Oct 13, 2021
Ellen Snee grew up outside of New York City, the oldest of five kids in an Irish Catholic family. On Wednesday nights their parish priest, who was a family friend, would join their family for hot dogs and play cards. One night, Ellen’s devout father asked the priest to bless his children. They all closed their eyes, and he said some prayers. As they were praying, and all was calm, twelve-year-old Ellen decided what she wanted to be. When they were done, she stood up and declared, “When I grow up, I'm going to be a priest!” The room went silent.
Years later, Ellen attended a Jesuit university where the curriculum and atmosphere appealed to her. While she knew becoming a priest was not possible, Ellen discovered a group of female Jesuits, the Religious of the Sacred Heart, and joined their order as a nun. She was drawn to this community, dedicated to the mission of education, service, and a life of prayer. It was also a time when work was being done to make it possible for women to become priests. So Ellen was hopeful that it could still occur within her lifetime. Within religious life, Ellen held many positions as a teacher, campus minister, and then pursued her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University.
Ellen left the convent while still in graduate school. She turned the conceptual frameworks from her dissertation on women in roles of authority into the launch of a successful consulting firm, Fine Line Consulting. Before long, she stepped into the corporate sector running leadership and coaching programs for executive women in Fortune 500 companies such as Pfizer, Schwab, Marriott and Goodyear. For 15 years she provided one-to-one coaching to high potential and executive-level women across the country. A move to California in 2001 led her to work in Silicon Valley at the major tech companies such as Apple, Cisco, KPG, and Citrix. In 2009 Ellen was hired by global technology company VMware as VP Leadership Development and Organizational Consulting.
In this week’s Work From The Inside Out podcast, learn more about Ellen’s journey:
- Ellen is the author of Lead: How Women in Charge Claim Their Authority (She Writes Press), in which she shares her wisdom and experience with all talented women seeking to accelerate their careers.
- She went on to lead Global Talent Development and in 2013 launched VMwomen, a business initiative designed to attract, retain, develop, and advance talented women.
Learn more and connect with Ellen here:
https://www.ellensnee.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellen-snee-edd-a3aa9930/
https://www.facebook.com/ellen.snee.9/
https://www.instagram.com/ellensnee/
https://twitter.com/EllenSnee
https://ellensnee.medium.com/