The 2022 Women|Future Conference took place virtually November 8-10, 2022 with pre-conference sessions on November 7.
Our agenda was comprised of sessions that fall within seven main tracks: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Entrepreneurship, Future of Work, Leadership, Marketing, Personal Development, and Technology. Browse the agenda below to view the session details.
Find Your Voice: Insider Secrets from Seasoned Speakers
11:00am – 11:55am
LEADERSHIP TRACK
Join expert, sought after female global speakers Suzy Jackson, Bri Williams, Em Washington and Marnie LeFevre in this high-energy panel session where they’ll share the speaker secrets they (and their clients) use to connect to an audience and take them on a journey that leaves them feeling inspired, uplifted and moved. They’ll share their insider secrets to crafting your inspiring story (and the importance of storytelling), managing an audience’s experience and their simple tips to getting yourself booked as a speaker. Plus, they speak about the unique challenges women face as speakers and how to overcome them. Each speaker will also be giving you a gift at the end of the session to help you accelerate your speaking success!
SPEAKERS
The Ever-Changing World of Social Media
12:00pm – 12:55pm
TECHNOLOGY TRACK
Join us to learn how female powerhouses use paid and unpaid social media marketing hacks to master the algorithms and create multiple six-figure results for their social media clients. Hear fun and quirky business case studies on band development, content creation, audience building, live video, and video shopping. Stop guessing at what channels will grow the fastest! Get cutting-edge social media trends to grow a diverse community fast and make your followers feel a deep connection and belonging. Come learn best practices to succeed in the future of social media so you can create loyal followers who actually buy your products or services!
SPEAKERS
The Snowball Effect: How Women-Led Businesses Create an Impact
1:00pm – 1:55pm
LEADERSHIP TRACK
There has truly never been a better time for women to take the lead and step into entrepreneurship than right this very moment. We are watching more women open businesses, more women lead companies, and more countries with women at the helm than we’ve ever seen before. These are extraordinarily exciting times as we watch women positioning themselves to take the lead and create change in their communities. Join us for this inspiring panel as our Speakers share how women-owned businesses drive innovation, positive change, and overall economic growth.
SPEAKERS
Building Your Community of Mentors
11:00am – 11:55am
LEADERSHIP TRACK
Mentoring is even more powerful when we build a community around it. Please join these incredible women for an engaging session with stories and examples of building a mentoring community and its personal and professional impact. Each panelist will bring a unique perspective on the ecosystem of mentoring. Attendees will leave enabled with actionable strategies to build their community of mentors.
SPEAKERS
KEYNOTE: Dream Big & Chase it
12:00pm – 12:45pm
Join the session to hear the journey of Rashmi where she navigated work & life across three different continents. The cultural differences and experiences, the ways to carve out possibilities and dreams along the way. The session will inspire you to dream big and showcase ways to chase them wholeheartedly.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Rashmi Verma
Networking
12:45pm – 1:30pm
Cultivating an Inclusive Workplace: How Diversity Creates Opportunity
1:30pm – 2:25pm
DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION TRACK
Data shows that increasing the diversity of your organization will lead to improved innovation, better financial outcomes, retention, recruitment and individual work satisfaction and engagement. This session will highlight the importance of diversity inclusiveness and its impact on company culture, innovation and performance.
SPEAKERS
Crafting and Delivering the Perfect Pitch
1:30pm – 2:25pm
MARKETING TRACK
Ready or not, you get one shot at making a first impression. And with the average human attention span only lasting 8 seconds, you have less time than ever to do it. Knowing how to be your best advocate and tell your story right the first time is essential to your success. In this session, you’ll learn how to prepare and enter a pitch competition, set yourself apart from the competition, and captivate potential investors.
SPEAKERS
Legal Tips For Your Trade
2:30pm – 3:25pm
ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRACK
This workshop will cover the practical use of trademarks, copyright and contracts in your business to reduce the stress and increase the revenue. You’ll walk away learning how to use law strategically to reach your business goals and positioning your business for success.
SPEAKERS
FearLESS: Facing Adversity
2:30pm – 3:25pm
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT TRACK
The women on this panel will be sharing their individual stories of resilience, overcoming and how they have each discovered that being fearless does not have anything to do with approaching life with the absence of fear. On the contrary, what makes these women so strong and courageous is that they have managed to survive, overcome, accomplish and reinvent themselves while facing fear, eyeball to eyeball, and decided to do the thing anyway. Each panelist will share their unique experience and a few things they do to inspire themselves continually as they practice being fearless by fearing LESS.
