How I Got There

After working around the world, I decided I wanted to focus on helping women empower themselves through work so they can be leaders in their own lives. I started looking for a group that did that and found ACCION International, which puts small amounts of capital in the hands of poor people with businesses. Most are women.

By this time I had been married for five years and had two little boys. My husband, Joe Eldridge, had worked in human rights all his life, so living in Central America in the mid-1980s was appealing to him. My sons, Justin and David, were 3 and 1, and spoke Spanish because of me. So we moved. Many times I would get on the back of the little scooters and visit people who lived with poverty as their constant companion. After almost three years, we came back with three children, with our daughter, Ana.

Bill Burris, ACCION's president and my mentor, asked me to open an office in Washington. For years after that, I was the No. 2 person at ACCION, but I never really aspired to be president because we were very rooted in Washington, and ACCION is headquartered in Boston. Then, I was nominated by the board to become president and move to Boston. My kids, then teenagers, said no, so I proposed running it from Washington. To their credit, the board gave me a chance to do that.

Being a woman makes me a better manager. We reinforce each other. In some ways, being able to develop a management-leadership style that is based on forming a team is very much in line with the way I interact with my sisters or other women. We're all in it together.

LAURENCE PARISOT

Business lobbyist