephanie Mehta and Washington Editor Nina Easton. Without these and many other passionate partners, MPW is just a dream.

Last night, as my stomach still churned over my center-stage role in the Post story, an email popped into my mailbox from Hilary Rosen, who is a prominent PR pro at SKDKnickerbocker in Washington and has been to many MPW Summits: "Who knows better than you that people are the best vehicles to tell a story? "

Alright, I got the message. I will do what I advise others to do: accept the credit and own my power.

Filed under: FORTUNE MPWomen, Leadership, Postcards

The 29-year-old newcomer to Starbucks' board

Patricia Sellers — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:20:04 +0000

This past summer, when Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg emailed me about Clara Shih, we at Fortune knew to keep a lookout.

"I think she is awesome," Sandberg wrote in her email.

Sure enough, Starbucks (SBUX) yesterday named 29-year-old Shih, a social-media entrepreneur, to replace Sandberg on its board of directors.

A 29-year-old on the Starbucks board?!

Starbucks is bulking up on social-media expertise at a time when boards of most Fortune 500 companies desperately need that know-how. Starbucks knew about Shih because the company is a customer of Hearsay Social, her two-year-old startup that gives businesses tools to monitor their employees' activity on social sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (LNKD).

Sandberg knew Shih because they worked at Google (GOOG) at the same time, before both shifting their aspirations to Facebook. Shih built Facebook's first business application, published a best seller (The Facebook Era), and launched her social-media company--all before age 29.

Hearsay has attracted more than $21 million in funding from the likes of Sequoia Capital, where Shih dazzled partner Bryan Schreier when she came asking for money last year. "We meet with 1000's of entrepreneurs each year but get into business with only about a dozen," says Schreier. "Clara made such a strong impression that we offered her a term sheet 24 hours later."

Schreier calls Shih, who arrived in the U.S. from Hong Kong with her parents 25 years ago, "a triple threat." He explains: "First, she has a computer science degree from Stanford. Next, she literally defined the industry of social marketing (wrote a best-selling book) and is now the most sought after keynote speaker on the topic. And third, she is an absolutely outstanding CEO of the fastest growing SaaS company I am aware of."

For us at Fortune, it was pretty much a no-brainer to name Shih one of our Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs this year.

In her application for the MPW Entrepreneurs award (we award 10 entrepreneurs annually and host them at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit), Shih told us that she works "100 hours" a week. Hmm.

Warren Buffett, Shih (top, second from right) and Fortune's MPW Entrepreneurs Credit: Asa Mathat

Then we witnessed what a high-functioning do-it-all entrepreneur she is: Shih married her neurologist boyfriend on October 1, two days before the Summit, and skipped her honeymoon to attend our three-day event.

We seated Shih at Warren Buffett's table opening night at the Summit--the least we could do for this tireless up-and-comer. In her MPW Entrepreneurs application, Shih wrote that her poor immigrant family had "very little besides high hopes and big dreams" when they came to the U.S. in 1986. "My entire life, I have viewed every problem as an opportunity--I've had no choice," Shih told us.

Obviously, Shih is listening to her mentor, Sandberg, who tells young women looking to succeed: "Do not lean back. Lean in."

Read my colleague Colleen Leahey's profile of Shih in the 2011 Fortune Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs gallery. And click here for an interview that Fortune's Dan Primack did yesterday with Starbucks' newest board member.

Filed under: Entrepreneurs, FORTUNE MPWomen, Postcards

Women lose power near the top

Patricia Sellers — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:43:38 +0000

Women are losing power in corporate America.

Besides the news that struggling Avon (AVP) is looking to replace Andrea Jung as CEO, there is Catalyst's annual census, released this morning, showing that women hold 14.1% of executive positions in Fortune 500 companies today, vs. 15.6% five years ago.

The trend isn't a good one, especially if you consider that companies with more women at the top tend to perform better financially, according to Catalyst research.

At least corporations are adding women in the boardroom. Fortune 500 boards today are 16.1% female, vs. 14.6% in 2006, Catalyst reports. (Of all Fortune 500 companies, Avon has the highest percentage of women directors, 50%.)

An increasing number of companies have at least three women on their boards--as new CEOs such as Ginny Rometty at IBM (IBM) and Meg Whitman at Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) inject the top ranks with bona fide female power.

Meanwhile, who are the guys who don't get it? They would be the directors of Avaya, Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), Caesars Entertainment, Chrysler, Dollar General (DG), First Data and 50 other companies that do not, according to Catalyst, have a single woman on their boards.

