WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE 2022
April 29 • 11 AM to 6 PM ET • VIRTUAL
- Even less likely to have supervisory responsibilities or reach executive levels than other women of color?
- More likely to find their cultural and familial values at odds with successfully navigating American corporate culture?
- Less likely to be viewed as leaders in professional settings?
- Early Bird
Ends Feb 28 - Conference Attendee: $125
- No Ally Discount
- Regular
Mar 1 - Apr 10 - Conference Attendee: $150
- Ally Program: $50
- Late
Apr 11 - Apr 29 - Conference Attendee: $200
- Ally Program: $75
TENTATIVE SCHEDULE
11:00am
Welcome / Opening Keynote: Shweta Bhatia (Vice President - International Technology, Wal-Mart)
11:40am
Transition
11:45am
The Myth of the Bamboo Ceiling: Top 4 mistakes made by Asian American leaders
11:45 - 12:55 Track: 1 Read MoreUnderstanding and Supporting Asian Colleagues: How we all can play a role in creating more inclusive workplaces
11:45 - 12:55 Track: 4 Read More12:55pm
Transition
1:00pm
Focus Circles
1:45pm
Break / Grab Lunch
2:05pm
Leverage Your Unique Strengths for Performance, Leadership & Fulfillment
2:05 - 3:15 Track: 3 Read MoreUnderrepresented and Underleveraged: Developing the Leadership Potential of Women of Asian Descent
2:05 - 3:15 Track: 4 Read More3:15pm
Transition
3:20pm
Mid-Day Keynote: Lucia Chung (Senior Director, Boeing)
3:45pm
Transition
3:50pm
Using the Art of Storytelling to Amplify your Technical and Leadership Voice
3:50 - 5:00 Track: 2 Read More5:00pm
Transition
5:10pm
Focus Circles
5:55pm
Transition
6:00pm
Closing
The Myth of the Bamboo Ceiling: Top 4 mistakes made by Asian American leaders
XWhile the perception of the Bamboo Ceiling has spurred increased awareness of the need for more diverse leadership within corporations, the reality is that individual professionals must take greater ownership of our career and leadership design to achieve the success we desire. In this provocative program, Jeanny Chai acknowledges the cultural experiences unique to professionals of Asian heritage and the gender trainings women carry, and she reveals how those experiences impact (1) how high you can rise in your career or leadership and (2) the personal fulfillment you enjoy in the process.
Questions this Interactive Webinar Will Answer:
- The top 4 career mistakes those of Asian Heritage unknowingly make that sabotage their own success.
- The simple recipe to go from secretly overwhelmed to propelling your career and leadership forward more authentically and easily.
- Why working harder is the WRONG strategy to finding more success in your life and your career.
- How To Define Your Own Voice (so you can minimize stress and maximize fulfillment)
Trainer: Jeanny Chai
XBambooMyth.com Founder, coach & speaker, Jeanny Chai helps Asian American women find their worth from within and “Live Their Leadership Potential” by reframing the cultural priorities that have been given to us. She believes that breaking through the Bamboo Ceiling is an internal quest and only by thinking differently that we can create a new norm. She has been invited to speak at companies including Salesforce, Oracle, KPMG, VISA, and has been featured in Fortune Magazine, USA Today, and Thrive Global.
Drawing from powerful personal experiences that include “shaming” her family by not attending medical school after graduating from Stanford, raising four children and becoming known as a successful business development professional in Silicon Valley, Jeanny has devoted herself to helping Asian Americans find their confidence from within.
It took Jeanny 3 breast cancer tumors, and a divorce to come into the realization of how she could flourish, and she is dedicated to saving other women the pain of having to go through great adversity to reach the point of personal transformation
The Transformative Power of Your Voice
XYour voice is the mirror to your soul. But research has found that women's voices are less valued than those of men. Women get less air time in Hollywood, speak less in courtrooms, and are more interrupted when speaking in meetings. Women's voices get less air time due to gender biases, cultural biases, and the historical role of women in society.
