Last Friday I took a moment for myself to attend a Women in Business Conference at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler Business School. The title was Next-Generation Business Equality moving beyond the “What is” to “What could be”. This University is located in Chapel Hill NC. a 22 minute drive from the Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU) about 40 minutes from where I live. UNC of Chapel Hill is the 1st Public University in the USA and UNC Ranks 32nd among worlds Top 500 Research Universities (U.S. News and World Report) . The Kenan-Flagler Business School ranks #17 according to the BloombergBusinessWeek Rankings.
The conference was attended by over 400 women from all walks of life. There were prospective students, professionals, and the speakers were all accomplished women who all hold very high positions in a male dominated industry. The Keynote opening was presented by Claire Leonardi who is the CEO of Connective Innovations. She started her openings with an excellent recap of her own journey in a time where women in this country (USA) weren’t even hiring women. However, she never took no for an answer even though there were many a times that a wall had gone up against her. What I have found mo
st interesting, is that she remains feminine, composed and well spoken. She has a deep compassion for women entrepreneurs and today she sits as the CEO of a venture corporation that is actually backed by a government entity. She is a strong advocate of women because if anyone can figure it out its us. Despite whatever obstacles that women face, in comparison to what men face – women make it happen time and time again. The Connecticut Innovations Venture Group is the 4th most active investment group in which they are the 4th group that invests in Biotech, Information Technology, Clean and advanced Bio as well as, BioSciences. Her final message to us was to:
- Be bold and be a player. Be your own advocate
- Don’t be afraid to be a pioneer
- Network
- Stay in the game. When you have children, it doesn’t mean you have to stay out of the workforce or be completely disconnected from your field. Stay connected. Work part time. Be involved through non-profit organizations. Don’t let go entirely.
The conference didn’t end there though, there were many parallel sessions in between the opening and closing keynotes. We had the opportunity to do a workshop on how to speak in public. I took a shot at it too! And interestingly, although I am not shy, my mind went completely blank — but yet the Professors said it didn’t show. The learning from this is, what is going on in our minds – is really just going on in our minds – no else sees it nor knows it! It felt good actually to get up and just speak using a very good methodology which was to really be direct and address the audience using body language, breathing, and truly just be yourself. Many times we are wrapped up in our own minds (me included!) in that we become paralyzed to do anything because we fear. Fear what? I, myself don’t know. Subhannallah. It goes back to the four points above. Say Bismillah. Move forward. The worst thing is that someone doesn’t like you. Right? Imagine if we let that feeling get in the way of scolding our children for fear they wouldn’t love us later. 🙂
Wassallam.
