LI businesswomen share their stories

Kathleen King was out of work and virtually broke. Lisa Pusey was working 80 hours a week. Friends Annie Dugourd and Jennifer Rotunno knew little about the fashion business.

The four women earlier this week shared their stories of struggle, failure, more struggle, and eventual success in business before a meeting of the Long Island chapter of the Financial Women's Association at the Four Points by Sheraton in Plainview.

But no matter where they started and how hard their path, they had one thing in common: a burning desire to succeed.

King, founder and president of Tate's Bake Shop in Southampton, recounted that 11 years ago "I didn't have a job, and I had no money. I was just about broke."

Now, she said, she owns a cookie company that does some $13 million a year in sales.

But not before overcoming trouble in the form of a partnership that didn't work out. The breakup left her in debt, again. But, she said, she "chipped away" at paying off the debt and is now thriving again.

Pusey, now chief financial officer at Garden City-based Seviroli Foods, at one point held down three jobs. By the early 2000s, she had three children. She ultimately met Joseph Seviroli, owner of the food company, who hired her as a controller. In 2010, she got the chief financial officer title.

Dugourd and Rotunno have been friends since elementary school days in Port Jefferson. Rotunno initially became a nurse, working at Stony Brook University Medical Center; Dugourd had worked for Christie's Auction House in Manhattan.

They loved fashion, so they designed some children's clothes, brought them to a store and got rejected. More than once.

In 2005, they hit it with one store, which ordered more and more of their dresses.

Today, their Ooh! La, La! Couture company has sold to children of celebrities including Heidi Klum, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and Tiger Woods and does about $2.5 million in sales.

Everyone in the room wanted to know one thing: How could this happen to them?

But there was no magic answer.

"Learn everything there is to learn about your business," Pusey offered.