About BWN

·Overview  ·Executive Board

Who we are

The Boston Womens Network, Inc (BWN) is a progressive women's organization, active in our community, whose values include creativity, respect and caring for each other, in a fun and supportive environment which is open to all women in the New England region.

BWN has been committed to helping women executives, professionals and business owners grow both personally and professionally for over 30 years.

What is our Mission?

Our mission is to empower our members to achieve business, financial and personal success through support, mentoring, and innovative programs.

How do we connect?

We offer a variety of mediums for people to connect. We hold meetings every month from September through June where we offer a balance of theme based programs that meet our mission. We also hold an annual Golf Outing where we invite other networking groups in the Greater Boston Area to join us, as well as several Social events throughout the year. Each meeting begins with an opportunity to network, typically a sit-down dinner and the Speaker of the evening. The Speakers focus on key issues women face in the areas of business, finance, and personal.

 We also have an email distribution list to be notified of our dinner meetings and special events.   Click Here to be directed to our sign up list.

Sponsorship Programs

BWN offers two different types of sponsorships:  Ongoing Sponsorships and Event Sponsorships.

Ongoing Sponsorships are designed to provide you company with maximum exposure to the BWN's network through promotion on the BWN website, BWN emails, through announcements at meetings.

Event Sponsorships provide your company with event-specific advertising, exhibition and networking opportunities at BWN Premier Events and Regular Meetings.  Click Here to view further details.

Member Services

Click Here to be directed to our list of Membership benefits.  Your membership to Boston Women's Network, also includes a full year to NAFE, the National Association for Female Executives.  Click Here for a full list of benefits!

Our History

BWN, formerly Boston NAFE was one of the first networks to become part of what is now an international network of women's organizations in 1974.   In September 2006 Nancy Carmichael was appointed President.  Nancy grew the network by changing the focus onto business and financial topics, created innovative ways for women to connect at the meetings, and implemented technology based systems to automate our processes to follow the Green movement in our current environment. 

In December 2009, Susan Luongo took over as President and her current team include: Peg O'Connell, Paula Prifti Weafer, Kim Kramer, Christine Horan and Lisa Wright.  To view the current Board profiles, please click here:  Executive Board

Past History:
One of the founding members (and prior Director) was Louise Bonar, followed by Cathy Freedburg and then by Renee Rakowsky. Renee Rakowsky was the Executive Director from 1986-2001. In the late 1980's NAFE held National Conferences annually via satellite with such well known speakers such as Anita Roddick (The Body Shop) and Charlene Hunter-Gault (News journalist) as well as our own former National Director, Wendy Reid-Crisp. Through these fantastic networking opportunities and conferences, the Boston site would host approximately 300 women in partnership with 3-4 other NAFE networks in the region.

During Renee's term, NAFE went through many transformations as well as mergers/acquisitions including becoming part of Working Woman. Prior to that, Executive Female magazine was a separate NAFE publication. The NAFE website was born during that time and has been significantly enhanced in the past several years to serve as a valuable tool for professional women. Consistently, over the years, BWN has been known as an organization having great events where the women valued their experiences AND made great contacts to enhance their business and personal lives. Several new authors made their entree into speaking with their first "gig" at BWN.

Renee Rakowsky then passed the torch to Johanna Lyman in 2001. Johanna spent the 2001-2002 year growing membership and developing a series of exciting programs. In 2002, she expanded the executive board to help groom other members to take future leadership roles in BWN. Sue Durnford took over as treasurer and got a new member database started, Ellen Sinett created a wonderful series of programs, Jesse Simone promoted them to the local media which helped get lots of new women to meetings, and Jean DiGiovanna, Ina Jubert, Mary Ann Robbat, and Debbie Liehe helped to recruit these new women to become members.  Jean DiGiovanna, Jacqueline Martino, Jesse Simone, Emily Grimes Wood, Andee Wilcott, and Lillian Nestle continued to increase membership through 2006.