Since I had to be on a plane today to NYC I celebrated with my family last night. We went for a lovely dinner and then to the blockbuster hit, The Avengers! I loved it. I love superhero movies period and this one, with all its spectacular special effects and witty dialogue, was just great. That said I left the movie very upset.

The first reason is that the two previews were of the upcoming SPIDERMAN and BATMAN movies. How many is that now? I think combined over 10 feature length films. 10 and still no WONDERWOMAN!!! And how about the number of SUPERMAN movies? Seriously? Characters like The Mask, Spawn, Steel, Blade, Daredevil, The Hulk, Catwoman and more have had features, but WW is stuck in development. Enough already.

The second reason is that Josh Whedon was the filmmaker behind The Avengers and he did a GREAT job. I sat there thinking why the heck did he not do the WW film he was hired for? Back in 2005 he was hired to write the screenplay and left the project in 2007 citing creative differences. I commissioned a report to be written on the history of WMM ( which I am figuring out what do with) and here is what the writer of the report Laura Moore had to say quoting from an interview.

By all accounts, Joss Whedonʼs script never made it past an outline, and therefore a draft was never written. There are rumors that a draft script does exist, but if this is true, that draft is well and truly hidden, for all attempts to locate a copy have proved fruitless. Whedon did offer some insight as to his vision of Wonder Woman in a 2007 interview online. Below is a section of this interview as it pertains to the plot of his now abandoned film: “Well, I’ll tell you one thing that sort of exemplifies my feelings. The idea was always that she’s awesome, she’s fabulous, she’s strong, she’s beautiful, she’s well-intentioned, she thinks she’s a great big hero, and it’s Steve Trevor’s job to go, “You don’t understand human weakness, therefore you are not a hero, and you never will be until you’re as helpless as we are. Fight through that, and then I’ll be impressed. Until then, I’m just going to give you shit in a romantic-comedy kind of way.”

There was talk about what city she was in and stuff, but by the end, she had never actually set foot in America. Wonder Woman isn’t Spider-man or Batman. She doesn’t have a town, she has a world. That was more interesting to me than a kind of contained, rote superhero franchise. I think ultimately the best way I can describe the kind of movie I was wanting to make—it was a fun adventure, not gritty, or insanely political, or anything like that. There was meat to the idea of, “Well, why aren’t you guys better? What’s up with that?” Her lack of understanding of how this world has come to this pass. My favorite thing was the bracelets. I mean, the bracelets are cool, but how do I make that work? In the original comic book, they needed them because they fire guns on Paradise Island. I don’t think I’m going there. So, I thought about it for a while, and I realized, “Oh, right, this is how this works.”

So in my version, she left Paradise Island with Steve, who was a world-relief guy bringing medical supplies to refugees, which is why he was so desperate to get off the island. She goes with him, and the moment she sets foot on land outside of Paradise Island, somebody shoots her in the chest. And it hurts. [Laughs.] She’s just so appalled. And obviously, she heals within a few hours. She pulls the bullet out herself, and kind of looks at it like, “What the hell is this?” She heals, but she’s appalled and humiliated, and the next time someone shoots at her, she puts her bracelet in the way because she’s terrified of getting shot. It’s just a reflexive thing. She has these bands that they all wear, just a piece of armor, and she puts it up. And then she gets good at it. By the end, it’s kind of her thing, but it’s because she got shot one time and didn’t think that it was awesome. I think that is probably not the feeling the producers wanted to have. Though honestly, that could have been their favorite thing. I don’t know, because when I asked Joel Silver, point blank, “Well, if they don’t want what I’m doing, what do they want?” he said, “They don’t know.”

I loved what I was doing. I mean, it was really hard. It took me a long time to break the story structurally to my satisfaction. When I did that, it was in an outline, and not in a draft, and they didn’t like it. So I never got to write a draft where I got to work out exactly what I wanted to do. In terms of the meaning, the feeling, the look, the emotion, the character, the relationship with Steve Trevor, all of that stuff, I never wavered for a second. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. It was really just a question of housing it. I would go back in a heartbeat if I believed that anybody believed in what I was doing. The lack of enthusiasm was overwhelming. It was almost staggering, and that was kind of from the beginning. I just don’t think my take on Wonder Woman was ever to their liking. I wasn’t getting them to feel what they wanted to feel. They couldn’t describe what that was to me. We’re talking about a huge investment. To ask somebody to jump on that, what is going to be a few hundred million dollars these days, if they just don’t have that feeling… I got chills when I think of some of this stuff, but apparently I was the only one who was chilly.Everybody was very gracious about it. It was a blind date, and everybody thought we’d get married, but let’s just leave it at the door.”

The line about the staggering lack of enthusiasm from the beginning makes me WILD! It is like there is a conspiracy thing going to NOT have WW come to the big screen. The excuse that the property is so valuable to not have it done well is at this point ridiculous. Put a group of feminist icons and wonder woman fans in the room with some great writers and I guarantee  you will have a story line in no time. ( and I have offered to help them make it happen!!!)

The third reason for me being so annoyed is that of all the main characters in the film, only one of our heroes was a woman. ONE. What message does that send to all the girls watching that film? Let me tell you.  The message is that most of the heroes out there are male. Girl heroes are the exception and not the rule. If you think I am making too much of this issue I challenge you to watch the film “MissRepresentation” which is now available on DVD. Watch it then tell me if I am making too much of it.

I am honored to serve on the advisory board for The Geena Davis Institute for Gender in Media and she is all about, they are all about, holding the industry accountable for this misrepresentation of women and girls in the media. “We cannot be what we cannot see” and we are not seeing enough women and girls as the ones saving the world.

So although I loved the film I left sad. I wish Josh Whedon was kept on the WMM film. I don’t understand why for every 10 Superhero films featuring a male main character, there is one featuring a woman. I want there to be more superhero films where women are not just the secondary characters or arm candy.  I want there to be more accountability by the film industry in general to have a half of the main characters and secondary characters women and girls.   Lastly I WILL  figure out how to launch a campaign to get WW on the big screen NOW!!  This is such a HUGE missed opportunity for the studio and I truly don’t get it. It is simply bad business NOT have the most iconic female superhero on the big screen. Warner Brothers management and board of directors what the heck are you thinking? Enough excuses, enough. It is time. Her fans are waiting and so is a potential billon dollars.

The Anniversary Gala was planned to celebrate the anniversaries of two incredible orgnaztions and their achievements for the advancement of women.

