Media

Tell us a little about yourself?

Well, this is my fourth book, and like all my books, audio CDs and other products…it focuses on women in business. I’ve spent the past 20 years building businesses and have found that what makes business work is the PEOPLE.  I’ve built Leading with Care, around extraordinary people…women who are making things happen in their families and their communities.

You know, Karen, as a speaker and author I travel across the country and around the world speaking to women’s groups. And the women I interact with every day…those who attend my keynotes and workshops…want to grow their businesses and their lives. I’ve got the greatest job in the world, helping women like these create better lives for themselves, their families and their communities. 

I also have the honor of representing the US State Dept in helping women from developing countries start and grow businesses. I recently returned from Belarus, where I worked with a group of women starting  AgroTurismos…so these creative women want to generate additional revenue from their family farms, and we discussed ways they could attract tourists as overnight guests in their homes. These are the kind of women I work with on a regular basis…so you can see why I think I’ve got the greatest job in the world!

Why did you decide to write this book?

Here’s the thing: When we think of women in developing countries, our minds typically flash to what they need, what we can give to them, how we can help them. But I thought…what if we flipped this notion upside down? What if those of us who are well educated and well fed considered what we could learn from them—how they could help us?

So even though a successful, well-educated woman—say a corporate executive in New York or Chicago, or an entrepreneur in Dallas or Seattle—might feel that she has little to learn from a woman struggling to feed her family in Bosnia, or one building a microbusiness in Zambia, or one teaching fellow villagers to read in Haiti…I’ve learned that life’s most valuable lessons are often learned in very unexpected places and from unexpected teachers. And that’s why I decided to write this book…so readers can learn from women who have accomplished so much starting with so little.

What do you hope will happen as a result of this book?

Well, I really have two goals:

First of all, I believe readers will be honestly surprised by what they can learn from women who started micro businesses in places like Niger and Peru. Or from a 20-year old woman in India who brought healthcare into her community; or a woman in Mozambique who took the lead in bringing running water to her village. So there are lessons from women that readers would never get the chance to meet.

Secondly, I have fallen madly in love with CARE. Their focus on helping women and girls has won my heart. And a significant percentage of the book royalties of Leading with Care will go to CARE to help just the women that we talk about in the book. So, I’m excited that women who buy this book will be supporting those women in Niger and Mozambique and India.

Tell us a bit more about CARE?

Well, just consider these statistics:

• Women do 66 % of the world’s work but earn only 10% of the income.
• Women produce 50 % of the world’s food but own just 1% of its farmland.

Now it’s true that these statistics show the unfair burden that we carry as women, but they also indicate the opportunity for change that exists.

CARE makes that opportunity real for 55 million people in 66 developing countries. They fight global poverty by equipping poor women with the resources to transform their lives…initiatives that advance basic education, improve health, increase economic opportunity, and provide emergency disaster relief.

Most of us have heard of “Care packages” but not many know that that name came from CARE’s initiative in 1945 to airdrop parcels for the destitute in Europe after WWII. So CARE has been around for over sixty years.

And, today, CARE focuses on supporting women and girls. Helping them become self-sufficient, helping them build and improve their communities and safeguard the environment, and addressing the discrimination that is still rampant some places in the world.  CARE’s focus on women and girls makes a real difference to millions around the world.

You have an impressive roster of women featured in the book. Tell a bit more about them?

I thought it would be interesting to share not only my thoughts on the accomplishments of these amazing women, but to ask other significant businesswomen for their take on it as well. So I’ve interviewed key women in the business world about their thoughts on what these women have accomplished and what they learned from them. I’m talking about women like Donna Orender, President of the WNBA, Chris Shea, President of the General Mills Foundation, and Nancy Weber CMO of Meredith Publishing. We’ve included women executives from Procter & Gamble to Intercontinental Hotels Group.

I matched these women executives with individual CARE women and started by asking the question: “What did you learn from this woman and how is it relevant to your business and your life?”  Each woman told me how CARE’s message resonated with her. For example, Donna Orender, President of the WNBA was matched up with Maria Esther Landa a young Peruvian woman who was trained by CARE as a welder and went on to build a business that employs many in her village. Donna discussed how Maria’s ability to overcome poverty and achieve independence reminded her of several young WNBA players, and she tells the reader a few stories of those young women.  I found it fascinating how American women in executive suites could relate to and learn from women who live such different lives.

What’s unique about this book?

One of the most fascinating things about Leading with Care is the way that it gained its own momentum and in a way, created its own community. So as I interviewed women for the book, they rallied around and began to talk to other women about it. For example, most people I spoke with knew of CARE, but many did not know of CARE’s focus on women and girls. And as the word began to spread about that I received more and more emails and calls from people I didn’t even know asking how they could be involved in helping promote the book.  So, it’s really taken on a life of its own.

Oh, and one key element of the book is the specific questions at the end of each section that help women put the concepts of the book into play in their own lives.

Several reviewers have mentioned how a workgroup of women could use this book as a guide to enhance their lives and their workplace…that the questions at the end of each section really enable women not just to READ but to USE the information provided. So, the book is unique because it provides leadership concepts you can’t learn anywhere else, in a format you’ve never before experienced. You can gain years of experience from women who have definitely earned the right to tell their stories.

How can our listeners learn more about this book?

We’ve developed a great website at LeadingWithCare.org , that’s not .com but LeadingWithCare.org  And on this site, you can learn about Leading with Care –BTW: the full title is Leading with Care: How Women Around the World are Inspiring Businesses, Empowering Communities, and Creating Opportunity—anyway on our website you can learn about the book and see pictures of the women featured in the book.

You can also see where I’m delivering keynotes and workshops for women across the US and around the world.  I will be out representing the book everywhere from the California Women’s Conference in Long Beach to the Enterprising Women Annual Awards Event in Orlando.

And, of course, you can purchase Leading with Care through retail and online bookstores. Your purchase makes a difference!  A percentage of the book royalties, with a minimum of $10,000, will support CARE’s work with women in developing countries.