Debra Condren

Dr. Debra Condren interviewed 500 women for her book, Ambition Is Not a Dirty Word: A Woman's Guide to Earning Her Worth and Achieving Her Dreams. Broadway Books, Cat.: Bus. & Economics.

As a business psychologist, career and executive coach, small business advisor, and founder of the Women's Business Alliance, she has coached thousands of women at every level—from those just starting out, to the most powerful female executives in America—and in each of them is the same fear of going after a dream because she’ll be seen as selfish, bitchy, a bad wife or bad mother. But it’s exactly this fear of ambition that has forced women to leave the best part of themselves—their dreams, their great talents—by the roadside, and has made them less able to be the whole person they should be in every area of life. Condren has a new message and mission: To remind women that ambition is a virtue, not a vice. Ambition is the best of who we are.

She received a U.S. Small Business Administration's "Women in Business Advocate of the Year 2000" award, and served as an advisory board member to an American Psychological Association's presidential task force on adolescent girls. Her client roster includes a diverse list of Fortune 500 companies, and a wide array of entrepreneurs, executives, professionals, and students between the ages of sixteen and sixty. Her advice has been featured in major media outlets including the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, BusinessWeek, ABC's Nightline, CNN's Paula Zahn Now and NPR's Morning Edition. She lives in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, son, and stepson