S6-EP4: Winifred White Neisser on Ambition, Embracing 70, and What Comes Next

A revealing conversation with a classmate from the Harvard/Radcliffe Class of 1974. This is Season 6 of my [B]OLD AGE podcast. Thank you for listening! I interview authors, experts, and exceptional individuals to reveal the truths about [b]oldly entering old age in a society that, generally, devalues old people. I also invite my husband on as a frequent guest. He’s a retired physician with a dry sense of humor and he makes me laugh. You can find over 100 previous episodes on Apple podcasts or on my website. - Debbie

Don’t miss the essay accompanying this episode: Behind The Scenes with an ambitious [b]old woman.

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Today, Debbie speaks to Winifred White Neisser, a classmate from the Harvard/Radcliffe Class of 1974. Winifred looks back on her career as a television executive in the all-male, all-white Hollywood entertainment industry and talks about what comes next.  Both Debbie and Winifred are looking forward to celebrating their 50th Harvard reunion next year.

Wini, as her friends call her, is very modest. She doesn’t think of herself as a [b]old woman. So it took Debbie a while to get her to talk about her success as an entertainment executive. She capped her 34-year career as Senior VP of Sony Pictures for Television Movies and Miniseries. Her award-winning projects include the movie A Raisin in the Sun for ABC and Call me Claus, a Christmas movie which starred Whoopi Goldberg.

Winifred White Neisser was Senior VP of Sony Pictures for Television Movies and Miniseries

It’s her Midwestern upbringing, Wini told Debbie. They don’t brag or show off in Milwaukee, WI where she grew up. She was never propelled by ambition, she told Debbie. Nor did she plan out next steps as she rose to her position as a top exec. But it wouldn’t be accurate to say that her career “just happened.”

This interview is a story of quiet capability and determination - and underneath, a fierce drive. Debbie was fascinated by her classmate’s story because, with one exception, it’s so different from hers. Debbie married at the absurdly young age of 21 (she was a junior at Harvard). She had her first baby at 25 and two more by age 31. Wini married much later and had her two children in her mid 30s, all the while climbing the TV executive ladder, first at NBC and later at Sony.

In contrast, Debbie’s early motherhood derailed her career in journalism. She was married to a busy young doctor so someone had to hold down the fort at home. She stepped willingly into that role, but felt a good deal of frustration trying to work part-time as a freelance journalist. Underneath, she had the same fierce drive that Wini had. She just couldn’t express it, career-wise, until some years later.

As the conversation continued, Debbie realized that fierce drive and determination sum up the common thread she shares with her female classmates from the Harvard/Radcliffe Class of 1974. There were only 300 women (Cliffies, as they were called) in a class of 1,500 students. So they were vastly outnumbered. They were polite about it, but they were all determined to be successful in their chosen fields — both in Harvard’s male-dominated classrooms and later in the world of work. 

So much has changed for women in the past 50 years so this conversation with Wini is the first of several Debbie is planning with these [b]old women, her 1974 Radcliffe classmates. 

Note: it’s a bit confusing to explain but Radcliffe was the name of the women’s college that was part of Harvard in the 1970s and earlier, so technically the women attended Harvard/Radcliffe. Radcliffe has now been subsumed by Harvard. And the ratio of women to men in a Harvard class is now 50-50. So much has changed in 50 years.

Hope you enjoy this compelling conversation with a 70-year-old (b)old woman.

Mentioned in this episode or useful:

• Lesley University

• Interview with Winifred White Neisser in The Historymakers (Nov. 17, 2013)

• From Season 4, an interview with another accomplished woman of the Harvard/Radcliffe Class of 1974: A’lelia Bundles on Legacy, Leadership, and Growing Bolder at 70

• Angel City Chorale (Winifred is now the Executive Director)

• Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative

Connect with Debbie:

• debbieweil.com

• [B]OLD AGE podcast

• [B]OLD AGE newsletter on Substack

• Email: thebolderpodcast@gmail.com

• Debbie and Sam’s blog: Gap Year After Sixty

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• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/debbieweil

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• CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org)

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• Next For Me (former media partner and in memory of Jeff Tidwell)

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