Ann Cotton Quotes

I decided in '96 to dedicate my life to mostly promoting literacy and education for girls in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The best advice I can give women at all levels is increase training. There are still areas where we have to break through that glass ceiling.

I think women of our generation went through Cultural Revolution, went through hardship, coming from nowhere, and suddenly see China's amazing opportunity. So women just seized the opportunity.

We know that if you educate a girl, as the saying goes, you educate a nation. That girl will get married later, she will have fewer children, she's more likely to earn an income, and that income is more likely to be plowed back into the family so that the family benefits.

Empowering women with greater income opportunities will lift societies at a much faster rate.

We need to do a better job of mentorships and role models to bring other young women along so that there's more women in our boardrooms, there's more women here in the United States Senate and in Congress. I think there's an important role for women to play.

I have led the way for moving women from traditional roles to strategic positions and inspired girls and women throughout Africa to seek leadership positions.

In 1989, I started the National Association of Business Women. We incorporated microfinance and different job training for women. We did a survey, with USAID, that found women lacked training, credit and information.

Targeting women is key in developing countries. It allows them to go to school, to say how many children they're going to have, which drives the issue of population and how their children will be educated. Women are the best investments in developing countries.

Making sure that mothers are educated means we can lift more people out of poverty and build a more inclusive and sustainable society.

My hope in writing 'Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead' was to change the conversation from what women can't do to what we can.

The majority of small-holder farmers in Africa are women and, in urban areas, you're primarily looking at women-led households. So we can't solve hunger if we don't have gender-sensitive programming that addresses access to opportunities for women, whether it's through education or tools for cooking, like solar-powered stoves.

I sat down in 1989 and I made up my mind at that point that I was going to spend the rest of my life assisting women and youth to gain social and political empowerment through business and education. I convinced myself economic empowerment of women was going to be key, especially in a country like this where most women didn't go to school.

Growing economies are critical; we will never be able to end poverty unless economies are growing. We also need to find ways of growing economies so that the growth creates good jobs, especially for young people, especially for women, especially for the poorest who have been excluded from the economic system.

When I got to be a CEO, I said: 'Right. I'm now going to tackle gender inequality head-on. I'm going to make a difference and lead by example and actively put in place policies and practices to support women.'

Some companies are already investing in women and thereby betting on a brighter future - for a workforce just waiting to blossom, for emerging economies whose development depends on this new talent, and, of course, for their own financial growth.

Overall, I have formed three major organizations: the National Association of Business Women, the Young Women's Leaders Network, and the Joyce Banda Foundation. Under the foundation, we have a huge program that targets women to teach them about HIV and other diseases and to give them economic empowerment.

America cannot turn its back on the economic future and women-owned businesses are part of that future.

Liberating women from repeated childbirth can liberate them from poverty as well.

We need more enlightened women in senior ranks, and we have to insist that companies are more diverse.

One of my goals is to educate myself more as a woman in this business.

Having more education is one of the biggest predictors of women having careers.

Canada truly understands that girls and women who have access to a safe and high-quality education is a priority.

As a graduate student at Harvard, I had to explain quite a few times that I was allowed to attend a university as a woman in Iran.

As individuals, we professional women need to learn how to raise our hands and ask for more throughout our careers.