SPEAKERS
Optimizing Your Business Website from Design to Search Engine Optimization
3:30pm – 4:25pm
TECHNOLOGY TRACK
This workshop is for those who want to understand the strategies to having a website that connects, educates, converts, sells to, and retains the right audience. From conducting user research to developing a site that caters to your target market that includes the right: design, functionality, search engine keywords, & digital marketing is all a PROCESS! This workshop will streamline these facets so you start a website correctly or so your current website can be transformed. A website in 2022 is your first impression…let’s make a good one!
WORKSHOP LEADER
Think Like an Investor: How to Get the Funding You Deserve
11:00am – 11:55am
ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRACK
Join these panelists to discuss how you can get more funding, think like an investor and learn from veteran founders and Startup Advisors, supporting and advocating for small business to connect to capital, creative financing platform, resources, mentors and partners. what advice do you have for people seeking funding in this dynamic market and lessons learned.
SPEAKERS
Pitch Competition
12:00pm – 12:55pm
The Next Generation of Tech
1:00pm – 1:55pm
TECHNOLOGY TRACK
This panel of industry disruptors will focus on how equity should be core to the next generation of tech, how it’s implemented, who implements it and why it’s implemented. Learn how organizations are leveraging nextgen tech to differentiate in the metaverse, Web3, crypto, and AI. These panelists will discuss tech in our everyday lives and particularly the intersection of art and tech and how we can be guardians of the future as it relates to driving great behavior.
SPEAKERS
The Balancing Act: Self-Care and a Sustainable Work Life
1:00pm – 1:55pm
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT TRACK
Do you want to create a more sustainable work/life balance? Start by throwing away what you think you know. Join us to hear our panel of women leaders demystify balance and instead discuss how we can create alignment. Let’s unlearn what we should do and instead embrace what we want and need to do to become our most authentic selves. And let’s explore what it means to create flexible boundaries to protect ourselves in our ever-changing world.
SPEAKERS
A Provocative New Path to Expand Your Corporate Reach
2:00pm – 2:40pm
ENTREPRENUERSHIP TRACK
A tireless advocate for diversity across industries, Certify My Company founder and president, Heather Cox, will show your entrepreneurial audience the value of getting diversity certified – and how to partner with businesses that are. From how to connect with corporate procurement and diversity supplier team members and turn them into your greatest advocates, to how to access the myriad free resources and professional development opportunities available to certified businesses, by the end of this timely, entertaining, and comprehensive presentation, audience members will be able to— Key Takeaways:
• Demystify what diversity certification is and who it’s designed for
• Debunk some of the top myths about diversity certification
• Explore over a dozen benefits of getting diversity certified
• Strategize their post-certification next steps to get face time with corporate gatekeepers and decision-makers
SPEAKERS
Mindfulness for Busy Women
2:45pm – 3:00pm
YOGA/MEDITATION
Mindfulness for Busy Women
Join YogaBellies founder and Yoga Master Cheryl MacDonald as she takes you through the basics of practising mindfulness and meditation on the go. As a mother, entrepreneur and author, Cheryl knows firsthand how difficult it is to keep all of the wheels turning while looking after yourself and everyone else in your life. Join her for this short session specifically for women and the unique challenges we face, to get you started with these life changing practices.
LED BY:
Networking
3:00pm – 3:30pm
Generational Work Styles: Understanding the Old and the New
3:30 pm – 4:25 pm
DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION TRACK
Workplace preferences are evolving and cookie-cutter approaches to engaging and motivating employees no longer work. Boomers who grew up in the 9-5 office environment are staying longer. Gen X and the digital-native Millennial professionals dreamt of “work-life balance” and flexibility, but it often seemed beyond their reach. In a post-Covid world grappling with labor shortages and the great resignation, Gen Z has experienced hybrid and remote workplaces, and many of them want it to stay that way. Our panel will explore some of the generational work style differences in this era of employee empowerment and how leaders can navigate generational differences as they build highly motivated and engaged workforces.
