The culmination of diving into the curious question of, “Who am I?” resulted in Kerry Crandell’s establishment of WoMAN or the Women of Mergers and Acquisition Network. The mission at WoMAN is to enrich the lives of women who work in mergers and acquisitions through three pillars – information, connection, and service. Kerry explains that it’s basically a great group of women in a male-dominated industry that comes together every month. They’re building this great community so that they can share with each other and can also enrich their lives through personal growth, professional growth, and service. Learn more about this great group as Kerry shares how it all started, what it is all about, and how you can qualify to become a member.
We’re so fortunate to have Kerry Crandell on the show. She is the Founder of WoMAN: Women of Mergers and Acquisition Network.
Thank you for having me.
Tell us a little bit about WoMAN, who you serve and what you do.
WoMAN is an acronym for Women of Mergers and Acquisitions Network. Our mission at WoMAN is to enrich the lives of women who work in mergers and acquisitions through our three pillars and that’s information, connection and service. As the name implies, you do have to qualify to become a member of WoMAN. You have to be or you have to identify being a woman and you have to work in or be affiliated with mergers and acquisitions in some form or fashion within your work. We launched in January of 2017.
For the young ladies and women, maybe they’re going, “I don’t know if I’m in that industry or not.” Expand on the folks that are in your group.
All of this is found on the website. I try to do a great job of it. It is Womanglobalgroup.com. As we’re expanding and growing into other markets, we’re actually in the process of figuring out an international domain that we can plug into that but right now that’s where you can go. The categories that we have of WoMAN is very broad and very diverse which is definitely a great thing for us. The first category we have is corporate women. That’s anywhere from a woman business owner who is acquiring companies or the one that has started a business and knows that she wants to exit it and wants to stay informed and connected to the M&A community. The other middle corporate category that we have are a lot of the general counsel and corporate dev team and that sort.
What if it’s a woman that sold a business lately, would they be qualified to be in your group?
Potentially depending on what their role is.
If they were the CEO, Founder of the business and they sold it?
Absolutely, and then they would want to stay involved and connected to the community for sure.
If you’re a corporate officer in a company, let’s say you’re the COO or the CEO of a publicly traded firm, would that be someone that would be qualified to be in your group?
We have a few COO and CEO members as well. Those companies are in the acquisition phase right now. There’s relevancy there but even if they weren’t, it’s basically a great group of women in a male-dominated industry that comes together every month. We’re building this great community so that we can share with each other and we can also enrich our lives through some personal growth or professional growth and through service.
Do you meet up? You have a presentation or a meetup.
We have an event, WoMAN Connect.
If somebody is going, “I don’t know whether I should go or not,” if they’re not a member, what...
