Like many professional women, Eleanor Lyons and Mary Gross spent much of their careers performing a delicate balancing act between their work and home lives.
Today, as owners of their own human resources consulting group, the balance has shifted entirely in their favor.
Lyons and Gross named their business Human Edge Resources—HER, LLC—to describe not only their business, but also who they are—women doing what they want to do, how they want to do it.
“You have a lot less choice about the type of work and the projects you do [working for someone else],” Gross said.
“We’ve actually turned down business already,” Lyons said. “We had requests for work that we did not want to do—things that we did in our corporate jobs that we had no passion around.”
Gross, of Pennington, is a certified public accountant whose early career centered on accounting and senior finance positions at financial institutions. Lyons, who lives in Newtown Township, spent eight and a half years as a leadership trainer at General Electric.
Their career paths crossed in 2000 when they both worked for Summit Bank—Lyons as a trainer, Gross as head of the training group. They survived the bank’s merger with Fleet but were laid off when Bank of America took over. They found development jobs at the same financial services firm and continued their friendship.
All the while, the women thought about going into business together. Gross cut back her hours to part time as she pursued her doctorate in organizational psychology. Lyons, in the meantime, grew frustrated because of the elimination of her flexible schedule, which let her work from home twice a week.
“It was perfect timing to get the business started,” Lyons said.
Human Edge Resources, which launched in June, provides strategic development, leadership training, executive coaching and other services. Lyons and Gross said they work closely with clients to create the right program to fit their needs.
At Clinton, N.J. based Unity Bank, Gross helped management put together its 2008-2010 strategic plan, said bank CEO Jim Hughes. She ran the meetings and helped write the plan, Hughes said.
“[Gross] has excellent communication skills, both verbal and written,” he said. “She certainly understands the dynamics of boards and management and helping the companies with their strategic thinking. That she’s intimately familiar with banking made it a no-brainer.”
Gross and Lyons serve as perfect foils to each other.
“Eleanor is much more original, creative, think-outside-the-box,” Gross said. “I spent eighteen years in finance. Together, we’re a really good balance. She’ll challenge me on breaking the rules, and I know whether there are rules to break.”
But they said they have similar views on balancing their work and home lives.
Both women have two children—Gross’ are ten and sixteen, Lyons’ are six and nine. Both come from fairly large families. Gross is one of seven kids; Lyons has five siblings.
They also said owning their own business hasn’t lessened the need to balance work and home lives. It has just changed how they perform the balancing act.
“You have more choice without feeling guilty and without someone pressuring you, “Why weren’t you at work between eight and five?’ ” Gross said. “From a balance standpoint, it gives you a lot more choice.”
