From Richmond Magazine comes this profile of Longwood’s interim president, Marge Connelly.
Marge Connelly is a nationally noted businesswoman, a tireless volunteer, a world traveler and a vocal advocate for gay rights.
You might start telling someone about Marge Connelly by noting that Richmond’s highest-ranking Capital One corporate officer worked her way from a position as a customer service rep answering mail at a Delaware banking company all the way up to the vice president level in about seven years. And about five years after that, she was ranked No. 3 in a publicly traded Fortune 500 company that’s now our region’s biggest private employer. And she’s just 43.
Or you might note that Connelly really fell into the credit-card industry after her first career — lead singer and keyboardist for an all-girl band called The Girlfriends (with a sound she calls “somewhere between Heart and the Go-Go’s, but harder than the Go-Go’s”) — didn’t take off like she had hoped.
Or maybe you’d discuss her passion for travel. If you add it up, Connelly, her partner and their two children have globe-trotted their way across more than 30 countries, including exotic locales like India (where Connelly went on a state trade mission with Gov. Mark Warner); the ghettos of Soweto, South Africa; Russia; China; and even the continent of Antarctica. Connelly’s been a certified scuba diver for about 10 years. Her family vacation this year? After she gets back from a business trip to Milan, Italy, Connelly, her partner and their daughter are trekking into the heart of the Rwandan jungle on a photo safari in search of wild gorillas. (Really.) Continue.
