Small business owners especially might skimp on office products and services to save money—but what if those purchases themselves end up saving you money? And then there are those nice-to-haves that might give you a mood boost on a dreary work day.
Here’s what products and services to look into at your next budget meeting to give your space and processes a pick-me-up.
To learn more and to register, visit Coursera.
Full bio on Ng:
Andrew Ng is Founder of DeepLearning.AI, General Partner at AI Fund, Chairman and Co-Founder of Coursera, and an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University. As a pioneer both in machine learning and online education, Dr. Ng has changed countless lives through his work in AI, authoring or co-authoring over 100 research papers in machine learning, robotics, and related fields. Previously, he was chief scientist at Baidu, the founding lead of the Google Brain team, and the co-founder of Coursera – the world's largest MOOC platform. Dr. Ng now focuses his time primarily on his entrepreneurial ventures, looking for the best ways to accelerate responsible AI practices in the larger global economy.
If you asked your employees (or even yourself) these questions: Do you feel like you matter here? Do you have a sense of community? What answers do you suppose you would get?
Happiness expert Laurie Santos, PhD believes we have “a real opportunity to maximize our happiness at work” if we focus on the right things.
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| ©2023 Laurel J. Delaney. All rights reserved. |
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Steering Committee
Program Agenda (all Central Time)
Talented Wardrobe Stylist and Costume Designer, Jessi Sheehan, will share her wisdom, outlining practical strategies to optimize your professional look delving beyond surface-level aesthetics.
Discover how to infuse your personal brand with the substance necessary to captivate your audiences and make a lasting impact. In addition, you will learn:
We look forward to this fun, engaging and interactive workshop.
About Jessi Sheehan
Jessi Sheehan (https://jessisheehan.com) is a Wardrobe Stylist and Costume Designer with clients in Nashville and Chicago.
She started her fashion career almost a decade ago, working as an assistant fashion designer in New York. She then moved back to Chicago and began working in luxury bridal, with private clients in their closets, and styling her own photoshoots. She built a wonderful network filled with many different people, photographers, models and actors.
Her versatility and profound passion for the craft keeps her busy in all facets of the styling world across private clients, commercials and film.
She has worked with a variety of clients including: Eva Longoria, Jimmy Butler, Jeff Mauro (Food Network), Fall Out Boy, and Second City.
*** Please RSVP to Laurel Delaney, ldelaney(at)globetrade.com by no later than 9/11/23 if you plan to attend (for members and sponsors only).***
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Artificial intelligence could be the savior of the office building.
The real estate services firm JLL estimates that by the end of 2023, AI companies will occupy 17.2 million square feet of office space across the country.
A life-centric approach is built on understanding that people are multifaceted, and that they embrace their own complexity. It involves keeping a finger on the pulse of the external forces that impact modern life (whether economic, social, cultural or beyond) and finding ways to respond that create value for all. Companies with life-centric strategies are willing to make bold, creative changes to the heart of what they do, whether that means upending business models and internal operations or reimagining who their customers are.
Learn more about the 5 distinct and empirically-proven ways that companies on the path toward life centricity are capturing growth amid uncertainty.
While the author of this article doesn't have a crystal ball to predict everyone’s futures, Martinez does have a wealth of stories and experience gained from his work scaling his company.
He offers his top five growth lessons, with the aim to help you avoid making the same mistakes that he made early on while scaling a business from $0 to $1M ARR.
Scaling is the missing innovation discipline. Indeed, when these authors assessed the innovation frameworks used by 15 large corporate incubation units, they found that only four mentioned scaling.
Why is that? Let's take a look.
Her answer to the last question:
With all the demands on a woman president’s time, something has to give. And when you join a group like WPO, you’re committed to showing up. That’s an opportunity for women to get out for a few hours and escape everyone needing them. It’s healthy to be around peers you can learn from. Other women will have workaround solutions for extremely busy lives, because women still have more of the burden outside the office and in their personal lives. Juggling all of that is challenging, but you still have to do things for you.
Read the entire interview here.
Since the start of the pandemic, women, particularly women of color, have become the leading drivers of business creation in the U.S. In 2020 and 2021, women accounted for 49 percent of new business launches, according to a study by Gusto, a human resources software company, compared to 42 percent for men in 2021.
Meanwhile, nearly half of female-led startups in 2020 were launched by women of color. In 2019, the share of new companies founded by women was just 28 percent.
What's driving the surge? Find out here.
Get some inspiration by learning about the successful businesswomen who run Fortune 500 companies. And for even more inspiration on wildly successful privately-owned businesses run by women, visit the Women Presidents Organization.
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| ©2023 Laurel J. Delaney. All rights reserved. |
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Thank you to all who made the program a success: Emot Farley (Prudential), Megan McDonough (WPO), Judy Walk-Pearce (WPO, and Giana Dominguez (WPO).
And of course a big thank you to the panelists for their fun and informative discussion and to all the people who attended virtually and in person!
She had developed a highly capable leadership team. When she exited, she wanted them to benefit, too. For her, there was only one solution. An employee stock ownership program (ESOP) was the fastest path to exiting Bluedog and driving future value for her employees. Employee ownership takes the company's award-winning culture and the accountability for maintaining it to the next level. It rewards employees by making them owners.
Read the entire article here.
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Approaches for transferring wealth to people and organizations that you care about will also be discussed.
If you are a business owner, feel free to join us Wednesday, June 28, 2023 at 4:00 PM CT.