Filed under: CEOs, FORTUNE MPWomen, Leadership, Postcards

The most avant-garde chocolate entrepreneur

Patricia Sellers — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:44:21 +0000

Credit: Asa Mathat

When Rosie O'Donnell met Vosges Haut-Chocolat founder Katrina Markoff at this year's Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the two women hit it off instantly. On a panel featuring top entrepreneurs, Markoff said that she started her company 13 years ago because she saw a need to innovate in chocolate (the chocolate bacon bar, Vosges' best seller, constitutes that) and "to bring peace to the world through chocolate."

"And I, coincidentally, have tried to bring peace to the world through eating chocolate," Rosie wisecracked. O'Donnell moderated the session, which also featured Tyra Banks and Stella & Dot founder Jessica Herrin.

Maybe these two women bonded because they both like to go against the grain and push the boundaries. O'Donnell invited Markoff, who is one of Fortune's 2011 Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs, to talk about her avant-garde endeavor on her daytime talk show on OWN. The program just aired. Take a look at this clip:

Filed under: Entrepreneurs, FORTUNE MPWomen, Postcards

Duke's Coach K on what makes a champion

Patricia Sellers — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:52:35 +0000

Great leaders are made, not born.

Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski drilled that point home when he came to New York this week to accept Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year award. Speaking to an audience that included a few other champions--Chris Evert, Wayne Gretzky, Sugar Ray Leonard, and the University of Tennessee's Pat Summitt, who is SI's Sportswoman of the Year--Coach K told a story that explained who gave him what it takes to be great.

In the summer of 1992, when he was still in the glow of Duke winning back-to-back national championships, Krzyzewski was sitting on his porch in North Carolina with his wife, his three daughters and his mom. "Mike, why you?" his mother asked.

"What do you mean, Mom?" he replied.

"Why were you the one to win two national championships?" she said, in a way that only a mother could ask a man who was on his way to becoming the greatest coach in the history of men's college basketball.

"Mom, 'Why me' is you." Coach K explained. "I never thought I could lose because of you."

The best advice he ever got, he told his mother, was something she had said to him before he started high school. "You said to make sure that I only let good people on my bus.

"And if I ever get on someone else's bus, make sure to take it great places."

If you read business books, you may realize that another leadership evangelist named Jim Collins must have caught wind of the wisdom of Celestina Krzyzewski, a Mexican immigrant cleaning lady who bred the world-famous Coach K. To this day, after 40 years of coaching collegiate basketball, son Mike deploys Celestina's advice to breed his own champions. Coach K tells his Duke players: "I want you on my bus."

And as SI writer Alexander Wolff details in this week's cover story, Krzyzewski, who at age 64 has 907 Duke wins on his scoreboard, tells his players: "If you own the program, you know every person on the bus. Who cleans our locker room? Felipe does. Who cleans our practice facility? Stephanie does. Who cleans our offices? Celestina does."

Coach K is a natural storyteller. Celestina...Anyone who really knows the guy knows who he's talkin' about.

Filed under: Leadership, Postcards

Remembering Pattie Dunn: How she lived with cancer

Patricia Sellers — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 20:31:25 +0000

Even as Pattie Dunn died at age 58 after a long battle with cancer, she lived a full life. Her life started as an urban fairy tale: When I met her for the first time in 1999, Dunn told me about growing up as the daughter of a Las Vegas impresario and a showgirl, starting her career as a secretary at Wells Fargo (WFC), and rising through the banking world to CEO of Barclays Global Investors (BCS). That job, overseeing the world's largest institutional money manager, made her No. 11 on Fortune's Most Powerful Women list that year.

Dunn's life turned in 2001, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer--then, melanoma in 2002, ovarian cancer in 2004, and a recurrence, in the liver, in 2006. With great will and vigor, she powered through her illness and then through all sorts of messes at Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), where she was on the board. As non-executive chairman, she played a key role in the ouster of CEO Carly Fiorina in 2005. A year later, Dunn herself got embroiled in a board probe gone awry. The state of California indicted her and then dropped charges related to spying on fellow directors and journalists. But Dunn lost her HP board position.

In 2007, I went to Dunn's home in Orinda, CA, east of San Francisco, to do an exclusive interview with her about weathering all these storms. She was the picture of health and remarkably gracious--perhaps realizing that after all she had been through, she could handle anything.

