“How many of you have failed?” asked Neutrogena President Susan Sweet to a full banquet hall of nearly 400 in Torrance last week. “Be honest.”
Some hands shot up, others slowly lifted – but most crowd members, the majority of which were women, raised their hands.
“I’m going to suggest to you that the answer to that question is none,” Sweet said. Research shows, she said, that when women don’t succeed at a project, they tend to be hypercritical and blame themselves. That’s not to say women shouldn’t acknowledge and analyze failure, she said. But ultimately, “Failure is an act, not a person.”
Sweet was one of four keynote speakers who addressed the South Bay community last week at the South Bay Conference for Women, presented by the Manhattan Beach Chamber of Commerce and Women in Business. The other speakers included Kathy Harren, a founding members of the South Bay and Harbor Regions Sexual Assault Response Teams and Domestic Violence Collaborative, Michele Ruiz, entrepreneur and former KTLA and KNBC news anchor, and Kim Williams, chief operating officer of the NFL Network.
“Every speaker was phenomenal; they all kind of touched on something different,” said Sarah Perahia, who received the Woman of the Year award at the conference. “I thought there was such a wide range of emotions felt.”
Sweet shared uplifting and inspirational personal stories of how she climbed to the top of the corporate ladder, even when others told her she couldn’t.
She recalled a moment when she and a superior once disagreed on the direction of a project. “She stared at me, in front of a group, and said, ‘Susan, this is why you will never be a VP. You can’t think big,’” she recalled. “I was dumbfounded.”
Needless to say, she was named vice president of marketing for Johnson and Johnson in 2005, and has since become president of Neutrogena Corporation.
She recalled a recent meeting for global leaders during which four leaders – one woman and three men – were being introduced to the crowd. The woman spoke first and introduced herself by saying that she spent the first few months of her job learning to pronounce the diverse company names, while the men later introduced themselves with their visions and goals. “Was she funny? A little bit,” Sweet said. “But did she diminish herself on this panel of men? I think she did.”
She warned the crowd about diminishing their points. “How many times have you heard a woman say at the beginning of her sentence, ‘I’m not sure about this, but’ or ‘I don’t really know much about this topic, but’ or ‘I could be wrong, but’ – so whatever she’s going to say next has just been diminished,” Sweet said.
Perahia described Sweet as a go-getter and was inspired by her presentation. “She really brought a different perspective into corporate world – how woman can really take charge,” she said.
Cynthia McMaster, Manhattan Beach resident and sales account director of Renaissance Fine Marble & Granite Works, said the conference provided opportunities for networking and socializing. She was also inspired by the speakers and appreciated the diversity of their experiences. “It gave an opportunity for people to affiliate with one or the other, but gain insight from both,” she said.
Kathy Harren spoke on sexual assault in the South Bay community. “This is not a police issue,” she said. “This is a society issue.”
Last year, there were nearly 60 rapes in the area – six in Manhattan Beach. She discussed specific cases that occurred in South Bay.
The good news, Harren said, is that more rape victims are reporting rape to the police than in previous years. She encouraged event-goers: “Keep talking about this subject and build your and our collective power base.”