Your voice is the most important tool to communicate your needs, ideas, and feelings. It's pivotal to your self expression and claiming your space in this world. To be more of yourself, you have to speak up. So what's holding you back?
In this workshop, you will learn:
- - Why women traditionally hold back on speaking up
- - How people pleasing and perfectionism plays into suppressing your voice
- - How using your voice empowers you
- - Have the opportunity to experience the transformative power of your voice on your mind and body.
Trainer: Visa Shanmugam
XVisa Shanmugam is a mindset transformation coach specializing in helping busy, professionals go from feeling like a powerless spectator in their life to becoming powerful co-creators of their future through self-love, self-acceptance, and practical spirituality.
After overcoming a life altering auto immune disease, multiple bouts of depression, and deeply ingrained cultural programming, Visa has gone on to creating a life and career of her dreams. Though she had a successful corporate career in retail, marketing and digital advertising, she left it all behind and followed her heart to create a soulFULL life and business.As a kid who was exposed to three different cultures (Indian, British and American), she was busy adapting to survive, rather than learning to be herself. She now believes that every individual’s full potential can only be realized when he/she is the most themselves.
She is a breathwork facilitator, a meditation guide, a mindset ninja, speaker, a published author, has been featured on Thrive Global, Medium, Brainz magazine, leads corporate workshops, one on one coaching and group coaching for individuals.Her happy place is laying on the grass, staring at the sky, basking in the sunshine, with her two boys, her husband and her labradoodle Cosmo in her backyard in Maryland, USA."
Passion & Purpose: How to Build an Authentic Career at Any Age
XWhen we miss our calling by a millimeter, we miss it by a mile. In Amina's practice as a leadership coach, she sees two distinct groups who have missed their calling by that millimeter. The first group are those in their late 20s and early 30s who followed the outline of familial and cultural programming, choosing the career path that they thought they “should.” The second group is comprised of more seasoned folks, who in many ways paved the way for generations behind them, but haven’t had the opportunity to design a career that is truly aligned with them. Due to the global pandemic and subsequent Great Resignation, people are questioning their career evolution now more than ever before, but it doesn't always mean we need to shift jobs. How can we turn up the volume on happiness and authenticity in our current roles? Amina believes that the great work of our lives sits at the intersection of where our gifts lie (yes, we all have forms of mastery!), what brings us joy, what we value, what we want to impact, and what we need. When we design our path from that space and bring our full selves to the table, we are living our purpose. Listeners will leave with a roadmap for how to make their current career feel even more aligned, authentic and fulfilling.
Trainer: Amina AlTai
XAmina AITai (pronounced AH-MIN-UH) is a holistic leadership and mindset coach, proud immigrant and chronic illness advocate. A leading coach to notable female leaders and impact-driven celebrities-Amina's mastery is in connecting us to our brilliance and teaching us to live and lead from it each day. As a woman of color of Iraqi descent, she often works with marginalized communities to help them realize possibilities in a way that honors their particular lived experiences. She's known for her work around Aligned Leadership and supporting clients in pivoting from Role Models to Whole Models (TM).
Amina's signature program is a 3-month coaching container, The Radical Uplevel, designed to help entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs radically uplevel their work and their lives. She is also the creator of The Nourishment Journal, a personal development workbook where you can unearth blocks standing between you and your dreams.
Communicate with Courage and Compassion
XThis workshop is about learning to speak and listen with compassion and courage. You can be both kind and assertive. Speaking your truth and listening deeply helps to create more trusting and meaningful relationships in your life, both at home and at work. What would it be like if you were more mindful, emotionally attuned to yourself and to others, and more authentic in your daily conversations?
We will explore simple and powerful processes that weave together mindfulness, somatic practices and the language of collaboration. This impactful work can help transform the workplace, increase productivity, and foster more collaborative relationships.
Key Take-Aways:
- Learn the foundations of mindful communication
- Explore the four steps in the language of collaboration
- Practice skillful ways to be fully present in important or challenging conversations.
