2005 Press Archive
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High Water Women Play Santa
Susan L. Barreto, Senior Financial Correspondent
23 December 2005, HedgeWorld News
NEW YORK (HedgeWorld.com) - Transit strike notwithstanding, Santa has been able to make a few special deliveries to needy children in New York City thanks to some help from High Water Women.
An organization founded by women active in the hedge fund industry, High Water Women is now literally wrapping up its second annual Secret Santa program. The group collected more than 500 gifts for distribution to children in homeless shelters run by a charity group called Women in Need.
Teens also are receiving gifts through the Inwood House and Iris House programs. Teens were asked to write a letter to Santa requesting three gifts, which then were purchased by High Water Women members. Gifts on the Santa list for younger kids included toy cameras, race car sets and Dora the Explorer items.
The program began late in November and is running through the end of this month. Organizers hope to surpass last year's donation total. Shani Gendebien of Kingdon Capital and Sara McLane of SG Structured Investments are co-chairing the Secret Santa program.
"The Secret Santa program is a wonderful example of what High Water Women can achieve by utilizing our members' extensive network of resources," said Kathleen Kelly, global macro portfolio manager at Kingdon Capital Management. "This program is a perfect way to end a successful first full year of charitable service."
In September, High Water Women contributed backpacks and back-to-school supplies to homeless children housed in the Women in Need shelter. The shelter currently houses 500 children.
On Jan. 19, the philanthropic organization will hold its first ever Casino Night. Proceeds will go to support four New York City-based charities including Women in Need.
GETTING PERSONAL: Charities
Eye Self-Made Women For Gifts
By Colleen DeBaise, A Dow Jones Newswires Column
7 December 2005, Dow Jones News Service
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Charities are increasingly turning to self-made women for big donations.
The focus on female donors began in the mid-90s, as more women began opening small businesses and gaining footholds in corporate boardrooms. Now, philanthropic organizations are stepping up efforts to cultivate this first wave of women who have amassed wealth and want to give back.
High Water Women, founded earlier this year by women in hedge funds and financial services, plans a casino night fundraiser in New York, complete with Texas Hold 'Em tables, a poker clinic, blackjack and roulette. The event, to benefit women's and children's causes, follows a wine-tasting fundraiser in June that raised more than $200,000.
"The enthusiasm level is out of control," says Kathleen Kelley, a founding member of High Water Women and a portfolio manager at hedge fund Kingdon Capital Management.
The group targets women who have reached senior positions in the male-dominated financial services world. "Because you're seeing this evolve over the past 10 years or so, we don't have Rockefeller-type wealth," Kelley says. Still, many women are commanding large salaries and "hopefully they can be in a spot where they can write big checks," she says.
THANKS to your generosity, over 800 backpacks
were donated by High Water Women for the new school year.
Click here to find out more.
Philanthropy: Event hits high-water mark
by Christine Williamson
27 June 2005 , Pensions & Investments
High Water Women, an organization of senior-level women executives from the financial industry, has burst onto the philanthropic scene with a hugely successful first benefit.
A June 13 wine tasting at Fred's at Barney's in New York was sold out and raised $200,000 - double the original target - to support STRIVE. STRIVE, based in New York's East Harlem neighborhood, provides job training and placement for hard-to-employ populations and has helped more than 32,000 people find jobs in four countries.
Leslie Rahl, a co-founder of High Water Women, said the June benefit was much more educational - and fun - than many wine tastings, since it was conducted by the ``Wine Diva,'' Christine Ansbacher. The group also benefited from brisk bidding on an auction offering, a day spent in the kitchen with famed New York chef David Bouley.
High Water Women was spun out of 100 Women in Hedge Funds earlier this year and focuses more opportunities for members to volunteer than the original organization does, Ms. Rahl said. Ms. Rahl, president of Capital Market Risk Advisors Inc., New York, and Kathleen Kelley, global macro portfolio manager at Kingdon Capital Management Inc., New York, resigned from their 100 Women in Hedge Funds board positions to establish the non-profit.
High Water Women will forge partnerships with other non-profits and community organizations that assist with problems of special interest to women, and there are plans for senior-level members to mentor younger women employed in the financial sector.
Movers And Shakers - NewsWeekly
Women on the hedge
by Heidi Moore
27 June 2005, TheDeal.com
With all the money rolling around in hedge funds these days, it's no surprise that the industry has spawned a new charity: High Water Women, whose first fundraiser was a wine tasting held earlier this month at ladies-who-shop-and-lunch mecca Fred's at Barneys New York. The event drew more than 225 people - equal parts men and women - and raised more than $200,000 for welfare-to-work charity Strive/East Harlem Employment Service Inc., nearly double the expected tally.