Dunn with her husband, Bill Jahnke

Dunn and I didn't talk again after that Q&A ran. (She emailed me to complain that she disliked the headline, "The survival of Pattie Dunn.") But ever since, I've thought of Dunn almost everyday. That's because her name appears in my address book right before my own name; when I send an email to myself, "Pattie Dunn" pops up before "Pattie Sellers." This morning, I found an email she sent me eight years ago, after we invited her to appear on a panel with two other cancer survivors, then-CEO of Autodesk (ADSK) Carol Bartz and current Morgan Stanley (MS) CFO Ruth Porat. Dunn couldn't make it to the Summit; she was doing R&R in Australia, where she and her ex-banker husband, Bill Jahnke, owned a winery. In regretting Fortune's invitation, Dunn sent this email, which I read from the stage:

"My situation is stable and each day is a gift. My attitude is that we are ALL borrowing every day from death, but some of us have been rudely reminded that this is the case--which is not all bad. And one can still be determined to fight for every day."

Dunn is survived by two daughters and 10 grandchildren. She also wrote this to me in 2003, when she had no idea how long she would live with her cancer:

"As your MPW surveys mature with the years, there will be women who become ill, or die for whatever reason. To reduce the stigma of illness, I'd recommend noting these developments if the individual in question (in instance of illness) agrees. I've actually had people who thought I died because I was no longer listed! That's actually a great testament to the impact of your work!  Best regards,  Pattie"

I trust that Dunn wouldn't mind that I'm sharing this with you today. For a while at least, I'm not deleting her name from my address book.

Filed under: FORTUNE MPWomen, Postcards

Google's Marissa Mayer: Her favorite mobile apps

Patricia Sellers — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:21:18 +0000

Mobile/local/social is the web's sweet spot right now. And Google's Marissa Mayer is in the middle of it.

Credit: Asa Mathat

We told you how Mayer engineered the acquisition of Zagat. That could turn out to be a very smart deal if Google gets us searching and sharing and mapping our ways to restaurants even more than we do today.

At the Fortune Most Powerful Women dinner in Silicon Valley last week, Mayer explained her strategy at Google (GOOG), where she heads local efforts including maps. She also told us about three of her favorite mobile apps:

Google Maps 6.0: This app takes Google Maps indoors. In a Best Buy (BBY), for instance, you can make your way from tablets to TVs by viewing the floor plan and following that little blue dot that indicates your location. The app, launched last week for Android phones exclusively, also works in Home Depot (HD), IKEA, select Macy's (M) and Bloomingdale's, and some airports such as O'Hare, Hartsfield, and SFO. Could Disney (DIS) theme parks be next? Mayer wouldn't tell us.

Layar: This browser provides "augmented reality" experiences. Combining a camera and GPS and accelerometer, it will display photographically where you are and also what's down the road. Just as a cursor marks your position on a document, Layar transforms your phone into "a cursor for the world," Mayer says.

LikeALittle: This app aggregates online profiles and maps them to help you find nearby people who have common interests. The LikeALittle states the purpose more specifically: "We like to think of the site as a flirting-facilitator platform (FFP for short), a way for you to anonymously compliment and chat about potential crushes around you." Well, Mayer wouldn't call this a flirtation, but she learned via LikeALittle that LinkedIn (LNKD) cofounder Reid Hoffman, whom she has known for years, majored in symbolic systems at Stanford, as she did. Here's more app talk from Mayer:

Filed under: FORTUNE MPWomen, Postcards

Google's Marissa Mayer: How I got ahead

Colleen Leahey, Reporter — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:59:57 +0000

Photo Credit: Asa Mathat

Marissa Mayer has been a pioneer in the unofficial "Geek is Chic" movement. Google's (GOOG) first female engineer, who is now the company's VP in charge of all things local, has appeared in Vogue, rocked the cover of Fortune's 40-Under-40 issue, and been nominated for Vanity Fair's 2011 International Best Dressed List. She is an angel investor in female-founded companies like Minted and One King's Lane. Mayer also mentors rising-star women through the Fortune/U.S. State Department international mentoring program -- and even has her mentees stay under her roof.

Sometimes her extracurriculars drown out the recognition that Mayer, who is 36 and the youngest star ever on Fortune's Most Powerful Women list, knows precisely how to get ahead. Sure, she's been lucky. But she is also clever and strategic. On Tuesday, in a funny and candid interview at Fortune's Most Powerful Women dinner in Silicon Valley, Mayer explained how she does it.

Sometimes you just need to show up.

Mayer found herself in an odd and maybe fateful situation when Tim and Nina Zagat, the famous restaurant raters, popped up at two conferences where she was speaking -- and sat before her in the front row. The first time they met, Tim walked up to Mayer, handed her his business card, and gruffly said, 'Welcome to local."

Shortly after, in New York, the Zagats were in the audience again, front and center. And this time, Tim asked her to join his wine club.

