2017 Agenda

If you already have your badge, please head directly to the Exhibit Hall or Opening Keynote.

• Women-Owned Business Marketplace
• Author Signings & Meet and Greets
• Resume Review & Coaches Corner
• Community Connection Pavilion
• Health & Wellness Classroom
• Social Hub
• Small Business & Social Media Roundtables

At the Luncheon Keynote session, refer to your printed badge for your table assignment.

Full keynote lineup coming soon.

Author signings will be announced here as they are confirmed.

LEADERSHIP: Designed for a seasoned or aspiring leader looking to climb the ladder and shatter the glass ceiling
Session I: 10:00 – 11:00 am

Is there room for civility in today’s high-paced, heads-down, sound-bite, cut-to-the-chase world? The answer is a resounding yes. Civility brings financial, emotional and physical benefits. Join researcher and rudeness expert Dr. Christine Porath as she leads a discussion with a panel of senior executives on the costs and remedies for incivility. This panel will share how you can foster a more positive environment at work, tactical strategies to limit digital interruption in conversations and meetings and finally, when there is no other recourse, how to confront effectively, maintaining civility for yourself and those around you. Leave this session with an arsenal of tools to help you stay on the high road for work and life.

Thought Leader: Christine Porath, author, Mastering Civility

CAREER ADVANCEMENT: Designed for the mid/senior level professional with significant experience looking for advice around professional skills and job advancement

Your work day is filled with them–people who frustrate, impede, maneuver, undermine, plot, connive, and whine. This session will detail specific techniques for handling all of them, with easy-to-follow scenarios for every situation. Taking into account the modern issues that play into our work, including technology, generation gaps, and language barriers, researcher Amy Cooper Hakim and a panel of executives who have expertly handled many of these situations, will guide you through the 10 kinds of culprits, from tyrants and bullies (regular and cyber) to the pushy and presumptuous to connivers and camouflagers; and offer helpful tactics and phrases for diffusing workplace tensions and effectively resolving conflicts. Come away with a clearer understanding of why people operate in different ways as well as clear strategies for working successfully with different personality types.

Thought Leader: Amy Cooper Hakim, author, Working with Difficult People: Handling the Ten Types of Problem People Without Losing Your Mind 

Panelists:
Celeste Warren, VP, human resources, global diversity & inclusion COE, Merck
Additional speakers to be announced

CAREER ADVANCEMENT: Designed for the mid/senior level professional with significant experience looking for advice around professional skills and job advancement

Being passed over for a promotion you knew you were ready for is nothing new. What may be unique is this little culprit: a disparity in confidence. While men are prone to overestimate their abilities, women too often sell themselves short and confidence plays a crucial role in the ability of women to succeed. Confidence expert Grace Killelea has done the research and will share how to turn your job competency into the kind of authentic confidence that gets noticed. Attendees will learn:

1. The Four Rs of Success–relationships, reputation, results, and resilience;
2. How to build circles of influence, leverage and promote your skills and cultivate executive presence; and
3. Strategies to help you bounce back from setbacks.

Join this session to find the confidence you need to step off the sidelines onto the playing field–and claim the success you deserve. 

Speaker: Grace Killelea, author, The Confidence Effect: Every Woman’s Guide to the Attitude That Attracts Success

Emcee: Nydia Han, 6abc Action News

EMERGING PROFESSIONALS: Designed for Millennials and newer professionals entering or re-entering the workforce
Session I: 10:00 – 11:00 am

No matter how skilled you are, how experienced, how many years you’ve been in business, or how much you love what you do, if you do not have a commanding presence on every platform and can successfully communicate your story, you will continue to be under-recognized and labor to attract recognition. For women who have taken a non-linear career path or have taken a pause and now want to re-enter, this can be even more challenging. The ability to speak and communicate with confidence and charisma is critical and will eliminate these obstacles allowing you to take your career or business to the next level. Attend this session to learn from some of the best brand marketing agents about how to position yourself for your future.