Trainer: Joy Khoo
XJoy works with leaders to gain more self-awareness and self-acceptance, and to increase their success and confidence in leading their teams and organizations. Her passion includes helping her clients sustainably improve their well-being at work, which in turn impacts business results. Known for her compassionate, flexible and creative style, Joy empowers her clients to develop a sense of curiosity on a holistic journey of self-discovery using psychometric assessments, mindfulness, creativity, neuroscience and embodied practices. In addition to focused 1:1 sessions, Joy also works with teams to intentionally design a culture that fosters high quality connection and purpose to enhance an organization’s potential to make a positive impact. Joy was honored by Secretary Colin Powell as the Community Liaison Officer of the Year in 2003 for her outstanding leadership in managing two evacuations for the US Embassy in Indonesia. Joy had daily coaching conversations with 350 US Embassy employees and family members to guide them through difficult work and life transitions. She also co-facilitated an evacuation workshop for 30 US Ambassadors and coached them on how to be more effective leaders in times of crisis and transition. In addition, she supported five Embassy communities from the Middle East who were evacuated from their posts during the Iraq war.
For over 18 years, Joy has worked with senior executives from a wide variety of sectors domestically and internationally including: the US Department of State, USAID, Microsoft, American Express, Facebook, Google and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Leverage Your Unique Strengths for Performance, Leadership & Fulfillment
XIn life, and especially at work, we often fixate on our weaknesses, where we fall short, or what opportunity areas we need to work on. Instead of trying to “fill in our gaps”, what if we leaned into our unique strengths and talents, developed them, and leveraged them more often? You may not fully realize it, but there’s magic you bring into every meeting, Zoom room, or project team just by being exactly who you are. This magic that only you bring to your team or your company often doesn’t feel like magic - 1. because it feels easy or comes so naturally to you that you don’t even notice it, or 2. because it doesn’t always look the same as the “mold” of success you’ve seen in your company.
In this workshop, we will:
- Explore your innate superpowers and zone of genius, to better understand the “what”, “how”, and “why” of your strengths
- Learn how recognizing your natural, innate strengths helps you get more fulfillment and energy from the work you do
- Workshop ways to leverage your strengths more often in your daily work and life, so that you can work smarter, not harder
Trainer: Sandhya Sudhakar
XSandhya Sudhakar is an experienced former P&G leader, with a deep understanding of how to align people strategy to business strategy. She spent over 16 years successfully managing teams and bringing commercial plans to market in the Consumer Products and Hospitality industries. She has developed an expertise in navigating change at an individual and organizational level, authentic leadership, and cultivating personal well-being. She uses her professional experience, education, and her passion for the human side of business to help you and your team be yourselves at work so that you can love what you do AND love who you are while doing it.
Sandhya grew up in the Midwest USA, the daughter of Indian immigrants. She loves to experience life through travel - new cultures, architecture, music, and (especially) food of new places all over the world. When she's at home, Sandhya loves to indulge in all things entertaining & design, keeping her plants alive, and (you guessed it) enjoying the amazing food in Chicago.
Acknowledging Achievements
XLearning to share about your achievements is not only a great way to build confidence and self esteem; it is a necessary skill for women to learn to elevate themselves in the workplace.
In this program, we address the social constructs that prevent women from openly and comfortably speaking up about their achievements, and we work to shift your mindset and gain skill sets that will get you more confident and comfortable in claiming your achievements - maximizing your presence and contribution.
Key Takeaways:
- - A mindset shift and breakthrough about historical and social norms that prevent women from sharing about their accomplishments.
- - Practical tools sharing about your successes, big and small!
- - Practice sharing achievements in a supportive environment.
Trainer: Van Lai-DuMone
XBy cultivating idea sharing through creativity, everyone has a chance to have their voice heard. This is the foundation of Van Lai-DuMone’s work as the founder of worksmart, a progressive team and leadership development consultancy that activates creativity and experiential learning to enrich company culture and skyrocket performance. Born in Vietnam and raised in Southern California, after her family fled Vietnam as war refugees, Van watched her parents pave a new life for themselves; exemplifying how creative thinking, innovation, and curiosity can help people overcome their circumstances. In her TEDx Talk: The Life Changing Power of Curiosity, she shares her framework of following curiosity to create possibilities for yourself and others; and references her mom's role in trailblazing the Vietnamese manicure industry. An industry born through the curiosity of 20 refugee women & the unlikely teaming up with a Hollywood movie star. This story touches on lessons of women empowerment, compassion, diversity, curiosity, and resilience.
