Mary Cunningham Agee

Last updated
Mary Cunningham Agee
Mary Cunningham Agee.jpg
Mary Agee
Born1951 (age 71–72)
Falmouth, Maine, U.S.
Alma mater
Employers
Spouses
Howard Gray
​
(div. 1980)​
​
​
(m. 1982;died 2017)​

Mary Cunningham Agee (born September 1, 1951) is an American business executive and author. [1] She served in the top management of two Fortune 100 companies in the 1980s, one of the first women to do so, and was voted one of the "25 Most Influential Women in America" by World Almanac in 1981 and 1982. [2] [3] Agee is a Managing Partner of the Semper Charitable Foundation [4] and CEO of the family's boutique wine business, Aurea Estate Wines, Inc.[ citation needed ]

Contents

Agee is the founder of The Nurturing Network (TNN), an international charitable organization which throughout its 30 years of service has taught about the need for empowerment among the most disadvantaged in society. [5] [6] [7]

Early years

Cunningham was born in Falmouth, Maine, to Irish-American parents. When she was five years old, her parents separated. Her mother moved her four children to Hanover, New Hampshire, where a relative, Monsignor William Nolan, a chaplain at Dartmouth College, [8] [9] offered paternal support for the family. [5] [10] [11]

Education

Cunningham graduated from Hanover High School in 1969. She worked summers on Cape Cod as a short-order cook and as a bank teller to supplement her college tuition scholarship. She enrolled at Newton College of the Sacred Heart (now merged with Boston College) in Newton, Massachusetts, and was elected class president. She was awarded a full academic scholarship to attend Wellesley College, where she transferred for her sophomore year. She won a Slater Fellowship to study law and ethics at Trinity College, Dublin, for her junior year abroad and received two Danforth Nominations to continue her studies in ethics and moral philosophy at the graduate level. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Wellesley in 1973 with a B.A. in logic and philosophy. [12]

She graduated in 1979 from the Harvard Business School with an MBA in finance and international business. The HBS dean referred to Cunningham as having the "best chance of being the first female graduate of the Business School to become chairman of a non-cosmetic company." [13] [14] [15]

Career and personal life

Cunningham was employed on Wall Street in the Corporate Banking Department of the Chase Manhattan Bank and in the Corporate Finance Department of Salomon Brothers. On graduation from Harvard Business School, she accepted a management position as executive assistant to the CEO of the Bendix Corporation, William Agee. [1] [16] [17]

At Bendix, she was quickly promoted to Vice President of Strategic Planning by Agee. [18] Following public accusations of an affair with Agee, Cunningham resigned on October 8, 1980. [10] [10] [16] [19] [20] Stanford University Business School made Cunningham's experience a case study in its course, "Power and Politics in Organizations". [21] [22]

Cunningham's autobiography, "Powerplay - What Really Happened at Bendix" [23] chronicles her departure from the firm. Following her resignation, she accepted the position of Vice President of Strategic Planning at Joseph E. Seagram and Sons where she reported to both President Phil Beekman, and CEO Edgar Bronfman, Sr. [17] [21] Within a year, she was promoted to Executive Vice President of the newly formed Seagram Wine Company, overseeing the development and implementation of Seagram's worldwide wine strategy. [10] [20] [22]

Cunningham and her first husband, financial executive Howard Gray, were divorced in 1980. In June 1982, she married Agee. [24] After 35 years of marriage, Agee filed for divorce from Cunningham, although it was never finalized due to his death in December 2017. [25]

The Nurturing Network

Mary Cunningham Agee founded The Nurturing Network following the death of her first child, Angela Grace, in a late trimester miscarriage in January 1984. [5] [26] That loss prompted Agee to investigate the availability of resources for women whose pregnancies end through abortion due to lack of economic, educational or social support. She founded The Nurturing Network to provide women with access to resources, counseling and advice. [27] [28] It is a consortium of volunteers, professional service providers, pregnancy resource centers and faith-based initiatives that has provided tangible resources to individuals seeking their support. Agee's book Compassion in Action [7] presents her story of the Network's program over 20 years. In addition to counseling, Agee's educational role at TNN has included writing and motivational speaking. Her work has been featured [29] in publications such as The Wall Street Journal , [27] [30] Reader's Digest , [28] U.S. News & World Report , [31] The Washington Post , [32] and Good Housekeeping , [33] [34] [35] and she has been profiled on American radio and television programs such as CBS's 48 Hours, [36] [ full citation needed ] and James Dobson's Focus on the Family . [37]