Thought Leader: Ruth Sherman, public speaking consultant and author, Speakrets: The 30 Best, Most Effective, Most Overlooked Marketing and Personal Branding Essentials

Panelists:
Anna Akbari, Ph.D., sociologist, entrepreneur and author, Startup Your Life
Lisa Skeete Tatum, Founder & CEO, Landit
Ebony Staton Weidman, assistant director, marketing, Drexel LeBow College of Business

TRANSITIONS: Offering expertise for maneuvering career and life transitions
Session I: 10:00 – 11:00 am

Failure and fear are a natural part of life. Although typically viewed as a negative, they can be harnessed to unleash innovation, growth and even lead
to success. Through setbacks and failure, we can learn invaluable skills like resiliency and risk taking to propel life in a positive direction. Using real-life experiences, this engaging discussion will help you discover how failure can work for you. Whether you are bouncing back from a job setback, trying to reinvigorate innovation in your company, struggling with a relationship, or facing the everyday obstacles that arise at work or home, attend this session to learn how to break free of the stigma and catapult growth for yourself both professionally and personally.

Thought Leader: Jessica Lahey, author, The Gift of Failure 

Panelists:
Pam Cyr, EVP and chief retail banking officer, Beneficial Bank
Lisa Stone, co-founder & former CEO, BlogHer Inc.
Additional speakers to be announced!

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT: Offering advice to help you enhance your life, grow and create more positive personal experiences outside of the workplace
Session I: 10:00 – 11:00 am

Even though women are 50% of the workforce, they only represent 18% of the highest-level leaders. Responsibilities at work and home often leave women without the bandwidth to succeed and wondering if their career and personal goals are unachievable.  Tiffany Dufu, one of Fast Companies’ League of Extraordinary Women and once the poster child for doing it all, will offer a new perspective on why the women’s leadership movement has stalled and how we can stop that trend.  She will share actionable advice on how we can reevaluate our priorities, embrace imperfection and expect less of ourselves and more of  others so that we can focus on the goals we truly care about.  Attendees will walk away with practical tips to help us flourish at work and develop deeper, more meaningful relationships at home.

Speaker: Tiffany Dufu, former CLO, Levo and author, Drop the Ball

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT: Offering advice to help you enhance your life, grow and create more positive personal experiences outside of the workplace
Session I: 10:00 – 11:00 am

Iconic couples’ therapist, erotic intelligence expert and best-selling author Esther Perel has traveled the globe and worked with hundreds of couples on their relationships.  Her latest research touches on infidelity and why it is so poorly understood. Affairs are a time-honored taboo, universally forbidden yet universally practiced, and have a lot of teach us about our relationships and about love, lust, and commitment. Join this session for a groundbreaking and provocative look at sex, infidelity (even thoughts of infidelity) and a daring framework for understanding the intricacies of love and desire. Attendees will walk away learning how to strengthen their relationships, making them more honest and more resilient.

Speaker: Esther Perel, author, Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs

YOUNG WOMEN’S PROGRAM: Designed for high school junior and senior girls
Session I: 10:00 – 11:00 am

“Follow your gut” is advice easy to give, but harder to follow. How do you know when following your intuition will lead you to happiness and success?  In the session, super stars in their industries will share with you the reasons why fostering your passions, seeking purpose in your chosen interest and taking the road less traveled is often the most rewarding, despite (and because of) the hiccups and failures you may encounter on the way.

Thought Leader: Stephanie Kaplan Lewis, co-founder, CEO, and editor-in-chief, hercampus

Panelists:
Robyn Moreno, editorial director, Latina Media Ventures
Colleen Rooney, VP, global communications, QVC

Author signings will be announced here as they are confirmed.

