Perhaps better known to millions as the "Mayflower Madam",

Sydney Biddle Barrows

is a unique American success story. She started her business career as a retail executive at Abraham & Straus, at the time the jewel in the crown of Federated Department Stores, moved on to May Company Corporate and then became the Divisional Merchandise Manager at a nationwide resident buying office.

Six years later she found herself moonlighting as a phone girl at an escort service to supplement her unemployment check after having been fired for refusing to participate in a kickback scheme. It may have been the World's Oldest Profession but it certainly was not being run very professionally, and less than a year later she decided to open up her own agency. Relatively small but very upscale, Cachet prospered for five and a half years until New York's Finest closed it down, only to later publicly concede that it was the most honest and professionally run business of its kind ever operated in New York City.

The tabloids were in media heaven over the story - sex, high society, clients who were celebrities, Arab sheiks, and businessmen whose names you would recognize immediately. Her first book, Mayflower Madam, went right to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Fortune Magazine named it one of the Ten Best Business Books of the Year and business schools all across the country, including Harvard, included it in their curriculum on. Mayflower Madam was also made into a TV movie starring Candice Bergen.

Sydney has been a guest on every network morning television show multiple times, has appeared on Larry King, Phil Donohue and Oprah several times as well as many other talk shows over the years. She was featured in an A&E Biography, co-hosted Saturday Night Live with Candice Bergen and has appeared on other shows too numerous to mention.

Sydney has also had a very extensive speaking career, guest lecturing at colleges all over the United States, including some in the Ivy League such as Brown and Columbia. Speaking engagements have taken her all over the United States and overseas for such prestigious clients as the Young Presidents Organization and the CEO Club. For more information on Sydney, please visit her website at www.sydneybarrows.com