Nell Merlino

Fantastic news from The Wall Street Journal: More companies are grooming more women for the CEO's chair. Finally!

According to a recent study they conducted with McKinsey & Company, nearly 73 percent of Fortune 500 companies have at least one female executive officer....

Recently, I had the great pleasure of meeting Jeff Unger, founder of the innovative legal services firm eMinutes, through a mutual friend, Romy Taormina, a Count Me In Awardee and the co-founder and "Nausea Relief Chief" of Psi Health Solutions. Jeff and I got to talking...

Back in 1992, I was approached by the Ms. Foundation for Women to help create a program to enhance girls' self-esteem. They'd seen a campaign I'd done a year earlier around the 10-year anniversary of the AIDS epidemic, where, among other things, we distributed 100,000 condoms on the...

We are smack in the middle of Women's History Month, and there's tons of happy news to report from the XX chromosome contingency! Now is a fantastic time to be a business leader, because so many of us are in positions where we can employ and help other women.
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Ah, technology. I love it. It has made my life so much easier; I'd be lost without my Blackberry, which allows me to travel the world and stay connected at the same time. Sadly, my beloved little gadget is pretty much going the way of the pterodactyl, which means I'm...

It's that time of year again, when we all vow to stop working like maniacs and start exercising more and be kinder to ourselves. And for a few weeks we might actually succeed. But then we all know what happens: We loosen the reins a bit and we start to...

Next month I'll be traveling to Santa Monica to help launch an exciting new initiative - The Coca-Cola Tour: Adelante. It's a series of live forums and an online movement designed to inspire young Latina moms - one of the fastest growing groups of influencers in the United...

This is a story about the potential ordinary Americans have to make a difference when it comes to job creation, and we have Starbucks to thank for it.

In case you haven't heard, Starbucks has teamed up with Opportunity Finance Network (OFN), the national network...

Our nation recently celebrated National Hispanic Heritage Month, which is held September 15 to October 15 each year. The celebration has been taking place since 1968 and was enacted into law in 1988. It's a big deal, and a well-deserved celebration of the people, histories and cultures of Americans of...

True or False: You know you have a good business, but you've reached a point where you don't know what to do next. You know you want to expand, you just don't know HOW to do it.

Does this sound like you? If so, you're not alone....

We've heard it a million times: "She's tough." "She's pushy." "She's a bitch."

And to whom are these lovely comments usually directed? Invariably, toward women (not men!) in positions of power, or women seeking positions of power, or women who aren't content with the status quo....

"And after spending two and a half years as your Secretary of State, traveling nearly 600,000 miles, I have reached one overarching conclusion: Simply put, we need to up our game."--Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

A few weeks ago, the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC) held its annual conference...

Last week I had the privilege of attending the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) for America. CGI is President Bill Clinton's organization and CGI America, which is dedicated to developing ideas for driving economic growth in the United States.

Folks like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Laura Tyson, professor...

Not long ago, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg gave the commencement address at the all-female Barnard College. Her message to the young women was loud and clear: "Men run the world."

She then cited some bleak statistics: Only nine of the world's 190 major heads of states are women. Only...

I just returned from a trip to wonderful Panama organized by the US embassy there with Vital Voices of Panama, an amazing NGO founded by Hillary Clinton that identifies, trains and empowers emerging women leaders and social entrepreneurs around the globe. And though the culture is different from...

Did you know that the word "millionaire" in Hindi is masculine? What does that mean for women in India who want to grow a multi-million dollar business? I learned about this conundrum from a colleague Nalini Mehta who attended our Make Mine a Million $ Business event in San Francisco...

What an incredibly HUGE gift I received this morning -- today, on the 18th anniversary of the first Take Our Daughters to Work Day, which I created with the Ms. Foundation for Women. I was walking through Madison Square Park this morning, as I do every morning, and was bowled...

I was lucky enough to meet Geraldine Ferraro many times over the years, but I vividly remember the first time I set eyes on this phenomenal woman. It was 1984, and I was working in the Scheduling and Advance office for the Mondale campaign. We were at headquarters in San...

A few weeks ago, the White House released a report on the status of American women: "Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being." This was a big deal: it's the first comprehensive federal report on women since 1963. Yes, you read that right: The last time...

During World War II, FDR asked us to join Rosie the Riveter and 20 million women responded by going to work in factories across the country. In the 1960's, President Kennedy asked us all to join the Peace Corps. During the last recession in 2001, President Bush told women to...