LEADERSHIP: Designed for a seasoned or aspiring leader looking to climb the ladder and shatter the glass ceiling
Session II: 11:30 am – 12:30 pm

Gender exclusion is still prominent in today’s work environments putting women in a challenging position – for obvious reasons around the lack of equity– but also for those trying to exist in a corporate landscape as they climb the ladder and try to make a name for themselves as a leader in a boys’ club. This intimate discussion will bring you up close and personal with Margaret McKenna – the first woman Deputy White House Counsel, the first president of Walmart foundation and the first woman president of Suffolk University. McKenna has forged the path of firsts and has also been a change agent in her different roles, from leading an effort to appoint more women and people of color to Federal judgeships, to prioritizing hunger as the signature issue for the Walmart foundation and driving governance change at Suffolk University. She has moved from government to the university life to the largest company in the world. How did she obtain these positions? How did she learn to navigate such different environments? What lessons did she learn about creating positive change? Led by friend and colleague Marian Heard, we will answer these questions, and you will leave with strategies to influence and obtain the distribution of power and control necessary to drive positive change and make strides towards equity and partnership.

Moderator: Marian Heard, president and CEO, Oxen Hill Partners and founding board member, MA Conference for Women

Speaker: Margaret McKenna, first woman deputy white house counsel, first president of Walmart Foundation and first woman president of Suffolk University

CAREER ADVANCEMENT: Designed for the mid/senior level professional with significant experience looking for advice around professional skills and job advancement
Session II: 11:30 am – 12:30 pm

CEOs, top executives, and other business leaders say they need creativity and real innovation to thrive in a competitive world. But according to former Wharton management professor Jennifer Mueller, many business leaders chronically reject creative solutions and often embrace the familiar, even as they profess commitment to innovation.  Mueller’s research reveals that it’s not just CEOs, but many others often struggle to accept new and creative ideas even when desired. Mueller will address the tough questions these findings raise: Could people love but also hate creative ideas? Could the mindset we use to evaluate ideas turn this love or hate on or off—in an instant? Do experts struggle even more than novices with this bias? And even more startling, could the “best practices” that organizations employ to manage innovation activate this bias, and inadvertently, kill innovation?   Mueller diagnoses this hidden innovation barrier, and will share her solutions, including:

• A four- step process (and a fifth lifeline) to self-disrupt your current mindset and recognize creative opportunity;
• an idea-pitching framework aimed at helping you overcome other peoples’ sticky preference for the status quo; 
• key organizational levers to disrupt the cultural beliefs holding your company back;
• tips to more accurately recognize creative leaders who can lead organizations in productive new directions, and
• strategies to generate ideas without harming your ability to make them count with the decision-makers.

Speaker: Jennifer Mueller, author, Creative Change: Why We Resist It . . . How We Can Embrace It 

CAREER ADVANCEMENT: Designed for the mid/senior level professional with significant experience looking for advice around professional skills and job advancement
Session II: 11:30 am – 12:30 pm

Gender exclusion is still prominent in today’s work environments putting women in a challenging position – for obvious reasons around the lack of equity– but also for those trying to exist in a corporate landscape as they climb the ladder and try to make a name for themselves. The competition is fierce wherever you are, and whether you like it or not, you are part of it. How do you stand out without alienating others? How do you get taken seriously in a male-dominated room? Join this team of leaders to uncover key lessons learned and new insights on how to make strides towards equity and partnership. Attendees will learn how to:

• Handle manterrupting, bropriating and talk-blocking;
• Understand when to lead, when to follow and when to move on;
• Assert your presence using strong verbal skills and body language;
• Overcome bias and internal fears that prevent you from stepping up; and
• Ways you can pay it forward.

Thought Leader: Janet Crawford, founder & CEO, Cascadance

Panelists:
Julie Lythcott-Haims, author, How to Raise an Adult and Real American
Joyce Russell, PhD, dean, Villanova School of Business.
Lisa Stone, co-founder & former CEO, BlogHer Inc.

