Sorensen, Nancy M., 1932-1996

Nancy M. Sorensen (1932-1964) was a human resources consultant and co-founded Human Resource Management Systems Inc., the first such firm in the field in the Midwest with an all-female staff. She had done similar work for the Harris Bank, where she was responsible for supplying human resource services to 4,000 employees. While there, she had earned promotion to first-line officer and assistant vice president faster than any woman up to that time. She subsequently became a vice president and group executive there. In starting her firm with partner, Nancy J. Miller, she told the Chicago Tribune in 1986, "I had gone as far as I could go. Women are not in top management at banks. I couldn't make the last rung, the boys wouldn't let me in--so I did it myself." In 1995, she was president of Executive Connections, an association of women who own or manage Chicago-area companies.

Starting in the late 1950s, Sorensen spent six years as the official photographer for the Lyric Opera, prior to beginning her consulting career.

Sorensen died from cancer in 1996. She had two siblings: Gloria Sorensen Marsh and a brother, Jack Sorensen.