Kate Emery: Get the picture?

Monday, February 17, 2014

Get the picture?

Quick - Woman business leader - what image comes to mind? If you follow popular media the picture you probably have is of a woman in a tailored suit carrying a briefcase in one hand and possibly a baby in the other. Get ready to get real, because as Sheryl Sandberg says, “you can’t be what you can’t see,”.

According to a recent New York Times article Sandberg’s nonprofit LeanIn.org is partnering with Getty Images to provide images that show the true multiplicity and variations of women (and men) at work and home breaking down the stereotypes we've become accustomed to but which are no longer (if they ever were) reflective of reality.

There’s plenty wrong with media and the way it distorts and distracts us from what’s important, but there’s no denying the power of media to open up a portal in our minds to a place where something brand new becomes possible, then acceptable, and at some point very normal. I don’t think it is coincidental that there were black presidents portrayed in movies long before Obama was elected and that several hit programs featured likable gay characters as we watched the national support for gay rights soar.

I love the idea of seeing more real images of powerful women and nurturing men included in our daily mashup of images.

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About Kate

Founder and CEO of The Walker Group, a professional Technology Services firm, I am eager to explore ways that we can tweak the game of business so that it more happily reflects our human values and needs.

Business is a powerful force in our world and can be a force for good, contributing rather than extracting.

We can change the rules because we've seen that they are no longer working and continuing the status quo is not only foolish but dangerous.

It's a rapidly changing world and old models don't work as well as they once did. And yet there are exciting opportunities today to make big changes that wouldn't otherwise be possible.

In the process of transitioning The Walker Group to a social enterprise Kate started reSET (SocialEnterpriseTrust.org) to help advance the social enterprise sector. reSET has been working ever since to build the social enterprise ecosystem in Connecticut.

Proud to be BEST in Class

The BEST Business Model is written into our Articles of Incorporation and is part of our DNA.

Balanced - Profit is a measurement of health. We measure our success by how much we contribute. We also want to be a great place to be and grow. We want to have fun. And we want to make a positive difference in the world.

Ethical - Integrity is the foundation of our reputation, driving our strategic decisions through to our day to day actions.

Sustainable - For our business to flourish we realize our need to behave responsibly with the long term in mind.

Transparent - If you'd have a hard time explaining what or why you do what you do, to your children or your mother, then you probably shouldn't be doing it!

We have been three times listed on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing private companies, and we believe much of our growth can be traced to our commitment to the BEST model. We formalized this structure in 2005, which included re-writing our articles of Incorporation, establish rules for among other things, transparency, limiting executive pay, and a requirement that any distributed profits be split equally between staff, investors, and the community.