Agee was an early advocate of establishing a common ground. [38] [39] [40] Peter Jennings referred to Ms. Agee's common ground position as "the demilitarized zone" in his televised three hour report, "The Next Civil War" on ABC News Forum. [41]

Affiliations

Agee serves on the Emeritas Board of FADICA and the Board of Overseers for the Aquinas House at Dartmouth College. She is a fellow of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California. [12]

Agee has served on the boards of First Women's Bank of New York, the Catholic Schools Foundation in Boston, the Gregorian Foundation, the Graduate School of Business at University College Dublin, the Culture of Life Foundation, [42] the Thomas More Law Center's advisory board, [43] Loyola College in Maryland, the Hoffman Institute, and the National Council for Adoption. She is a founding member of the Napa Valley Chapter of Legatus.

Awards and honors

Agee has received honorary doctorates from Franciscan University of Steubenville, Loyola College, Stonehill College, Franklin Pierce College, Chestnut Hill College, Notre Dame College and the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley. [12]

In the 1980s, Good Housekeeping voted Agee in their 100th Anniversary Edition as one of "100 Young Women of Promise", and she was included among the YWCA's Academy of Women Achievers. [44] Her business awards include the inaugural Ambassador of the Year Award from Legatus, [45] the ITV Woman of the Year Award from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, the John Paul II Award from the Institute for the Psychological Sciences, and the Ex corde Ecclesiae Award from the Cardinal Newman Society. [46]

Agee also received the Economic Equity Award from the Women's Equity Action League and the Centennial Medal of Honor from the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America. Her views were included in "American Women Activists' Writing - An Anthology, 1637-2002." [47] In 2017, she was selected for inclusion in the publication, "Wine Country Women of Napa Valley" which featured leaders in the community. [48]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Masson</span> American businessman (1859–1940)

Paul Masson was an early pioneer of California viticulture known for his brand of Californian sparkling wine.

Vincent Hugo Bendix was an American inventor and industrialist. Vincent Bendix was a pioneer and leader in both the automotive and aviation industries during the 1920s and 1930s.

Thomas Stephen Monaghan is an American entrepreneur who founded Domino's Pizza in 1960. He owned the Detroit Tigers from 1983 to 1992. Monaghan also owns the Domino's Farms Office Park, located in the Ann Arbor Charter Township, Michigan, which he first started building during 1984.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint Agnes Academy (Texas)</span> Private, all-female school in Houston, , Texas, United States

St. Agnes Academy is a Dominican college-preparatory school for young women grades 9 through 12 in the Chinatown area and in the Greater Sharpstown district of Houston, Texas. The school operates within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosabeth Moss Kanter</span> American economist

Rosabeth Moss Kanter is the Ernest L. Arbuckle professor of business at Harvard Business School. She is also director and chair of the Harvard University Advanced Leadership Initiative.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Agee</span> American businessman

William McReynolds Agee was an American business executive. In 1976 at age 38, he was appointed president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Bendix Corporation. From 1988 to 1995, Agee was the chairman, president, and CEO of Morrison-Knudsen.

Mary Alice Williams is a former co-anchor of NBC's Weekend Today and a former anchor and news division Vice President on CNN. She most recently served as the anchor of NJTV News on New Jersey's public television network, NJTV, from July 2014 to March 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Purcell</span>

Robert W. Purcell (1912–1991) was an American businessman and philanthropist, having served as financial advisor to the Rockefeller Family from 1955 to 1979 and as chairman of the board of trustees of Cornell University from 1968 to 1978. During his tenure as Chair, two different Presidents, James A. Perkins and Dale Corson, resigned. However, his tenure as Chair also marked expanded minority enrollment, the founding of the Africana Studies and Research Center, and adding five student members to the Board of Trustees. Purcell also served on a number of corporate boards and had a noted role in Bendix Corporation's 1982 attempt to acquire Martin Marietta.

St. Pius V High School was a private, Roman Catholic high school in the Bronx, New York. It was located within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and operated from 1930 to 2011.

The Sisters of the Divine Compassion (also known as Religious of Divine Compassion (RDC)) are a Roman Catholic religious institute founded in New York City in 1886 by Mother Mary Veronica (formerly Mary Dannat Starr), Msgr. Thomas Preston, and a group of young women moved by the "Compassion of God" in their lives and by a desire to bring that compassion to New York City’s destitute children in tangible ways.

