Episode 60: Talking about "The Rules of The Game for Women in Business" with Catherine Lang-Cline

Your Financial Maven® Podcast with Samantha Mittman-Besnoff, CPA

What does it really take for women to get ahead in business? Not the polished, polite version — the real one. In this episode of Your Financial Maven, I sat down with Catherine Lang-Cline, award-winning CEO, “Most Admired CEO” honoree, and author of The Rules of the Game for Women in Business. Catherine spent 20 years building her company, Portfolio Creative, before selling it — and now she’s helping women see the business world for what it actually is, not what we wish it were.

This was a vibrant, no-nonsense conversation about leadership, money, motherhood, and the quiet rules nobody handed us when we walked into the room.

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Here are the highlights:

What Is Money? Freedom

I ask every guest the same opening question, and Catherine’s answer was instant: money is freedom. Not happiness — she was clear that plenty of wealthy people are miserable — but freedom from worrying about bills, groceries, tuition, and the next chapter of your life. That framing sets the tone for everything that follows.

Business Is a Game — and Men Wrote the Rules First

Catherine’s core insight is straightforward but uncomfortable: men started in business first, and they wrote the rules before women were ever in the room. She’s careful to note this isn’t an “us versus them” message. It’s a recognition that women often show up bringing our genuine strengths — kindness, helpfulness, a nurturing instinct — to what is actually a different game with different rules.

Once Catherine recognized this, she started adapting. She used the language her male peers used. She mirrored their posture. She interrupted when they interrupted her. And the result wasn’t friction — it was inclusion. She got invited onto boards, into leadership circles, into the rooms where things actually happen. Not because she abandoned who she was, but because she proved she understood how to play the game and be a good team player.

When Someone Steals Your Idea in a Meeting

This part of the conversation was gold. Catherine compares the boardroom to a basketball or rugby game — you’re heading for the hoop, and someone snatches the ball and runs the other way. In sports, you go get the ball back. In meetings, women often get hurt or offended instead, and that’s where the “bitch” stigma starts creeping in — when we get visibly defensive.

Her strategies are practical:

• Keep talking when someone talks over you, or wait for them to breathe and pick up exactly where you left off.

• Take notes during the interruption so you don’t lose your point or your composure.

• Loop the conversation back: “I like where you took that — let me get back to my original point.”

• Don’t fold your arms and shut down. The room reads that as giving up, and it tells everyone you don’t know how to play.

• And critically — don’t do any of this with anger. It’s not personal. It’s the game.

Stop Sitting on the Bench

One thing Catherine pushed back on hard: the “I’ll just sit back and observe until I have something to say” approach. She sees it as women discounting themselves before anyone else has the chance to. If you wait to be called on, you’ve already lost ground.

She also shared a moment that reframed her own thinking. Early on, her business card said “Director of Marketing.” Someone asked her, “I thought you owned the company?” She did. But she’d absorbed the corporate ladder so deeply that “director” felt aspirational while “CEO” or “President” felt presumptuous — even though she literally was one. The lesson: if you’re running it, claim it. Walk into rooms looking for the other CEOs, not looking up at them.

Play for Yourself, Too

Women, Catherine pointed out, are often the biggest check writers for donations, the ones lifting everyone else up, the ones distributing profits across the team. Beautiful — but she’s seen too many women hit divorce or business closure with nothing saved for themselves. No IRA. No cushion. Just stuck working forever.

Her advice: when you have a profitable year, save some of it for you before redistributing everything outward. You can take care of more people in the long run if you’re actually wealthy. Generosity without a foundation isn’t sustainable.

On Building a Business (and Knowing When to Sell)

Catherine freelanced in marketing for years across Fortune 500 companies and small shops before someone suggested she start her own thing. She gave herself six months. Twenty years later, she sold the company — not because it was failing, but because the timing was right. A recession, a pandemic, and the rise of AI all converged, and she made a clear-eyed decision: did she want to go head-to-head with AI in the marketing space, or pivot to what she actually wanted next?

Her advice for anyone building a company: always build it to be sold. That means not being the only person who can run it, having real value baked in, and being ready when the market timing lines up. She found a merger partner whose IT/left-brain strengths complemented her right-brain creative culture, and walked away with enough runway to write the book and start the next chapter.

We also touched on living lean during the startup years — figuring out the smallest amount you can actually live on. As I tell people: date your money once a month. Sit with it. Know what’s coming in and what’s going out. You’ll be surprised what’s possible.

The Voices That Hold You Back

One of the harshest truths Catherine named: the voices in our heads, and the people around us, will keep us small if we let them. Her parents told her she didn’t need college — she could work at the factory like they did. Friends comment on the new car, the bigger house — “How can you afford that?” — and those little knockdowns add up. She compared it to trying to lose weight while your friends still want to keep drinking and partying. Sometimes leveling up means changing the room you’re in.

She also named something I see all the time: women being scared to out-earn their husbands. Catherine’s first marriage struggled with exactly that dynamic. Generational patterns get baked in deep, and unwinding them takes intention.

Imposter Syndrome and the Four Voices

Catherine talks about four voices in our brains — and the one that drives imposter syndrome is the one that wants us to be careful. It’s the same voice that (helpfully) warns us off the bad boyfriend who never calls back. But that same voice will also tell you you don’t belong in this room, that you shouldn’t introduce yourself to that person, that you’re not big enough for this.

Her counter: tune into the driven voice instead. Walk over. Introduce yourself. What’s the worst that can happen? Usually, nothing.

I felt this one personally. Three years into the podcast, I’m the only one of the original ten women from our iHeart cohort still doing it — and I still get the imposter spiral when I compare myself to other CPAs. Catherine’s reminder helped: they’re in a different market, doing different things. The comparison isn’t the metric. The work is.

Motherhood, Leadership, and the Hybrid World

We spent real time on this. Catherine started her business and had her daughter a year later. Her rule: no meetings after 5 p.m. Daycare in the morning, pickup at 5, and if a networking event came up, her husband stepped in. It worked because she was wired for it and built a system around it. She acknowledged not every woman is, and not every woman should be — there’s no shame in any choice. The point is to make the choice consciously.

She’s hopeful that remote and hybrid work can keep more women engaged in leadership — but cautious, too. Leaders still need to be visible. Followers can be more flexible. If you’re aiming for a leadership seat, factor that in.

And on the comparison trap between mothers? Catherine and I both agreed: men don’t do this to each other. Women get stigmatized either way. Drop the judgment. Make your call.

The One-Life Question

Catherine left us with this: you only have one life. What do you want it to be?

If your dream is to serve others and live modestly, God bless you. But if you want more — and you’re capable of more — figure out what you’re really good at and keep walking toward it. Keep the fear as a moving target. Learn something. Then ask: what’s next? It piles up faster than you’d think.

Where to Find Catherine

• Book: The Rules of the Game for Women in Business — available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and most major booksellers

• Website: CatherineLangCline.com

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Samantha M. Besnoff is a Certified Public Accountant, Independent Life Insurance Agent, and Financial Education Consultant. She has been a part of the accounting world for over 30 years spending time in most areas of the field. Her experience is vast and she loves to share her knowledge with you! Delving into the podcast world has been amazing and she has enjoyed the last three years sharing with her listeners.