When most women are working hard to fit in with the men, there is one woman on Wall Street that is very unique. She is the the CEO and founder of Patriarch Partners, Lynn Tilton. She got started as a single mom in a man’s world. According to Forbes, her outlandish personality has not come without complaints.
Some recall the 50th birthday party Tilton threw for herself at the office, where employees did jello shots off her belly. Others remember an outdoor meeting she held while wearing a revealing bikini at her beach-side home. In a breach of contract suit, former Patriarch managing director Andrzej Wrobel, fired for allegedly stealing, says Tilton “conduct[ed] a work atmosphere so filled with sexual innuendos and river of vulgarities as to create needless job stress, tension, emotional distress and humiliation on the part of the employees in her presence.†These allegations were in a complaint that was stricken on procedural grounds.
“Most women feel they need to be more like men to be successful,†says Tilton, who is fond of low-cut designer tops, miniskirts, spiky heels, bleach-blond hair worn to the waist and heavy makeup. “I believe that women should be women.â€
Maybe that kind of brassiness is what it takes to survive the banking environment she came from—a crude, rough-and-tumble boys’ club. “Wall Street was a very difficult place to balance striving in a man’s world and being a woman,†she tells me. “You either got comfortable or you left.â€
She is one of few leading ladies of private equity—and something of a rarity in male-dominated industries like auto parts, aviation and manufacturing. Tilton plays up the woman owner shtick. With majority ownership of 52 portfolio companies, she has registered 12 as woman-owned businesses with the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council.
Photo from Patriarch Partners