EMERGING PROFESSIONALS: Designed for Millennials and newer professionals entering or re-entering the workforce
Session II: 11:30 am – 12:30 pm

When women work to break the glass ceiling, they are more likely to rely on hard work and obtaining outside qualifications than engaging in networking, negotiation and office politics, which can often seem unnecessary and a waste of time.  But, recognizing the importance of these strategies can be the first step in advancing your career and a lack of willingness to engage can negatively impact your success.  Attendees will overcome this barrier to career advancement by learning the steps to developing these skills, enabling them the career success they desire and deserve.

Thought Leader: Michelle King, head, integrated strategy and partnerships for innovation, UN Women

Panelists:
Carla Harris, vice chairman and managing director, Morgan Stanley and author, Strategize to Win
Mary Jennings Hegar, filed suit and won against the Secretary of Defense asserting that the Combat Exclusion Policy was unconstitutional; author of Shoot Like a Girl 

TRANSITIONS: Offering expertise for maneuvering career and life transitions
Session II: 11:30 am – 12:30 pm

Whether we have a good day or not depends partly on things we can’t control – perhaps we run into an unexpected crisis, or our colleagues seem unusually cranky. But behavioral science shows us that many things that seem “fixed” or “random” can be surprisingly strongly influenced by our own actions, once we understand just a little of how the brain works. Caroline Webb, economist and former partner at consulting powerhouse McKinsey, will demonstrate how tiny tweaks to our daily routines can transform our experience of what happens around us, the number of hours in the day, our level of intelligence, and even other people’s moods. She will teach us you to be at your best even under pressure, and equip you to handle common challenges such as co-worker conflicts and difficult deadlines. With this kind of powerful insight in your back pocket, you can change your “luck” and obtain more control over the quality of your days. Attendees will leave armed with the power to transform their approach to every day working life for boosted workplace performance and enjoyment.

Speaker: Caroline Webb, economist, author and former partner, McKinsey

TRANSITIONS: Offering expertise for maneuvering career and life transitions
Session II: 11:30 am – 12:30 pm

We spend our days drowning in mundane tasks like meetings, emails, and reports, which prevent us from getting to the meaningful work we want to be spending our time on.  By learning how to eliminate redundancies, communicate with clarity, and make simplification a habit, we can recognize which activities are time-sucks and which create lasting value, leaving us feeling less overwhelmed, more empowered, and able to spend each day doing things that matter.  Lisa Bodell’s simplification method will show us that by using simplicity as an operating principle, we can eliminate the busy work that puts a chokehold on us every day, and instead spend time on the work that we value.

Speaker: Lisa Bodell, globally-recognized innovation leader and futurist, founder and CEO, futurethink and author, Innovation Revolution

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT: Offering advice to help you enhance your life, grow and create more positive personal experiences outside of the workplace
Session II: 11:30 am – 12:30 pm

With ever-changing policies on retirement planning, it’s tempting to put off saving for retirement until there is a clear path to follow. Do you invest safely knowing that the money will be there, but might not be quite enough? Or do you invest more aggressively in the hopes that you have more money to spend later in life? Labor economist and a nationally-recognized expert in retirement security, Dr. Teresa Ghilarducci will help you cut through the confusion and misinformation with a strategy to help you achieve what you are planning for in your retirement savings. Her program will explain:

• What a person or household needs to have saved;
• How much to expect from Social Security; and
• How to make your money grow between now and then.

There are no gimmicks or magical thinking in this presentation—just valuable recommendations that will make attending this session a wise investment.

Speaker: Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economics, director at Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, The New School for Social Research and author, How to Retire with Enough Money

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT: Offering advice to help you enhance your life, grow and create more positive personal experiences outside of the workplace
Session II: 11:30 am – 12:30 pm

Women are burned out and overwhelmed, working to balance personal and professional lives in the hopes of finding happiness.  Often this drive to do more does not lead to happiness, instead causing exhaustion, anxiety, guilt, fear, social comparison, inauthenticity and physical illness. Join Positive Psychology Professor Emily Esfahani Smith to find out why and learn ways to create a life with meaning and joy while increasing your energy and decreasing your stress. Panelists will share best practices to help you create your most meaningful life, avoid burnout and reap the benefits of increased health, happiness and satisfaction.