SPEAKERS
Strategic Storytelling: Advertising and PR Tactics for Your Business
3:30pm – 4:25pm
MARKETING TRACK
Storytelling is a powerful tool to deeply connect and engage with your audience and potential clients and customers. Hear from marketing, PR, and content experts to learn how to define and articulate your story, messaging and voice; and then to develop a content & visibility strategy to maximize the impact of your marketing efforts. Focus on what matters most and aligns with your mission and lead gen strategy to fast track your business and brand.
SPEAKERS
Resilient Leadership in a Changing Business Landscape
11:00am – 11:55am
FUTURE OF WORK TRACK
In an ever-changing and complex world, what is the modern definition of resilience in the workplace today? Discover how this generation of women in key leadership roles is both challenging and redefining resilience at work. Join the panel as they discuss key learnings on where resilience in the workplace is most needed, how we can establish dynamic and people-first growth strategies, and learn to create internal communications platforms that convey the new authentic reality of resilience.
SPEAKERS
Leveraging Your LinkedIn
12:00pm – 12:55pm
MARKETING TRACK
Women are powerful. With that power comes great influence and possibility. As women, we have a responsibility to ensure our own presence on LinkedIn is attracting the right opportunities and that we know how to stand out the right way, expand our reach and create meaningful connections. Including live Q&A with the speaker and continued access after the Women|Future Conference, attendees will walk away inspired, equipped and empowered to leverage LinkedIn to increase their visibility and realize their potential.
WORKSHOP LEADER
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Driving Impact vs Tolerating Tokenism
1:00pm – 1:55pm
DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION TRACK
Diversity and Inclusion are not just hiring issues, but go to the heart of each organization’s processes. Countless studies show organizations that give more attention to D&I are able to boost employee engagement, innovation, and industry profitability. However, effectively improving an organization’s diversity and inclusion involves more than just writing up policies. Tokenism is one of the practices companies should keep in mind and avoid in their DEI efforts. In this insightful discussion, the panelists will explain what tokenism is and the counterproductive impact it creates. They will reveal how to incorporate diversity with actual inclusion in the workplace and will discuss the importance of avoiding simply meeting numerical diversity goals without making effective changes.
SPEAKERS
Turning Passion into Profit
1:00pm – 1:55pm
ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRACK
The Turning Passion into Profit session will be led by media and PR veteran / entrepreneur Michelle Mekky, founder and CEO of Mekky Media Relations, and will feature a candid conversation with three visionary and impressive founders who have turned their own passions into meaningful business endeavors: Viola Palescandolo of Black Platinum Gold B.V., Hailey Swartz of Actual Veggies and Joanna Waterfall of Yellow Co. The panel members’ industries and expertise range from media to travel to gourmet vegetable burgers to support systems for female entrepreneurs — but they share the similarity of breaking barriers and overcoming struggles to grow their businesses and achieve their dreams. They will reveal the highs and lows of their journeys and their advice for finding not just profit, but purpose and fulfillment.
SPEAKERS
Viola Palescandolo
Joanna Waterfall
Hailey Swartz
Michelle Mekky
Networking
1:55pm – 2:25pm
Pitch Competition Winner Annoucement
2:25pm
Take a Seat at the Tech Table
2:30pm – 3:25pm
TECHNOLOGY TRACK
Technology is mainstream in our everyday lives, which creates a promising future in a diverse spectrum of opportunities to build our careers beyond tech-only roles. Hear from an incredible panel of female leaders who have progressed their careers from outside of the tech world to become leaders of multi-functional teams in some of the most influential tech-led organizations around the World, how they navigated traditionally male-dominated industry to create pathways and programs for our next generation of female leaders to thrive in this space.
SPEAKERS
Silencing Self Doubt: Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
2:30pm – 3:25pm
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT TRACK
Join this session to learn helpful tips on how to gain confidence and overcome negative self-talk. These methods will help you achieve your goals in situations of self-doubt and use beneficial strategies to banish imposter syndrome to become an authentic leader.
SPEAKERS
The Evolution of Connection: In-person vs Virtual Networking
3:30pm – 4:15pm
ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRACK
In 2020, the idea of virtual networking seemed like a foreign concept and something we only had to do for a short period of time. As we near the end of 2022, it has become clear that, in our truly hybrid world, there is a time and place for both In-Person and Virtual Networking. In this Panel, we will hear from corporate leaders and entrepreneurs about the benefits of each style of networking, how networking has changed and how we can continue to build genuine connections.
SPEAKERS