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2016-107 Past Events
Annual Leadership and Women of the Future Awards Our exposure to great role models and sponsors can substantially influence how our careers grow and develop. Please join us for an evening to honor three inspirational established women leaders who have made their mark, and to recognize and celebrate outstanding women from the next generation. Be inspired, network, and support the career advancement of women in science and technology! Leadership Awardees
Karen Anderson, SVP, Chief Human Resources Officer at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-06-28-women-of-the-future Successful Communication - How to Build Your Skill in Handling Challenging Conversations June 27, 2017, 6:00 - 8:30 PM Do you notice a sense of discomfort or even dread when you know you have a difficult conversation that needs to happen? Do you leave these conversations feeling less than resolved or understood, or question whether anything will change as a result? In this workshop you will bring your own challenging conversation and work with it using a model, specific steps, and practice in effectively preparing for and engaging in your conversation. We will talk about the ladder of inference and the power of assumptions and then use a 5 step process to prepare for any challenging conversation. Come join Sue Williamson and build skill and confidence in your abilities to be successful communicators in often emotional scenarios. More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-06-27-challenging-conversations Advanced Communication Coaching - Networking to Business & Public Presentations “You can improve your value by 50 percent just by learning communication skills--public speaking:” – Warren Buffett Every business leader agrees on the importance of communications. Improve yours. Join us to develop your communications skills. Learn all the important aspects of developing, practicing, delivering, and self-evaluating your presentations. Too many call their slides “The Presentation”. Many even build slide decks, filling in various details and data before focusing on the audience, what you want the audience to do, and what you want them to remember. The solution is easy; it will save you time, and raise your stature, but it’s not for the faint of heart because you can’t read your PowerPoint slides. It will give you the opportunity to have your audience leave the room thinking, if not saying, “Wow, that was good”.Tom Kennedy will cover - Preparation
- Audience, Result, Message
- It’s about them, not you.
- You have to know what you want them to do.
- Know your message in a sentence or two.
- Introduction/Conclusion the bookends of your presentation.
- Main themes, no more than three.
- Rehearsal - Yes you have to, and the more important the talk the more important the rehearsal.
- Evaluation of your strengths and weaknesses, we all have them. Participants will be video taped giving a short presentation, which they will receive feedback on. More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-06-13-presentation-skills Everyone Communicates, Few Connect – Communicating and Leading for Results When we have an idea, the first thing we do is communicate it. When we need help from others, the first thing we do is ask. There is a step between our idea and desires and communicating them. That missing link is connection. Ever wonder why some people seem to move forward in their careers while others seem stuck? Why no one seems to think your great idea will work? Why your team members don't seem to be paying attention? Why your team is not inspired and engaged? It is because people aren't connecting when they communicate and lead. Everyone talks, but talk is cheap and only yields limited results. Communication goes beyond techniques, body language, tone of voice and other mechanical methods. Learn the strategies from Kemi Sorinmade to grow into a leader that can connect with others so that you can communicate in a way that gets your message across, inspires action from others and helps you achieve better results. More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-06-06-communication Entrepreneurship: Building teams and bridging the gap between technology, finance, and marketing Come join us for a combined WEST/Ellevate panel event, “Entrepreneurship: building teams and bridging the gap between technology, finance, and marketing.” This talented and experienced panel of women will discuss their perspectives and experiences as it relates to starting a new company or leveraging their skills to assist others with an entrepreneurial endeavor. Come hear the stories of this experienced panel and engage in discussion to learn how they got involved in start-up companies and how you might explore this world. Panel members: - Jill Balis, Chief Marketing Officer, The Grommet More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-05-31-entrepreneurship A Roadmap for Women Leaders to Be Bold: Strategies and Techniques to Rise Off The Sticky Floor Leadership expert, Rebecca Shambaugh will present a roadmap for achieving greater gender equality that includes action items for the organization, the leadership, and for women. She will share her perspective and experiences on what are the institutional and personal implications of today’s gender transformations, and what can we learn from their ongoing successes and failures. Rebecca will also present her compelling vision that reinforces why this is the time for women to take the lead – to bring about the change that is needed. She will inspire women to be bold and tap into their natural strengths, style, and thinking to help organizations grow and maintain their competitive advantage in the years ahead. Rebecca will provide her company’s research and relevant stories of how she and her organization have coached hundreds of women off the ‘sticky floors’ of organizational resistance. Sticky floors