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Brown, Klatzky Earn “Women in Business Awards”

Published 6 years ago6y ago • Bookmarks: 72

December 5, 2017

by Robert Kimmel –

Two Tarrytown residents, Karen Brown and Antoinette Klatzky, were among those selected by 914INC Magazine to receive its annual Women in Business Awards

Brown and Klatzky were included among the 17 described by the magazine as, “an elite group of Westchester County women who have demonstrated a consistent level of success in their respective fields and have made a lasting impact on both the economy and in their communities.”

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The women chosen were “nominated by their supervisors, peers and co-workers,” and vetted by its editors, according to the magazine. At its seventh annual awards luncheon last month, The Westchester Magazine publication honored the winners in four categories: entrepreneurs, executives, non-profit, and government leaders.

Brown is a Village Trustee and business owner, and Klatsky is the Executive Director of the Eileen Fisher Leadership Institute, (EFLI), and a Core Team member of Eileen Fisher Lifework.

With her husband Kevin, Brown owns the Hudson Barter Exchange, based in Elmsford. She is president and he is CEO. They opened the company in 2008, and it now serves Westchester, Rockland, Bergen, Putnam, Dutchess, Orange, and Fairfield counties, offering what it describes as “trading opportunities throughout the country through a network of barter partnerships.”

“We started with a good idea, and the business has grown successfully,” Brown said. The company serves hundreds of small and large companies in the region, facilitating the trading of goods and services. At this newspaper’s inception, in 2006, Brown was Director of Advertising sales for a two-year period.

Prior to election to the Board of Trustees, Brown had a lengthy tenure as a member of the village’s Zoning Board of Appeals. She and her husband have lived in Tarrytown for more than 20 years, and their twins went through the local school system, graduating from Sleepy Hollow High School. They are now juniors in college.

When she ran for trustee, Brown stated that, “I would like to increase community outreach to get even more Tarrytown residents onto village committees and boards thus ensuring Tarrytown’s prosperity into the future,” a goal she continues to prioritize. She believes her business endeavors are driven by “my entrepreneurial spirit,” and she feels that her experience in dealing with business and economic matters is helpful in her role as a trustee.

Klatzky said she was “delighted… and felt honored to be recognized with a brilliant group of women, both in this round of 914INC awardees, and in the years prior,” by a magazine she respected.

Prior to being a resident in Tarrytown for the past three years, Klatzky lived briefly in Irvington and has worked there for eight years. She was the co-creator of EFLI in 2010, an undertaking of the Eileen Fisher Community Foundation, and which began as a small pilot project with 11 participants. Aimed at promoting leadership among young women, it had as many as 1,400 persons engaged in its programs and activities last year.

Klatzky described her inspiration as having come from her mother and her travels around the world during her teenage and college years, where she spent time helping to “build women’s clinics and other forms of global service learning. The experiences drove me back to Westchester where I got passionate about supporting causes I cared about, making positive changes in my local community and staying connected as global citizens as well,” she stated.

Driven by the same inspirations, Klatzky has undertaken other roles, which include co-chair of Westchester Women’s Agenda, which she stated is a “coalition that values and actively works for gender equality, with the Theater of the Oppressed NYC, an organization sharing innovative tools for social change, and the Presencing Institute, a community of practice for individual and collective transformation rooted in carefully constructed methodology.”

“One of my most recent excitements,” Klatzky noted, “has been to work with Eileen Fisher and share her leadership practices with the Westchester community through our newest initiative in Irvington, ‘Lifework,’ a signature program that supports individuals and businesses in their journey of authentic leadership, bringing mindfulness practices in our lives and work.”

Klatzky’s earlier employment included work at Sarah Lawrence College’s office of community partnerships, and at the White Plains YMCA, where she developed a non-profit organization. Recently, she was a recipient of the Westchester Business Council’s Rising Stars Under Forty Award.

A third woman with past connections to Tarrytown was also among the 914INC honorees. Cynthia Rubino, President & CEO, YMCA of Central & Northern Westchester, was the village’s administrator from 1996 to 1999.

Brown and Klatzky were included among the 17 described by 914INC Magazine as, “an elite group of Westchester County women who have demonstrated a consistent level of success in their respective fields and have made a lasting impact on both the economy and in their communities.”

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