"I think that the Zagats are conference-stalking me," thought Mayer, who took control of the flirtation by asking Nina Zagat to lunch. Mayer was warned by Google M&A exec Neeraj Arora: "Don't say the acquisition word." But on the day they dined at New York's Jean-Georges (Nina's pricey suggestion) and continued their conversation at Zagat's Columbus Circle offices, Mayer couldn't help herself. She blurted: "Well, we're here to talk to you, maybe, possibly, about an… acquisition,"

Actually, her directness worked. Google wanted to avoid a bidding war -- and the Zagats agreed to talk exclusively to Google over the months that they got to know each other. "There are times when you just have to show up," says Mayer, who learned this simple truth as the negotiations hit the final stage. Google left Zagat with a proposed deal on a Friday, to be finalized Monday. The talks could have taken place over the phone, but Mayer believed in-person was best. So she and her team did two red-eyes in four days. "Nina said, 'That was our litmus test,'" recalls Mayer. "They were like, 'Is this a good team to work with? How much of a personal connection do they want with us? If they come back, we want to be with [them].'"

In September, Google acquired Zagat -- an ideal fit, Mayer believes, given Google's focus on local, mobile and social offerings.

Surround yourself with the smartest people possible.

Mayer graduated from Stanford in 1999, amidst the height of the first tech bubble, when she had a good problem on her hands: 14 job offers. What to do?

She says she looked for the common thread of all the best decisions she had made: going to Stanford, changing her major from pediatric neuroscience to symbolic systems, spending a summer working in artificial intelligence and another in banking in Zurich.

"I always surrounded myself with the smartest people I could find," she say. She settled on Google, she adds, because she knew the team there would help her coding skills grow a lot, regardless of the startup's success.

Do something you're a little unready to do.

Moving from Wisconsin to California for college and then changing her focus to symbolic systems --"a major I couldn't really describe myself, let alone to my father"--Mayer proved to herself that she could do things before she felt ready. Her biggest test, she says, came during her summer in Switzerland while she was a student at Stanford.

And her A-ha moment came while shopping for food, of all things. "The first day, I went to the grocery store and got in trouble because, it turns out, you buy produce in Europe completely differently [than in America]." Mayer simply wanted to buy grapes (a fruit she so loved as a kid that her family nicknamed her "The Grape Ape"), but she couldn't master the process of weighing the fruit and printing the price sticker.

"This woman just started yelling at me in German," Mayer recalls. The moment may seem trivial, but "I remember going back to my apartment and just being like, 'What was I thinking? I don't speak the language, I can't even buy produce here."

"When you do something you're not ready to do, that's when you push yourself and you grow," she says she now realizes. "It's when you sort of move through that moment of discomfort of, 'Wow, what have I gotten myself into this time?'"

Fortune's Pattie Sellers closed the interview with Mayer by reminding the audience of wisdom that Ginni Rometty, IBM's (IBM) new CEO, shared at the Most Powerful Women Summit in October: "Growth and comfort do not co-exist." Mayer would surely agree.

For more information on the Fortune Most Powerful Women community, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

Filed under: FORTUNE MPWomen, Leadership, Postcards

Meg Whitman on easing HP's "post-traumatic stress"

Patricia Sellers — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 19:09:46 +0000

Meg Whitman's first report card as CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) comes this afternoon when the company announces fourth-quarter earnings.

In the 60 days since she took the job, Whitman has settled on a strategy (keep HP in the PC business), worked to raise employee morale (terrible after three CEO ousters), and lifted the stock (up 12% since her appointment). But the former eBay (EBAY) chief, who lost her race for governor of California a year ago, has an enormous challenge ahead in reviving America's largest technology company.

"There is a bit of post-traumatic stress syndrome in the organization," she admitted at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit early last month, just days after she began the HP job. In a candid interview with Nina Easton, Fortune's Washington editor, Whitman compared HP to California--surprisingly, almost the same size by several key measures. But Whitman feels a lot more comfortable in one realm than the other, as she told us at the Summit.

Click here for the full transcript of the interview with Whitman at the MPW Summit.

Filed under: CEOs, FORTUNE MPWomen, Postcards

Chelsea Handler's tips for negotiating a $25 million deal

Patricia Sellers — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 18:29:42 +0000

The $25 million two-year deal that Chelsea Handler just chalked with the E! network says something about the enterprising queen of late-night TV talk. She sure knows how to negotiate.

Chelsea Handler at the MPW Summit Credit: Asa Mathat

"I do behave badly and I get paid well for it," Handler told Piers Morgan on CNN (TWX) last evening, adding, "It's a really good time to be me."

