Conference Schedule: April 2, 2013
6:45 - 8:00
Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:00 - 8:30
Welcoming Remarks
8:35 - 9:25
OPENING KEYNOTE: Sallie Krawcheck
Leadership Lessons for Women in Business
Opening the conference is Sallie Krawcheck, widely regarded as one of the most powerful women on Wall Street for more than a decade. Throughout her rise from equity analyst to president of Global Wealth & Investment Management for Bank of America, she remained an outspoken advocate for fair dealing—not just for customers and investors, but also for women working in the industry. From her unique vantage point, Krawcheck offers an inside view of the challenges and opportunities for women in business, as well as the risks and rewards of ascending to the highest levels of influence.
9:35 - 10:55
Concurrent Morning Sessions
MORNING SIGNATURE: Judy Smith
Moderator Cheryl Howard, DBA
Managing Crises
From competition to collaboration - Judy Smith is America's go-to guru for crisis management. The real-life inspiration for the Shonda Rhimes television drama Scandal, she has worked behind the scenes to guide politicians, corporations, and celebrities through some of the highest-profile events of our time, including the impeachment of President Clinton, the Enron Congressional inquiry, and the BP oil spill. In her fascinating and informative dialogue with Simmons Vice President Cheryl Howard, Smith reveals the lessons learned from these public relations disasters—and particularly how collaboration can be used to stop personal and professional crises before they start.
MENTORING: Stacy Blake-Beard, Ph.D.
Making Mentoring Work
Mentoring has become a must for women on the executive track. As a nationally recognized authority on the dynamics of mentor relationships, Simmons professor and business consultant Stacy Blake-Beard can attest to the power of formal programs to help move employees into senior positions, forge meaningful relationships across teams, and foster an inclusive corporate culture. In this timely seminar, Blake-Beard describes best practices in mentoring for organizations that want to raise the bar on professional development and improve employee morale, retention, and recruitment.
FINANCE: Terry Savage
The Savage Truth about Money
Today's economy gives everyone the jitters. How is it possible to plan confidently for the future when conditions are so uncertain? Not to worry, says renowned personal finance expert Terry Savage. While financial markets may change, the basic truths about money management do not. For anyone just starting out, starting over, or nearing retirement, Savage has no-nonsense advice about surviving and thriving in these challenging economic times.
COMMUNICATION: Victoria Labalme
Staying Sane in a Crazy Busy World
We wake up stressed just thinking about the day ahead. Our weeks are consumed with non-stop commitments and to-do lists. In her dynamic, interactive presentation, Victoria Labalme reveals how to move beyond this "crazy busy" mindset by reconnecting with our Through Line™—what motivates us to do what we do. Using her powerful communications tools, Victoria helps us discover how to tap into our unique gifts to connect with others to bring creativity and expressiveness back to everyday business interactions.
NEGOTIATION: Lois Frankel, Ph.D. and Carol Frohlinger, JD
Getting from Nice to Yes
Women often fail to recognize opportunities to negotiate and mistakenly associate negotiation with confrontation. Professional workshop leaders Lois Frankel and Carol Frohlinger, co-authors of Nice Girls Just Don't Get It, use real-life situations to demonstrate how to avoid these traps and achieve winning results in both personal and professional interactions. Entertaining as well as educational, this highly experiential session offers practical tips and techniques for planning for successful negotiations, dealing with difficult people, and more.
MULTICULTURAL MARKETING: Kelly McDonald
Working with Customers Not Like You
Exceptional service has become more important than ever in building brand loyalty. But in today's global marketplace, customers and prospects have widely varying definitions of good service depending on their age, gender, location, and cultural background. No one understands this better than marketing maven Kelly McDonald, who wrote the book on reaching multicultural audiences. In her high-energy, content-rich presentation, McDonald uses a variety of business success stories to explain the how-to's of cultivating diverse consumers.
10:55 - 11:25
MEET THE SPEAKERS BOOK SIGNING BREAK
11:25 - 12:15
MORNING KEYNOTE: Charlene Li
Winning in a World Transformed by Social Media
People around the world are using blogs, social networking sites, YouTube, and podcasts to discuss products and companies, publish their personal news, and find their own deals. The groundswell of social technologies is global, unstoppable, and affects every industry. While many companies view this revolution as a threat, bestselling author and thought leader Charlene Li knows how to turn the use of social media to advantage. Based on her extensive research and experience with dozens of companies, Li provides a definitive guide to protecting and strengthening your organization's public image in this rapidly evolving environment.
12:15 - 1:30
Luncheon
1:30 - 2:20
AFTERNOON KEYNOTE: Anna Deavere Smith
Claiming Your Voice Through It All
Anna Deavere Smith is a rare combination of innovative playwright, gifted actor, and inspiring educator. In her remarkable one-woman plays, she draws on hundreds of personal interviews with legendary as well as everyday figures to explore issues of community, character, and diversity in America. Mimicking her characters’ actual words and gestures, she presents "assemblages of stories" that inspire audiences to think a little differently about difficult subjects like poverty and racism. In this very special presentation, Deavere Smith relates her own story about becoming a powerful voice for social change.
2:30 - 3:50
Concurrent Afternoon Sessions
AFTERNOON SIGNATURE: Josie Natori
Moderator Teresa Nelson, Ph.D.
From Manila to Manhattan—An Entrepreneurial Life
Fashion designer Josie Natori crossed continents, navigated several careers, and surmounted countless obstacles to create the global company that bears her name. Crediting her entrepreneurial nature to growing up in a matriarchal society and to the support of her close-knit Filipino family, she has continued to expand her upscale lingerie line into a multifaceted lifestyle brand. In her candid conversation with Simmons professor Teresa Nelson, Natori talks about her life in the notoriously competitive apparel industry and the business philosophy that has enabled her company to flourish in the global marketplace.
BUSINESS PANEL:
Panelists Roynan Jones, Tami Mallett, Kathleen Weslock
Moderator Stacy Blake-Beard, Ph.D.
Exploring the Mentoring Imperative
Many organizations embrace mentoring as a strategy for fostering leadership development and succession for high-potential employees, but there is still much to be learned about the process. For women in business who manage to find mentors, the question remains whether it actually pays off in terms of promotions and career satisfaction. And for mentors and mentees alike, it is often unclear how to structure roles and responsibilities to ensure success. During this lively panel discussion, corporate leaders debate the tangible and intangible benefits that they have derived from their own experiences on either side of the mentoring relationship.
3:50 - 4:20
MEET THE SPEAKERS BOOK SIGNING BREAK
4:20 - 5:20
CLOSING KEYNOTE: Viola Davis
Moderator Anna Deavere Smith
On Becoming a Woman of Influence
For much of her career Viola Davis garnered wide acclaim for her moving portrayals in small but pivotal roles on both stage and screen. But her galvanizing performance as a maid in The Help—a role that echoed the experiences of her own mother and grandmother in the pre-Civil Rights South—propelled her from character actor to star. Joined on stage by interviewer extraordinaire Anna Deavere Smith, Davis will describe her road to success and her hopes for expanding the acting opportunities for people of color and bringing an authentic black experience to the big screen.