After spending decades in the top echelons of major companies, Betty Hines wanted to share her experience in the “C-suite” with other women.
A Fort Bragg-born “Army brat” who moved to Maryland in 1992, Hines, who lives in Owings Mills, is the founder and leader of the Women Elevating Women enterprise.
Targeting specifically “that 8% who are hovering around six figures and want to scale to the next level,” W.E.W. is focused on building partnerships and helping women — as well as what Hines calls “visionary men” — be more self-reliant and not depend on government-based support, especially in the wake of “a lot of changes in the U.S. administration.”
“We need to be our own capital,” she repeated several times while speaking with The Sun. Also, Hines said she wants to see businesspeople move from just visibility to infrastructure.
“We need more than just to be seen. We need to build partnerships and economic pathways,” she said.
Hines, who is also a longtime local chair of the Women Presidents Organization, began her career in director roles — primarily in the insurance industry, at companies including Allstate and the former USF&G.
She recalled hustling as a new mother at the time, carrying her baby daughter from place to place.
“For women back then, to prove that you were mobile, you had to move up,” Hines said.
Now, she’s hoping to bring leaders together to collaborate better, noting she thinks women “struggle with how to collaborate.”
For example, she’s worked with a former chief of radiation oncology at LifeBridge Health and a director at Verizon, both of whom felt burned out from their jobs. Hines said they began collaborating, despite being in different industries.