are self-limiting beliefs, assumptions, and behaviors that unknowingly sabotage women’s confidence and ability to achieve their career goals and aspirations. Some of these sticky floors include, perfectionism, not having strategic and supportive relationships, shying away from having difficult conversations, failure to speak up and gain the credibility they deserve, or not asking for what they want. Attendees will walk away with a greater awareness of their sticky floors along with a practical toolkit for exploring new avenues that will open up doors and create pathways for bolstering their confidence and reaching their greatest potential. More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-05-23-women-leaders Tips for Maximizing the Value of Your Compensation and Benefits Package In today’s competitive market for talent, many employers are offering attractive compensation and benefits packages. In addition to salary, bonus, and equity compensation, “softer” benefits like expanded maternity leave, flexible schedules, and wellness programs are becoming more common. In this program, financial advisor Beata Dragovics provides tips to help ensure you take full advantage of your employee compensation and benefits. This includes:
More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-05-18-wealth-management Key Leadership Skills for Success in the Technological World Listen to the inspiring journeys of successful senior women and men in science and technology as they talk about their pathways to success. Highlights will include details on their paths, obstacles they overcame, things that helped them along the way, and tips and strategies that can also work for you. This is a great opportunity for you to network with the movers and shakers in the science and technology community and support the career advancement of women in STEM!
More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-05-17-Success-Panel Breakfast with Rockstars Are you looking for an opportunity to network and hobnob with local senior women leaders? If so, this is THE event for you. Enjoy a light breakfast accompanied by lots of conversation with Meredith Fisher, Partner at the Partners Innovation Fund and Jo Viney, Co-founder and CSO at a new startup biotech company. Registration is for WEST MEMBERS ONLY and will be limited to a maximum of 20 participants to ensure an intimate experience. More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-05-04-breakfast The Choice is Yours: Tools for Transforming Your Career and Life
All of these are examples of not living fully in your power. Kimberly Napier, Certified Life and Executive Coach, will reveal how the power of choice can be transformative in creating an empowered life and career – a life based on your terms. Through real-life examples, up to date research, mindful techniques and practical exercises, you will begin to recognize and bypass what holds you back. You will begin the process of trusting yourself and your own knowledge to make choices that serve YOU– no more waiting for permission or seeking approval from others.
More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-04-12-choice Overcoming the Two Biggest Impediments for Successfully Working Globally The fact of globalization affects all of us, daily. This is especially true for men and women working in science and technology, two of the economic engines of the 21st century economy. Companies operate globally, drawing on the talent and innovative thinking particular to a country or region. If there ever was an ‘age of ideas’, we’re living it! Progress, however, is often stalled, or, worse, halted, because the human element of technological advances hasn’t as yet caught up. Collaborating with colleagues who have experienced the world differently as they grew up or whose professional lenses see a problem differently than us often causes conflict. When we work virtually, as we often do in global project teams, as one example, we find it difficult to establish trust with our co-workers. Social distance is increased as there are no opportunities to ‘chat around the watercooler’ or have lunch together in the canteen. How do we cope with difference and learn to respond, with cultural and emotional intelligence, rather than ‘react’ to what we perceive are threats? This interactive workshop with Marion Estienne, Ph.D. focuses on two such impediments to successful collaboration: functional and cultural differences. We will explore function by considering thinking preferences and how they determine different styles of decision-making, communication, and leadership. We will then look at some cultural components which directly impair trust between and among people from different countries. Finally, once we understand the origins of the potential for conflict, we will look at some tools and techniques which can help us be more successful when dealing with difference. More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-04-04-working-globally Lunch, Laugh, and Bust the Bad Moms Myth Women have been told for so long what a “good mom” is that many of us believe it, on some level, deep down, even though we know there are multiple ways to be an effective parent. We live with lingering guilt for not being that "traditional mom" and sometimes make decisions based on those beliefs and biases, rather than reason. Come join us to learn from, collaborate with, be inspired by, support, and be enlightened by the “Bad Moms.” Jodi Detjen, co-author of The Orange Line: A Woman’s Guide to Integrating Career, Life and Family, will present the findings of her research on work-life balance. Jodi is a professor of management at Suffolk University since 1999. She conducts workshops, talks and consults on the principles from the book in her firm Orange Grove Consulting. Jodi has been helping organizations develop their leaders for over 25 years. She teaches, consults and writes in areas of leadership development, systemic and organization change management, and how women can realize their power. After Jodi’s interactive presentation, we will open up to a roundtable discussion where we share our stories of how we broke the mold and effectively parented despite being “Bad Moms,” in a judgment-free zone. More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-03-30-bad-mom-myth Negotiating Your Compensation Package: Financial Strategies for Professional Transitions Are you planning a career change? Thinking of jumping to a competitor? Has a recruiter contacted you about a new job opportunity? