Given the daunting challenges that we face, it's important that president elect Obama is prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one.

For me, having a daughter made me much more efficient and productive. I would wake up in the morning trying to figure out how to organize my day so that I could get home. The phone calls with friends, the lunches out with colleagues - all of that got scrapped so that I could be as efficient and productive as possible.

Change is never fast enough to satisfy us. I still hear too many stories of women who go back to work too soon, but I do believe that we have been able to change the paradigm in attitudes towards family leave in that it's no longer a nice thing to do for women, it's a must do for competitiveness, and that's a big change over the last seven years. Changing it into an economic issue is a big sea change in the last seven years.

Given the daunting challenges that we face, it's important that president elect Obama is prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one.

Financial regulatory reform is one of the top legislative priorities of the Obama Administration.

We know the threats - from global terrorist networks to the spread of deadly weapons. Yet we also know that embedded in this time of danger is the promise of a new day, if we have the courage and commitment to work together.

One of the major goals of health insurance reform is to bring down the cost.