 About UsThe concept for Career Women’s Initiative was created by Melissa McClenaghan Martin and Amie Riggle Berlin in 2004. As attorneys at Big Law firms, Melissa and Amie met and worked with some of the best and brightest women in corporate America. However, as years passed, many of these women, the future leaders of their professions, decided to leave their promising careers behind and abandon earlier aspirations of partnership or management. Some left to become stay-at-home mothers. Others changed careers. Of the few who remained, many switched to less demanding schedules, departments or specialties which stalled their advancement.
Melissa and Amie began searching for answers. They sought out solutions, examining not only the barriers to women’s advancement, but also the success stories at the individual and corporate level. Beginning in 2005, Melissa and Amie interviewed corporate and professional women in New York and Florida. Interviews with women from cities throughout the United States soon followed. Melissa and Amie crafted and circulated a comprehensive and groundbreaking survey exploring women’s career choices, priorities and insights regarding employers’ retention and advancement of women. To gain additional perspectives and insights, they interviewed experts and business and professional leaders and conducted extensive multidisciplinary research into employer best practices for diversity and professional development and the barriers to women’s advancement in the workplace. Based upon those findings and research and with the encouragement of women throughout the United States, Melissa expanded those efforts, founding Career Women’s Initiative LLC. Today, under the leadership of Melissa McClenaghan Martin, Career Women’s Initiative LLC is a research, consulting and networking organization that serves women and employers, helping women achieve more challenging and rewarding professional lives and enabling employers to better retain and promote top talent, especially women employees. The CWI Women’s Network helps individual women by providing the professional, educational and networking resources they need to succeed. The CWI Women Lawyers Network, the first of its kind in the legal profession, provides online networking and resource forums, teleclasses and workshops on career development topics, and, for members in New York, in-person networking and educational events. Career Women’s Initiative also provides consulting services and training programs to legal and other professional services employers to help them retain and promote top talent, especially women employees. CWI’s consulting services help employers create diversity strategies and practices that are effective, realistic and sustainable. CWI provides training programs to employees on topics such as networking, business development and leadership skills. CWI training programs utilize targeted instruction, participant self-assessment, strategic career planning and sustained skills practice. The mission of Career Women’s Initiative is to effect change in the corporate and professional workplace, enabling more women to succeed and helping generations of women as they search for fulfillment and success in their careers and lives.
Melissa McClenaghan Martin, President and Founder of Career Women’s Initiative LLC, specializes in providing training to attorneys on networking, business development and leadership skills and advising law and other professional services firms on the design and implementation of diversity and professional development programs. Ms. McClenaghan Martin works with individuals and institutions, recognizing that both are responsible for employee development, high-caliber client service, and increased employee satisfaction and productivity. A former practicing attorney, Ms. McClenaghan Martin has provided workshops, presentations, individual coaching and networking events for hundreds of attorneys and other professionals at all stages of their careers, from entry-level associates to senior partners at AmLaw 200 firms, from those who are just starting out to experienced solo practitioners and business owners. Ms. McClenaghan Martin advises firms on a variety of diversity and professional development issues, including development of their women's initiatives and affinity groups, building the business case for diversity internally, and the design and implementation of diversity and professional development programs. Ms. McClenaghan Martin is responsible for launching the CWI Women’s Network in January 2007 and the CWI Women Lawyers Network in January 2008. Both networks (together, the “CWI Women’s Network”) were created to provide a forum where professional women can come together, develop meaningful relationships while expanding their professional network, solicit and share advice and success strategies, and source business and resource referrals. The Network is also designed to provide professional women with the educational content, skills, tools and support they need to take charge of their career development. Ms. McClenaghan Martin is also a regular columnist for the New York Law Journal. Her column, entitled “The Gender Gap,” provides professional development advice to women attorneys and analyzes employer best practices for diversity and professional development. Ms. McClenaghan Martin has also been published in the National Law Journal. Prior to founding Career Women’s Initiative, Ms. McClenaghan Martin was an attorney with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP and Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP in New York City, where her practice focused on securities, complex commercial and product liability litigation. As an attorney, Ms. McClenaghan Martin represented Fortune 500 companies, investment banks and international corporations before federal and state courts and agencies and advised C-level employees and boards of directors. She also served as secretary to the Committee on Professional and Judicial Ethics for the New York City Bar Association. Ms. McClenaghan Martin received her Juris Doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and her Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and American Government from Georgetown University. She credits her work with Professor Lani Guinier, one of the foremost civil rights scholars in the United States and an expert on the role of race and gender in politics and the workplace, with her early focus on issues related to the advancement of women and minorities in the workplace. Ms. McClenaghan Martin lives in New York City with her husband. She can be reached at melissa_martin@careerwomensinitiative.com. Amie Riggle Berlin now works for the federal government in Miami, Florida. Ms Riggle Berlin has worked as an attorney for Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP in New York City, as well as Greenberg Traurig and Akerman Senterfitt in Miami, Florida, where her practice focused on complex commercial litigation. Ms. Riggle Berlin has also clerked for the Honorable Donald L. Graham and the Honorable Barry L. Garber of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Earlier in her career, Ms. Riggle Berlin worked as a finance assistant for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and as a staff assistant for United States Senator Tom Daschle and the United States Democratic Policy Committee in Washington, D.C. During the 2004 Presidential elections, Ms. Riggle Berlin served as State Chair of Women for Kerry. Ms. Riggle Berlin received her Juris Doctorate from Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy and English from the University of Florida. Ms. Riggle Berlin currently resides in South Florida with her husband and two children. |
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Across age, class, race, and marital status, the trend was the same. Top-performing women were abandoning their ascent up the ladder. Single women. Women without children. Primary breadwinners. If these smart, talented women weren’t reaching the top of the ladder, what did this mean for the future of women in corporate and professional America? And what could employers do to stop this drain of their top female talent?
