Fourteen years ago Lee Ann Munger got an unexpected invitation. She was flattered and accepted, but could never have imagined where it would lead.
“I remember part of the wording, ‘You’ve been receiving excellent name promulgation recently,’” Munger recalls and then jokes, “I think Barb was using her ‘Word of the Day’ calendar.”
Barb is Barb Moore and at the time she owned Anderson Transfer, a very successful transportation company. She had also just co-founded a nonprofit called
PowerLink. She needed business-savvy, committed volunteers to work with the women business owners PowerLink served.
“I knew Lee Ann was very smart, very creative, very organized and, most importantly, had very strong morals. I knew she would be creative in solving problems but very clear about following our mission exactly,” Moore says.
That mission is the same today as it was then - to help women-owned businesses grow profitably through the use of high-level business advisors.
Munger, who had just begun her own graphic arts business, started as a volunteer advisory panel coordinator. She managed the advisory panel process for the business owner, facilitating meetings and providing administrative support. She became a member of PowerLink’s board of directors, eventually serving as board president. A few years ago, she left her business to join PowerLink’s staff as an advisory panel manager and, later, the director of business development.
In July, PowerLink’s board handed the reins over to Munger naming her interim executive director. Now she has the opportunity to use everything she’s learned as a business owner, as an advocate for women, and-- in her many positions with PowerLink --to help women business owners grow their businesses, connect with their peers, and learn best business practices.
The Changing ClimateMoore and Munger met as members of pretty much the only organization at the time that supported women business owners, the
Women’s Business Network (WBN). PowerLink and WBN were two of the first, but as the number of women-owned businesses in Pittsburgh has grown, so have the organizations that provide support and service to them (and Munger is involved in and well known by most of them). The Center for Women’s Business Research reports that the number of women-owned (51% or more) businesses in Pittsburgh increased by 48% from 1997 to 2006. Women-owned businesses here generate $9.4 billion in sales and employ 64,304 people.
PowerLink has transformed itself to meet Pittsburgh’s changing business landscape and respond to the needs of Pittsburgh’s women business owners. “We had always positioned the organization to serve growth stage companies,” Munger explains. “Now we have programs to serve companies through every stage of growth - from the early stages through succession planning.”
In fact, continuing to respond to the needs of women-owned businesses throughout the cycle of the business is one of Munger’s top three goals in her new position. The other two are to strengthen strategic partnerships and collaborations and to diversify the nonprofit organization’s funding.
In addition to the increase in the number of women-owned business, now more than 51,000 in Pittsburgh, and the number of organizations that serve them, Munger says, “Today PowerLink sees women-owned businesses in a wider array of industries, especially those considered non-traditional for women. For example, in the past three years, we’ve worked with many more construction-related companies.”
Growing a small businessScads of literature espouse the value of having formal business advisors, but rarely do small businesses have an advisory board. It’s not really surprising. Imagine trying to put together a
team of experts, facilitate meetings with those experts, and open up about and report on your company to a bunch of strangers while at the same time running a successful business. It even sounds painful.
PowerLink alleviates much of that pain by doing most of the work for owners. They provide women business owners with high level advisors who are carefully chosen to meet the company’s specific need, and with staff support owners. The programs and experience are different for all stages of business.
“Business owners like the objective expertise of smart business people who understand. CEOs work in isolation and in addition to outside expertise, women tell us they appreciate the accountability. The work the advisors ask the owners to do is work they should be doing anyway, but they get so busy, they put it on the back burner,” explains Munger. PowerLink often calls it working in the business instead of on it. And a business can’t grow unless the owner works on it.
In her many capacities, Munger has worked directly with more than 40 businesses and indirectly with many more. When she started, PowerLink served six businesses a year. Now they serve around 20 to 24 a year. The owners have had many common issues.
“The women business owners we work with run and understand their financial reports. But they usually need help with how to best use those reports to make decisions and grow their businesses,” Munger says. “They also need help with strategic issues. Because they are running their businesses, it’s hard for them to set aside time to do the kind of analysis – marketing, financial, long and short-term planning – they need to do.”
She is also seeing a growing concern about succession which she thinks is very positive.
“Our clients often come to us as reactionary-type owners and transform into strategic, proactive owners,” Munger explains.
The Future
Co-founder Moore is “not surprised that Lee Ann ended up at the top this many years and this many PowerLink achievements later. She was the youngest person we asked to be involved in PowerLink’s leadership, but she had the clearest zeal for the mission,” says Moore.
“I’ve had dreams and visions for many years and my appointment allows me to act on them in a whole new way,” Munger says. “And being exposed to so many extremely talented business advisors and owners has given me the tools to be a more effective executive director. Running a nonprofit is no different than running a business. It’s important to stay in a strategic mode.”
In other words, to work on the business not in the business.
This is Regina Vitti-Lyon's first story for Pop City.
Captions:Lee Ann Munger with Bonnie Vello and Sharon Young at the McGinnis Sisters Special Food StoresLee Ann Munger at her Mount Washington officeWith Joan Kimmel and Lynne Weber at the Urban GardenerWith Barbara Krause at the Sirani GalleryAt the Urban GardenerPhotographs copyright Brian Cohen