Get ready to be inspired!
"Adrienne Hall, A Leader Among Leaders:
Doing What She Loves" by Bobbi McKenna.
Beautiful, smart, fun, generous, insightful, and always ready for adventure, Adrienne Hall is the kind of person you'd want as your best friend, sister, next door neighbor, business partner, on your board of directors. You name it, she'd be the one you'd pick if you could.
Recently, I interviewed Adrienne in her lovely home in Los Angeles which is decorated with African masks, Pre-Columbian figures, statues of Burmese monks, a tall hand-carved canoe from New Guinea, modern art, and Mexican artifacts, all of which she collects.
As we sit across from each other in a sun-filled room, I ask her to tell me about her life.
"I've lived five lives," Adrienne says, and smiles.
"First, I co-founded the national advertising agency, the first to be headed by women. The agency had wonderful accounts like Neutrogena, the Islands of Tahiti, the airline that flew there, and one of the first companies in the electronics industry. We also introduced Top Ramen and the first cell phone in L.A."
"Then shortly after starting the agency, my husband, Maury, and I started our family."
Adrienne and her husband had four children (including one set of twins) in three years and ten months. Then, they adopted three more children: one Chinese, one African-American, and one Salvadoran. She delightedly points out that through the marriages of her children, now the family also has added Mexican, Hungarian, and Polish heritage and culture to the mix.
"And then were the women's organizations," Adrienne says. "I co-founded half of the Women's Forums in this country, and some abroad."
Among the organizations Adrienne helped bring into being are the prestigious "Committee of 200" and the "International Women's Forum.” She chaired the Leading Women Entrepreneurs of the World for seven years, and currently chairs the Women Presidents' Organization with over 1000 members in every leading city of the U.S. and Canada. “It’s now going global,” she says.
I ask her about the "Adrienne Hall Women's Mentorship Fund" that has been established in her honor “in perpetuity” at the Kennedy School of Government and Harvard University.
She tells me they have just added the Adrienne Hall Scholars and the Adrienne Hall Annual Lecture.
"We are bringing mid-career women from around the world to Harvard to mentor them. Then, when they return to their countries, they are prepared to move into the highest levels of leadership, becoming cabinet members, prime ministers, etc. We have also mentored thousands of younger women at the Kennedy School, preparing many for a life of public service. The first woman president in Africa, Ellen Sirleaf Johnson of Liberia is a Kennedy School Graduate, and we are working with her cabinet."
Her fourth career has been community service, both at the local and national level. She has served as an L.A. County Art Commissioner for 12 years, a Trustee of UCLA, and she chairs the Alumni Directors of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. She is a member of the Executive Service Board, The Town Hall Board of Governors, and is a Regent of Loyola Marymount University. She also sat on many corporate advisory boards for companies like Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Nestle, The Gas Company, the Edison Company…the list goes on and on.
Adrienne isn’t done there. “My fifth career,” she says, “was, and is, politics. I’ve always been involved at the national level in campaigns.”
And then there is her love of travel and adventure.
"As a young married couple, my husband and I spent four months in Europe on a motorcycle," she says. "Then later on, we climbed an active volcano in the Pacific on the island of Vanuatu. The volcano was shaking as we climbed to the top, and looked down into the volcano's bubbling crater.
Adrienne tells me she's just come back from a women's conference where she and her friends Sherry Lansing and Taryn Rose were also honored.
"At the conference something interesting happened. In replying to a question, I said, "we've all been sitting up here talking about our children and our families. But you don't need to have children or a family to live a rich life. You just have to have something to come home to: A passion, a pet, a friend, a hobby.”
She leans toward me. "You cannot imagine what that comment elicited. Women came up to me all the rest of the day and said, ‘Thank you for saying that. You made me feel my life is Okay.’"
I ask her what advice she would give to women starting careers today.
"Do whatever you love. Go where your heart and mind takes you," she says. "There is no one path to fulfillment. Life is a great feast,” she adds.
“I never tire of trying and tasting new things. It is my life's passion and dream to see every man, woman, and child sitting at the table, tasting life the way we do. It may take generations, or it may take longer than that. But everything we do must add to the possibility."
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More Info About Adrienne:
Adrienne Hall is President and CEO of The Hall Group, an international marketing and communications company, which through its consulting division also helps to provide access to boards, non profit organizations, and visibility in the community. In addition she puts together strategic alliances, sits on numerous boards, helps to develop new boards, and chairs the boards of several global organizations.
Hall has sat on many boards: The Women's Leadership Board at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, The Leadership Board and the Business Council of the DNC, The Center For the Study of Los Angeles, the Trustees of UCLA, the Regents of Loyola Marymount, Town Hall Board of Governors, the Executive Service Corps, The National Health Foundation, and the Advisory Boards of The Gas Company (Sempra Energy), The Edison Company, Solution Bridge and Making The Turn (a convergent media company). She is also a Los Angeles County Arts Commissioner and co-chairs The Alumni Directors of the LA area Chamber of Commerce.
Hall chairs the Board of Directors for the Women Presidents' Organization and also The Leading Women Entrepreneurs of the World. She has also helped to found two of the most prestigious women's organizations in the world, The Committee of 200 and The International Women's Forum which has called her "a leader among leaders."
Hall founded the first advertising agency in America headed by a woman, and has headed every major organization in her industry in the West. She is a member of The National Advertising Review Board.
She was part of the President's Outreach to Business Leaders and was a Presidential appointee to The National Business Council. She chaired the Women's Business Outreach at the Women's Economic Summit and in California she co-chaired The State Economic Network.