Ms. Magazine, which was co-founded by Gloria Steinem in 1971, first appeared as an insert in New York Magazine but it wasn’t until 1972 that the first stand alone issue was published. In the 2011 documentary about Gloria Steinem called “In Her Own Words” she explained her motivation for starting the magazine, “I realized as a journalist that there really was nothing for women to read that was controlled by women, and this caused me along with a number of other women to start Ms.magazine.” Ms. Magazine was well known for speaking the truth about women’s issues and became famous for publishing topics no other magazines had published before. A few historical milestones (more can be found here):

Ms. made history in 1972 when it published the names of women admitting to having had abortions when the procedure was still illegal in most of the United States.A year later, Roe v. Wade would legalize abortion throughout the country.

A 1976 cover story on battered women made Ms. the first national magazine to address the issue of domestic violence. The cover photo featured a woman with a bruised face.

Over the years Ms. Magazine has won several awards including the Utne Independent Press Award for social commentary. Today, the magazine “remains an interactive enterprise in which an unusually diverse readership is simultaneously engaged with each other and the world. The modern Ms. boasts the most extensive coverage of international women’s issues of any magazine available in the United States.” In 2001, Ms. Magazine was purchased by Feminist Majority Foundation and is now publish quarterly. If you are not a subscriber do so now. NOW !!!!! I really mean it and you will not regret it.

The Feminist Majority Foundation was also celebrating its 25th Anniversary and since it was founded in 1987 by Eleanor Smeal it has been dedicated to women’s equality, reproductive health issues, and nonviolence. Their mission statement ( website ) states “the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF) was created to develop bold, new strategies and programs to advance women’s equality, non-violence, economic development, and, most importantly, empowerment of women and girls in all sectors of society. All programs of the FMF endeavor to include a global perspective and activities to promote leadership development, especially among young women. Along with reproductive rights and access to reproductive technology, the FMF’s programs have focused on the empowerment of women in law, business, medicine, academia, sports, and the Internet.” The Feminist Majority Foundation supports their mission by engaging in research and public policy development, public education programs, grassroots organizing projects, leadership training and development programs, and participates in and organizes forums on issues of women’s equality and empowerment.

An incredible woman, Peg Yorkin, (click link for her story) chair and co- founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation and a TRAILBLAZER in women’s philanthropy received a special honor from the foundation. In 1991, Peg made a historical contribution to the foundation in the amount of $10 million dollars, the largest contribution ever made for women’s rights. The purpose of the donation was to empower women to take action, and to ensure a legacy of feminism for future generations. To say this 85 year old women is a force of nature would be an understatement.

It was indeed an honor to be in the room with all these FIERCE leaders of the women’s movement!

Iceland is a country that caught the world’s attention in 2008 as three of their largest banks collapsed.  (which I happened to blog about long before I ever considered going) The financial crisis took a serious toll on their economy, though as a tourist visiting in 2012 you would never know it.  Relative to the size of Iceland’s economy (2011 GDP $12.3 billion US around $13 trillion!)  their banking collapse was the largest suffered by any country in history (read more about it here.)  What is crazy is how small of a country it is! There are only about 320,000 people and the land mass is about the size of Maine.

The trip was organized by Mountain Taxi . If you are planning a trip to Iceland I highly recommend you book with them.  They were fantastic. The first day, before we even had the chance to get settled in to our hotel, we were whisked away in “super jeeps” which took us to rugged and expansive lave fields which we toured on ATV’s! We took the ATV’s to one of Iceland’s most popular attractions The Blue Lagoon (pictured above) where we had lunch and soaked in the geothermal waters. Saturday was action packed with more sight seeing and adventures, we got to see the second largest glacier in Iceland (Long-Glacier) and took snowmobile rides across the frozen ice fields!  I did manage to come close to killing myself after launching my snowmobile over an unseen hill but hey, I survived.  Did you know how much head injuries bleed?

After a  morning of riding the frozen lands (and getting bandaged up), we were treated to lunch which was served on an ice bar carved into the side of the glacier. (This was a ‘ you are kidding me ‘ moment!).  After visiting an amazing falls it was a long drive to our hotel and an amazing dinner with dear friends.  Our last day we actually got to go up onto the glacier with ice crampons and ice picks which was an incredible sight! Coincidentally, this was the same glacier that was featured in the film “Chasing Ice” that we just saw at the Sundance Film Festival this year.  The filmmaker uses time  lapsed photography to capture the melting of the glaciers to provide evidence for global warming.  This is a must see film and so cool that you can actually visit that glacier. After an amazing lunch it was back to the airport for home.  Greg and I have never done anything like this and to say it was an experience of a lifetime would be an understatement. It was for a VERY special occasion and we were so honored to be included.

Iceland is only about 40,000 square miles and it is almost completely bare of tress and vegetation. Exploring on the lava fields I felt like I was on the moon! The lava fields and lagoons produce geothermal energy which is one of Iceland’s most powerful natural resources. Geothermal and Hydropower plants are Iceland’s most vital resource and they provide nearly 80% of the nations total energy. Due to its sprawling bare land they are unable to raise large farm animals for their diet. They also have very, very strict rules around livestock which I want to learn more about. The country is known for its fishing and while we were they we definitely figured this out! The popular fish of choice? Salmon, salmon, and more salmon! Iceland is also known for their lamb and dairy products.

Though we clearly ‘did it up’  you certainly don’t have to to enjoy this amazing country. It would be spectacular to just travel by car and take in the amazing landscapes.  Hiking, biking, skiing and horse backed riding are all very popular.   (they have about over 100,000 horses on the island I was told)  Visit Iceland!

For more information about Iceland and travel information visit their website

So how do you go “viral”? He laid out the answer by means of  a simple equation, C+C+C=C. Darian explained that in order to have your message go viral it needs to be “COMPELLING” –  why should anyone care about your message? Secondly, it needs to be “CONCISE.” Unless your message is to the point and easily accessible, people will miss the purpose. Third, it has to be “CREDIBLE.” In Darian’s words, “Great, so you’ve engaged me and done it quickly, but if you try and tell me that your magic beans are the cure to cancer tomorrow, I’m onto whatever else my fascinating network of do-gooders and colleagues is up to.” The three C’s come together to create a “CONTAGIOUS” message thus going “viral.”  This was clearly the secret sauce with the internet sensation  the KONY 2012 campaign which was viewed more than 100 million times in just under a week making it the most viral video in history. By utilizing social media to transmit a message the potential for online fundraising or raising awareness is dramatic.

