CEOs, global stars, and Presidential offspring

Fortune dinner attendees Barbara Bush (left) and Chelsea Clinton. Photo credit: CARE Conference and Kyle Cassidy

"Leaders must role model what GREAT looks like."

In her comments at  the "Fortune Most Powerful Women Evening With..." dinner in New York City Tuesday night  McKinsey & Co. 's Joanna Barsh was talking about the importance of corporate women leaders helping middle managers. But her comments helped set the tone for the evening, which also recognized a group of international rising stars who have been mentored by some of the most powerful female executives in U.S. business.

Barsh's comments--she serves as a leader of McKinsey's consumer packaged goods and organization practices--kicked off a star-studded evening that included such high powered guests as Xerox (XRX) CEO Ursula Burns, Frontier Communications (FTR) CEO Maggie Wilderotter and financial analyst Meredith Whitney, media stalwarts Barbara Walters, Sandra Lee, and Martha Stewart --and two daughters of former U.S. Presidents: Chelsea Clinton and Barbara Bush.

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Posted in: Barbara Bush, CEOs, Chelsea Clinton, FORTUNE MPWomen, Frontier Communications, Joanna Barsh, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, Maggie Wilderotter, McKinsey & Co., media, Meredith Whitney, Most Powerful Women, Postcards, Ursula Burns, Xerox

• Too Big To Fail premiere: The stars align

  Hollywood, Wall Street and New York media converged last night at the premiere of Too Big to Fail, the movie.

  Michael Douglas, Brian Williams, and Regis Philbin met Warren Buffett, uber-analyst Meredith Whitney, and CNBC's Becky Quick at the Museum of Modern Art, where HBO's screening took place, and at a swishy after-party at Manhattan's Four Seasons restaurant.

  Hank Paulson is indisputably the hero of the film based on Andrew Ross Sorkin's MORE

  Patricia Sellers - May 17, 2011 11:38 AM ET
  Posted in: CEOs, entertainment, Erin Callan, Hank Paulson, John Mack, John Thain, media, Meredith Whitney, Postcards, Wall Street, Warren Buffett, Washington

• Meredith Whitney on her 60 Minute warnings

  by Patricia Sellers

  Meredith Whitney dropped a big lump of coal on municipal bond investors' holiday.

  Sunday night, on 60 Minutes, the Wall Street analyst -- who warned early and famously in October 2007 that bank stocks would collapse, and soon they did -- blared her warning about the dire financial conditions of the U.S. states. Since her TV turn, Whitney told me this morning, she's been fielding lots of emails and MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Dec 21, 2010 11:45 AM ET
  Posted in: banks, finance, Meredith Whitney, Postcards

• Hillary Clinton, Warren Buffett and women who rule

  by Patricia Sellers

  I've been less than prolific on Postcards lately. Pardon the layoff--it's temporary. And it's just because I've been running around working on what is going to be, I think, Fortune's best Most Powerful Women issue yet.

  The issue, our 13th since we began the act in the magazine in 1998, will hit newsstands on Monday, October 4. That's also the day we begin the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Sep 17, 2010 6:01 AM ET
  Posted in: CEOs, FORTUNE Most Powerful Women Summit, FORTUNE MPWomen, Hillary Clinton, Meredith Whitney, Most Powerful Women, Postcards, Warren Buffett

• Meredith Whitney takes on bank reform

  by Patricia Sellers

  Want to know what Meredith Whitney really thinks?

  Today in the Wall Street Journal, the notoriously bearish bank analyst takes a whack at the government's proposed regulatory reforms. Well-intended reform will likely do more harm than good, she suggests, by driving consumer credit out of the market and putting many community banks out of business.

  Whitney has been spreading her wings lately, flying around the U.S. to advise Federal Reserve MORE

  Patricia Sellers - May 17, 2010 3:17 PM ET
  Posted in: banks, finance, Meredith Whitney, Postcards, Washington

• Meredith Whitney says unemployment will rise again

  by Patricia Sellers

  So, retail sales are up. Unemployment is down. And the Dow is near 11,000.

  That doesn't mean that all is right with the world.

  So says Meredith Whitney.

  The analyst who brought down the bank stocks in 2007--by shining the light on their capital shortfalls--came by Fortune's offices Wednesday afternoon to explain why she's still a bear. I asked her: Will unemployment, now at 9.7%, likely go back up? "I think MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Apr 8, 2010 2:46 PM ET
  Posted in: banks, Citigroup, finance, Goldman Sachs, Meredith Whitney, Postcards, Wall Street

• Power Point: Whitney warns of state troubles

  "If previous crises provide any indication of what lies ahead, FY2011 may be even more challenging than 2010."

  -- Meredith Whitney, or Meredith Whitney Advisory Group, in a report on mounting fiscal troubles for state governments. After riding the boom and bust in real estate, 48 states are underfunded for fiscal 2010, she notes. State and local government spending accounts for 12% of U.S. GDP. Whitney's conclusion: When state governments lower MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Nov 11, 2009 6:22 PM ET
  Posted in: economy, Meredith Whitney, Postcards, Power Point

• Most Powerful Women on CNBC's Squawk Box

  I co-hosted CNBC's Squawk Box Thursday morning, when we unveiled Fortune's 2009 Most Powerful Women in Business list--topped by PepsicCo (PEP) CEO Indra Nooyi for the fourth year in a row.

  With us on the show: bank-industry analyst Meredith Whitney, No. 39 in Fortune's rankings. She stayed after co-hosting Squawk Box the hour before--and made news, by the way, predicting that home prices will continue to fall and unemployment will go MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Sep 11, 2009 2:29 PM ET
  Posted in: Anne Mulcahy, banks, Carol Bartz, CEOs, FORTUNE MPWomen, Indra Nooyi, Meredith Whitney, Most Powerful Women, PepsiCo, Postcards, Power Shift, Silicon Valley, technology, Wall Street, Xerox, Yahoo

• Meredith Whitney's Goldman Sachs call

  She still has her mojo.

  A lot of people were surprised, even confounded, when analyst Meredith Whitney, the bear of all bears, stuck her neck out early yesterday and put forth the Street's highest estimates for Goldman Sachs' (GS) second-quarter profits. Whitney predicted that Goldman would report $4.65 a share. The consensus estimate was $3.48. Goldman announced this morning that it earned $4.93.

  And you'd think the stock would pop on that MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Jul 14, 2009 2:39 PM ET
  Posted in: banks, economy, finance, FORTUNE MPWomen, Meredith Whitney, Postcards, Wall Street

• Power Point: Learn from your children

  "The absence of standards is the social equivalent of the absence of an acknowledged fair price for a good in the marketplace. At best, it leads to haggling; at worst, to market failure."

  - Michael Lewis, the best-selling author of Moneyball and The Blind Side, in Home Game, his new book released this week. Tonight, Meredith Whitney, the bank-industry analyst who appeared on the cover of Fortune last August, interviewed Lewis at MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Jun 2, 2009 11:09 PM ET
  Posted in: banks, FORTUNE MPWomen, Meredith Whitney, Michael Lewis, Postcards, Wall Street