Breaking into the upper echelons of Baton Rouge’s business scene is already difficult, particularly for women. But the local C-suite can prove even more challenging to crack if you’re a businesswoman from another state.
There are some surface-level indications showing that’s the case. A cursory scroll through Business Report archives shows that over the past two years nearly every woman featured as either an Executive Spotlight or Forty Under 40 honoree listed her hometown as Baton Rouge, with some others listing another city in Louisiana.
Then there’s the purple-and-gold factor. As the site of LSU, the Baton Rouge area remains home to many alumni after graduation. In a state where connections are key to professional success, women from Louisiana are at an advantage compared to their out-of-state counterparts.
Yet while these elements can hinder Baton Rouge’s ability to attract qualified female executives from other states, those who have managed to enter the local business and nonprofit communities—a process largely made possible by national searches—have nothing but compliments to spare once they’re able to get here.
Before she was selected in January to serve as executive director of the Louisiana Art and Science Museum via a national search, Serena Pandos admits to having some hesitations about moving to Baton Rouge from McAllen, Texas, where she lived for 17 years. But any concerns were quickly assuaged once she stepped foot in the downtown Hilton.
“It was that much of a turnaround experience getting from the airport to the hotel,” says Pandos, who has also lived in Baltimore and New York City. “We were so warmly greeted. People in Baton Rouge might not recognize the warmth and friendliness of the cultural climate since it’s natural here, but you don’t see that in other communities.”
A national search is also what drew Dr. Barbara Griffith, CEO of Woman’s Hospital, to Baton Rouge a couple of months ago. Griffith—an Indiana native who’s lived in North Carolina for the past 25 years—says she’s in a fortunate position, coming in as the new CEO of a well-respected hospital. But she’s found that local professionals are extremely interested in her perspective of the city as an outsider and why she came here.
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