Welcome to the thirty-first issue of CEE News!

30 years ago, if I had wanted to apply for a business loan, I would have had to ask a male relative or my husband to co-sign. That seems incomprehensible today.

What is not incomprehensible, however, is the cumulative progress women have made in the three decades since the 1988 passage of H.R. 5050.  The Women’s Business Ownership Act enabled women to enter and enrich every field that we have stepped into – from engineering to entrepreneurship, from pharmaceuticals to physics.

On that subject, Toni Morrison writes, “To realize that we are no longer pioneers. The startling exception. The first to fly, or swim, or sail prodigious distances in bad weather. No longer the first to be elected, the first to discover cures in medicine, or the first to untangle problems in science, math or physics.  No.  We are multitudes, and society is clearly the better for our peaceful invasion. There is no modernity and no justice without the talent, passion, and the steely intelligence of women.”

As we enter Women’s History Month, and celebrate the 5-year anniversary of Center for Executive Excellence, I am honored to have had the baton passed to me. I’m also excited to see what advances the next generations of women will make given 30 more years.

Sheri Nasim | President & CEO