So what does the future look like in terms of online fundraising? According to a report by Blackbaud (“The Blackbaud Index of Online Giving ) looking at total giving for 1,700 organizations of varied sizes the average online revenue accounted for 6% of their overall fundraising revenue. This number is growing  with The Index of Online Giving “showing a 23% increase in March to May 2010 revenue over the same period in 2009 across the 1,787 organizations tracked, with large organizations (revenue over $10 million) showing a 28% increase.” If you don’t have an online strategy, you will be missing a potentially very big boat.

Though online giving has huge potential Darian also said that one of the most powerful forms of fundraising ask is the “peer ask.” I loved this as this is what Women Moving Millions is all about. He said that being asked to give to an organization by one of your peers is more powerful than being asked by someone you don’t know and does not know you. Better yet if that person is asking you because you have already shown an interest in the issue areas of that organization. I feel strongly that we have come to rely  to much on the development efforts of our NGO partners. Of course professional fundraisers are very important and needed, but it can and should not be a substitute for a committed Board of Directors and current donor network, and now these online possibilities.

Raising money is both hard and expensive. Though the number varies hugely depending on the type of organization it can be said that 10-20% of revenues go towards raising those dollars. If WMM is successful, our measurable impact will be to dramatically reduce the overall development costs for the women’s movement.  It was always the vision of our Co Founder Helen LaKelly Hunt that WMM would become a development engine for women’s funds and that continues to be our vision.   Current donors should take a more active role in fund raising for the organizations THEY care about most.  WMM exists to support these efforts by supporting our member’s philanthropic leadership.  Perhaps our motto should be ‘Step up, give and bring others with you.’

The power of the peer ask is what is behind the online potential of fundraising through platforms such as Facebook. When people like you, and you like a cause, and are willing to  press for support, money follows. This is especially true for micro-donations where giving a small amount for someone you care about is a relatively easy thing to do it. Though not all small gifts will lead to bigger levels of involvement, some will.  Years ago I dreamed that one day we would  be able to share with all who are interested the causes and organizations we care most about, and now we can!  We have gone from fav book to fav NGOS, social change videos, and more. Further I imagined an “amazon’ type thing for giving where if you shared what organizations you have to, others would be suggested with like missions. I am dreaming this in to our web platform for WMM and perhaps more generally.

Darian’s facts around social media lead to a powerful conversation around next generation leadership. With nearly 78 million baby-boomers and just about 38 million Gen Xers there are about half as many people to take board positions for many nonprofits. We are not preparing our organizations for this potential problem.  BoardSource Nonprofit Governance Index 2010 reveled that only 3% of board members are under the age of 30 and nearly 50% of board members were between 50-64 years old. The current age of board members is not an accurate representation of the community many organizations serve. Empowering younger team members to get involved and to get “social” makes smart business sense. One of Darian’s points, which is a bit harsh but ultimately true, “This country is an alcoholic, we have to hit rock bottom to realize we need to change.” Whether it’s in reference to needing younger board members, more female board members or needing more substantial social media fundraising strategies, we’ve got some work to do and let’s not hit rock bottom to make it happen.

You can get a copy of Darian Heyman’s new book, “Nonprofit Management 101: A complete and practical Guide for Leaders and Professionals” here.

Additional resources Darian mentioned-

Social Entrepreneurship Websites

As part this forum the White House Council on Women and Girls released a new report entitled, “Keeping America’s Women Moving Forward, The Key to an Economy Built to Last.” This report examines the Administrations persistence to ensure women have support through all stages of life. The Executive Summary itself is bold, compelling, and empirically sound!  Could this serve as a wake call to as the economic power and possibility of women? He certainly has the women’s vote in this country and this is why.

The report states, “Today, more than ever before, women are playing a central role in the American economy. Women now make up nearly 50% of our workforce, are a growing number of breadwinners in their families, and are the majority of students in our colleges and graduate schools. American women own 30% of small businesses, which generate $1.2 trillion a year in sales. Since 1962, women’s participation in the labor market has risen by 20 percentage points while the United States’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has more than quadrupled. And according to a report by McKinsey, if the United States raised female labor participation rates to the average participation rate of the top 10 states, our economy would add 5.1 million women workers, the equivalent of a 3-4% increase in GDP.”

With women owning 30% of small businesses, controlling 80% of consumer discretionary spending, and accounting for 67% of college graduates (70% of the 2012 valedictorians) it is right for the administration to have this focus.  More surprising is how this did not come to be prior to 2009. The shocking contrast is between these measurements of presence and impact ( current and potential)  and the lack of representation in leadership positions in this country across all sectors.

As a father of two young girls President Obama said, “Every decision I make is all about making sure [my daughters] and all our daughter and all our sons grow up in a country that gives them the chance to be anything they set their minds to; a country where more doors are open to them than were ever open to us.” As the mother of a son and daughter, I could not agree more.

Though I do have some issues with our President on the economic front, his stand for women and girls is notable.

You can see President Obama’s full address here.  Worth a watch!!!!

FACEBOOK.  I feel like it has become a new marker in our society, BF ( before FACEBOOK) and AF ( after FACEBOOK).  BF we relied on email, phone calls,  and in person conversations to stay connected, and now,  we don’t. AF we can now stay connected with hundreds, if not thousands of people by just parking ourselves in front of our MAC. You might think that is a good thing, a bad thing, or a mix of the two but the point is it exists and personally, I love it. It has been and will continue to be a game changer.

In case you have your head in the sand you know that FACEBOOK is soon to go public.  They will raise billions of dollars to expand their control of the universe and will be doing so with a board composed exclusively of white men. This is despite the fact that women make up the majority of FACEBOOK users and account for 62% of the content produced on the site.

Today, the FACE IT campaign was launched in response to Facebook’s all-white, all-male board representation. The FACE IT campaign, which has been endorsed by well known organizations such as 85 Broads, 2020 Women on Boards, Women Corporate Directors, and The 30% Coalition ( which I am a part of), stated in their press release that they will, “call attention to the failure of Facebook’s all-male board to represent the company’s diverse public and its own corporate mission.” (which is stated on their website as, “Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.”)