Dawnine Sample Dyer is an American winemaker and entrepreneur who pioneered the use of champagne-making methods in California's fledgling sparkling wine industry in the 1970s.

Eleanor Mary Josaitis was the co-founder of Focus: HOPE.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Nurturing Network</span>

The Nurturing Network, founded by American business executive and author, Mary Cunningham Agee, is an international charitable organization dedicated to relieving abuse, neglect and exploitation. The organization states that its purpose is to provide educational resources and support to those who are most vulnerable.

Afia Serena Nathaniel is an independent Pakistani filmmaker who works primarily as a writer, director, producer and editor. She is a graduate of the Film Division at the Columbia University School of the Arts (2006).

Mary Caroline Richards was an American poet, potter, and writer best known for her book Centering: in Pottery, Poetry and the Person. Educated at Reed College, in Portland, Oregon, and at the University of California at Berkeley, she taught English at the Central Washington College of Education and the University of Chicago, but in 1945 became a faculty member of the experimental Black Mountain College in North Carolina where she continued to teach until the end of the summer session in 1951.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Callahan Erdoes</span> American banker (born 1967)

Mary Callahan Erdoes is Chief Executive Officer of J.P. Morgan Asset & Wealth Management, a global leader in investment management and private banking with over $4 trillion in client assets. She is also one of the longest standing members of JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s Operating Committee.

Esther Eberstadt Baldwin (1894–1987), better known as Esther Eberstadt Brooke, was an author and vocational counselor. Baldwin published several books on careers and healthy living. She earned recognition for her expertise in employment opportunities for women during the 1930s and 1940s. Her 1933 article in Good Housekeeping magazine challenged perceptions of how colleges prepared women to enter the workplace in the shifting economy of that time.

Ellen Levine was an American media executive. From 2006 to 2016, she served as the Editorial Director of Hearst Magazines, and served as a consultant to Hearst from January 2017. She was responsible for the launches of numerous successful magazines, including O: The Oprah Magazine and Food Network Magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">M. Shawn Copeland</span> African American Catholic theologian

Mary Shawn Copeland, known professionally as M. Shawn Copeland, is a retired American womanist and Black Catholic theologian, and a former religious sister. She is professor emerita of systematic theology at Boston College and is known for her work in theological anthropology as well as political theology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miyoko Schinner</span>

Miyoko Schinner is an American vegan activist, entrepreneur, chef, cookbook author, and founder of the dairy-free goods company, Miyoko's Creamery. She is considered a pioneer in the production of vegan cheese.

