Catholic businesswomen are drawing inspiration from St. Margaret Clitherow, the patron saint of businesswomen, whose feast day is March 26.
“What an incredible leader and heroic woman,” Judy Dunn, who serves on the Board of Governors for Legatus, an international organization of lay Catholic business leaders, said. “Her love for the faith, her love of Jesus Christ … that was number one.”
The 16th century Catholic convert, wife and mother died a martyr after hiding priests and hosting secret Masses in Elizabethan England. St. Margaret Clitherow was crushed to death under the weight of a door heaped with rocks on Good Friday. At the time, she may have been pregnant.
While dying, the saint cried out, “Jesu! Jesu! Jesu! Have mercy on me!”
Today, St. Margaret Clitherow’s witness “gives us the strength and the courage to be able to live our faith in our businesses and our community and with our friends, because we do have it — for lack of a better word — so much easier than she did,” Lindsey Nix, a founding member of the Legatus chapters in Louisville, Kentucky, and Evansville, Indiana, said.
Advice for Catholic businesswomen
For St. Margaret Clitherow’s feast day, Dunn and Nix spoke with Our Sunday Visitor about living out their Catholic faith as successful women in business and offered their advice for other Catholic women entering or navigating the business world.
Dunn encouraged women to “be present” and “not to hide behind social media, not to hide behind a computer, but be there in person and be with people.” She also wanted women to embrace their identity.
“If you try to just follow people, you’re never going to become yourself — become what the dear Lord wants you to,” she said. “We need mentors and we need people to guide us, but try to know and understand what your strengths are, your weaknesses, and always be open — open to advice.”
“I think one of the most difficult things for women in business is … they think they have to compete with the men,” she said at another point. “You have to be yourself, and you can be more than equal to anybody else.”
Dunn, who has been a Legatus member since 2018, shared her own journey. She holds over 25 years of experience as a business, sales and marketing executive and previously served as president and owner of a wine distributorship, Decanter Imports, in Michigan.
In the last decade, she has focused on serving the Church and is currently director of Aspen Catholic, the outreach arm of St. Mary Catholic Church in Aspen, Colorado. She has been involved in church and building-project fundraising and served in leadership roles at FOCUS, the Augustine Institute and Endow. She spent over 20 years on the Detroit board of the Daughters of Charity volunteering with children who are homeless, and also helped the Missionaries of Charity with mission trips worldwide.
When first starting at an organization or beginning something new, Dunn recommends others to “be dumb.”
“Ask questions, learn (from other people), before you try to make decisions,” she explained. “Get to know what people do and how they do it so that you can make good decisions and you can be helpful.”
A saintly example
While sharing her advice, Nix said that St. Margaret Clitherow prayed for the conversion and good of Queen Elizabeth I, who was responsible for the saint’s death.
“In business … it’s competitive and can be very cutthroat at times,” Nix said. “So it’s trying to live like St. Margaret did, to wish well on those that we could have issues with.”
Nix serves as the Director of Public Relations & Training at Nix Companies, Inc., a family holding company in Indiana, where her husband, Matthew, is president and CEO. Like Dunn, she has dedicated herself to service, with a focus on family businesses, education and Catholic causes. Among other leadership roles, she sits on the boards of the local Catholic Charities and Legatus’ National Marketing Committee
Nix encouraged women to want the good of others. She also wanted them to know that God will provide.
“Living with that grace that (St. Margaret Clitherow) lived with and died with, I think, can help Catholic women in the business field get through some of those long and tough days,” she said. “It’s extending that grace to … those folks that you work with because we’re all dealing with things outside of our control.”
“Always treating people with respect and dignity can go a long way because I think we’re living in a world (where) that’s not commonplace anymore,” she said. “I think we can learn a lot from St. Margaret on how we treat each other.”
Work-life balance
Both women spoke about the difficulty in juggling their responsibilities with work and personal life.
“My work-personal life balance is pretty tough,” Dunn revealed. “I just can’t say ‘no’ because it broadens my faith and gives me the opportunity to deepen my relationship with Jesus Christ and, at the same time, (to) try to give back.”
Nix also expressed her and her husband’s desire to give back.
“How wonderful it is for us to get to work together and build this business and use the gifts and the talents that God has given us to hire wonderful people and change people’s lives and then, in turn, give to our community,” she said.
Dunn said that a work-life balance is important for both women and men and emphasized a need to pray about it. Nix, the mother of three young boys, recommended that Catholic women surround themselves with like-minded people.
“Early on in my career, I did not do a good job of that balance,” she said. “Things like Legatus and … surrounding myself with other Catholic businesswomen and men who are living their faith lives and putting God first in everything that they do has given me the courage and the confidence to do that.”
She and her husband also try to set a good example in their leadership and in how they treat employees. Nix also recommended sharing personal stories of faith with others.
“Sharing those little bits of our faith and how we ask for Mary’s intercession and how we ask for the saints’ intercession … If we can share those things in the workplace, what that can do to help spread God’s message can be very powerful,” she said.