She studied Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and earned her MBA from Pepperdine University. With over 15 years of corporate and start-up experience, Van actively works to rewrite the way we apply creativity in the workplace, instilling brave thinking in clients who are willing to disrupt traditional thinking. Her clients include game changers such as Google, LinkedIn, and Pandora.
Using the Art of Storytelling to Amplify your Technical and Leadership Voice
XWomen, especially in the STEM space, often fail to engage their audiences emotionally while focusing on technical data. Yet, there is an opportunity to elevate our technical expertise while also connecting with their audiences on an emotionally intelligent level to showcase their leadership skills. In this workshop, we are going to cover how the elements of creative storytelling can be used to craft a compelling emotional and technically sound narrative to amplify our voices as effective leaders.
Learning Objectives:
- Participants will learn how to craft a technical narrative that is also emotionally engaging using the elements of storytelling.
- Participants will learn to recognize and practice non-verbal cues within themselves and the audience that can be used as navigational tools during speaking engagements.
- Participants will be able to practice various verbal tools to find their most powerful and effective voice.
Trainer: Aparajita (AJ) Jeedigunta
XDr. Aparajita (AJ) Jeedigunta is a daughter to immigrant parents, a spouse, a parent to a neuroatypical child, and, a two-time Traumatic Brain Injury survivor turned Mental Wellbeing Advocate. She is a trained social-personality psychologist, a certified professional executive & leadership coach, a published author, a podcaster and one of only 34 Advanced Certified Practitioners of the personal and professional development assessment suite in the world.
In 2020, she was awarded the prestigious Corp! Magazine Diversity Business Leader award, was recognized as one of the Top 20 Career Coaches in the Metro Detroit Area, and was recognized by Brainz Magazine as one of the Top 500 Global Influencers alongside Greta Thunberg, Kamala Harris and other leaders in Equity, Inclusion and Leadership Development.
On an individual level, Dr. AJ helps historically marginalized and underrepresented high performers with big dreams exponentially increase their leadership skills, presence, income and social impact while permanently eliminating the misery of being overworked and under appreciated.
Dr. AJ is the Founder & CEO of AJ RAO, a boutique firm whose values are mental wellbeing, interconnectedness, authenticity, and, intentional inclusion. The mission at AJ RAO is to create intentionally inclusive and interconnected spaces of wellbeing and belongingness. The AJ RAO team helps businesses build DEI & B principles into the foundation of their cultures and all of their business development goals so they can empower their talent to thrive while cutting costs and increasing profits.
Building Mental Fitness: Master Your Sage Leadership
XThe more mentally fit you are, the more you’ll be able to handle the stress, anxiety and frustrations that might come from work and personal life challenges. This includes how you show up as a leader and engage with your team and fellow colleagues.
Your level of Mental Fitness is the best predictor of how happy you are and how well you perform relative to your potential. Ultimately, you’ll be able to master your sage mind to lead with empathy and heart. The good news is that, just like physical fitness, you can boost your Mental Fitness significantly with practice!
During this workshop, we will unpack:
- - How you tend to self-sabotage with Saboteurs like the Judge, the Hyper-Rational, the Controller, the Hyper-Achiever, the Pleaser and 5 others
- - The 3 core muscles at the root of mental fitness
- - Practices to build your mental muscles so you can lead with your Sage mind
Trainer: Amy Yip
XAmy is a Life Transformation and Mental Fitness coach who works with high-achieving, ambitious women going through transitions to tap into their potential and bridge the gap between where they are now and where they want to be (even if that destination isn’t totally clear yet).
Her passion for coaching is to empower people to realize their full potential, let go of the ‘shoulds’ and be the author of their own life story because if you don’t tell your story, someone else will.
