Mary Cunningham Agee

Mary Cunningham Agee
Mary Agee
Born	1951 Falmouth, Maine or Portland, Maine

Mary Cunningham Agee (born 1951 in Falmouth, Maine) 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 twice voted one of the “25 Most Influential Women in America” by World Almanac 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.

Agee is founder and CEO of The Nurturing Network (TNN), an international charitable organization that provides alternatives to abortion for women facing unplanned pregnancies. She is a counselor to TNN clients and a motivational speaker.^[5][6][7]

Early years

Cunningham was born in Portland, 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 “Father Bill” Nolan, who was 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. Her family could not afford an Ivy League college, so 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 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 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

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]}

Following her departure from Bendix, Cunningham 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 divorced her first husband and in June 1982, nearly two years after leaving Bendix, married William Agee.^[23]

The Nurturing Network

Agee lost her first child, Angela Grace, in a late trimester miscarriage in January 1984.^[5][24] That prompted Agee to investigate the availability of resources for women whose pregnancies end through abortion due to lack of economic, educational or social support.^[25][26] Agee then decided to create The Nurturing Network. The Agees sold their vacation home for start-up funds and The Nurturing Network opened its doors, providing women with access to resources, counseling and advice.^[27] Agee's role at TNN includes writing and motivational speaking.^[28]

Agee was an early advocate of establishing a common ground in the debate over abortion.^[29][30][31] Peter Jennings noted Agee's common ground position in his report, "The Next Civil War" on ABC News Forum.^[32]

Agee's book Compassion in Action^[7] presents her story of the Network's program over 20 years. Her work has been featured^[33] in publications such as the Wall Street Journal,^[25][34] Reader's Digest,^[26]US News and World Report,^[35] The Washington Post,^[36] and Good Housekeeping,^[37][38][39] and she has been profiled on American radio and television programs such as CBS's 48 Hours,^[40] and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family.^[41]

Affiliations

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 prolife Culture of Life Foundation,^[42] the prolife 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. Agee currently serves on the board of overseers for the Aquinas House at Dartmouth College and the board of directors for Clinia Verde. She is a member of the advisory council of the Hoover Institution and a fellow of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley.^[12]

Awards and honors

Agee has received honorary doctorates from Franciscan University, 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 Archdiocese of New York, the John Paul II Award from the Institute for the Psychological Sciences, 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, the Centennial Medal of Honor from the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University of America, and a national award by Childhelp USA.

References

Fellow at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley http://www.dspt.edu/mary-cunningham-agee

External links

• The Nurturing Network