Learning from the Minds of Female Leaders
As the world celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8th, 2019 #balanceforbetter, my city – Windsor Essex, Ontario also held few leadership events, one of which I had a chance to go to with my friend. Our city provides a lot of resources, opportunities, and mentorship for women entrepreneurs.
The event we were part of, was ‘Women of Windsor: Inside the Minds of Female Leaders which was hosted by the University of Windsor EPICentre in partnership with WEtech Alliance and the Small Business Centre. It was a wonderful weekend of connecting with some great leaders/ women entrepreneurs in YQG.
I am always interested to meet women leaders and have had a chance to get to know many of them in the past. I continue to keep looking more such opportunities in the future as well. It is a valuable avenue to learn and grow and also to uplift and encourage one another.
Keynote speakers were:
- Janice Kaffer, CEO of Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare.
- Sherrilynn Colley-Vegh, Leadership Development & Training at United Way Centraide.
- Pat Soulliere, President, and CEO of Soulliere Financial.
The event was hosted as a panel discussion with a seated dinner. There is something my husband and I totally believe and see, that all good conversations happen around food. Don’t you agree with me? Tonight was no different. Our table had such wonderful ladies, so very talented in their areas. It was wonderful to connect with them and hear their stories.
If you didn’t have a chance to come tonight, don’t worry, I got you covered. I have written down the highlights of all that I learned from the discussions. I hope you will benefit from it too and stay encouraged.
Lessons I learned from these great minds:
- Pat challenged all women to share their life’s story as it encourages other women. She herself saw the struggle in the early years of her life/career when she was a single mother. She said it gives her a personal experience in order to better understand women and give them advice along with the comfort they need. Pat recommended reading Michelle Obama’s book “Becoming”. You can buy this book on Amazon, Chapters
- Janice shared what success is to her, she said that it’s never about her. To her success is about helping and serving people. You can learn more about her views in the recent blog post she posted at Transformational leaders.
- Sherrilynn shared how we need to build women up and to not be afraid of speaking on
behalf of others.
- Learning from top and teaching to the bottom. Learn from your mentors and put yourself in places where you can mentor other around you.
In common, they talked about how mentorship is important in life. Senior women should share their knowledge with the younger ones. They encouraged to have a mentor in your life and be a mentor to someone. They all shared how they have been blessed with great mentors in their lives men and women. Hearing their stories of
One very interesting question was asked to them.
What is one headline they would like to see in the media on women in next 5 years?
Look at what they said,
- Women as a US President.
- Having more headlines about the content, stance, and abilities of a woman speaker, rather than focussing on their wardrobe and looks.
- Windsor is the best place to be a woman. (and I wouldn’t disagree at all. I feel blessed to be in this city, and I can write so much about it. Maybe another blog soon)
Men in our lives
We had a few brave men in our audience, and it’s so wonderful to see how many of these men are supportive and very encouraging to us women. We don’t want to forget that. The speakers threw light on how they met men in their lives who had guided and supported them and gender was not something they considered as an issue when it came to their work. Although there are still many places where sadly women still have to fight for their rights, there is still hope. We have come a long way and still have a long way to go, but am sure that both men and women working together can make a better world for the generations to come, one where gender parity is firmly established.
Another literal “takeaway” for me was a T-shirt by
And did I tell you there were delicious, mouth-watering goodies? Thankfully it was at the end of the session otherwise it would have been so hard to listen to the speaker while chewing. 🙂
Ladies, enjoy being you, every single day. Keep encouraging and uplifting one another. Dream big.
Share your thoughts with me.