In January 2020, after 16+ years of building and leading global teams in organizations like Google, Clorox, and Booz Allen, Amy left the corporate world, sold everything, and took a 1-way flight to Ghana with her husband to volunteer at a breast cancer non-profit and travel the world. COVID shifted their plans; they got stuck in Ghana for 7 months.
One of her greatest learnings: Your mindset, NOT your circumstance, makes all the difference in your happiness and success. Through this lens, she works with clients to find their voice and the courage to speak up, build self-confidence, navigate change, and discover what they REALLY want next in their life and career. Amy is an ICF PCC, Certified Hudson Institute Coach, and a pioneer Mental Fitness Coach certified through Positive Intelligence. She holds a MBA from Anderson UCLA, and a BS in Computer Science, BA in Communications from University of Maryland.
Understanding and Supporting Asian Colleagues
XThis talk will explore common challenges that Asian people face at work and how all people, including Asian employees and allies, can play a role in fostering more inclusive workplaces. We will look back into history to understand where certain stereotypes and misconceptions come from, why they still hold power today, and how they might be affecting everyone at work. Finally, we will explore four concrete strategies that you can use to speak up when biased or stereotypical comments are made. You have the power to help increase inclusion and belonging. The concepts explored in this talk will help you better understand how to support Asian employees as well as to create more inclusive work environments for all.
Learning Objectives:
- - Explore the wide diversity that exists within the Asian umbrella, and explore questions like "Who is Asian?" and "Who is Asian American?"
- - Trace the histories and analyze the effects of two primary stereotypes that Asian and Asian American people face today: "Yellow Peril" and "The Model Minority Myth"
- - Practice four concrete strategies for speaking up against biased or stereotyping statements
Trainer: Sarah Soon-Ling Blackburn
XDr. Sarah-SoonLing Blackburn is an educator, speaker and professional learning facilitator. Sarah has experience teaching at both the secondary and elementary levels and in 2011 was named Teacher of the Year at Lakeside Upper Elementary School in Lake Village, Arkansas. As a professional trainer, Sarah’s areas of focus have included workplace cultures, leadership skills, and diversity, equity and inclusion. She has designed and facilitated talks and workshops with schools and organizations across the country, including Learning for Justice, Microsoft and LinkedIn. Sarah is a LinkedIn Learning instructor and the author of a forthcoming book about Chinese American History for middle grade students. She is known for creating and developing learning experiences that are engaging, meaningful and oriented towards action.
Sarah has an M.A. in Social Justice and Education from University College London’s Institute of Education and an Ed.D. from Johns Hopkins University. More information about Sarah, including links to her writing and videos of past workshops, can be found at sarahsoonling.com. She is based out of Oxford, Mississippi.
Underrepresented and Underleveraged: Developing the Leadership Potential of Women of Asian Descent
XMost corporations leverage leadership development in their talent strategy. However, the one-size-fits-all approach to development does not address the unique needs of underrepresented groups such as women of Asian descent. This study highlights findings on women leaders of Asian descent to provide recommendations to organizations ways to support women's professional development. This talk also provides insights to women who aspire to become influential leaders.
Key Takeaways:
- - Eliminating barriers for Women of Asian descent in organizations
- - What organizations can do to support and develop Asian women
- - How Asian women can position themselves to advance in their careers
Trainer: Yon Na
XYon Na, Ph.D., is an organizational effectiveness consultant, coach, and researcher. She helps executives, leaders & teams accelerate performance by applying organizational psychology principles. She designs solutions such as executive off-sites, coaching, team development sessions, and customized learning workshops.
Yon is also the founder of Radiance HQ, an organization dedicated to advancing Asian women in the workplace. Yon developed the Radiance Leadership Development Program, which combines her research, organizational psychology, and experience leading in Fortune 100 companies. She has published two research studies on Asian leaders and is currently working on her third.
Yon earned a doctorate in Organizational Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University. She received her Master's in Applied Psychology and a BA in Business Administration from Golden Gate University.