Postcards
Power Point: Don't rely on the power of the position
September 12, 2008: 5:17 PM ET"I've always felt that if I ever had to use my power--the power that came with my position and title--in a more overt way, rather than just having it there in the background, then I would have failed somehow."
--Jami Miscik, global head of sovereign risk at Lehman Brothers (LEH), offered her take on power last evening at a Fortune Most Powerful Women dinner in Chicago. Miscik, whom Pattie Sellers profiled in a fascinating Fortune story last year, The Spy Goes to Wall Street, managed to escape the chaos swirling around her firm to make it to our event (and on 9/11 yet; she played a key role at the CIA seven years ago, and Lehman, which had lost its headquarters in the World Trade Center attacks, subsequently hired her to be their geopolitical risk guru). She talked about global risk, the food crisis and more with fellow panelists Irene Rosenfeld, CEO of Kraft (KFT) and Pat Woertz, CEO of ADM (ADM). You'll see more from them on Postcards soon.
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Fortune senior editor at large Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Marissa Mayer: Ready to Rumble at Yahoo," "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), and "Remodeling Martha" (Martha Stewart). She has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" package every year since its launch in 1998. Pattie is Executive Director of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business and beyond. She oversees MPW programs that enable women leaders to extend their influence and empower the next generation—such as Fortune MPW Entrepreneurs and the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Beyond her Fortune duties, she is also developing Live Content across Time Inc. Pattie grew up in Allentown, PA, graduated from the University of Virginia, and started at Fortune in 1984. Her blog, Postcards, is about how power players lead, manage others, and navigate their careers.
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The Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership brings rising-star women from countries around the world to the U.S. for three-week mentorships with participants of the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit - among them Ursula Burns of Xerox, Laura Lang of Time Inc., Marissa Mayer of Yahoo, and Tory Burch.
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