Thought Leader: Emily Esfahani Smith, author, The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life that Matters

Panelists:
Carol Lee Mitchell, SVP, national accounts, Mastercard
Jamila Payne, president & CEO, Ideas Action Design, and creator, Daily Success Routine

YOUNG WOMEN’S PROGRAM: Designed for high school junior and senior girls
Session II: 11:30 am – 12:30 pm

Full session description coming soon!

Speaker: Ann Shoket, former editor-in-chief, Seventeen magazine and author, The Big Life

Author signings will be announced here as they are confirmed.

Full keynote lineup coming soon.

Author signings will be announced here as they are confirmed.

CAREER ADVANCEMENT: Designed for the mid/senior level professional with significant experience looking for advice around professional skills and job advancement
Session III: 3:00 – 4:00 pm

If you think of networking as schmoozing at cocktail parties or scrolling through LinkedIn for new contacts to add, think again. In the social media age, you need a modern roadmap for creating and cultivating meaningful connections to stand out from the crowd and achieve any of your goals, no matter how big or small. In this session, networking expert J. Kelly Hoey will share her approach to mastering this timeworn skill in a world where everyone is posting, liking, and friending fast and furiously, but many are failing to leverage their connections successfully. Hoey will provide Innovative strategies for forming strong relationships—the genuine, mutually beneficial, long-lasting kind—using the social tools at your disposal and show attendees how to:

• Determine the most effective ways to connect with others so you don’t clutter your calendar with dead-end coffee dates and informational interviews
• Synchronize face-to-face networking efforts with your digital outreach 
• Turn “closed door” conversations into strong personal relationships and business opportunities
• Harness the power of your network to accomplish any ambition, from landing your dream job or a coveted account or client to successfully crowdfunding a new business venture. 

Speaker: Kelly Hoey, author, Build Your Dream Network: Forging Powerful Relationships in a Hyper-Connected World

CAREER ADVANCEMENT: Designed for the mid/senior level professional with significant experience looking for advice around professional skills and job advancement
Session III: 3:00 – 4:00 pm

Making a decision to “push the boundaries,” whether it is starting your own company, taking an innovative approach, making a job transition or joining a start-up can be overwhelming.  If you have dreamed of making a change, but not sure you are ready for the gamble, this panel of innovative women can help you navigate your fears and assess the risks involved. Learn the best practices of these seasoned entrepreneurs & executives, so that you are are prepared to push the limits and armed to achieve success. Sharing their personal stories, attendees will learn how to:

• Establish a climate that embraces smart risk and invites sustainable growth;
• Identify and eliminate barriers to progressive thinking; and
• Gain confidence to push the limits.

Thought Leader: Lisa Bodell, globally recognized innovation leader and futurist, founder and CEO, futurethink and author, Innovation Revolution

Panelists:
Patrice Banks, founder, Girls Auto Clinic and author, The Girls Auto Clinic Glove Box Guide
Additional panelists to be announced

CAREER ADVANCEMENT: Designed for the mid/senior level professional with significant experience looking for advice around professional skills and job advancement
Session III: 3:00 – 4:00 pm

When women work to break the glass ceiling, they are more likely to rely on hard work and obtaining outside qualifications than engaging in networking, negotiation and office politics, which can often seem unnecessary and a waste of time. But, recognizing the importance of these strategies can be the first step in advancing your career and a lack of willingness to engage can negatively impact your success. Attendees will overcome this barrier to career advancement by learning the steps to developing these skills, enabling them the career success they desire and deserve.