To learn more and to register (virtually or in person), visit: https://www.women-presidents.com/news-events/events-programs/Prudential-and-WPO-Discussion-Panel
Here are 10 best practices for rewards and recognition programs for employees and some innovative strategies for employee recognition.
At the Women Presidents Organization, we encourage more girls and women to enter into STEM. It is crucial to understand that gender inequity in STEM is driven more by perception than by reality.
Download the document here.
How do CEOs (business owners) avoid complacency and sustain high performance through the middle years of the role? There is no magic formula, but from these authors research and experience in the field of CEO excellence, they are confident the odds are greatly increased by the following:
Read on to learn more about all of the above.
Approximately 20% or 1.2 million of these employer businesses were owned by minorities. They employed about 9.9 million employees and had annual payroll of $357.4 billion.
Learn more about who owns America's businesses and how minority business ownership differs by sector.
Check it out here and learn from WPO members the answer to this key question: Why did you join WPO and what have you gotten out of it?
See you in Vegas!
They are the future of work. Learn why.
Our WPO CEO Camille Burns sums it up nicely in this LinkedIn post.
To learn more and to register, visit here. And be sure to stop in at the Pre-Forum Workshop I'll [Laurel Delaney] be moderating on Intentional Growth Beyond Borders (May 10th at 9:30 AM local time).
See you there!
In this interview with Jessica Abo, she shares how it all started and her advice for kids and teens who want to launch their own big idea.
You can access the list if you are a subscriber to Crain's, here.
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But back to President of the United States. While pundits debate Nikki Haley's chances, historian Alexis Coe looks back at a speech former President Gerald Ford gave to a group of children and wonders if he—and whole bunch of film and TV writers—was right all along.
In 1989 a bespectacled girl with a yellow ribbon in her hair asked Gerald Ford if he had any advice for a “young lady wanting to become president of the United States.” Ford didn’t recommend the best schools or list acts of service. He didn’t even answer her question, instead pivoting to a morbid prediction.
Read on to see what it was.
Co-founder and CEO Kate Isler said it was crucial for women business owners to find a place to sell their products and services in order to survive the pandemic and thrive going forward.
Just like the Women Presidents Organization, "Women supporting women" is also a core part of The WMarketplace, according to Isler, who said that mindset is how women entrepreneurs succeed.
Read on to learn more about the backstory on The WMarketplace.
When it comes to gratitude, however, Florsheim saves her biggest thank you for the WPO. “I find it difficult to express the depth of my gratitude to the WPO for providing an opportunity for women in business to get together,” she says. “It’s such a unique experience to have even the possibility to sit with such interesting, successful women, and to learn from them, to share experiences in such a non-judgmental and informal way.”
We love having Ali as a WPO member and she is inspiration to us all. Read the entire WPO interview here.
Globally, according to a not-for-profit that helps build workplaces that work for women, women control about $32 trillion in annual consumer spending. That’s a lot of purchasing power.
In the U.S., women account for 85% of all consumer spending, and they are responsible for a growing number of highly significant buying decisions, including 93% of food and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, 92% of vacations, 91% of new homes, as well as 89% of bank accounts, 80% of health care, 66% of PCs and 65% of new cars.
To help your products or services connect with savvy female consumers, these five tips may help.
Learn the science behind the questions.
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you’re in the right place.
Each book in this collection comes with its own recommendation because it’s important to understand why that title was important to its curator, to determine if it might be important to you, as well.
And once you start your business, visit the Women Presidents Organization to get even more inspired. Reach a million-dollar mark in annual revenue and membership can be yours. A dream come true.
From Chicago to Peru to South Africa – no matter where the WPO chapter is located – we are with our Turkey WPO sister in spirit, love and support.
If you want to help support Turkey, our WPO chapter chair, Gaye Goker, has suggested two trusted organizations:
Read CEO Camille Burn's entire post here.
The PNC Bank [PNC is a long-stand WPO national sponsor] survey found that women business owner (WBO) expectations for their own companies remain strong, with 41% feeling highly optimistic -- up from 29% in the fall of 2020 but down from 67% in the fall of 2021 – while the share of those feeling pessimistic has held constant at just 1%.
“We are seeing a new pattern of self-empowerment among women business owners that are very encouraging,” said Beth Marcello, director of PNC Women’s Business Development. “Their own hard work to survive the pandemic is the source of their confidence and optimism today.”
The survey suggests that women have a take-charge, can-do attitude.
Read more here.
How has being a WPO member helped your business?
Being a WPO member has helped me grow my business and given me the confidence to keep moving forward. I use the ladies in my chapter as a sounding board for new ideas or things I need to change. They are a support group of women who understand the issues we all face and that helps me when I am in a very male-dominated industry.
Read the entire interview, including the challenges she has faced, what inspired her to start her business and what her favorite WPO event is.
Along with NOW, let's all of us honor the memory and the legacy of Dr. King on this holiday.
According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the creator economy is currently valued at $16.4 billion, a 19% increase from 2021. Will that energy carry over into 2023?
In the latest episode of Fast Company’s Creative Control podcast, KC Ifeanyi spoke with a few experts to get a better understanding of where the creator economy is heading next year.
Here are five questions to ask yourself to make 2023 a meaningful year.
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| ©2022 Laurel J. Delaney. All rights reserved. |
Happy Holidays from Chicago I chapter members!
Here’s how to keep the holiday cheer alive while making balanced meal choices.
One of our WPO Chicago members, Valarie King-Bailey (shown above) is featured in the list! Congrats!
Photo credit: OnShore Technology Group
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