The Razzle Dazzle room at AppNexus was abuzz with energy last week for the most recent event in our Changing the Conversation series: “What does it really mean to hire the best candidate for the job?” Over a hundred attendees listened on intently as our panel of trailblazing women, each bringing a unique perspective to the stage, discussed the business case for diversity, introduced the idea of “culture add” vs “culture fit,” and presented actionable recruiting strategies for attendees to employ in informing the Diversity & Inclusion initiatives at their own organizations.

We're thrilled to feature panelist Stephanie Sandberg, Director of Out Leadership and President of Sandberg Consulting, in a spotlight for our upcoming Changing the Conversation event on April 26th! Below, you can read about her experience with a challenging boss, trusting your gut, and the correlation between corporate diversity and greater equality.

The next featured panelist for our April Changing the Conversation event is Diane Herz, President, Director and Chief Diversity Officer at Mathematica Policy Research. Here, Diane describes the struggle and importance of authenticity, being intentional as you build your professional toolbox, and creating buy-in for diversity & inclusion programs at all levels of an organization.

Our upcoming Changing the Conversation event includes a presentation and panel discussion with power-house women leading power-house organizations, and we’re excited to feature them in a spotlight blog series. The series asks each panelist to describe a challenge that she's faced in her career, offer a piece of advice to her former self, and comment on why she cares about diversity in the workplace. Our first spotlight features presenter and panelist Ashley Babinecz, Director of Talent Acquisition at AppNexus. See what she has to say below, and learn more about Ashley’s thoughts on diversity recruiting at our event on April 26th at 6:30pm!

Our next featured panelist for our Changing the Conversation spotlight series is Jean Brownhill, Founder and CEO of Sweeten. She gives great insight into the challenges of an evolving company, advice she wished her younger self would have known, and the importance of having allies and champions in your corner. To hear more about Jean's journey, join us this Thursday on October 26th at 6:30pm for our event, Sponsors: How to Find and Manage This Essential Relationship.

Rabia de Lande Long, our moderator for the upcoming event on Sponsors: How to Find and Manage This Essential Relationship, gives us amazing insight into how this theme was conceived, and why it’s such an important conversation to have.

The next featured panelist in our blog series is MaryAlice Holmes, the Managing Director for Sponsored Activities at Harvard Business Review. Below, she gives us some insight into past challenges, advice to her former self, and her thoughts around the importance of professional mentorship.

We’re excited to feature some of our panelists for our upcoming event with Changing the Conversation in a series of blogs, where we’ve asked each to describe a challenge, offer a piece of advice to their former selves, and comment on their experiences with being or having a sponsor. Our first featured panelist is Pete Danielsen, Owner of Danielsen Design and the former EVP of Programming for BET Networks. Check out what he has to say below, and don’t forget to get your ticket for the event on October 26th at 6:30pm!

As part of our Changing the Conversation: Empowering Women in Leadership series, we decided it would be valuable to take a closer look at the relationship between women and their finances. It’s no secret that women aren’t investing at the same rate as men. While women are financial powerhouses, often acting as primary decision makers over household finances, and controlling a significant portion of the world’s wealth, we still don’t trust ourselves when it comes to investing.

This week marks the 44th anniversary of our founding (originally as Careers for Women), and we celebrated the best way we knew how--by holding our fourth event in the Changing the Conversation: Empowering Women in Business series. Generously hosted by Stack Overflow (an online community for programmers), nearly 100 women of all ages and industries joined us for wine, cheese, and conversation.

The final spotlight blog leading up to our Changing the Conversation event on April 20th features Kristin Haffert, Co-Founder of Project Mine the Gap. Kristin offers great insight into how she manages expectations and sets boundaries to thrive in leadership roles.

Last week we hosted our third event in the Changing the Conversation: Empowering Women in Business series. Set in the sleek, open office of eMarketer, a leading market research and industry insights firm, over 70 women of all ages and industries joined us for the morning event.

We’ve been sharing snippets of our panelists in anticipation of the Changing the Conversation: Empowering Women in Business event, happening this Thursday morning at eMarketer. We also wanted to highlight one of the key forces behind (and in front of!) this event, our moderator: Rabia de Lande Long.

We asked Rabia to share with us a little more about herself and her career. Below are her responses:

In case you missed it, we have our semi-annual women’s event, Changing the Conversation: Empowering Women in Business, this Thursday. In anticipation, we want to introduce you to one of our panelists: Liz Elting, CEO, TransPerfect.

We asked Liz to share with us a bit about herself and her background, and here’s what she had to say:

How to navigate your sales career in today’s ever-changing media landscape? We recently took on the topic in an evening of craft beer and conversation with sales leader, John DiLeo, VP of Sales and Marketing at DNAinfo, attended by over 30 individuals at all levels of their careers. Our very own Eugenia Neri Mini moderated a lively discussion with John in which he challenged the audience to consider a range of issues (including their greatest personal achievements and what comes to mind when they think of “sales people”) and offered advice, personal experiences, and suggestions for how to close a difficult sale.

With our roots firmly planted in promoting women in business (“CFW” stands for our original company name, “Careers for Women”), CFW has been dedicated to the mission of creating an equal workforce for over 40 years (43, to be exact!). After hosting our event, Changing the Conversation: Women in Leadership, last month, CFW Careers President, Cynnie King, reflected, “the hiring and promotion process for advancing women into higher level positions needs to be intentional.” We’re certainly not alone in our attention to this topic.