Women in the office! Women within the dealer channel!! As we celebrate Women’s History Month in March, I thought it would be fun to launch a new column. Its name is a nod to our “Cooking with Carol” video segments that were so popular during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Here we are five years later, marching toward the halfway mark of 2025. The new millennium is a quarter-century old already!
Have we made progress in the once controversial area of workplace equality? Societally speaking, the short answer is a resounding, “Yes!” The proverbial glass ceiling has been broken, but equity and bias still have a long way to go.
Why is it important to hire women into our industry and recognize their essential contributions? The bottom line is that different and diverse perspectives make for better business. The more we look like our clients, whose faces are brown, black, white, male and female, the more our operations will prosper. Interestingly, a quick online search reveals that women working in printing is not necessarily a new phenomenon:
- The first female printer on record (circa 1484) was Anna Rügerin, a typographer from Augsburg, Germany, according to a U.K. wide-format shop.
- Elizabeth Glover was the first person in the U.S. colonies to own a printing press (in Cambridge, Massachusetts), circa 1638, reports a book arts center in Maryland.
Being a girl from the Boston area myself, I do so admire the late Mrs. Glover! Now, let’s take a moment to examine more modern history. Thirteen years ago, CJ, my son and our CEO, made a statement by lending more focus on women influencers in this historically male-dominated channel of distribution. My career in fashion and interior design led CJ to reach out to me to help identify women executives who held positions that defined them as leaders. Initially, we were surprised that they were so difficult to find. We spoke with manufacturers and dealers and finally found several companies that were happy to help us recognize women executives in their employ, including:
- Kay Fernandez, who then was vice president of strategic business development at Konica Minolta Business Solutions. (Kay now is with Katun as VP of global marketing.)
- Laura Blackmer, Sharp Imaging’s senior vice president of sales at the time. (She now is president of dealer sales at Konica Minolta.)
- Sue Wilson, vice president of supply chain for Toshiba America Business Solutions. Sue retired in 2019 as TABS’ VP of operations.
It’s only the beginning
This power-packed trio represented the first Women Influencers to be featured on The Cannata Report’s cover in August 2014. There were many others in that issue, including dealers such as Toni Gorveatt, president of Cobb Technologies, and Susie Woodhull of Woodhull LLC, who were juggling families, homes, and working at full-time positions. Each of them inspire me, and I could not be more proud of their success. In future “Coffee with Carol” columns, we will catch up with some of these well-respected women.
Nearly 11 years ago, a client suggested what we host a women executives brunch, which debuted as part of our Annual Awards & Charities Gala. Of the approximately 200 people in attendance in 2014, 13 women leaders sat down together at that first brunch. This past November, 58 women attended The Cannata Report’s 10th Annual Women Influencers Brunch. On a percentage basis, the first one entertained 6.5% of those attending the dinner and the most recent brunch tallied 22%. So the enterprise has more than tripled! This coming fall, our goal is to feed the minds of 70 brunchers.
Watch for more “shout outs” on our website this month and throughout the year! New Editor-in-Chief Mark Vruno has a few surprises and special guests up his editorial sleeve. In the meantime, I don’t know about you, but I could use another hot cup of joe. Or, is it joy this month? On second thought, make it a cappuccino with double shots of espresso!
Welcome to “Coffee with Carol!”