In case they don’t think it is just the RIGHT THING TO DO research conducted by Catalyst found that for the return on equity for companies with at least three or more women board directors outperform those with none by 46%, for Return on Invested Capital it’s 60%, and for Return on Sales it’s 84%.  As a future shareholder you should want diversity on the board as it is likely to prove good for the stock price. But do we really need to make the business case for it?

The FACE IT campaign intends to use Facebook to “spark meaningful change in corporate America- starting with Facebook itself.” According to TechCrunch  women’s representation on corporate boards is dismal.  “While women comprise 51% of the population, they make up only 15.7% of Fortune 500 boards of directors, less than 10% of California tech company boards, and 9.1% of Silicon Valley boards.” Through the Campaigns website (www.faceitcampaign.com), petition, YouTube video, and Facebook page, FACEBOOK is asked to  go public with a board that reflects its user base and the company’s mission. They powerfully state that “without women on its board, Facebook disconnects itself from its public and forsakes its social aspirations.” Simply put -  ‘Seven white men? That’s ridiculous!’”

I throw my support behind this initiative and hope you will to.  A heartfelt thank you to the campaign organizers who took it upon themselves to say as users of FACEBOOK, this is not OK,  and we are going to try to do something to change it.

I embraced the whole TWITTER thing during the conference, which was fascinating.  I have to say I did not really ‘get it’ until this event.  I TWEETED realtime, mainly just great quotes from the speakers, and by adding the hashtag for the event I could follow along and pick up what many in the audience felt were the big take aways as it was happening.  (you can check out all the tweets here).  To see what I tweeted (like you care I know…) go to my twitter home page. It was just really cool and in the future I will most certainly check out the TWEETS for events I cannot attend in person.

In general the best sessions, in my opinion, featured women from outside the United States. Leymah Gbowee, Nobel Laureate, was absolutely incredible.  Not only was the content of what she was saying amazing, but also how she shared it.  When asked a question, she answered with a story.  The importance of storytelling was a HUGE take-away for me. She said American women must “get up” if they want to affect change. ( a write up on the session can be found here – Daily Beast) As it relates to women and men she says,  “as long as we continue to engage from a position of weakness, they will never respect us. It is time for women to stop being politely angry.” Leymah schooled us in how to use power to affect positive change in the world.  She rocked.

I contrast the above with the session called “Where are the women at the top?”  hosted by the amazing Sheryl Sandbery, COO of Facebook. The panel featured fabulous women including Jill Abramson, Shelby Knox, Anne Kornblut, Cheryl Mills, and Gloria Steinem but the discussion fell short.  The key question asked was “has the definition – or importance- of professional success changed since the dawn of feminism?” What ????? I don’t even know what that means nor do I think it is current and relevant.  It felt like a conversation we have had over and over and over and over.  I sat there thinking that if Leymah had only gone FIRST, this panel could have taken a whole other direction. Instead of asking where are the women, answer: virtually nowhere, we could have been talking about concrete actions to get them there.  Opportunity missed in my opinion.

A completely fascinating panel was “Changing The Minds of Men” moderated by Christiane Amanpour featuring Bibi Hokmina, Mohammad Nasib, and Zainab Salbi. Bibi is a woman who has for a long time dressed as a man.  She is an elected official in Eastern Afghanistan and it was so interesting to listen to a woman, dressed as a man, talk about women power and potential. Bottom line, she is very worried that with the US pulling out of Afghanistan, there will be a tremendous roll back of the gains made by women in her country.  I certainly share her concern.  Click here to watch.

In the closing session, Hillary Clinton asks the question, “‘Why do extremists—in every country—want to control women?’ The Secretary of State said that even the U.S. ought to live its own values because ‘America needs to set an example for the entire world.’” ( another AMEN!!!!!)  The video posted by The Daily Beast can be found above, as well as many others on The Daily Beast Website.

Some of the great quotes I found on twitter:

“When you play a great world leader, you get an Oscar. And when you get a true world leader, you get Hillary Clinton” Meryl Streep

“Women should have the right to make their own decisions, in every country.” – Hillary Clinton

“Until we get political power, we can’t make giant strides. And every woman in here needs to help get a woman elected.” -Kah Walla

“I feel like I’ve been plugged into an energy source: it’s bigger than oil, coal — it’s girls!” –Meryl Streep

“Women’s rights are human rights. Hillary is making those words a lynch pin of political policy.” –Meryl Streep

“Being a woman in the world means never giving up on yourself, on your potential, on your future. It means getting up, working hard, and putting a country or a community on your back.” Hillary Clinton

“Somebody can imprison your body, but not your mind.” – Zin Mar Aung, #Burmese activist imprisoned for 11 years

Insider also posted 9 of the best quotes from the 2012 Women in the World Conference.

On Tuesday I appeared on Bloomberg TV in response to the OpEd written in the NY Times by Greg Smith.  Betty Liu of “In the Loop” interviewed me and you can click to see the video here.  The first question she asked me was, “Why did I feel like I had to respond to this OpEd?” Given the limited time that television allows, and of course, my nerves, I want to answer that question here in my personal, yet public space. But, I will warn you upfront that it is long.  I would have made it more succinct if I had more time.

First, it is always powerful when someone shares their story, and that is what Mr. Smith did.  Stories matter.  Stories are what grab you in the gut.  Stories are what people remember.  A story can reflect a sense of idealism about what should be.  And, when the story is about Goldman Sachs, a company the world can’t seem stop talking about, it draws attention. True or not, fact or fiction, Mr. Smith’s story now lives forever in the pages of The New York Times and for many people, especially those who have not worked with or for Goldman, it might become their point of reference.

I have never been brave enough, or perhaps stupid enough, to tell my full story in such a public way. (There is also that “who cares” aspect as well.)  I have of course  told many stories in my 544 blog entries beginning in 2008. As it relates to Goldman Sachs I did tell a small slice of it in the book, More Than 85 Broads.  I think that story is very relevant to this public dialogue I now seem to be fully engaged in and I wish I could publish it directly on this blog.  The story is about me as a young woman trader, the working relationship with an amazing salesperson (Frank Coulson), and his very large client. It is not a perfect story, but it is honest, real and was a pivotal moment in my life.

Greg Smith told his story, and, as I said in my other entry, if it is in fact true, it is a big deal.  If it is not true, as Goldman stated in their press release with lots of evidence, it is still a big deal.  The story is out there and my point in writing what I wrote is to try to balance the narrative.  Although I did not think about it like this at the time, perhaps what I was really trying to do is to help create a new one.  That new one is about moving forward by means of everyone operating on a higher standard.  Everyone.  You, me, Goldman’s leadership, finance professionals in general, politicians, regulators, my dog Canaan (who is two years old and still pees on my office carpet). Everyone.

