Session 1 Descriptions

Session 1A Pay Gap/Salary Negotiation with City of Boston Office of Women’s Advancement

AAUW Work Smart is a salary negotiation program designed to give women the skills and confidence to advocate for themselves in the workplace. Participants learn how to research competitive salaries, articulate their skills, qualifications and experience, and ask for—and get—the pay they deserve. In partnership with the City of Boston, the Work Smart program has already trained more than 100,000 women, and nearly all participants report increased knowledge, skills, and confidence in negotiating. A study of the AAUW Work Smart in Boston program’s first year found nearly half of workshop participants successfully negotiated a competitive starting salary or pay raise following their training.

Session 1B Women in STEM Panel

Have you ever dreamed of working in technology, but thought you weren’t qualified because you don’t have a STEM background? Come find out how three alumnae from Google, iCAD and Microsoft navigated careers in technology.

Come hear from Karen Greenleaf, Head of Project Management at Google, Stacey Stevens, President of medical device maker iCAD, and Danielle Volman, Global Business Program Manager at Microsoft about their journey in the STEM world.

Session 1C Healing Around Social Injustice with Tiffany Enos

Social justice work often engages frameworks and practices on how to dismantle oppressive structures that are central to how we can progress as people, organizations, and societies. However, oppression can take on many forms, one of which is on the individual or internalized level.  In this session, we will engage a framework of oppression to begin a conversation about what happens beyond advocating for others. How do we deal with the residual impact of oppressive systems, even if they’ve been changed? How have we internalized messages of inferiority through our own marginalized experiences?  Can we achieve collective liberation without first finding personal liberation? Join us for an interactive workshop focused on healing, reflecting, and prioritizing self in a conversation that often becomes about others.

Session 2 Descriptions

Session 2A Pursuing your Passion with Meghna Chakrabarti

Not all career-paths are straight-forward. Award-winning journalist Meghna Chakarabrti began her career in engineering, but made the brave choice to follow her passion for journalism.  Hear from Meghna how she broke this news to her family, and worked her way through the ranks to hosting and editing NPR’s On Point and Modern Love.

Session 2B Wellness and Sleep with Jenny Hanway

The importance of great sleep is now common knowledge, so why do so many people still struggle to get the recommended 7-9 hours per night? We need to switch the focus. It is not what you do in the 2 hours before going to bed that is the priority, but rather the nutrition, fitness and wellbeing strategies that you implement from the moment your alarm sounds, that result in that elusive but longed for night of restful and restorative sleep. 

In this 60 minute workshop you’ll receive the tips, tricks, hacks and habits  that Jenny  has used to amazing success with hundreds of clients to cultivate a healthy cortisol curve and balanced circadian rhythm.  

Session 2C Authentic Leadership/Teams w Diverse Workstyles with Prof. Sandi Deacon

This session will discuss Authentic Leadership as an approach to building credibility and leading diverse teams more effectively. We will focus on exploring some of the leadership challenges that women face and invite participants to share some of their own challenges and experiences with effective leadership.

Session 3 Descriptions

Session 3A Financial Life Stages with Lisa Margeson from Bank of America

Due to the transformative forces of unprecedented longevity, evolving family dynamics, and new technologies, we need to revisit and understand more deeply what our life priorities are as we go through our Life Stages. The unique body of work maps a functional, emotional and financial portrait through five key Life Stages.  It opens the door for a breadth of opportunities as families navigate the ups and downs, financial concerns, and key moments along each life stage journey.

In this session we will hear from Lisa Margeson, a senior leader in the Retirement Business at Bank of America.  She will be covering key aspects of life stages including Early Adulthood, Parenting, Caregiving, Widowhood and End of Life/Legacy.  There will be a focus during this talk on how these life stages impact women in particular.

Session 3B Gender and Micro Interactions at Work with Prof. Sanaz Mobassari

This talk reviews extant research investigating how gender shapes people’s attainment throughout their career trajectory. Building on this, Sanaz draws on cutting-edge research that utilizes micro-interactional data to further develop our insights about the micro-dynamics of gender in the workplace. 

Session 3C BUild Center for Innovation: Student Entrepreneur Panel Moderated by Rachel Speckman

Boston University’s BUild Lab for Innovation fosters the creative problem-solving skills of students and alumni, to help them turn their ideas into action.  Hear from three BU women who have made their way through BUild’s innovation program to become change-making entrepreneurs.

Session 4 Descriptions

Session 4A Meditation and Mindfulness with Stacie Nardizzi

Session 4B FIRE Up Your Life with Kim Edwards

Learn tactical personal finance tips & tricks from a fellow Questrom alum who achieved FIRE (financially independent, retired early) before the age of 40. This will be a hands-on session, walking through spreadsheets. Topics will cover calculating your retirement number and creating the game plan to achieve that number, calculating the amount of home you can afford to buy, understanding and tracking your net worth, de-mystifying investing, and finding a job that will position you for financial freedom.