On Friday, Oct. 10, Linda Goldstein spoke at Elizabethtown College as part of the M&M Mars Lecture series. “The vision is to target folks like Mrs. Goldstein, who are doing exactly what you heard today. Providing insight and positive impact to the students,” Carl Freeman, the site director of Mars Chocolate North America said. “It’s a way for us as a company to do our part.”
Goldstein is the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Harrisburg Regional Chamber and Capitol Region Economic Development Corporation (CREDC). Goldstein used her personal experiences to help illustrate the concepts of Cheryl Sandberg’s book “Lean In.” “Careers are like a jungle gym, and not a ladder like we traditionally thought about careers. It used to be that somebody would go work for, let’s say, M&M Mars, and stay with them for their entire career of 36, 40 years, retire, get their social security and get their pension check,” Goldstein explained. She went on to explain that in the business world today, individuals must jump around and should not limit themselves to one job their entire career, which is something that she realized she had done with her career without even knowing.
After moving to Harrisburg, Goldstein took a temporary leave of absence to raise her children. She told the women in the audience that it would not be a set back to spend some time raising children and encouraged them to do the same.
She was then faced with the question of how she to get back onto the jungle gym, as Goldstein put it. Her response was to try a totally new field and become one of three female investment bankers in the Harrisburg region. She described the difficulties of being a female in a predominantly male field, how one must build their credibility and gain trust.
Goldstein targeted female business owners and cultivated a network of connections and relationships through all of her employment experiences. She illustrated the jungle gym to the students by showing them how, even though she moved between many different jobs, she was able to develop some basic skills including sales skills, communication and active listening.
She used these skills even after leaving the business industry and found herself in politics. First, she worked on the campaign for Bill Scranton, the 38th Governor of Pennsylvania, and then later under congressmen Tom Ridge doing economic development. She was able to get a job working for Tom Ridge due to the preexisting network she had from working with Gov. Ridge’s chief of staff on the Bill Scranton campaign.
Goldstein afterward worked for Commerce Bank, which aided her in further growing her network. In 2001, Goldstein had made it to the top of her jungle gym. Dave Black, her former employer, asked Goldstein to come work for him and be the COO of Harrisburg Regional Chamber and CREDC. She was now doing economic development in a c-class job. She worked with small and entrepreneurial businesses and with managing young talent.
Goldstein explained that she hires young talent like many of the students in the room. “When I hire somebody, I always tell them it is my commitment to make sure they are successful,” she said.
Goldstein was able to use her personal journey not only to encourage young scholars but also to demonstrate to them how they can follow a similar path and not just go up the traditional corporate ladder. Junior Etown business major Ryan Brubaker said, “It helps to know that I can be in both [business and politics] and successfully grow toward an ultimate goal by being in both.”
