Carter Anne Prescott (BA ’71) wrote the speech that was delivered by International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, which means that her words were heard by 4 billion people.
When Rogge addressed the United Nations and the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations/Economic Club of Chicago, Prescott wrote those speeches and coached the IOC president on his delivery.
When you ask her what it was like to have her words in such a spotlight, Prescott enthusiastically says, “Fun!”
Prescott, recipient of the University’s Professional Achievement Award, has long subscribed to an all-purpose mantra: “Whatever you do, have fun.” She acquired the phrase from a professor during her days as an undergraduate at Colorado Women’s College. She also says that her experience at the Women’s College taught her that it was “OK to open my mouth.”
“I graduated from high school in 1968 in Atlanta, Georgia, which was pre-women’s lib and the height of segregation in the South,” she says. “So it was a pleasure to go to a school where a woman could open her mouth and say whatever she thought.”
In 2011, Prescott used her voice to champion the Women’s College, where she serves on the Board of Advisors. And again, she had a huge audience.
Prescott appeared as a contestant on the game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” and on national television she committed to giving her entire winnings to scholarships at the Women’s College. She won $25,000 and made good on her word.
Today, Prescott is president and CEO of New York-based Carter Communications International Inc., and she has written for corporate powerhouses such as Accenture, AT&T and Philip Morris International. These days, she says, she’s stretching her fingers and working on projects that are, perhaps, a little more near and dear to her heart.
“I would like to become a full-time playwright,” she says. “I have spent 30 years putting words in other people’s mouths. It’s their ideas and my words. Now I’m trying to figure out how to tell my own stories.”