“Close your eyes and think about it for one second: no power, no internet, no communication, complete silence and complete isolation,” says María Eugenia Ferré Rangel ’89, chief communications officer of Grupo Ferré Rangel, a Puerto Rican company whose holdings include the island’s newspaper, El Nuevo Día. “That’s what we faced after Hurricane Maria last year. What’s our next step? How do we move the island forward not only as a business, but really as a family?”
It’s a question with no easy answer and the 170 students and alumnae who turned out to hear María Eugenia and her sister, fellow alumna Loren Ferré Rangel ’92, speak at the Women in Business Conference last week heard a candid assessment of the importance — and challenge — of mixing good business practices with good citizenship.
The annual conference is an opportunity for students and businesswomen to learn from one another. The Ferré Rangel sisters, who run their family’s 100-year-old media, real estate and social engagement company with their three other siblings, were the featured guests of the keynote interview, moderated by Michele Murray, vice president for student affairs and dean of students. After lunch and networking sessions, students sat in on panels led by alumni in different industries.
The Ferré Rangel sisters say the power of their belief — to do good as both businesswomen and corporate citizens — was tested last year. As Loren puts it, the first order of business was to step into, not away from, the fray.
“We had to make a choice: Were we going to be an observer? Or were we going to be an agent of change? We didn’t have a road map, but we made the choice to choose to help. People needed us.”