“Behind every successful woman there is an empowering story!”

This is so true. The Women Entrepreneurs’ Network (WEN) business Tea & Talk series is a NJSBDC at Rutgers-Newark program started in 2005 and designed for women entrepreneurs to give them a sacred place and space to hear empowering stories of how other women have succeeded in business and career. Attending these intimate business breakfast meetings, gives women entrepreneurs an opportunity to meet role models in business and make contact with professional career women who are power brokers in their private or public professional sectors, as well as network with other women of like minds with the same aspirations for success through entrepreneurship while making contacts that matter.

Cecelia Henderson

– WSI Marketing Edge

Ms. Henderson is a resident of Wayne, NJ where she is a member of the North Jersey Chamber of Commerce and serves as a volunteer for Passaic County CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate). Ms. Henderson is also an active member of the New Jersey Association of Women Business Owners (NJAWBO) where she was recently elected Vice President of Marketing for this statewide organization. Cecelia Henderson attended Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School in Washington and obtained a BA in Economics from Barnard College. Ms. Henderson worked as an analyst/research assistant for the American Institutes for Research in Washington DC, a company that evaluated the performance of federally funded programs in the area of social science and defense. Ms. Henderson then returned to school receiving an MBA from Columbia Business School with a concentration in Marketing and General Management.

Holly Kaplansky

– Red Wagon Consulting

Holly has had a successful career as a business owner, organization leader, and valued resource with a career in corporate Marketing and Business Management. At Kraft Foods Holly was Brand Manager in the Maxwell House division. She worked as Global Marketing Director for Ovid Technologies (an international scientific and medical online database) and was Chief Operating Officer for Russ Candy Bears (a licensee of Russ Berrie plush toys). Her strong background working for these companies contributed to her success as a business owner.

After 25 years in the corporate world, Holly became an entrepreneur and owner of Minuteman Press of Newark. She purchased a business that was suffering significant losses and made it into a profitable enterprise in just 2 years. Throughout her ownership of the Minuteman Press of Newark, she achieved year-over-year sales growth, even through economic downturns. She became a trusted vendor to well-known large entities such as NJ Transit, Rutgers, NJIT, and PSEG, to name a few.

Holly is now using her corporate and entrepreneurial experience to guide other business owners on the path to greater success as President of Red Wagon Consulting.

Holly is active in the business community through the following organizations:

• President, NJAWBO (New Jersey Association of Women Business Owners)
• Past President, North Essex Chamber of Commerce
• Board Member, Rutgers Small Business Development Center
• Board Member & Graduate, Rutgers Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development & EPI Alumni
• Founding Board Member of New Jersey LGBT Chamber of Commerce
• Past President, Association of Women in Communications, New Jersey Chapter
• Leadership Newark Fellow Class of 2010