References

  1. 1 2 Powerplay: What Really Happened at Bendix, Mary Cunningham Agee, Simon & Schuster, 1984
  2. ↑ The World Almanac and Book of Facts, Infobase Publishing, New York, NY, 1981
  3. ↑ The World Almanac and Book of Facts, Infobase Publishing, New York, NY, 1982
  4. ↑ The Catholic Funding Guide - A Directory of Resources for Catholic Activities, FADICA, 4th Edition, 2005
  5. 1 2 3 A Practical Compassion, Deirdre Frontczak, North Coast Catholic, Diocese of Santa Rosa, April 2011, pp 7–11
  6. ↑ "A Dream on Canvas", Stacy Mattingly, Crisis Magazine , The Morley Institute, 1996
  7. 1 2 Compassion in Action – Maternal Profiles in Courage, Mary Cunningham Agee, Cypress Press, 2006
  8. ↑ Chaplain at Dartmouth College
  9. ↑ William Liguori Nolan, Inside Catholic, George Rutler, September 2, 2007
  10. 1 2 3 4 "A Bendix Vice-President Faces Down Gossips Who Joke of Executive Sweets", People, Julie Greenwalt, Jon Keller Vol. 14, No. 16, October 20, 1980
  11. ↑ American Women Activists' Writings - An Anthology, 1637–2002, Kathryn Cullen-DuPont, Cooper Square Press, 2002, pp. 544–556
  12. 1 2 3 Cambridge Who's Who Registry - Executive & Professional Biographies, 2009 Edition
  13. ↑ "Mary Cunningham's Quiet Triumph", Detroit Free Press - Business Monday, January 11, 1993
  14. ↑ Powerplay: What Really Happened at Bendix, Mary Cunningham Agee, Simon & Schuster, 1984, p13
  15. ↑ Managing Markets in the 21st Century, Noel Capon, Wessex Publishing, 2007
  16. 1 2 "Business: Bendix Abuzz", Time, October 6, 1980
  17. 1 2 Mary Agee, USNews & World Report, Megan Barnett, February 28, 2005
  18. ↑ "On Language; Perils of the Fast Track Vetting", William Safire, New York Times, November 2, 1980
  19. ↑ "Bendix Backs Executive: Says She'll Stay in Post, Phillip H. Wiggins, New York Times, September 30, 1980
  20. 1 2 "Mary Cunningham", Julie Greenwalt, People, Vol. 14, No. 26, December 29, 1980
  21. 1 2 "Mary Cunningham", Redux, Time, March 9, 1981
  22. 1 2 Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases, Manuel G. Velasquez, Prentice Hall, 1982
  23. ↑ Powerplay -- What Really Happened at Bendix; Mary Cunningham, Linden Press/ Simon and Schuster, New York, 1984, ISBN   0-671-47563-0
  24. ↑ O'Reilly, brian; de Llosa, Patty; rRao, Rajiv M. (May 29, 1995). "Agee in Exile". CNN Money. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
  25. ↑ Chozick, Amy (2018-02-10). "Before There Was #MeToo, There Was Mary Cunningham". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-11-15.
  26. ↑ "A spiritual life helps Bendix cause celebre pursue mission," Chicago Tribune , February 28, 1993
  27. 1 2 "Business World: A Working Woman's Network Into Motherhood", Tim W. Ferguson, The Wall Street Journal , August 4, 1990
  28. 1 2 "Network of Hope", Una McManus, Reader's Digest , November 1991, pp 132–136
  29. ↑ Powerplay: What Really Happened at Bendix, Mary Cunningham Agee, Simon & Schuster, 1984, pp 11-12
  30. ↑ "Attacking Abortion in a Positive Way", Joseph G. Maty, The Wall Street Journal, September 18, 1990
  31. ↑ "Mary Agee", U.S. News & World Report, February 20, 2005, printed, February 28, 2005
  32. ↑ "Pro-Nurturing Alternative to Abortion", The Washington Post, July 1994
  33. ↑ "The Nurturing Network", Good Housekeeping, November 1991
  34. ↑ "Building a Culture of Life." The Human Life Review, The Human Life Foundation, Inc., New York, NY, Vol. XXVIII, Nos. 1 & 2, Winter / Spring 2002
  35. ↑ "Whole Lotta Love for Moms & Babies", Business: Mary Cunningham Agee, Pro-Family Profile, Gina Giambrone, National Catholic Register, January 14–20, 2007, B2-B2
  36. ↑ "CBS 48 Hours Special", August 11, 1993
  37. ↑ "Mary Cunningham Agee with Dr. James Dobson", Focus on the Family Radio, July 30–31, 1992
  38. ↑ Mary Cunningham Agee, Pro-LIfe Christians, Joe Gulotta, Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., Rockford, IL, 1992, p 77
  39. ↑ Celebrating Two Decades of Compassion in Action, John Hardham, Light Wave Communications, Underwood, WA, July 2005
  40. ↑ "Arms Unfolded", Todd David Whitmore, The Notre Dame Magazine, Summer 2005
  41. ↑ The Next Civil War, ABC News Forum, Peter Jennings, November 1, 1990
  42. ↑ Cohen, Laurie P. (June 4, 2003). "How a Tyco Lawyer Channeled Windfall Into an Unlikely Cause". The Wall Street Journal.
  43. ↑ "U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (PA) Joins Law Center Board". Thomas More Law Center. Retrieved 25 November 2012.
  44. ↑ "Bendix Ex-Aide a Hit at Lunch - Woman Who Quit Honored by Y.W.C.A.", Colleen Sullivan, The New York Times , November 20, 1980
  45. ↑ "Ambassador of the Year", Legatus, Vol.7, No.7, March 1994
  46. ↑ "Mary Cunningham Agee 2001 Ex corde Ecclesiae Award Recipient," The Turnaround, The Cardinal Newman Society, Fall 2001
  47. ↑ American Women Activists' Writing, An Anthology, 1637-2002, Kathryn Cullen-DuPont, Cooper Square Press, New York, NY, ISBN   0-8154-1185-5
  48. ↑ Wine Country Women of Napa Valley, Cameron & Co, Petaluma, CA, October 2017, ISBN   978-1-944903-18-3
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.