Amy Mansue
Spending more than 30 years’ working in both the healthcare industry and government service, Amy Mansue has a wealth of experiences to draw on. But when NJBIA presented her with the Caren Franzini Leadership Award on Friday, it was the award’s namesake she cited as an example of how women should conduct themselves in business.
Franzini, the longtime executive director of the Economic Development Authority, had passion about her community and not about personal recognition, Mansue said. She recalled meeting Franzini and having a conversation without Franzini ever mentioning that she had cancer or anything else about herself.
She said it offered a lesson for the younger people in the audience.
“If you have stuff you have to work through, do it now,” Mansue said. “There are years of my life I wasted wondering, am I pretty enough, am I smart enough, am I thin enough, am I whatever. You what guys, here’s the secret: None of it matters. Just be good enough. That’s what Caren did. And that’s why it so incredibly humbling to receive this award today.”
Mansue is now chief experience officer at RWJBarnabas Health, the state’s largest private employer with more than 45,000 employees, physicians, residents and interns. She was selected for the Franzini award because of her exemplary leadership in the C-suite and the community.
In presenting the award, NJBIA President & CEO Michele Siekerka said Mansue has been a role model for people in both business and government.
“When I think back to the traits of Caren Franzini, I see the living proof today in Amy Mansue,” Siekerka said.
Siekerka also presented NJBIA’s Rising Star awards to four future business leaders who have distinguished themselves at New Jersey universities through their academic work, leadership and community involvement.
Alexis Bailey, of Bayonne, is a political science major at Rider University who aspires to work on national political campaigns after her graduation in December. Bailey was recently elected co-chair of the New Jersey College Republicans and is also a Fellow at the Rebovich Institute for Politics.
Sri Narayanan, of Plainsboro, is a junior majoring in Business Analytics & Information Technology and Marketing at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Narayanan is the co-president of Rutgers Women in Business, the marketing co-director for the Rutgers Venture Capital Club, and the co-founder and CEO of Competitions Zone, an organization connecting students with competitions, hackathons, and conferences that enable them to learn beyond the classroom.
Tyler Richards, of Morristown, is a U.S. Marine Corps reservist who graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in health studies in May from Fairleigh Dickinson University, where he also enrolled in the one-year Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (A.B.S.N.) program.
Brianna Roberts, of Nanuet, N.Y., graduated in May from Monmouth University with a B.S. in Business Administration and a B.A. in Music. She aspires to become a music industry executive so as an undergraduate she participated in numerous internships and professional conferences — even serving as a panelist at the 2019 Music Business Association Conference in Nashville.
