Seize The Talent.(WOMEN, MEN AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF BUSINESS TODAY)

WOMEN, MEN AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF BUSINESS TODAY

Welcome to Catalyst's twenty-fifth annual awards dinner, an event that spurs recollection--both organizational and personal. In 1976 our first awards dinner was attended by a few hundred people. We have 1,800 people from more than 200 businesses with us tonight.

Now, I know you haven't all flocked here for the food -- and certainly not to listen to me. Jack Welch probably has lots of other things he could be doing.

You're here because you know -- and your colleagues and competitors know, in ever-increasing numbers -- that your business cannot succeed, that you cannot build a robust, prosperous future for your company, if you don't use all of the talent available to you.

That's a far cry from the conventional wisdom when Catalyst was founded in 1962. Opportunities for women were few back then.

Most married women who worked had "jobs"; it was their husbands who had "careers." Many of us here remember something about that time.

Let's look at one woman who was collecting her first paycheck in the early '60s. She got married young, and started a family shortly thereafter.

The first job waited till her kids were spending all day at school. In fact, Catalyst's first book was a self-help guide for just such a woman. It was …