Sally Helgesen is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and consultant, and one of the world’s brand-name experts on women’s leadership. Her latest book, The Female Vision: Women’s Real Power at Work, is the first to make the strategic case for women leaders.

"Sally Helgesen is a brilliant thinker who can turn her great ideas into practical advice. No one can provide greater insight for women on seeking to be leaders or for organizations trying to develop talented women."

—Marshall Goldsmith, author, Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back.

"The feedback from participants was overwhelming -- Sally packed a wallop with her insights."

—Chris St.Clare, Partner & Women's Advisory Board, KPMG

"Powerful and engaging."

—Mary Howell, EVP, Textron Corp.

"Sally strikes a raw nerve on the most pressing topic of the day. Full of practical solutions and great ideas."

—Alicia Whitaker, MD Global HR, CreditSuisse

"Sally is provocative yet practical in offering proven strategies for leveraging the power of in the global marketplace."

—Bill Mills, VP, Talent Management, United Way of America

"Great takeaways and plenty of aha's."

—J. Michael Keeling, President, ESOP Association

Wildcatters: A Story of Texas, Oil, and Money

Click here to order Wildcatters now, from Beard Books.

Wildcatters was my first book, originally published in 1982, and I am very happy that Beard Books has brought it back into print. The book tells the story of the last years of the Texas oil boom of the late seventies and early eighties-- an era familiar to the entire world because of the wildly entertaining television series, Dallas. It was a wide-open time when independent oil producers were still staking claims and drilling for oil all over the southern United States, following the timeless frontier maxim, "Get while the getting's good and move on." Having spent sixteen months traveling around Texas in that period, my old Smith Corona portable stuffed in the trunk of my white Corvair, I can tell you that the plot lines of Dallas were not far fetched, nor were the colorful characters an exaggeration.

That era is totally over. Exploration has moved overseas, and huge corporations control it. Wildcatters focuses on the transition, embodied in the desire of Dick Moncrief, a third generation oilman determined to stake his claim in the Middle East despite the disapproval of his grandfather, the oil biz icon W.A. "Monty" Moncrief-- one of the most charismatic individuals I have ever met, and an old bull whose even mild disapproval few could withstand. Dick finally made his deal, closing with the Israelis to drill in Sinai-- and found oil a few days before the land was returned to Egypt. He proved his grandfather's skepticism right, yet he pointed the way forward, to the internationalization of the oil business. Dick now spends a lot of his time in places like Baku.

People often ask me how I came to write Wildcatters. It's so different than my other books--most notably because it's about a business dominated entirely by men. The answer is that I backed into my subject, but then fell in love with it. I was originally sent down to Texas by Harper's Magazine, with the object of covering the Cullen Davis trial in Amarillo. Davis, who came from a Fort Worth oil family, was accused of murdering his wife's boyfriend and her daughter during a night of slaughter at their Fort Worth mansion.

In some ways the trial was fascinating, and I enjoyed hanging out in Amarillo, but ultimately I found the proceedings sleazy. Besides, the fine Texas writer Gary Cartwright was at the trial writing what would become an excellent book about the case, Blood Will Tell. I felt Cartwright had the story covered. However, I got caught up in the fun of interviewing people in the oil business and decided they would make a better story. Besides, I was sick of New York-- had sort of burned myself out during the disco era-- and was ready for a change. Texas seemed perfect.

Spending sixteen months in the state in the company of oil entrepreneurs, mud salesmen, lease rustlers, unimaginably rich socialites, artists, wild-man writers, and disreputable hangers on, changed the way I look at the world. It made me far more tolerant and open to people whose values as different than mine, and caused me to question some of the pieties that I, growing up in a liberal academic family, had always held dear. In an often provincial world, I became more cosmopolitan. And I fell in love with the big sky and endless sense of possibility that is forms the irreducible essence of the great frontier that still shapes how Americans view themselves and the larger world.