Janet Hanson Founder, 85 Broads Founder & Chairman, Milestone Capital Management

Widely respected as a leading entrepreneur with a distinguished Wall Street background, Janet Hanson is recognized as a unique voice and champion for women. As the founder of 85 Broads, Janet has created a truly global community of women that connects and empowers over 17,000 members worldwide.

Originally established in 1997 for current and former Goldman Sachs women professionals (the name is a humorous play on Goldman’s headquarter address at 85 Broad Street in NYC), 85 Broads today also includes current students and alums from 200 leading graduate schools and undergraduate colleges and universities worldwide. Janet’s book, More Than 85 Broads (McGraw Hill, 2006), tells her own riveting account of how she built 85 Broads into one of the world’s most powerful network communities and introduces us to 95 women who tell their extraordinary stories of how they each created their own personal and professional definitions of success.

After graduating from Wheaton College in Massachusetts and Columbia Business School, Janet joined Goldman Sachs in 1977. In 1986, Janet became the first woman in the firm’s history to be promoted to sales management. Following her 14-year career at Goldman Sachs, Janet founded Milestone Capital Management, a $2 billion institutional money management company which is the only woman-owned firm of its kind in the United States and was recently ranked as one of the 25 Best Small Companies Nationwide by Working Mother Magazine. From May, 2004 to February, 2007 Janet was a Managing Director and Senior Adviser to the President of Lehman Brothers.

Janet is on the Board of Trustees of Wheaton College and The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. She is an Associate Fellow of Pierson College at Yale University and serves on the Advisory Board of The Center for Work-Life Policy’s Hidden Brain Drain Task Force. She has received a number of awards and honors, including an honorary degree from Middlebury College in 2007.

85 Broads is Janet’s passion, and she is invited to speak regularly at corporate events, on campuses, and in the media about the profound impact of this inspirational network.