WESTBOROUGH, MA. _ Attorney Christine Smith Collins has been appointed to the Advisory Board of the Female Leadership Interest Council, Inc. (FLIC). Collins will join a diverse group of top-level executives in the region, led by Deborah Penta, PENTA Communications, Inc. CEO and founder of FLIC.
FLIC is a non-profit organization founded on the principles of female leadership, mentoring and the belief that when you can help someone else succeed, you personally grow and prosper. The Council’s mission is to provide educational instruction to women to assist in developing their capabilities in the business world, which will increase the likelihood that their successes will benefit the community.
“Christine serves as a wonderful role model for women with her incredible passion and commitment to accomplishing goals both in business and in life,” Penta said. “We are pleased to have Christine join our board and know that she will be a great mentor for women.”
“I took this position on the Advisory Board because FLIC tackles such important issues for women,” Collins said.
Collins grew up believing that as a woman, she could do anything a man could do. Her mom left her career and became a stay-at-home mom, however, she instilled in her daughter the belief that there are no barriers.
“There was no sense in our home that a man can do that and I can’t,” she said. “That is typical of my generation.”
Collins went from her home in Connecticut to Trinity College in Hartford, and received her Bachelor of Arts in History. It was at Trinity College where Collins became interested in rowing, a passion that took her in later years to seven World Rowing Championships and the 2000 Summer Olympics.
After Trinity College, Collins went on to attend law school at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. It was while rowing at George Washington University that she met her future husband, Matt, then a medical student.
“Matt has family (in the Worcester area), so we came back here,” Collins said, adding that today he is the medical director of the Family Health Center of Worcester.
In 1999, Collins began working at the law offices of Bowditch & Dewey in Worcester, as well as continuing her rowing. She was given time off from the firm to begin training for the 2000 Summer Olympics, where she won a bronze medal in the Lightweight Women’s Double division.
Today, Collins is a senior associate at the firm, a mom to two young boys, and still an avid rower. She also is a mentor to two junior female associates at Bowditch & Dewey. When she was asked to join the Advisory Board, Collins said she was intrigued.
“I was so interested in the spectrum of women on the Advisory Board. They are a generation ahead of me in terms of their careers. They are where I’d like to be in five years, at the pinnacle of their careers,” she said. “I feel that I can fill in a gap in the current Board. I can help to give a perspective of how it feels to be a woman with small children and have a career.”
Collins said she feels it is vitally important that women work to help each other.
“My hope is that women, through the efforts of FLIC, recognize that women need to become more supportive to other women on their journeys to success,” Penta concurred. “FLIC offers women a really solid opportunity to learn from each other on what works and what doesn’t work and support each other along the way. The time has come for us to learn how to play much better in the sandbox.”
“I think women are engineered differently than men. We need to help each other to stay on track and feel fulfilled in our careers and our home life. We need to help foster that and be a resource for other women,” Collins explained. “We’re in a generation now that was brought up to want to have kids, but also have a career. We don’t want to cut women off at the knees by not supporting them in their endeavors.”
“I’m impressed with Deborah Penta and FLIC. It truly is a stroke of genius,” Collins said. “I am thrilled to be part of an organization to help women.”
For more information on FLIC, log onto femaleleaders.org.
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