Siobhan McLaughlin Lesley
President & COO
Valentine Radford

After 16 years of escalating positions with the City’s oldest full-service advertising firm, Siobhan Lesley was appointed its president and COO in 2000. She says that hard work and dedication got her there. Her colleagues cite her ability to listen to what is said—and what isn’t. A client says she has a “real gift for extracting ideas and distilling them into a coherent idea.” And the firm’s chairman said she has the unique ability to see a situation with 20 different issues and identify the one that will really make a difference.

Uncomfortable with praise, Lesley just believes in hard work, when she volunteers, too. She wants to make Kansas City pre-eminent in technology with her work on the New Economy Council. She’s dedicated to the arts and has made a personal commitment to the United Way Marketing Committee—and wants to do even more in the community. Combining her passion for cooking and the Junior League, she worked on a noted cookbook that raised thousands of dollars. “Family Game Night” with her husband and two daughters is a prime relaxation—“We have some of the most amazing conversations with the girls over ‘Miss Scarlett in the Hall with the Candlestick,’” she laughs.

Beth Latta
Sales Director
AT&T

Beth Latta is the Sales Director in charge of AT&T business services. With 28 sales people and three managers reporting to her, she has revenue responsibility of $80 million. Her team focuses on fast-growing data, Internet, hosting, managed services, outsourcing and professional services. Coming to AT&T in 1993, she ruefully points to the current challenges of the industry itself. But she’s delighted that there is currently a “flight to quality” occurring—customers are coming around to recognize the benefits of a quality, long-term partner like AT&T.

“Discipline in driving for results and the ability to help people reach their full potential” have been attributes that have gotten her to this position she believes. She plans to win, passionately, for both her company and the people she leads. Others note her compassion and concern for Kansas City businesses and the success of our community. Her strategic capabilities, ability to motivate others, and setting the bar high for both personal and corporate goals have been key to her success.

Latta’s family is also very important to her. She plays hard with her family, including her husband of 27 years, four children and two grandchildren, and what little time left is spent reading—“I am continuously seeking to learn.”

Cathleen Dodson Macauley became Chairman and CEO of her family’s company in 1983. The insurance agency and its affiliate which provides actuarial services had annual revenues of over $158 million in 2001.

Macauley says she became CEO by a “strange combination of accident and design.” Determined to keep her great grandfather’s then 83 year old company in the family after her divorce from her husband who had majority interest, she credits Crosby Kemper whose belief and large loan allowed her to buy that interest. Since then, when she was the only female at her level in her industry in the country, the company has grown phenomenally. Her role, among many others, is as “chief communicator and truth teller.”

An interest in improving the quality and scope of mental health services has led to long-term Board of Director positions with the Menninger Foundation and its affiliates. She’s on any number of boards and was selected for membership in the Committee of 200, a group of pre-eminent female business leaders in the U.S. She has mentored many others in leadership and entrepreneurship, both of which she enjoys talking about. She says, though, that her incredible husband and family eclipse all other interests, which remain many.

The only one of our executives who has worked in a prison (she was a volunteer teacher), Sister Sue Miller is president of this apostolic order of religious women founded in 1858. The organization now has 400 sisters serving in a variety of ministries, including health care, education, parish ministry, missionary work and social service. The SCL Health System has 10 hospitals, a nursing home, and four stand-alone clinics for the uninsured. She condenses it: “SCLs are REAL people who make things happen. We have a special commitment to persons who are poor, vulnerable, and underserved.”

Growing up in Kansas City, and graduating from Hogan High School, Miller earned both a master’s and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. Ever since, she has been active on boards primarily for hospitals, clinics, and education. Such work is part of her mission, “. . . charity and love to serve one another and our neighbor whoever that might be and whatever the need according to our resources.” Miller does not speak easily about herself, but rather about her sisters. She notes that in this time of concern for national security, their “concern and actions are for the security of vulnerable individuals and communities.”