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Trailblazer Anne Fudge Breaks the Glass Ceiling

Ann Marie Fudge is the former chairman and CEO of Young & Rubicam Brands, a global network of marketing communications companies. In early 2010, Fudge was appointed by President Barack Obama to his National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (NCFRR).

Fudge was born and raised in Washington, DC and attended the city’s Catholic schools through 12th grade. “She cited the riots she lived through after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a ‘hurtful’ but formative experience. ‘They made me incredibly determined,’ she said. ‘I wanted to do something that black people hadn’t done before. When I hit roadblocks, that was what kept me going.’ … She grew up middle class in Washington, the first of two children born to a mother who was a manager at the National Security Agency and a father who was an administrator at the Postal Service. They stressed education … and [Fudge also] credits the nuns for pushing her to do her best.

Fudge is a graduate of Simmons College and Harvard Business School,  earning respectively BA (honors) in retail management, 1973; and MBA, 1977.

Discussing her educational choices with Business Week in 2004, she said “When I was at Simmons College, I had this great professor — Margaret Hennig. She was the one who encouraged me to think about business and apply to Harvard Business School. She and Ann Jardim wrote the first book on women in business, called The Managerial Woman, and founded the Simmons Graduate School of Business. I applied to Harvard Business School my senior year.”

One job Fudge had while still in high school was with the Teen Board at Hecht’s department store. The job included advising on teen-age fashions and a trip to fashion magazines in New York. After college, Fudge worked in the human resources department of the General Electric Company before pursuing her MBA…

Read More: pragmaticobotsunite.com

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