Northwestern Kellogg Hosts Landmark Global Women’s Summit
Women now make up more than half of all incoming students to the top U.S. universities, but only a small fraction of those women go on to work as CEOs, board directors, or NGO and government leaders. To start to tackle the problem, next week, Northwestern Kellogg’s School of Management will host the first-ever Global Women’s Summit on May 8 and 9. The landmark event will bring together more than 800 alumnae, students, guests, and community members to spark meaningful conversations about the roadblocks that women face on their way to the C-suite.
The Global Women’s Summit will be broken down into three areas, or pivot points, which Kellogg believes have the most impact on the career barriers that women face.
- Launch Track: For women who are just started out their career in their first ten years after college. Sessions include:
- Ten things to do now to set yourself up for long-term success.
- Building relationships with intention and value.
- Mid-Career Track: For women who have ramped up their work responsibilities and outside work commitments. Sessions include:
- Top three reasons to stay in the game.
- Succeeding and leading in a biased world.
- Executive Track: For women who have made it into the upper echelons of their organizations and are either getting ready for the C-suite or are already there. Sessions include:
- Positioning yourself for a board seat.
- The likeability dilemma.
The summit schedule will allow women to choose sessions that best fit where they are in their career so that they only attend those workshops and discussions that meet their individual needs. It’s a unique setup that allows women to spend time with other women at similar career stages.
Many incredible speakers will participate in the event, including:
- Sheryl Lansing, former CEO of Paramount Pictures
- Carol Lavin Bernick, the CEO of Polished Nickel Capital Management
- Cindi Bigelow, the president and CEO of Bigelow Tea
- Ann M. Drake, chairman and CEO of DSC Logistics Inc.
- Gloria Guevara, president and CEO of World Travel and Tourism Council
- Full list of speakers here.
To learn more about the Global Women’s Summit head on over to the website. There will also be 14 sessions available to stream live throughout the event.
This article has been edited and republished from our sister site, Clear Admit.
Joe Biden Talks Industrialization, Income Inequality at Northwestern Kellogg
On March 9th, an eager audience gathered at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management to hear what wisdom Joe Biden might have to impart from his distinguished political career to the world of business.
Speaking the day after observations of International Women’s Day around the world, the former vice president opened his talk with with a message about inclusion. He cautioned the crowd that “in order for a country to succeed… it has to husband all its assets. It cannot leave half its initiative, half its brain power, half of its courage, half of its capability, half of its strive behind.”
Although it was only a preface, the call for gender equality set the tone for the rest of the speech. The overarching theme, in Biden’s words, was inequity. And he didn’t just discuss the wage gap; he focused on what he called “geographic inequity,” or the rising inequality between various American cities and towns.
For much of his time at the podium, Biden decried the recent fate of industrial America, and of the middle class. He gave a bleak description of once-thriving Midwest towns and cities: “It’s called depression,” he said. “Empty factories, empty storefronts, empty homes, empty wallets. And the underpinnings of this geographic inequity are no mystery. It’s been in the making for years. States, and state laws, have undercut organized labor and the right to bargain, stunting the movement. The labor movement has been hollowed out and good, middle class jobs have been lost.”
Biden went on to discuss the disparity between cities on the coasts and those in the Midwest, saying that “a poor child in San Francisco has twice the chance of making a top income than one born in Detroit or Wilmington or Saginaw.”
He concluded that this is due to the fact that “they come from less segregated communities. There’s less income inequity, allowing them to see success around them. Their school systems are better funded. Social networks are stronger. More people are taking part in their communities.”
The talk was framed by current political issues, and the general solution that Biden gave spoke directly to the audience, comprised of MBA students and faculty. The major takeaway of the speech was that business leaders—those who will go on to shape the economy and, to some extent, policy—have a social responsibility.
He emphasized the importance of work, not just for economic stability, but as a source of identity. Biden recounted his father telling him, “Joey, you gotta remember a job’s about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity, it’s about your respect, it’s about your place in your community. I mean this literally, not figuratively.”
As an example, he brought up causal links between unemployment and other social ills. For instance, he added that “every one percent increase in unemployment raises opiod deaths in a community by four percent.”
For Biden, the social obligation to push for fair wages and workers’ rights is not just about raising morale. Rather, it is central to the spirit of capitalism. The role that the business community must play in this scenario, according to Biden, is to push back against policies that limit workers’ rights.
Students at Northwestern Kellogg during the Biden speaking event. Photo via Evan Garcia / Chicago Tonight
Making sure that workers earn wages that match their productivity is a necessary part of a healthy economy. And, by extension, a healthy economy produces and furthers a healthy society.
Biden identified a few common business practices that he described as both anti-labor and anti-competition. He posed a rhetorical question to the audience: “The capitalist system, I thought—and I’m a capitalist—is all about being able to compete and bargain. So how do you justify non-poaching agreements to prevent one franchise from hiring away workers from another franchise?”
He added, “How do you justify taking hourly wage-earners, not managers at all, and re-classifying them, denying them in 1.2 billion dollars in wages, to go to shareholders. Where’s that bargaining deal? Where’s that capitalist competition?”
While Biden’s expertise and experience do not lie in business, he did highlight the importance of responsible business practices in a stable and equitable society. And perhaps, ultimately, that is the most valuable insight that he can provide to MBA students—a unique vision about business that tries to examine its role in the rest of the social world, along with profit and productivity.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from our sister site, Clear Admit.
Round 1 Decision Week is Here: Harvard, Northwestern Invites Arriving Soon
At 12 p.m. EST, Harvard Business School will unveil its round 1 MBA decision invites, leading a busy week for U.S. schools.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, December 13, will feature the first round of invites for Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, with the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Berkeley Haas, and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania following on Thursday, December 14. And on Friday, December 15, Rice Jones, UCLA Anderson and UMD Smith will reveal their first round invites.
A handful of notable Clear Admit favorites, such as the CMU Tepper full-time MBA, Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, Michigan Ross, and Washington Olin, among others, will also be releasing their own first round of MBA invites.
Clear Admit offers a host of valuable tools and advice for those waiting on the edge of their seats, including MBA LiveWire, DecisionWire, and ApplyWire.
Stay up to date with MetroMBA and Clear Admit for more information on the world’s best business schools and upcoming invites.
Top MBA Recruiters: Finding A Role With PepsiCo
PepsiCo is one of the most well-known companies in the world. Known as a top manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of soft drinks and snack foods, the company also serves as a top recruiter of MBA talent in the United States. Continue reading…
