Kira Lafond is Market President and Publisher of the Milwaukee Business Journal. LaFond spoke with Libby Collins in this week’s edition of WTMJ Conversations.
Transcription provided by eCourt Reporters, Inc.
LIBBY COLLINS: The first woman to become vice president —
KIRA LAFOND: Yep.
LIBBY COLLINS: — what do you think that means to women, and — and going — and in the future, will that make an easier path for women who want to become executives, who want to go into politics, who want to grow their careers in — in places that maybe women have never been before?
KIRA LAFOND: You know, I think every time a person succeeds, the people who look like them and who identify like them feel more confident. And so whether it’s a woman who’s going to be in the White House, which is — which is terrific, that, you know, that people who — who look like them and they identify with, if you can see those examples — because a lot of people never see those examples and, you know, that’s one thing that you’ll see.
Another thing that I’m really proud of with my team is the Business Journal in Milwaukee, for sure and most of the business journals around the country too, have been very purposeful in making sure that we’re telling the entire business story. It’s not just the executives in the big towers, and it’s not just — you know, five, ten, you know, ten years ago, you go through any Business Journal and probably any newspaper and you’d see, for any kind of business story, it’d be primarily white men in their 50s and 60s. That’s not what you see in the — and that was never the whole business story, it was just a fancy-schmancy business story. But you’ll see stories in the Business Journal of businesses and business owners and people who are growing businesses from every walk of life, from the tiniest, tiny startup to the largest, multinational organization in the — that’s in and around our city. You’ll see everybody. And, you know, I recommend, you take a look at it, even if you are like, “Ahh, I’m not reading a newspaper,” pick up the newspaper and look at the people that are making a difference in this community and share it with a young person who looks like them because that — they get to see what can happen. If they grew up — you know, some kids grow up in neighborhoods where they never see that success, they never see a person with their color skin or — or their gender or their, you know, background succeeding. And we get — we get to tell those stories of the people who are and show the kids that they can. And that is one of our — one of my favorite things that we do.
