I was a woman who was in the fight place
at the fight time. During the spring of my second year at
Harvard Business School， I had thirty-two job offers from
investment-banking firms， management-consulting firms
and Fortune 500 companies. It was a time when corpo-
rations were hungry for bfight-eyed， ambitious young
MBAs and especially eager for women. My only major
dilemma at the time， and it was an enviable one， was
whether to work for the formidable， blue-blooded Morgan
Stanley investment-banking firm or the more aggressive
and dynamic Goldman， Sachs. I was weighing the pros
and cons of these over a can of Campbell s Chunky Soup
when the phone rang.
The caller， an older man， identified himself as J. Leslie
Rollins， a recruiter for several of the Fortune 500 com-
panies and a former assistant dean at the Harvard Busi-
ness School. He said he had a very interesting job he
wanted to discuss with me and wouldn t I like to meet
him in downtown Boston to discuss the details? Actually
I d just come from an interview at the renowned Boston
Consulting Group and dreaded another taxi fide into town.
I had enough offers to retire on and thought I might cause
a mutiny at school if I received one more (the Business
Mary Cunningham //5
School was a pretty competitive place). My caller， how-
ever， was not to be deterred. He said my professors had
described me as one of their best students. In fact， he
said， one of the Harvard deans had told him， \"Mary Cun-
ningham has the best chance of being the first female
graduate of the Harvard Business School to become the
chairman of a non-cosmetics company.\" Wouldn t I just
give him an hour? If only because I was curious， and
because I felt I had better not refuse the invitation of a
former Harvard dean， I agreed. But it would have to be
a very good offer to make me turn down a $55，000-a-year
starting salary in New York.
For the students at Harvard Business School， there
was no higher calling than investment banking. It was the
fastest and least painful route to the top. A few years at
Morgan Stanley and a conscientious MBA from Harvard
could become a chief financial officer by age thirty. The
fast track appealed to me but I had deeper urgings as well.
My strict Catholic upbringing made me take seriously my
mission \"to do good\" and yet at the same time instilled
in me a longing to carry this conviction into the real world.
I thought business was the perfect answer. I could try to
be a force for good in the business world. Growing up in
the sixties had only reinforced this desire. At the same
time I could get a taste of the action too. It was a novel
approach and one that sometimes antagonized my class-
mates. You just couldn t be ambitious and high-minded
at the same time.
The fact that I was successful didn t helta much either.
The day I was admitted to the Century Club， an elite
organization for Harvard students considered the most
promising by ;heir professors， was the day I lost many ot
my friends.t
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