Now ‘old girl network’

Press, 2 April 1985, Page 32

Now ‘old girl network’

PA Auckland Career women now have their own ‘‘old girl network.” In Auckland at the weekend, 150 of New Zealand’s top female professionals and business executives gathered to learn the art of “networking” — or using one another to mutual advantage. The co-convener, Mrs Marilyn Burton, a senior manager in an international tourism company, said women pioneering executive positions in New Zealand had made it on their own with no mentors or successful forerunners to aspire to. “The women taking our workshops and seminars are successful in business and

are now prepared to share what they know and who they know in order to ease the road for the second generation of pioneers.” Among the women attending the conference were an economic analyst for a big New Zealand sharebroker, Ms Suzanne Snively; the general manager of the N.Z. News, Ltd, publishing division, Mrs Wendy Pye; and the chief executive of the Auckland region visitor and convention bureau, Mrs Catherine Saunders. Another co-convener for the “women in perspective” conference was Miss Gwendoline Smith, a clinical psychologist who also was collecting data on stressrelated conditions among top women executives.