Panelists:
Alison Young, managing director, leadership & civic engagement, Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business

EMERGING PROFESSIONALS: Designed for Millennials and newer professionals entering or re-entering the workforce
Session III: 3:00 – 4:00 pm

Millennial women are changing what it means to be powerful and successful in the world—for everyone. Forever. As former editor-in-chief of Seventeen magazine and now the voice behind the popular Badass Babes community, Ann Shoket has been a cheerleader for millennial women for more than 15 years.  She will share actionable guidance combined with personal stories from well-known, uber-successful millennials, plus intimate conversations with a cast of compelling young women and Shoket’s own stories from her quest for The Big Life. Attendees will learn to tackle all of the issues on heavy rotation in their minds including:

• How to get respect from a boss who thinks you’re lazy, entitled, and self-obsessed;
• Networking Dos and Don’ts; and
• Why you need a “side hustle”

Speaker: Ann Shoket, author, The Big Life: Embrace the Mess, Work Your Side Hustle, Find a Monumental Relationship, and Become the Badass Babe You Were Meant to Be


Emcee:  Tricia Holck, AVP, field marketing & events specialist, Beneficial Bank

TRANSITIONS: Offering expertise for maneuvering career and life transitions
Session III: 3:00 – 4:00 pm

Whether we have a good day or not depends partly on things we can’t control – perhaps we run into an unexpected crisis, or our colleagues seem unusually cranky. But behavioral science shows us that many things that seem “fixed” or “random” can be surprisingly strongly influenced by our own actions, once we understand just a little of how the brain works. Caroline Webb, economist and former partner at consulting powerhouse McKinsey, will demonstrate how tiny tweaks to our daily routines can transform our experience of what happens around us, the number of hours in the day, our level of intelligence, and even other people’s moods. She will teach us you to be at your best even under pressure, and equip you to handle common challenges such as co-worker conflicts and difficult deadlines. With this kind of powerful insight in your back pocket, you can change your “luck” and obtain more control over the quality of your days. Attendees will leave armed with the power to transform their approach to every day working life for boosted workplace performance and enjoyment.

Speaker: Caroline Webb, economist, author and former partner, McKinsey

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT: Offering advice to help you enhance your life, grow and create more positive personal experiences outside of the workplace
Session III: 3:00 – 4:00 pm

Julie Lythcott-Haims’ provocative manifesto, How to Raise an Adult, drew worldwide acclaim for outlining the harms of helicopter parenting and offering her strategy for raising preteens and teens to self-sufficient young adulthood. Come hear Julie in person talk about her philosophy as to why over-parenting harms children, their stressed-out parents, and society at large. While empathizing with the parental hopes and, especially, fears that lead to over-helping, Lythcott-Haims will share practical alternative strategies that underline the importance of allowing children to make their own mistakes and develop the resilience, resourcefulness, and inner determination necessary for success. This session is relevant to parents of toddlers as well as of twentysomethings—and of special value to parents of teens—or anyone interested in ensuring that the next generation can take charge of their own lives with competence and confidence.

Speaker: Julie Lythcott-Haims, author, How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success

Emcee: Ashley Primis, executive editor, Philadelphia Magazine

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT: Offering advice to help you enhance your life, grow and create more positive personal experiences outside of the workplace
Session III: 3:00 – 4:00 pm

Iconic couples’ therapist, erotic intelligence expert and best-selling author of Mating in Captivity Esther Perel has traveled the globe and worked with hundreds of couples on their relationships.  Her latest research touches on infidelity and why it is so poorly understood. Affairs are a time-honored taboo, universally forbidden yet universally practiced, and have a lot of teach us about our relationships and about love, lust, and commitment. Join this session for a groundbreaking and provocative look at sex, infidelity (even thoughts of infidelity) and a daring framework for understanding the intricacies of love and desire. Attendees will walk away learning how to strengthen their relationships, making them more honest and more resilient. 

Speaker: Esther Perel, author, Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs

Author signings will be announced here as they are confirmed.

Author signings will be announced here as they are confirmed.

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