As I spent the day, and night, reading so many of the articles and, more importantly, the comments related to those articles, I became even sicker to my stomach.  I get that the financial crisis caused so much pain, but now what?  The main source of rage seems to be that certain players did not suffer consequences, which I also get. But now what? “The world is not fair”, said Margaret Thatcher, and so now can we all “do what we can, with what we have, where we are” to make it more so?

Some of you might well be thinking, easy for you to say, Jacki.  You have a nice life.  You took the money and ran.  You are one of them.  So let me share just a little of my story. I was born in a small town in Canada with great hardworking parents.  My Dad ran a grocery store and my Mom had different jobs to help support the family.  I was a good student, good athlete, went to college in Vancouver and ended up on Wall Street as an analyst in 1988. (This is a very long speech I just gave but I am trying to do the whole thing in a paragraph.) I worked hard, really hard, and I loved what I did, most of the time.  I was given the opportunity to become a mortgage trader in 1988 under the mentorship of some GREAT people like Mike Mortara, Tom Lasersohn, and more.  I did the best job I could. Looking back on my career I can honestly say I did my best to strike a balance between making money and serving customers.  Let me add that the product I traded was very transparent in terms of pricing.  I picked a lucrative industry on purpose because I wanted to have a challenging job, make money and have a nice life.  Is that in and of itself a bad thing? I thought that was the American dream?  Of course I was really lucky too, and I know that.  Looking back, I see how sucked in I got, how relative it became, and it embarrasses me in hindsight.  When the business is money, it can’t help be to some degree, a culture of money.   That said, I do believe that Mr. Smith was right in saying, the Goldman culture was special.  People were not only insanely bright, which made a huge difference; they were also very committed to the business and to the clients. My hope is they still truly are.

A good culture does not create itself.  A good culture happens because you put great beliefs out there and behavior follows.  There is accountability and bad behavior has consequences (e.g., less pay, less promotion, less responsibility in general, firing).  As with life in general, business in general, and certainly on a trading floor, there are countless opportunities to do the right thing, the ok thing, or the wrong thing. As time goes on, the culture becomes the aggregate of people’s attitudes AND behaviors.  It is about what happens, what is tolerated and what is rewarded.  I said the culture changed over the time I was at the firm, and yes I think going public was a factor, but so were many other things.

I wrote in my other piece about how the business may have changed and many people have written privately and publicly to me on that issue. In a brilliant letter sent to me by a former financial institution Managing Director, now hedge fund manager, he said this: “The extraordinary explosion of structured derivatives activity made possible by new instruments, computational power, and a never-ending search for yield by investors” was only the beginning of this story.  He went on to say:

“These new businesses were largely model-driven…were hugely profitable… and the power shifted to traders from relationship people, whether they were investment bankers or salespeople. So now we had an environment where traders and salespeople were going after the big trades…every firm was adopting the same business, and the leadership of these businesses were getting heavily paid and promoted….The key thing is that they were [all] commercially successfully in areas in which the profits made in “customer” business are not transparent, nor are traditional customers universally valued.”

This point about customers relates to the question I’ve asked previously, which is, ‘what is a customer?’  This former Managing Director’s three-page long email was amazing and, if given permission, I would love to publish it here.

To complete this part of the “story” would really require a book on what caused the financial crisis, and that has been written a few times already.  So, let me just say on this point, and as another former Managing Director also said in a personal email to me, “when did it seem to shift from ‘making money without doing anything wrong’ as opposed to ‘do what’s right and the money will follow?’”  Every financial services firm should ask themselves whether this question applies to them. This is about culture, about behaviors, about what is rewarded.

Goldman was a place where doing the ‘right thing’ was in general rewarded by promotions and by compensation.  There was accountability.  Our review process and Partner selection process was at the time, the very best in the world.  I know because we were constantly benchmarked against other organizations.  Jake Weiss, who ran the Office of Partner Practices, and now does independent consulting in this area, was the BEST at what he did and one of the most honest, loyal, individuals to ever walk this planet in my view. In his view, the integrity of the review process had everything to do with culture.  His job was to ensure the data was good, and then it was up to the leadership of the firm to use that data in their promotion and compensation decisions.  The process was as good as it could get when I had access to it.  We knew a lot about people in terms of their commercial ability, leadership skills, client relationship skills, and much more.  That said, promotion and compensation were ultimately subjective decisions.

Again, I could go on and on (and have!), so let me get to the point.  At a firm like Goldman Sachs, you MUST have people who are commercially-oriented, meaning that they bring revenue into the firm.  Revenue is a good thing, a great thing; but, you must be sure to strike a balance such that your revenue is consistent with your business principles and not in spite of them. Goldman says they are, Mr. Smith said otherwise.

I did go to Goldman’s web-site and read more about the self assessment they recently undertook.  They said “the scope and intensity of the Committee’s eight month review have been significant, encompassing every major business, region and activity of the firm.  We made 39 recommendations for change….” Clearly Goldman thinks they can do better.  As I said in the TV segment, what I am calling them to do is consistent with what they are doing – self examination and holding themselves to a higher standard moving forward.

Now, the second reason I felt compelled to respond is there were some things Greg Smith wrote that I felt were very true and deeply resonated with me (and I am sure that the leadership of Goldman would agree with these):

• Goldman is one of the world’s largest and most important banks and what it does matters.
• Culture was and is vital to Goldman’s success.
• Clients matter, and if you don’t serve them well, if they don’t trust you, you will sooner or later find yourself out of business.
• If you feel you are not living true to your values, and you have options, you should leave.
• Leadership matters and leadership should be about ideas, setting an example, and doing the right thing.