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you will need to have a strategy in place to negotiate the best possible compensation package for yourself. Unfortunately, research has shown that women are far less likely to negotiate for higher pay, which may be contributing to the gender pay gap. In this program, financial advisor Beata Dragovics provides an overview of the current compensation landscape within the life sciences industry, along with key considerations before changing jobs. Among the topics to be discussed:
More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-03-23-wealth-management Career Possibilities and Speed Networking Night Do you want to define your value proposition, explore career possibilities, and be inspired by people who have used their science and technical training to advance their careers in different directions? Join us for WEST’s Annual Career Possibilities Event. The evening will start with facilitated networking, so you can meet the other attendees and panelists. This will be followed by a panel discussion to learn more about each panelist and their key lessons learned. Then you will have the opportunity to break into small groups and talk with the different panelists. The 3 Keys to Achieving Your Unique Definition of Success for More Prosperity, Joy, and Ease Are you a leader, expert, educator, consultant, or other creative professional who delivers services based on your knowledge and know-how? Can you remember the last time you didn’t feel overwhelmed, exhausted or depleted? Can you recall a recent time when you were not multi-tasking? How often do you wish you could clone yourself or find another hour in the day? You have a mere 168 hours to live each week. You always have more to do than time available. So you spend your precious energy doing, doing, and doing even more, trying to be a responsible parent, friend and community member, while also succeeding at work. Despite all this doing you feel powerless to stop the crushing deluge of obligations and responsibilities. You often feel drained, frustrated, loathe to admit you can’t do it all, and resentful for feeling like you have to. If this description resonates with you, you are not alone. Many talented women are underperforming as a result of their valiant attempts to outperform. Debra gives you the 3 keys you must have to change all this. With her proven formula, you can prosper with joy and ease. Throughout this talk, Debra Woog teaches you to strengthen your communications (both intrapersonal and interpersonal) and celebrate your enoughness rather than chase accomplishments that feel less than profoundly meaningful. You learn to achieve the goals aligned with your unique definition of success and support others to achieve theirs. More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-03-08-success Learning How to be an Effective Negotiator Negotiation skills are required of all professionals. In fact, you use these skills in many phases of both your work and personal life. This session will focus on negotiation strategies to help you achieve better outcomes. We will discuss how to effectively prepare for a negotiation, think on your feet and deal with conflict. This session will be an interactive discussion with Lisa Haddad and exercises to hone your negotiation skills. More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-02-08-negotiation 9th Annual Giving Back Awards January 25, 2017, 6:00 - 9:00 PM Meet the extraordinary and inspiring women being honored and hear the stories of how they have made a profound impact on society. The honorees are role models who balance job and personal responsibilities while making a difference in their community. Join us to congratulate them, be inspired, network, and support the career advancement of women in the enterprise of science and technology! Local companies in STEM nominated the women we will be celebrating this year. We received a large number of applications and will recognize many amazing women. We will also honor WEST volunteers and supporters whose dedication and outreach efforts have helped us reach our strategic goals. Appetizers, wine, and dessert will be served. Whether shopping for your family, friends, home, or office, there is something for everyone at this year's Silent Auction Fundraiser – a plethora of wonderful and interesting items and services for sale from generous donors around the region! Proceeds will benefit our WEST mission, programs, and operations – to provide high quality and affordable educational content and development opportunities (workshops/events) for all women in STEM careers. More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-01-25-9th-annual-giving-back-awards Tips for Incorporating Equity Compensation into Your Overall Financial Plan Today, more women are advancing to senior positions within the life sciences industry. Along with added responsibilities, senior executives usually receive stock options or other forms of equity compensation as part of their compensation packages. In this program, financial advisor Beata Dragovics provides an overview of the various forms of equity compensation, along with current compensation trends within the life sciences industry. Attendees will learn how to optimize their equity compensation packages, with a particular focus on managing concentrated wealth. Other topics include