In 1996, when I received my admission letter to the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (now Chicago Booth), a separate envelope arrived inviting me to apply for the Herman Family Fellowship for Women in Entrepreneurship. I cast it aside. I wasn’t an entrepreneur. I didn’t have time. Weeks later, tidying my tiny New York City studio apartment, I found the letter buried under a stack of mail. The application was due the next day.
I thought to myself, “You can’t win if you don’t play.”
So, I wrote the essay, completed the application, and faxed it in the next morning. There was no email in those days. A few weeks later, a letter arrived congratulating me on being named a Herman Fellow. That fellowship essentially paid for business school. But what it gave me beyond tuition was immeasurably greater.
Mike and Karen Herman, who ironically lived in my hometown of Kansas City, became guardian angels to me. They became mentors, confidantes, and dear friends who remain so to this day. As a member of just the second class of Fellows, I have had the extraordinary privilege of watching their vision grow over decades. Every year, they host a reunion of all Herman Fellows at the University of Chicago, offering encouragement and guidance with the same generosity of spirit they showed when they established the fellowship in the first place.
What makes Mike and Karen’s model so remarkable is not just what they give, but what they set in motion. They don’t simply write a check and walk away. They invest in women, and then they stay, showing up year after year, building a community of Fellows who learn from one another and carry that spirit forward into the world.
I was reminded of this power recently when I read a letter from Katlin Smith, a fellow Herman Fellow and the founder of Simple Mills. Katlin shared that the fellowship arrived at a true crossroads in her life, when she was debating whether to keep going with a very early-stage venture. The Hermans’ belief in her helped her stay the course. Simple Mills grew into the largest natural cracker, cookie, and baking mix brand in the country, and was sold last year for nearly $800 million. Along the way, the company elevated ingredient standards, supported regenerative agriculture, and nourished countless families.
But here is what moved me most: inspired by the Hermans’ example, Katlin has now helped establish a new scholarship at Booth to support entrepreneurs building businesses that leave the world better than they found it. She is also channeling her energy toward cultivating more women in leadership across business and civic life. In her words, she is simply trying to carry forward the kind of belief and encouragement that the Hermans extended to her at a formative moment.
That is the compounding effect. A single act of generosity became a fellowship. That fellowship became a community. That community produced leaders who are now creating their own fellowships, their own legacies. Mike and Karen Herman didn’t just invest in women’s education. They built a self-perpetuating engine of possibility.
As one of the elder stateswomen of the Herman Fellowship, I can say with certainty: the returns on Mike and Karen’s investment are incalculable, and they are compounding still.
Happy Networking!