The last point, in particular, hit me like a ton of bricks.  When I was working in the Executive Office, I got very involved in the firm’s leadership development efforts and, in fact, served on the committee that created “Pine Street.”   I became obsessed with learning about leadership, culture, and more.  One of my favorite magazines at the time was Fast Company.  In the March 2001 issue, there was an article by Tom Peters in which he writes about 50 leadership principles.  Some of these included principles like, “leadership is confusing as hell’’; “leaders love the mess”; “leaders deliver”, and so forth..  The 49th principle was left blank and Peters encouraged people to write in their own principle.  Well, for whatever reason, and perhaps because I had just seen a Batman movie or something, I wrote a principle called “Be a Superhero.” It read this way:

Be a Superhero.
Remember what it was like to jump out of bed on those Saturday mornings so you could rush to turn on the TV to get another dose of Superman, Batman, or in my case, Wonder Woman!  These characters inspired you to change the world, to do the right thing, to fight evil wherever it reared its ugly head.  To be an example, and yet hide your true identity because it was not about personal glory!! They never asked, ‘what’s in it for me?’, they never let the bad stuff get them down. They had a job to do and, damn it, they approached it with absolute enthusiasm and discipline.  Be a superhero! (2001)

I shared it with a colleague (you know who you are) who added some images, including one of Wonder Woman, and printed it out for me.  From that day forward, it hung on the wall of my office on the 30th floor of Goldman Sachs, until the very day I left.  You may notice that the wording is almost exactly that chosen by Mr. Smith in his piece.  So yes, Mr. Smith, it is about leadership, but leadership interconnected in a very dynamic business environment.

The whole conversation about ‘leadership’ feels in some ways very 1990s, but perhaps it’s time that we start a new and fresh version of it.  Joe Nocera wrote a great OpEd a few days later in The New York Times in which talked about, “The Good, Bad and Ugly of Capitalism.”  In it, he says that Howard Schultz, Chairman & CEO of Starbucks, will “take the podium at his company’s annual meeting and talk about the importance of morality in business.”  Amen.  The financial services sector has to be a leader in this as well.  Making large charitable gifts divorced from your for-profit business practices just won’t cut it anymore. ( and I am NOT accusing anyone!)  The public wants and deserves honesty, integrity and authenticity.  If your business is about making the most money you can, just say it, don’t hide it.  If you put your values out there, you have to be accountable for them and, when accused of not doing so, relentlessly defend yourselves.

I look at my leadership principle, ‘Be a Superhero.’ every day (and it now hangs in my office in Utah) every day.  And so began the story of the end of my days at Goldman Sachs; and the beginning of my story in the direction of my life’s calling, working for the advancement of women and girls. (Another possible blog entry alongside more on my ongoing obsession with Wonder Woman.)  In some weird way, ‘only God knows kind of way’, Mr. Smith’s story is connected to my story, and maybe everyone else’s story who works or has worked for Goldman Sachs.

The third reason I felt I had to respond is because what Greg Smith wrote was so extreme, so public, so horrible, and whether true or not, I read it and felt my heart break.  As I said in my previous blog post on this topic, I love Goldman Sachs.  It was a 14-year love affair, not without some ups and downs, some disappointments of course, but hey, I was far from perfect too.  I brought my junk to the relationship.  I will say that, like Mr. Smith, the day I knew I was no longer in love, or not in love enough, I resigned. Part of this decision was internal to Goldman, part of this were family obligations, and part other things.   That was a very hard day for me and, for many years after, I often wondered if I made the right decision.  Because of the work I am doing now with Women Moving Millions, I know I did.  WMM is about encouraging woman to step into their capacity to be global agents of change.  It is about mobilizing resources (charitable dollars, investment dollars, influence, voice and more) for the advancement of women and girls.  Every part of my being knows that a more gender balanced world will result in a more just and equitable world.  Goldman planted that seed and I will forever be grateful.

But at some level, I never stopped loving Goldman.  It is such an enormous part of my history that reading what was written, a claim that Goldman was “toxic and destructive” and more, was so painful that I had to do something and so I wrote on my blog.  It’s what I do.  Perhaps I should have called Lloyd Blankfein or Gary Cohn, but we do not have a personal relationship.  That goes for most of the other current leaders there as well.   If we did, that would have been my first step.  So, instead I wrote something that I felt would be balanced, constructive and additive to the dialogue in the hope of encouraging others to do the same.

Clearly I had more to say about the issue, sorry Forrest, and I still may.  Then again, maybe not. Thanks for reading and keep those comments and personal emails coming.

*A note about comments that are submitted.  In general I will publish them unless I think they are written in a disrespectful tone and are not additive to the discussion.  Sorry but I have feelings, and try as I might not take things too personally, when comments are directed to me from people I don’t know in such a hurtful way, it does hurt and I will not post it. 

*A note to the media.  I feel it is your obligation when you pull comments out from someone’s personal blog to try to represent the full piece accurately, or, at a minimum, link back to the post. With respect to my last post, the most explosive comments were the ones most often pulled, suggesting I came out as VERY anti Goldman, and that really was not right or fair. 

This is a longer and still far from perfect post in response to the recent OpEd in the Times.   Sorry my original one had so many typos but I was rushing to post something before leaving on a few day vacation with my family, which I am still on…

Revised from the post on WEDNESDAY.

I read the OpEd in the New York Times upon waking early, very early, to get some work done before heading off on a short vacation with my family. I don’t know the author Greg Smith, nor do I know anyone who knows him personally. I do know a lot of people who have worked, and do work, at Goldman Sachs. I am a former partner (left in 2002), as is my husband Greg (left in 2000), and I have many close friends who are or have been partners as well. Needless to say, there has been a flurry of emails and phone calls regarding what Mr. Smith has said so very publicly. I also went online and read many of the articles that have been written in response. Talk about a diversity of opinions!

Who am I to challenge what Mr. Smith has said? Based on his background, he certainly seems like a credible guy. He has worked at Goldman for 12 years, has a big title and more. I have known many disgruntled employees and none have ever done something like this. None. For that reason alone I felt I had to pay attention. As a rule, I love people who are really brave and I really dislike people who are passive aggressive. Only Mr. Smith knows which one he is. So although I am not directly challenging Mr. Smith, I did work at the firm for 14 years, was the youngest woman and first woman trader to be made partner in 1996, and served on multiple committees for the firm including the firm’s partnership committee, and thus want to weigh in. That committee was, and I believe still is, responsible for all of Goldman’s people practices, had as members many management committee members and business line heads, and reported to the board of directors in some form. That said, I did leave the firm in 2002, which, my children point out, is a very long time ago.

