Reading: #113: When You Find Out You’re The Best Person For The Top Job (Beth Bengtson)

“Your career is a journey. It’s rare to find a person for whom it’s a direct line,” says social entrepreneur, CEO and Founder of Working for Women, Beth Bengtson. Indeed, Bengtson studied to be a photographer at the Fashion Institute of Technology and jumped into the early dot-com universe and even lived through the bust. After meeting her husband and starting a family, she “realized that business could be a force for social good” and took a position as VP of Social Responsibility — teaching that corporation “how to think about doing good and being a good citizen.” Laid off during the Great Recession, she decided to pursue the idea of social responsibility by creating W4W, a service that helps for-profit businesses invest resources in social initiatives that benefit women. Her leadership awakening happened when she was scouring the world for the perfect W4W CEO because “my definition of a leader is everything I wasn’t: charismatic, outgoing, with sales and business development,” she says. A coach to challenge her to lead. And the rest, as they say, is her-story.