the tax ramifications of exercising stock options, along with tactics for treating equity compensation as a vital piece of your overall financial plan. More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-01-19-wealth-management Swipe right.. into your DREAM Career!! January 11, 2017, 6:00 - 8:30 PM If your resume was a dating profile, would you hire yourself compared to all the others? Developing your resume and interview skills are crucial to your future career success. An interview is a blind date where you only get one chance to show why you are a perfect match. Are you putting enough time and effort into preparing for the big interview date? This presentation and workshop will focus on these two key factors and incorporating how to be yourself and exactly what the hiring company needs. Areas of focus will include: formatting your resume, addressing career transitions, applying for the right position, connecting with your interviewer, and confidently navigating the interview process. You will not land an epic job without epic preparation. Eva Quinn has reviewed over 3000 resumes this year and looks forward to sharing 10 years of hiring management experience with you. More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2017-01-11-resume-interview 2016
Career Possibilities and Speed Networking Night Do you want to define your value proposition, explore career possibilities, and be inspired by people who have used their science and technical training to advance their careers in different directions? Join us for WEST’s Annual Career Possibilities Event. The evening will start with facilitated networking, so you can meet the other attendees and panelists. This will be followed by a panel discussion to learn more about each panelist and their key lessons learned. Then you will have the opportunity to break into small groups and talk with the different panelists. Panelists include: More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2016-12-07-career-possibilities Pathways to Leadership Success: Working Towards Gender Balance Join us for an exciting evening of discussion between senior men and women from diverse sectors of science and technology. These eminent leaders will describe their personal journey to success, and will share their thoughts on progress to closing the gender gap. This event, cohosted by WEST, Xconomy, and Biogen, promises to be a great opportunity to network with movers and shakers in the science and technology communities whilst supporting career advancement for women. Panelists: Moderators: More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2016-11-14-Panel Team Leadership - Developing, Mentoring and Coaching Your Team Leadership skills and competencies are required of most professionals at all levels in today's competitive marketplace. The ability to bring out talent in others and unleash their utmost potential is what great leaders do. The focus of this discussion will include practices, principles and behaviors that result in effective team leadership creating an environment of trust and ultimately collaboration. This will be an interactive dialogue where participants will be introduced to methodologies that are valuable aspects of team leadership including developmental coaching, mentoring and action planning. This workshop will be lead by Rita Balian Allen. More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2016-11-10-leadership Making Financial Decision with a Purpose: How to make smart, value based decisions with your money Please come and join us for this financial planning presentation with a twist. We will have an interactive session about how to align your personal values with your financial goals. For those who desire to be the best they can be in the various roles they have in life, living in alignment is critical. Living in alignment is about aligning one’s “real" behaviors with one’s “ideal" values. It is both as simple and as difficult as that! By recognizing what values are truly most important to us we can determine the role they may or may not be playing in decision making regarding our finances. When you begin with this step, you can make all your financial decisions “with a purpose.” Adopting this approach, your comprehensive financial plan will be based on desired long-term goals and will not be affected by short term noise.Once our session is complete you will have detailed information needed to make informed decisions and to create a financial planning checklist that can help you stay on track with your finances. This workshop will be led by Beata Dragovics. More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2016-10-26-financial-planning Power in the Middle: How to Make the Most of being a Middle Manager Life in the middle isn't easy. It's pressure from above and stress from below. It's doing the job while also making sure other people do the job. It's managing without management training, leading without executive coaching, and successfully implementing strategy without enough information about the bigger picture. Yet more than anyone else, the middle manager is responsible for getting the organization's day-to-day work done. In American organizations, middle managers directly supervise nearly 80% of the workforce. They are the ones who engage, motivate, and direct all the programmers, engineers, bench scientists, customer service reps, equipment operators, administrative staff, paralegals, clerks, designers, tech support people, analysts, line workers, line supervisors--everyone who is responsible for carrying out strategy on the ground. If all these people are going to be consistently high performers, their managers have to know how to help them get there. In this interactive workshop with Beth Shapiro and Etta Jacobs, we’ll explore how to lead from the middle: communication skills, relationship building strategies, and behaviors that help you have influence. You’ll come away with specific tools you can put