I joined Goldman Sachs in 1988 as an analyst in mortgage trading. I, like Mr. Smith, appeared in recruiting videos and annual reports, spoke on college campuses and recruited actively. As the first woman trader to be made partner at the age of 32, I was almost a ‘poster child’ for diversity, meritocracy, and more. I gave countless speeches to thousands over my 14-year career at the firm. When I spoke so positively about the firm, it was because I believed what I was saying. My reviews were always outstanding in both the commercial and culture sense and that is why I believe I was promoted so young. Though I left my trading position 12 years ago, I will tell you from personal experience that the vast majority of people I worked with cared deeply about our customers, and, if you were heard calling customers any of the things Mr. Smith mentioned, you would be in big trouble. BIG.

More relevant is that if you continuously ‘ripped your customers eyeballs out’, they would cease to be your customers. The behavior that Mr. Smith so graphically describes was, at the time, the exception and not the norm in my opinion. Were we supposed to make money? Yes. If you promoted that this came at the customer’s expense, that was a bad thing. At that time sales managers called on accounts regularly to check in regarding their feelings on the level of service they were receiving from their salesperson and traders. If you were not doing a good job, you heard about it. These sales managers were senior people and had power, as did the traders. That balance made for responsible behavior. Traders in general pushed to make money and the salespeople pushed to keep their customers happy. I believed in a win/win approach and, more often than not, that was the case. If that were not the case, I don’t believe Goldman would have been as successful as they have been for so long.

That was 12 years ago. The questions now are: has the business changed and has the firm changed? I think the answer to both is yes.

First, how has the business changed? I believe there is, in general, a climate of greater suspicion. Firms like Goldman and others have large proprietary positions that can never, in my opinion, be divorced from providing liquidity for customers. This is not in and of itself a negative, as it can be argued that having large positions can help facilitate large customer trades. On the other hand, traders can use customer information to do things like ‘front run’, which is unethical. Traders cannot do their jobs by just bidding and offering securities to their customers without having positions.  This is what the public and government regulators do not seem to understand.  That has been the way traders have operated for DECADES.  You have to take positions and, in fact, your customers should, in general, want you to.  Their job as customers is in part to figure out who on the street has positions in what they want to buy so they can ask you to make an offering. Conversely, if they want to sell something, the best buyer is likely the one who is short that security.   This is where a talented salesperson comes in who has a long-term relationship with the client. That person helps to bridge the divide between what his client may want and what his trading desk is positioned to do. The most common question asked every single day to me for 10 years as a trader was: ‘what is your axe?’ Meaning what are you the best buyer or seller of today? What this does is allow the salesperson to go to his client and let him or her know what her trader wants to do and thus become the best buyer or seller of. This is called a win/win.  This approach worked when there was relationship and that relationship was based on telling the truth.

I know this is a very long paragraph but I believe that there is so much misunderstanding about the business and it makes me nuts.   Bottom line: if people don’t trust each other, none of this works.  Our financial system is built on TRUST and if that trust breaks, really breaks, look out.  Game over.

Another major change over the past 10 to 15 years is that customers have become huge and do huge trades. In my day, a $100 million trade was big; now trades can be in the billions. Many customers are much bigger than the firms they trade with. Mr. Smith himself says he works with customers that have total assets of over a trillion dollars. Further, there never used to be so many mega hedge funds. Hedge funds are not good or bad, but my experience has been that they are less open to sharing information. They trust the street less. They are truly paid on how much money they make, more so then the average street trader or institutional customer. In discussion with many a hedge fund manager, they often say ‘we treat Goldman and any other firm like another hedge fund.’ In other words, we don’t trust them, think they are only out to make money for them.  Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

I have heard many in the business ask this troubling question about the current state of affairs, ‘who is a customer anyways?’ Wow. Back in 2000 when I left trading, the lines were starting to get blurred but now it seems that the lines may be gone altogether.  It used to be that, generally speaking, both sides of the trade cared about the relationship as it was in their mutual best interest to care over the long term; both needed each other for liquidity, ideas and more.  When everyone starts seeing each other as competitors, that is a big problem.  The goal ceases to be one of building relationship and becomes instead to win.  Not to be overly dramatic here but think about war crimes for a second.  How do people justify doing what they do to other people?  They stop seeing them as human beings. How does the street perhaps justify what they are doing?  They are not clients. And vice versa.

Let me give you an example. It is not uncommon, I am told, for a trader to be asked to sell a large block of bonds, hundreds of millions, only to learn that many other dealers were asked to do so at the very same time resulting in instantaneous losses and an inability to buy back what you sold or anything else that might provide a hedge for that sale. Such ‘customers’ are not innocent victims but the opposite. Is it right for that trader to no longer be transparent with that customer? Yes.  The vicious cycle of mistrust begins. In the old days we knew which customers could not be trusted and we adjusted our prices accordingly but traders often found themselves in a ‘catch 22.’  When the next trade came, they would adjust their prices expecting to get bamboozled and then the client would often scream bloody murder about how much the trader ‘sucked.’  The opposite could easily happen as well.  A salesperson would give the trader a ‘heads-up’ that the client was thinking about doing a big trade based on their relationship and the trader could inappropriately jump ahead of it.  The client would figure this out, accuse the salesperson who would then accuse the trade and bingo, trust broken.  My point is, at the end of the day, TRUST is what makes it all work.  Without that, you have nothing.

Firms like Goldman do not make money on every trade, and it is not as one-sided as Mr. Smith makes it out to be.  Did I ever ask the question of my traders ‘how much money did you make on that trade?’  Of course, and that was my job as desk manager, but again, it is not so black and white.  Making money might have meant a smart and hard-working trader bought a block of securities at a low price months earlier and worked hard to tell the story of why that security was so undervalued before selling it to an educated client because he/she thought it would go up even more.  A more common example is that a trader positioned herself long before an economic announcement, then the market went up and that trader was given an opportunity to sell a block of bonds to a customer at the most competitive price.

Please don’t read this as poor Wall Street firms and big bad customers, that is NOT what I am saying, but the discourse has been so skewed and should be at least partially rebalanced. There are huge issues on BOTH sides of the equation.

Is this all to say that clients do not get “their eyeballs ripped out?”  No, they certainly can and do but institutional clients are, in my experience, smart too. They usually quickly figure out that they’re getting ripped off and will stop doing business with that trader and salesperson.  I know the whole ‘buyer beware’ thing can be an excuse for a lot, but we are talking about institutional clients and not ‘Mom and Pop’.  Also, in my day, if the client felt they were being ripped off they would call their salesperson first, then the sales manager, and often the head of the division.  It was not uncommon for the sales manager and department head to march over to a trader to talk about a ‘situation.’ This was not a good thing. At the end of the day, the trader had to care about the customer and not just about making money because it was in their best self-interest to do so.

