Murphy and Brown, co-founders of SoleMates and formerly with Goldman Sachs, to present their success story at Fairfield University | Press Releases

Image: Brown and Murphy A Fairfield University event for entrepreneurs and inventors will explore the founding of the SoleMates High Heeler®, a lifesaver when you are wearing shoes stuck in the mud. Free and open to the public, the event will take place on Tuesday, May 29 at 7 p.m. in the Dolan School of Business Dining Room. It is co-presented by Fairfield's Computer Engineering Department and the Inventors Association of Connecticut (IACT).

SoleMates' co-founders Monica Ferguson Murphy and Becca Brown will discuss how their product came to resonate with consumers. Both women worked at Goldman Sachs before launching their product and are graduates of Columbia Business School.

"SoleMates is a success story by two young ladies focused on a problem indigenous to ladies' high heel shoes," said Douglas Lyon, Ph.D., professor of computer engineering and the IACT president. "In 2008, Becca and Monica were sitting next to each other at Columbia Business School. When it came time to write a business plan in one of their classes, Becca shared her long guarded idea to create a product for high heels to protect them and prevent them from sinking into the grass."

This idea sat well with Murphy, a Georgetown University graduate who was then averaging 10 to 15 weddings a year. Since at least half of the ceremonies were taking place outside, she was very aware of the feeling of helplessness as her heels sank into lawns. The budding entrepreneurs then set out to create a product that would finally put an end to this costly and messy problem. In 2008, the pair launched their invention, the SoleMates High Heeler®, which attaches easily to most stiletto and kitten heels. By increasing the surface area on the base of the heel, it reduces the pressure on this area and prevents the heel from sinking into grass or falling into cracks.

Murphy spent several years at Goldman Sachs working in various sales and trading roles in New York. Upon graduating from Columbia Business School in 2007, she returned to Goldman before resigning in 2008 to launch SoleMates. Brown graduated from Harvard College University with a degree in English. A graduate of Columbia Busines School, she spent six years at Goldman Sachs working in both the New York and London offices in various management and internal consulting roles.

For more information about the School of Engineering at Fairfield, and for directions to campus, visit http://www.fairfield.edu/soe . For more info about the IACT, visit http://www.inventus.org/ .