Sessions

The numbers tell the story. The organizational charts support the story - the lack of diverse female talent in positions of leadership and authority in the workplace. A challenge faced by many companies today that are still relying on past practices and utilizing antiquated institutional systems and routines to identify, develop and promote diverse female talent into leadership and executive positions. Their "career offerings," the processes and systems that are being utilized today are not delivering the needed diverse female talent, ultimately impacting  a company's business results. This is an even bigger challenge with the continuing evolution of today's workplace and workforce in which women and especially women of color are become more disenfranchised with the career strategies and actions their organizations are using or claiming to use for their development and career advancement. The end result- many diverse women ultimately exiting their organizations.

Hear insights, lessons learned and recommended practices and approaches from Francine Parham, women's career advancement and leadership advancement expert, a former global corporate executive herself and  now a Sr. Fellow and Program Director at The Conference Board, a global think tank about how organizations should think about and implement actions to tackle this issue of development and retention. What should organizations offer to their diverse female talent to compete in today's new version of the "war for talent" framework? What should they truly be "trading on" and how should it be accomplished?  

Francine also an author of her forth-coming book, "Please Sit Over There: How to Manage Power, Overcome Exclusion and Succeed as a Black Woman at Work"(Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Penguin Random House Distributors). She is also the Founder and CEO of FrancineParham & Co., a professional development company focused on helping organizations prepare their women and women of color talent to advance in the workplace.

Francine will specifically discuss what organizations should think about to truly tackle this issue. She will leverage her own career experiences as a Black professional woman navigating; as an executive and practitioner who had the responsibility herself to promote diverse talent and; share what current diverse women are saying along with the research that supports a call for action that is more focused and intentional - action that is needed more than ever before. Most importantly, how organizations can truly create and operationalize career advancement strategies and approaches for their diverse female talent resulting in the creation of a robust leadership pipeline.

Learning Objectives:

• An operating framework to consider for pipeline development for professional women of color in the workplace;      
• How to take into consideration the factors needed to advance women of color talent within this framework;
• Practices as well as actions that exist in this evolutionary workplace for women of color to advance that the attendees need to investigate and/or consider for their organizations;
• What factors should be considered to engage leaders and executive within organizations to support and take action in the creation of a robust leadership pipeline of diverse women of color.   

In-person session offerings are on a first-come, first-served basis.