to use right away to be more effective and impactful at work. More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2016-10-13-management Making Work Visible: How to Turn Great Strategy into Great Performance Improve your team's and organizational capabilities to deliver on targets by increasing transparency, accountability and commitment to change! At the “Making Work Visible”, seminar you will learn proven workable tools to give visibility to processes and interdependencies, the knowledge to adjust them to serve your teams' unique needs, and a step-by-step research-based strategy execution methodology. This is a highly interactive experience focused on helping organizations deliver on targets by tailoring their own set of proven visual artifacts. Using examples from different industries (healthcare, manufacturing, military operations, business decision-making, etc.) you will learn about the principles that make them effective. Then you will discuss how to tailor some of these visual artifacts to your unique needs. You will leave with action items that will improve your organization. Making work visible through the use of visual aids has demonstrated to help improve organizational performance and support the implementation of new initiatives. Well designed business performance dashboards, checklists, tasks boards, decision-logs, and other visual aids or artifacts, suggest what to do, increase the likelihood of insights, and minimize the possibility of faulty decision- making. They are precise and prescriptive because they organize information, communication, thinking and action. They minimize the impact of faulty memory, unread emails, misunderstood conversations, cluttered memos, personal quirks, parallel agendas, and attention overload. When integrated as part of a comprehensive methodology for decision-making in complex work, they help increase efficiency, effectiveness, and adaptability. They are a powerful tool for strategy execution that executive teams can use and then scale to the rest of the organization. This workshop will be led by Iris Stammberger. More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2016-10-06-making-work-visible Pathway to Success Senior Panel Discussion Listen to the inspiring journeys of successful senior women and men in science and technology as they talk about their pathways to success. Highlights will include details on their paths, obstacles they overcame, things that helped them along the way, and tips and strategies that can also work for you. This is a great opportunity for you to network with the movers and shakers in the science and technology community and support the career advancement of women in STEM! Panelists include: More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2016-09-22-pathway-to-success Influence Without Authority Workshop & Panel Discussion Do you need others to get things done, but they don’t report to you? The truth is that even when you do have “power”, you are often better off using influence first. The most effective individual contributors, managers, and executives use influence skills to achieve results, regardless of their positional power within the organization. Attending this interactive workshop will provide you with key insights into how to get things done whether or not you are in charge. Influence skills can improve your ability to manage “up”, get agreement from peers, and motivate others. It will enable you to work more effectively in project and cross-functional teams, collaborations, and matrixed organizations. This workshop will be led by Gwen Acton. Learning Objectives - Gain insight into why people do (or don’t do) things you want them to do Leadership Strategies to Advance Your Career Sandra Glucksmann, WEST Board Chair and COO at Editas Medicine, will share stories of her career challenges and success. She will discuss how to best apply your scientific and analytical abilities to develop influence and negotiation skills. Sandra will share her learning experiences as she transitioned from bench scientist to manager, and from manager to executive in both small and large company settings. She will touch on the following topics: - Understanding the difference between leadership and management More Info: http://www.westorg.org/2016-09-07-leadership ANNUAL NETWORKING NIGHT WITH CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND UNDERSTANDING WEST’s Annual Networking Night is great opportunity to meet and mingle with like-minded STEM professionals. Participate in facilitated networking activities designed to engage you with the wonderful women in the WEST community. Members of WEST come from a wide variety of countries and cultures. Come and celebrate our rich diversity, learn more about cross-cultural communication, and enjoy facilitated networking under the guidance of Principal of GTL Coaching & Consulting and WEST Board Member, Ali Farquhar. From your first interviews to leading an organization your communication skills are a, if not the, key to your success. One of the most popular WEST workshops - Tom Kennedy and Beth Masterman will cover all the important aspects of developing, practicing, delivering, and self-evaluating, your most important communications, from meetings to large conferences and video. Additionally, the level 1-3 listening skills which will enable you to stay focused, especially on your audience, or key audiences, to insure success. You will learn message focus, dealing with your nervousness, how to prepare for interviews, how to present “up” in your organization, and how to turn down the noise and really understand what the other person or audience is saying. Listening is a skill and only half of the communication equation. In conversations both parties speak and both parties listen. How you listen, what you say, how you say it, and when you say it impact whether your message hits its target and whether you get the results you seek. It all starts with listening. |
