What prompted you to write Naked in the Boardroom: A CEO Bares Her Secrets So You Can Transform Your Career?
In my last job, as EVP of CNET Networks, I was specifically brought in by the founders to help develop the management team, who knew a lot about the internet but not much about best business practices. I found that what people in their twenties and early thirties were hungry for were stories of my experiences, and realized that by the time my daughter Bonnie, then 4, would be interested in my stories, I might not remember them. So I started the book just as a way of capturing my stories for Bonnie. Friends in book publishing (despite my decades in publishing, I worked almost solely in magazines) convinced me to turn it into a business advice book.

Your book includes 80 "Naked Truths" for women. Are there one or two “Naked Truths” that you think are especially for women at the beginning of the careers? And for entrepreneurs?
Most of them are for women in the early stages of their careers. Here are two of my favorites:

Naked Truth #8: Learn to be your own evaluator, and find the benchmarks to know how you're doing, even when your boss won't tell you. Think about it: if progression up the career ladder is tied to achievement, the law of averages means that your bosses in your early jobs will be the least skilled ones you enoucnter. You will need to measure your own performance and create your own report card.

Naked Truth # 15: Women sabotage themselves by thinking about all the ways they are not perfect for a job opportunity. (Men are untroubled by this.) Don't compare yourself to the ideal -- compare yourself to the other candidates.

There are a bunch of Naked Truths for people starting businesses, and this one sounds minor, but isn't:

Naked Truth #80: The time to arrange credit is when you don't need to borrow. While you are gainfully employed, sign up for as much credit --credit cards, bank lines of credit -- as you qualify for. Once you step off the salary treadmill, you won't be able to get that credit, and it's much cheaper than venture capital.

Are there one or two key messages that you would like our audience to walk away with on March 27th?

Resilience. I interviewed a couple of dozen women who'd become CEOs or c-level executives. All are now in their forties and fifties. All of them ran into tremendous obstacles in careers that were ultimately very successful. They reminded me of golden retrievers: they got wet, but shook it off.

I think it's harder for women today, who don't face some of the overt obstacles that we did. They have higher expectations, so when their careers don't go exactly as planned, they are more shaken by it. Finding your own way to get past a mistake or tough time is critical.

Most business books for women tell you how to play more like a man. I just don't agree with that. I think you succeed in business because of who you are, not despite it, so my book is about finding your personal strengths and playing to them. You succeed by being true to yourself.