Stiletto Network

No “Kumbaya” Girls Here

Sometimes it takes an extreme case like Lau’s or a transition point like Pilgrim’s to bring women together. Other times, it’s something smaller, like an item in the news, that galvanizes a group. In 2007, when an article appeared in now-defunct Portfolio magazine claiming that only a handful of women were true deal makers in private equity, “it made people furious,” says Kelly Williams, a managing director at Credit Suisse who leads the bank’s customized fund investment group, a $27 billion business that invests in private equity and venture capital firms. “We said we needed to develop a formal network. Women tend to get together for cocktails, but we needed something more organized.”

After passing on the name Women In ...