Notice I am not going to that dark place of talking about sub-prime mortgages, CDOs, CDOs squared, credit derivatives and more. That is an essay in and of itself and really not the point of Mr. Smith’s article. So much junk was created that should never have been with disastrous consequences and that will be a black mark on the whole industry for a long time, as it should be. That in and of itself is testimony to the industry in general having lost its way. When you create toxic waste and market it as if it is was not, you are indeed harming your moral fiber. I know many people who were in ‘that business’ who quit because they could not in good faith sell the crap they were being asked to create and market. Too many people leaned on the ‘buyer beware’ clause and forgot to look in the mirror. As per the war crime example above, they stopped treating their customer like a customer.

Next question: Is Goldman Sachs, as Mr. Smith says, on a serious decline with respect to their moral fiber? I cannot answer that from my personal experience of late, but I will say that the Goldman Sachs I joined in 1988 was not the same one I left in 2002 from a culture perspective. That is one of the reasons I left too. When you put your values out there so publicly you better damn well honor them. No one wants to intentionally be a hypocrite. This was the big point in Mr. Smith’s article. As long as he believed what he was saying, all good. When he stopped believing it, he had to leave.

So what was my story? In my later years at Goldman I was promoted to a position wihin the Executive Office where I was responsible at some level for the people processes of the firm. As mentioned, I served on the Partnership Committee, which was a HUGE honor. I witnessed people getting promoted who were not positive ‘culture carriers’, and I knew exactly where people were ranked and what was said about them by their bosses, peers and more.  I also knew what every managing director got paid. I sat and listened to arguments about how commercial people HAD to be promoted despite being poor team players, downright jerks or much more. That really pissed me off.

I also heard business leaders fight passionately for their people who were amazing positive culture carriers and less strong commercially. These same leaders fought against promoting the commercial animal/jerks and often won. That made me happy.  For both categories of people, there was frequently a fight and the more powerful leaders’ candidate often won. Not surprisingly, partners who were great culture carriers generally had people working for them who were as well and vice versa.  What made the firm GREAT for so long is that one held the other in check. You need people who are very commercial but they cannot dominate or you risk the outcome that Mr. Smith described.

During my time at the firm, there were a lot of people in that optimal category who were both great commercially and culturally, and those were the people who were quickly and unequivocally promoted. If you were to ask me, ‘did people get promoted who should not should not have?’, I would say yes. There was always tension but, more often then not, the right decisions were made. Great people got deservedly promoted. Was it perfect? Of course not, but it was pretty damn good.

Many people over the past few years have told me that Goldman has increasingly become tilted towards the money side at the cost of the firm’s character. I cannot tell you the number of times I have heard ‘Goldman is not the place it was’ and that truly breaks my heart. Mr. Smith was right in saying that a trajectory of descent occurs over time when more and more people are promoted who are not good culture carriers. It that is the case, then correcting this will also take time by weeding out the toxic people, and promoting ones who are BOTH commercially and customer-oriented.

The Goldman Sachs of my memory was indeed a very special place and was recognized as such in countless ways over decades and decades. It was the professional home of not only some of the smartest people I have ever met, but the most generous and kind as well. Books were written about Goldman’s culture because it was great, it was different, and I am sure that the firm’s founders and historical leaders would be devastated by the article that was written, as was I.  A person who comes to mind is John Whitehead, one of the most ethical and service oriented human beings to ever walk the planet. I would like to know what he thinks at this moment.

I also have to make this point: Mr. Smith likely does not know even the tiniest fraction of the 30,000 something people who work at the firm, the majority of whom are a long way from the trading floor in Europe or anywhere else. The vast majority of people do their job in a deeply respectful way. It is just not right or fair to paint all people who work at Goldman, or Morgan Stanley, or any other firm with the same brush. Most don’t make a million dollars a year and most are not ‘masters of the universe.’  Most are just normal, good people who chose a career in finance when that was a really acceptable thing to do.  It seems to me that Mr. Smith is really speaking to the ‘five different managing directors’ who he has had deep interaction with and the upward chain of command that promoted them to those positions. Maybe he is also talking about the trading businesses in general but he is certainly not talking about the 1,200 people who live and work in Salt Lake City? Has he ever even been there?

So what now? Will this article have consequences? I hope so. These are very serious accusations from a credible person in my view and I hope it does indeed provide a ‘wake-up’  (quote from Mr.  Smith’s piece) call to the board of directors. It is their responsibility to ensure that promotion and compensation decisions are not divorced from peer reviews and customer feedback. It is their responsibility to ensure that traders, and especially ones who do not have the best interests of clients in mind, do not dominate the firm. It is the board that is accountable to the shareholders and before they take another paycheck, I hope they ask a heck of a lot of questions and get honest answers. If those answers do not reflect the kind of behavior reported by Mr. Smith, then they would have done their job, this story will fade, and Goldman will go about its business for another 143 years. If the answers are the opposite, there should be accountability.

I am not defending Goldman nor am I attacking them. I just cannot as it is just way too personal for me. At times, in private conversation, I can be their most passionate supporter, and at other moments, their worst critic. Both come from a place of wanting Goldman to be what it was, and what it could and should be. Thoughts of parenting come to mind.

I am so grateful to Goldman as it was there I met my husband, it was there that I developed quality relationships that have lasted decades, it was there I learned so much about myself, it was there I was made a partner before the firm went public, and it was there that ignited my passion for the advancement of women and girls. On the other hand, I do believe that the firm has changed and perhaps lost hold of the business principles that made it so great and so special for so very long.

This I know to be true: If you promote people into leadership roles who are bad people, the outcomes will be bad over the long term. If you promote people who are all about their paycheck, the culture will be all about the paycheck. The opposite is true as well.  Has Goldman become full of bad people who really only care about money, money, money? I will leave that to the board of directors to figure out. I sure hope not.

To Mr. Smith: If what you described in your OpEd was indeed your honest and unembellished personal experience, you were right to quit, and it was very brave to put yourself out there. If not, and you are a disgruntled employee who wants his moment in the sun, shame on you. Either way, as you did currently state, without clients they will not make money, or at least make a heck of a lot less.

In the words of Forest Gump: “And that’s all I have to say about that.”

Sorry but I am revising this article and will be posting shortly.  Please check back later today.  Turns out I had a lot more to say about this issue.