Last month, when I interviewed Handler on stage at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, she was in the middle of negotiating with NBC Universal's (CMCSA) E!--playing hardball, dropping hints that she might leave for a rival network.

When I asked her for her best negotiating tips, here's what she said:

"I don't listen to anyone or any advice because I know exactly what I want and how I want it."

And when an agent or a manager says, 'You can't ask for that...that's not done," what does Handler say? "Well, why don't you go ask?!"

"And then you get it," she said, instructing the MPW audience: "You have to ask for what you want. Just because there are parameters that have been set doesn't mean they can't be blown open."

For what it's worth (that is, $25 million), Handler's new contract with E! calls for her to continue to be host and executive producer of Chelsea Lately through 2014 and develop other projects through her company, Borderline Amazing Productions. Handler's company produces her After Lately, a spinoff show, as well as Chelsea Lately, which is the most-watched late-night talk show among female viewers, 18 to 34.

An increasingly valuable franchise at NBC Universal, Handler is, in addition to her E! deal, executive producing and appearing in Are You There, Chelsea?, a sitcom based on one of her best sellers, Are you There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea. The show will premiere on January 11.

Of course, a stand-up comic does not turn herself into a multi-media brand without rewarding the folks who helped her along the way. To celebrate her E! deal, Handler decided to give $1,000 cash to each of 138 staffers.

Yes, she is generous--and cunning too. "I probably shouldn't say this," Handler told me at the MPW Summit, going on to explain how she sometimes uses her staffers as negotiating bait to get sweet deals for herself. Here's Handler on her ultimate negotiating tip...

Filed under: Entrepreneurs, FORTUNE MPWomen, Postcards

Lululemon CEO Day tops Google's Larry Page

Patricia Sellers — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:59:21 +0000

Since she arrived from Starbucks (SBUX) in 2008, Christine Day has done a remarkable job building Lululemon (LULU). Once just a retailer for yoga enthusiasts, Lululemon is now a fast-growing lifestyle brand. The stock has more than tripled in three years.

Day has never put herself in the spotlight, but Fortune's online readers clearly recognize how effective she is. The results of our just-released Businessperson of the Year poll show that Day trounced Groupon (GRPN) CEO Andrew Mason in the first round of voting. Second round, Day beat Coca-Cola (KO) CEO Muhtar Kent. Third round, Day earned more votes that Google (GOOG) CEO Larry Page.

Even she was surprised. Day wrote this to me in an email today: "We have been so busy with board prep and budget planning that I did not even know I was in the running until the third bracket! The Fortune Women's page is linked to my Facebook page. So when you posted my name, it showed up on my page. My daughter saw it and started a "vote for my Mom" campaign. I got her update in my e-mail...I about fell off my chair when I saw that I was in bracket 3 against Larry Page!"

Day lost to Amazon's (AMZN) Jeff Bezos in the fourth round. And who bested Bezos to be the No. 1 best Businessperson of the Year, according to our readers? Warren Buffett, who continues to expand Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA).

Meanwhile, Fortune's editors chose Starbucks' CEO Howard Schultz as the magazine's Businessperson of the Year. Read David Kaplan's terrific cover story here. Christine Day, by the way, started at Starbucks as Schultz's assistant. Over her 20 years there, she rose to head of the Asia-Pacific group. Nothing like learning from the master.

Filed under: CEOs, FORTUNE MPWomen, Postcards

Sheryl Sandberg's hero: Somaly Mam

Patricia Sellers — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:00:36 +0000

Somaly Mam is a hero. Nick Kristof said so in his op-ed column in the New York Times this past weekend. Kristof raided a brothel in Northern Cambodia with this amazing woman who has become the guiding light in fighting forced prostitution around the world.

After escaping a similar brothel, where she was raped and tortured on a daily basis for years, Somaly Mam found her purpose. She devoted her life to fighting human trafficking, has saved 7,000 women and children from slavery, and has put her own life at risk countless times. Her biggest everyday concern is the 75 girls who live with her in her home, a haven.

"For me, dying is nothing," Mam told Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, one of her most ardent supporters, on stage at this year's Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. Sandberg framed the problem of human slavery in business terms: It is an estimated $32 billion industry. Imagine, in this era--human trafficking is reportedly the fastest-growing criminal enterprise in the world.

Sandberg's conversation with Mam drew a standing ovation from the MPW audience, some tears, and a flood of support to the tune of $45,000.

We're glad we could help in a small way. Watch this clip of Sandberg's interview with Mam, and if you too would like to help, go to the Somaly Mam Foundation here.

Filed under: FORTUNE MPWomen, Postcards