The Road to Someplace Better: From the Segregated South to Harvard Business School and Beyond

by Lillian Lincoln Lambert

Overview

The first black woman Harvard MBA tells the remarkable story of how she achieved the American dream

Lillian Lincoln Lambert rose from humble beginnings as a poor farm girl in the segregated South to become the first black woman to earn an MBA from Harvard Business School and, later, the founder of a $20 million maintenance company with 1,200 employees. In The Road to Someplace Better, she shares an inspiring personal journey that took her from dead-end jobs in New York City and Washington, D.C., to the ivory tower and the world of entrepreneurship. In addition to her own hard work and tenacity, she shows how her love of reading—instilled in her by her mother—spurred her to reach her goals. By sharing her inspiring life story, she helps others see that they, too, have the power to dream big, act bold, and achieve their goals.

• Charts Lillian Lincoln Lambert's inspiring rise from a poor, rural upbringing in the segregated South to success as a barrier-breaking CEO and entrepreneur
• Inspiring memoir of a groundbreaking business pioneer who broke down racial, gender, and social barriers to achieve unprecedented success
• Lillian Lincoln Lambert received Harvard Business School's Alumni Achievement Award in 2003 and has been featured on Good Morning America and in Time, the Washington Post, and Entrepreneur

The Road to Someplace Better is a book you'll want to read whether you're interested in business, history, or an unforgettable story of personal triumph against the odds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780470401668
Publisher:	TURNER PUB CO
Publication date:	01/01/2010
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	238
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Lillian Lincoln Lambert was the first black female Harvard MBA (1969), who in 2003 received Harvard Business School's Alumni Achievement Award, the highest award the school bestows on its alumni. For twenty-five years, she was president and CEO of Centennial One, Inc., a building maintenance company she founded in 1976 in her garage with a few thousand dollars. She grew the company to $20 million in sales and hired more than 1,200 employees. Lambert is the recipient of numerous other awards, including Black MBA Association's Entrepreneur of the Year, and Small Business Person of the Year in the State of Maryland. She has been featured on Good Morning America and in Time, the Washington Post, and Entrepreneur.

Rosemary Brutico is a freelance writer and principal of Quintessence Communication, a public relations firm. She is a former managing editor of MIT's Sloan Management Review.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Cathy Hughes.

Acknowledgments.

Prologue.

1 The Farm.

2 Fifth Avenue on a Wing and a Prayer.

3 In the Company of Angels.

4 Howard University and Lucky 13

5 Harvard Business School: 1967-1968

6 Harvard Business School: 1968-1969.

7 Life beyond Harvard.

8 Life as a Double Minority Entrepreneur.

9 The Birth of a Company.

10. Letting Go and Moving On.

11 Giving Back.

Epilogue.

Index.

Editorial Reviews

* This is an old-fashioned rags-to-riches story that traces Lambert's upbringing as the daughter of God-fearing Virginia subsistence farmers to becoming the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Business School, in year TK, and later attaining success as a Maryland entrepreneur. Told in straightforward, no-nonsense prose, Lambert's memoir begins backward, from the shocking anecdote about arriving for a meeting of a group of powerful businesswomen in New York City in 1986 and being ushered to the kitchen. In fact, Lambert née Hobson worked as a maid when she first arrived in New York City in 1958, fresh out of high school from Ballsville, Va. (Her 1976 startup of a janitorial service in Maryland provides another irony.) Although her mother, a rare college graduate back in the rural South, wanted her daughter to go to college, Lambert resolved to support herself instead, faking references to get a job at Macy's, for example. After working as a clerk-typist in Washington, D.C., she finally applied to Howard University, where her marketing professor, H. Naylor Fitzhugh, one of the few black graduates of Harvard's business school told her she was “Harvard material” and should apply. She was accepted and in the fall of 1967 at 27 years old, she found herself homesick, overwhelmed by the work, but determined not to quit. Her account captures a historic epoch and offers some business strategies. (Jan.) (Publishers Weekly, October 19, 2009)

From the Publisher

This is an old-fashioned rags-to-riches story that traces Lambert's upbringing as the daughter of God-fearing Virginia subsistence farmers to becoming the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Business School, in year TK, and later attaining success as a Maryland entrepreneur. Told in straightforward, no-nonsense prose, Lambert's memoir begins backward, from the shocking anecdote about arriving for a meeting of a group of powerful businesswomen in New York City in 1986 and being ushered to the kitchen. In fact, Lambert née Hobson worked as a maid when she first arrived in New York City in 1958, fresh out of high school from Ballsville, Va. (Her 1976 startup of a janitorial service in Maryland provides another irony.) Although her mother, a rare college graduate back in the rural South, wanted her daughter to go to college, Lambert resolved to support herself instead, faking references to get a job at Macy's, for example. After working as a clerk-typist in Washington, D.C., she finally applied to Howard University, where her marketing professor, H. Naylor Fitzhugh, one of the few black graduates of Harvard's business school told her she was “Harvard material” and should apply. She was accepted and in the fall of 1967 at 27 years old, she found herself homesick, overwhelmed by the work, but determined not to quit. Her account captures a historic epoch and offers some business strategies. (Jan.)\

Publishers Weekly