HWW was co-founded in March by Leslie Rahl, a former 19-year Citigroup Inc. veteran and the president of Capital Market Risk Advisors Inc., and Kathleen Kelley, a global macro portfolio manager at Kingdon Capital Management LLC. The two met at another charity, 100 Women in Hedge Funds (of which they remain members), and saw room to create another organization with a bit less networking and a bit more philanthropy. Invus Group Ltd. managing director Leslie Lake - who encouraged Invus to underwrite the Fred's wine tasting - and Soros Fund Management LLC executive Betsy Battle are also founding board members.
Rahl and Kelley want to expand HWW's membership to represent all financial services, unlike the membership of 100 Women. Their initial mailing list boasted 1,500 personal contacts, including Rahl's husband, Anderson Kill & Olick PC bankruptcy lawyer Andrew Rahl Jr. Rahl says HWW hopes to encourage midsize contributions - those below the get-your-name-on-a-hospital-wing level - and she plans to open HWW's options beyond check writing by organizing monthly volunteering sorties for members who want to get their hands dirty. The group will work with a core group of 10 charities focused on advancing low-income women, including the Baby Buggy, the Women in Need Foundation and the Young Women's Leadership Foundation.
But HWW's kickoff event was more about fun. The benefit - which pulled in a big contribution from Paul Tudor Jones, founder of the granddaddy of all hedge fund charities, the Robin Hood Foundation - included a champagne tasting and instructions on wine appreciation by a self-described "wine diva." The activity was chosen through an informal poll of HWW's members over other options, including a golf outing and a charity auction. But it had special resonance for Rahl, who started wine tasting at 17 after taking a monthlong cooking class at the University of Dijon; she met her husband at a wine-tasting event 15 years ago.
http://www.TheDeal.com
High Water Women Benefit Raises More Than $200,000
for STRIVE/East Harlem Employment Service.
Click here to read the full article.
Harlem Teen Girls Team Up With Wall Street Women Executives For BRAG! Connections Corporate Outreach Program on Monday, April 11th at Merrill Lynch
5 April 2005, Business Wire
NEW YORK - (BUSINESS WIRE) - April 5, 2005 - Communication guru Peggy Klaus will lead a "BRAG! Connections Corporate Outreach Program" with 65 high-school juniors from the Young Women's Leadership School of East Harlem (founded by Ann and Andrew Tisch) along with about 65 senior Merrill Lynch women and hedge fund executives who are members of a prominent philanthropic group called High Water Women http://www.hedgefundwomen.org.
The private event will be held on Monday, April 11th, 11:30am-1:30pm in lower Manhattan at the offices of Merrill Lynch, 250 Vesey Street, between West Street and North End Avenue, 3rd floor.
BRAG! Connections Corporate Outreach is an innovative cross-generational program that pairs aspiring youth with seasoned professionals to teach critical networking and self-promotion job skills to the employees and consumers of the future.
Innovatively expanding the line-up of BRAG! programs into the realm of corporate outreach, BRAG! Connections events are similar to the BRAG! parties and workshops that Klaus initially designed for business professionals. These interactive, meet-and-greet affairs allow participants to network and fearlessly practice tooting their own horns while Klaus reveals key self-promotion techniques interspersed with fun, experiential exercises.
"It's important for girls to take pride in their accomplishments and to believe in themselves," said Nancy Gleason, Director, Merrill Lynch. "BRAG Connections help girls learn the art of self-promotion, a skill they may not learn at home or school or that may even be discouraged, but that is critical in life."
Indeed, research confirms that while girls one-up boys in many regards in their educational years, they lose out later in the real world where daring, assertiveness, and the ability to promote oneself count a lot more.
"While we've come a long way baby, even teens raised on Britney are uncomfortable promoting their accomplishments at school, on the sport field, and ultimately in the workplace," say Klaus, a Fortune 500 communication and leadership coach, and author of BRAG! The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It.
Ann and Andrew Tisch founded the Young Women's Leadership School in 1996, in partnership with New York City's Board of Education. They believed it would offer public school families an appealing alternative to the larger, zoned public schools where girls' voices are often unheard.
More About Peggy Klaus:
www.klausact.com
www.bragbetter.com
President of Klaus & Associates in Berkeley, CA, Klaus has spent nearly a decade advising some of America's top Fortune 500 executives in the art of self-presentation and promotion. She reaches thousands of professionals a year through speaking, coaching, and workshops on workplace and management communication topics for leading organizations including Levi Strauss, Disney, JP Morgan Chase, Booz Allen Hamilton, American Express and NAFE, among others.
Klaus has led over 100 BRAG events at a variety of corporations and organizations including SC Johnson, General Mills, Credit Suisse First Boston, Ladies Home Journal, Count Me In, GraceNet, Menttium, and the Harvard Business School Alumni Association.
Also well regarded in higher education, Klaus has lectured on communication to students and educators at the University of California Berkeley's Haas School of Business and School of Public Health & Sciences. Most recently, she has served as a lecturer at Wharton's Executive MBA Program. She has also mentored and presented to teens on communication and leadership issues through the Professional Business Women of California (PBWC) and The CrossRoads Foundation/Backyard Project.
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