History

"We are calling together women distinguished by their achievements in business, the arts, the professions, government and academia..." So read the letter mailed the summer of 1979 to 113 exceptional Chicago women. It was both an announcement and a personal invitation to join other influential career women in establishing an organization, a network made up of movers and shakers with the sole purpose of doing some collective moving and shaking. It began over dinner. A group who dubbed themselves the "Good Old Girls" met socially several times. Why not expand? Why not meet regularly with other influential Chicago women? The group hired a professional researcher to help find the leading women in metropolitan Chicago. They pared their list from 1,000 to 113 invitees. They established a Founding Board. They wrote and mailed the invitations. Ninety-seven women accepted the invitation to meet for the first time on the 67th floor of the Sears Tower at the Metropolitan Club. The Chicago Network was off and running. During the early years, members forged friendships, supported each other in professional and community work, gathered at dinner meetings and made the phone companies happy as they networked, networked, networked.

The Chicago Network Milestones 1981 - The Network invited CEOs of major companies, local VIPs and the media, to a dinner meeting featuring a panel of the Mayors of Chicago and San Francisco and the President of the New York City Council – all women! The Network light, so long under the proverbial bushel came out shining like a star. Television stations and newspapers gave the event first rate coverage. 1982 - TCN, working with the Los Angeles, Washington D.C., New York, San Francisco and Colorado networks, founded the National Women's Forum. Our influence and connections grew. 1984 - The National Women's Forum became The International Women's Forum. 1988 - TCN hosted the sixth annual I.W.F. Conference and Gala and its International Women's Forum Hall of Fame Awards. Honorees were Wilma Rudolph and Audrey Hepburn. 1989 - TCN turned ten! The celebration at Second City featured a musical spoof written and performed by Network members, a presentation of the first TCN Appreciation Award to Betsy Plank, recounting the first decade. That same year TCN launched the first annual Women in the Forefront Luncheon (WIFL). The speaker was noted author and Harvard Business School professor, Rosabeth Moss Kanter. 1990 - The Chicago Network Scholarship Program was established. In four years nine scholarships to Illinois colleges and universities plus fifteen Honor Awards were given to exceptional young Chicago women. 1996 - Crain's Chicago Business recognized the 100 most influential women in Chicago. Eighty percent were TCN members! 1999 - TCN turned twenty! Former White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers spoke to us and our guests at our dinner celebration. We honored Jean Allard with our second TCN appreciation award and held workshops for over 200 up-and-coming professional women. 2004 - We celebrated our 25th Anniversary by honoring our courageous founders with a gala evening at the Ritz Carlton. 2007 – We published our tenth annual Chicago Network Census. Today there are 370 Chicago Network members. Has size changed us? Not much. We are still a diverse group – we're mathematicians, television producers, educators, doctors, lawyers, sculptors, art historians, scientists, computer programmers, psychiatrists, painters of buildings and of canvas. We head advertising agencies, construction firms, nonprofit organizations, medical groups, messenger services, theater troops, museums, public relations companies, international divisions and our own businesses. We are still apolitical. We still have only one absolute rule: you must return a fellow member's phone call or email within 24 hours.