Greetings from the exciting (but pretty hectic!) run-up to a huge, inspiring day!
On Friday, September 15 The Center for Women's Leadership in collaboration with the Babson Association of Women MBA's, will be hosting our 9th Annual Women's Leadership Conference here at Babson.
In the midst of making the final, final plans for welcoming hundreds of talented women to Babson on September 15, I wanted to pause and make sure that you know that you are invited---- and that you know how to register to be a part of this!
In addition to featuring two amazing keynote speakers, the serial entrepreneur, Addie Swartz and corporate titan, Carly Fiorina, we will also have eighteen lively, highly interactive sessions, spotlighting an incredible array of talented women leaders from the world of entrepreneurship, corporations and innovative not-for-profits. These sessions echo our theme "Accomplishment for Women. Advantage for Organizations" and address topics ranging from enhancing personal leadership savvy, to helping organizations be more competitive in attracting, promoting and retaining talented women, to the wide, wide reach of women's leadership. And, to make it an even more powerful and inspiring day, The Babson Association of Women MBA's will be making the first "Leadership Legacy Award" to Ellyn McColgan, President, Fidelity Brokerage Company.
Join us on September 15th to be a part of important, in-depth conversations. Take the time to earn from leading experts and from one another. We promise you'll be amazed, energized, inspired. I'm really looking forward to seeing you---in person---on September 15th.
Register at www.babson.edu/cwl/conference before we sell out!
I'm Michelle Park, an MBA student in the full-time 2 year program at Babson College. Today I will be blogging from Olin Hall, the site of the 9th Annual Women's Leadership Conference hosted by the Center for Women's Leadership. I'm looking forward to a day full of phenomenal professional women who will be discussing pertinent topics from wages to best places to work. The conference is a great opportunity for my fellow MBA students (male and female alike) to hear and learn from a number of talented women who have a wealth of knowledge to share.
Working Overseas
September 15, 2006
Panelists:
- Jill Cheng, President Cheng & Tsui
- Kellie Kreiser, Director, Project Artemis, The Garvin School of Management, Thunderbird University
- Olga Pizzaro Stiepovic, Director of Development, The Business School, Universidad del Desarollo, Chile
This was an excellent panel about doing business in several different countries. The panelists had several helpful recommendations for the audience that I would like to share:
- Researching the market
- Trying to understand the country and business culture
- Needing to be flexible
- Building relationships
- Understanding that it may not always be about the bottom line
The opening keynote with Addie Schwartz, Founder and CEO of B*tween Productions (what an inspirational presentation!), just let out and my laptop is up and running at one of our first panel sessions of the day, How it Really Happens: Lessons from Accomplished Entrepreneurs. A very appropriate topic for Babson! There are three women on the panel, all who have built successful companies, sometimes more than one.
The first question revolves around finding the money and how to do it...what do you do when there's a cash crunch? One of the panelists, Jackie Bassett M'93, CEO, BT industrials Inc; Author, So You Built It and They Didn't Come. Now What?, just explained that for her it's all about cash flow...know who will pay for what and why they will buy it from you! She recommended that if you have a service company, as she does, not to go to a VC before you have customers and are making a good margin on what you are doing. If you have a VC invest in your company she says to shake them down for their contacts! They are bringing more to the table than dollars.
