Advancing Women: Challenges and Solutions (moderated by Sandra Sucher)
Our panelists bring deeply informed viewpoints on the goal we all share of advancing women's leadership in business and government. Their work ranges from 'boots on the ground' actions for advancing women's leadership in particular organizations, to capacity building of future women leaders, to building powerful women's networks, to state-of-the-art research on the challenges women face and the solutions organizations have found most useful. Together we will learn about advancing women's leadership and the actions that ensure organizations have the benefit of women's aspirations, talents, and abilities.
American Education Reform: What's Next? (moderated by John J.-H. Kim)
The United States spends more than $600 billion each year on K-12 public education, yet fewer than half of all students can perform at proficient levels by fourth grade. This panel will address how social entrepreneurs, supporting organizations, and education technology companies are working to improve student outcomes and to address the significant challenges facing the public education system.
Building a Life (Howard H. Stevenson)
Business and the Environment (moderated by Rebecca M. Henderson)
In this panel, experienced executives will discuss the challenges and opportunities inherent in tackling the environmental crisis facing society today.
Catalyzing High-Impact Entrepreneurship (moderated by Lynda M. Applegate)
We have all read stories about successful entrepreneurs who launch game-changing new ventures; Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs, founders of Amazon.com and Apple, for example, come to mind. Those who attend the Women and Entrepreneurship panel will meet four women who built successful, high impact businesses that changed their industries. But behind each of these successful entrepreneurs is often an innovation catalyst that provided crucial support, resources, and connections. The panelists in this session will discuss the role innovation catalysts play in creating the ecosystems that support entrepreneurs around the world in building high-impact businesses.
Challenges for Board Members (moderated by F. Warren McFarlan)
Dare to Be Bad (Frances X. Frei)
Despite the enduring myth of the "superwoman," it is increasingly evident that individuals achieve mastery and meaning by investing deeply in a few, important aspects of their lives, not by trying to be great at everything. But trade-offs don't only help women live more fulfilling lives; they also prepare women to make necessary trade-offs within the organizations they lead. In business, as in life, leaders who are willing to make strategic trade-offs are the ones who build truly outstanding organizations. Counter-intuitively, what distinguishes these leaders are not their ambitions to be great, but their courage to be bad.
Dealing With the Unexpected (moderated by Joshua D. Margolis)
When we experience unexpected events in our personal or professional lives, how do we respond and what lessons do we draw? Through a discussion with three alumnae who have encountered different types of unanticipated events, we will explore how we handle the unexpected and how we might do so in ways that make meaningful differences in how we lead our lives and how we lead others.
From Inclusion to Influence to Impact: How Leaders Build Confidence in Themselves and Others to Accomplish Professional and Personal Goals (Rosabeth Moss Kanter)
Drawing from a wide range of examples including former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, IBM CEO Virginia Rometty, the turnaround CEO of a nonprofit (now a college president), Canada's most powerful woman CEO, and successful woman entrepreneurs, this presentation will sketch women's leadership journeys through three stages—inclusion, influence, impact—each with its own challenges, trade-offs, and central skills. The discussion will focus primarily on the impact stage - significance - and how to ensure women leaders are not only at the table but also shape the agenda and create big change, whatever their personal and professional goals. Building confidence in oneself and others is relevant to women at any career stage and any level of aspiration.
Getting onto Boards Bootcamp (moderated by Lynn S. Paine)
Life and Leadership: Lessons Learned (moderated by James I. Cash)
This panel will address questions such as: If you had one thing you could do over, what would it be? What was the most significant leadership challenge you had to overcome? What piece of advice do you wish someone had given you?
My Brilliant but Unusual Career (moderated by Myra M. Hart)
HBS alumnae will discuss the twists and turns of their professional career paths, sharing the unique combination of strategic planning and opportunistic moves that enabled each to create her particular success story.
Negotiate What You Need to Succeed: A Workshop for Women (Deborah Kolb)
A prevailing myth about women and negotiation is that we don't ask. The reality is, women have to negotiate many issues, including opportunities, support, credit, perceptions of commitment, and fit, not the usual fare of deal making. In this hands-on workshop, using short cases, we will work through four 'strategic moves'-positioning, process, power, and appreciation-that women can use to negotiate effectively for what they need to succeed.
Power Posing: How the Body Changes the Mind (Amy J.C. Cuddy)
Sleeping with Your Smartphone? (Leslie A. Perlow)
Beyond the obvious costs to personal lives, constant connection adds real costs to work productivity and effectiveness. Many recognize this, but few solutions have shown sustained results. An eight-year, global study of work teams finds that small, doable steps have the power to improve team members' personal lives, a team's work, and ultimately the organization.
Socially Responsible Investing (moderated by Kathleen L. McGinn)
Socially responsible investing seeks to build value for shareholders, companies and society, recognizing that value can be enhanced through ethical employment and environmental and governance practices. Can investors attend to a social mission, to a double- or triple-bottom line, and to sustainable business practices, and simultaneously expect competitive returns? What can investors do to ensure that positive social impact and investor return are achieved together?
Tip of the Iceberg (TIP): Global Collaboration Simulation (Tsedal Neeley)
As work teams become more globalized, they are expected to communicate effectively and productively, even if they do not share English as a first language. TIP, an online simulation carried out in teams, reproduces the communication dynamics that occur during global collaborations in which diverse work teams interact in the commonly used English business language, or lingua franca.
Using Business Acumen to Effect Social Change (moderated by David A. Moss)
This panel will bring together remarkable individuals who have used their imagination and their management skills to change society for the better, working in both the private and public sectors. How did they do it, and how can we learn from their successes and failures along the way? The panelists will speak briefly about their own experiences and then open the session for questions and discussion, focusing in particular on the most promising opportunities going forward.
Venture Capital and Private Equity (moderated by William A. Sahlman)
What's Next: The Path to Career Vision, and HBS Resources for Women (Timothy Butler and Christine Sullivan)
How do we find meaning? How do we find the language that lets us (and others) know what we are looking for? Tim Butler, Senior Fellow and Director of Career Development Programs, has had these questions at the heart of his research for over 25 years. This session will be experiential, with the goal of looking into our most important career and life themes. Then, Christine Sullivan, Sr. Director, Alumni Relations and Director of Alumni Career & Professional Development, will review the offerings HBS provides to assist and support women's career development.
Women Changing Healthcare (moderated by Regina E. Herzlinger)
Women and Entrepreneurship: Pursuing Opportunities and Pivoting to Growth (moderated by Lynda M. Applegate)
It's tough to build successful and sustainable businesses when the world is changing at warp speed. Yet each of the successful women entrepreneurs on this panel has done exactly that. The session will describe their journeys with special focus on two critical times in the life of a new venture. The first takes place early in the life of a new venture as the entrepreneur makes key decisions about becoming an entrepreneur, choosing an opportunity to pursue, and then experimenting to find the right business model to gain traction in the market. The second occurs as the new venture begins to gain traction in the market and the entrepreneur must pivot to high growth.
