OUR PERFECT
SETTING FOR
HIGH-LEVEL
MANAGEMENT
Iceland, our unique island home in the
middle of the North Atlantic, has it all:
hiking through lava fields, horseback
riding on black sand beaches, biking
in the midnight sun, snowmobiling on
a glacier, relaxing in geothermal pools -
and some of the most pristine nature
in the world.
Plus, it's closer than you think!
The adventure of a lifetime is waiting
for you … in Iceland.
STOP ON BY.
When flying Icelandair to your favorite
European cities like London and Paris,
you can stopover in Iceland for up to
seven nights at no additional airfare.
+ For more information, contact
your travel agent, book online at
www.icelandair.com or call
at (877) 435-7962.
Share and Share Alike
Scott Griffiths
CEO, Zipcar
As a business consultant and former Internet company owner,
Scott Griffiths had long been
intrigued with Zipcar, a car-sharing service launched in Boston in 1999, because
he was the target customer. “I’d lived in
Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta,
Seattle—all cities where you live and
work, and your need for a car is pretty
limited,” says Griffiths, who joined Zipcar
as CEO in 2003. “Yet, I was ingrained with
this idea that I couldn’t live without a car.”
Zipcar charges members an annual fee
and allows them to rent cars, which are
parked at strategic locations throughout
major cities, by the hour, day or longer.
The fee includes gas, parking, maintenance and insurance. Until Griffiths
joined, it was marketed as an environmentally responsible alternative to car ownership, but Griffiths saw a bigger story.
“I thought this could really be a lifestyle
brand,” he recalls .
He led a rebranding initiative and
took the Zipcar concept mainstream,
marketing it as a cost-effective alternative for people who only need a car a few
times a month for errands, short trips or
weekends away. It worked like a charm.
The company had its first profitable year
in 2004 and now boasts more than 80,000
members. The company also has expanded to London and is building its Z-to-B
business, which offers reduced rates for
city-based businesses that want employees to use public transport but that need
wheels for client visits and deliveries.
The Relationship Banker
Deborah Wright
Chairman, president and CEO,
Carver Bancorp Inc.
As a new analyst at investment
bank First Boston in the mid-
1980s, Deborah Wright had
a hard time finding anyone willing to
help her crack the Wall Street boys’ club.
Wright’s challenges convinced her to put
her joint business and law degree from
Harvard to work “making life better for
people who weren’t born into wealth.”
She joined the New York Partnership,
a collection of Fortune 500 and nonprofit
executives working to get an embattled
New York City on its feet. There, she was
surrounded by willing mentors—CEOs,
bank presidents, legendary financiers—
contacts that her former Wall Street peers
would have killed for. In 1999, after more
than a decade of success in a variety of
community and housing advocate roles
under mayors David Dinkins and Rudy
Giuliani, she was asked to helm Carver
Federal Savings Bank, the last remaining
minority-owned bank in Harlem, which
had been crippled by loan defaults totaling
nearly a third of its assets.
She took the top job. “The organization was disconnected from the rest of
Manhattan,” Wright recalls. “It required
a set of relationships that the people at the
bank didn’t have.” But now, she realized,
she did. She called on her mentors, who
lent their expertise and became her advisers. Some even moved assets to Carver to
help the balance sheet. Wright upgraded
the bank’s technology and improved
“high touch” service to the bank’s customers, many of whom still have passbooks.
Today, Carver Bancorp is the largest
minority-owned, publicly traded bank in
America. By nurturing relationships on
