Leisa: Hello, I’m Leisa Holland-Nelson and welcome to another edition of Women Mean Business where we’re going to take you up close and personal with extraordinary women doing extraordinary things. My guest today is Dean Latha Ramchand, the Dean of the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston and Professor of Finance. Welcome to Women Mean Business.

Latha: Thank you.

Leisa: My question for you now is imagine we have a young business woman, young woman in education with us at this moment and she would like to achieve the success that you’ve achieved – be the Dean of an incredible business school one day – what advice would you give her?

Latha: I would tell her let’s say three things.

Leisa: Okay.

Latha: First off you need to be absolutely sure about the reasons why you want to do that. So what is it that makes you aspire to be Dean? And be clear about that; maybe write it down and think about what is it that makes you want to do that because a big part of that is going to drive how effective you are as a Dean. The second thing is clearly you need a group of people – mentors and network – to help you get there; choose your network carefully, bring in people that think very differently from you – and this where I think a lot of people falter in that we tend to bring people that are just like ourselves. Shake your comfort zone, move out of your comfort zone, invite people that don’t think like you and very importantly listen to what they have to say because they can provide you that perspective that you don’t have just by yourself. So listen to them and really make sure that you’re in this for the long run. So those would be the three things that I would tell her.

Leisa: Thank you. There you have it, extraordinary advice from an extraordinary woman. I’m Leis Holland-Nelson, President and Co-founder of ContentActive, Houston’s leading web and mobile design and development company. You can find me at ContentActive.com or follow me on Twitter @LHNelson. We’ll be back again next week with another edition of Women Mean Business.