The Panelists: A Quick Introduction

Mentors: What to Look For and How to Find a Great One
The fabulously talented Whitney Johnson will be the sole presenter for this session. I've blogged about Whitney before, but let me write it again: she is truly amazing - fiercely intelligent, incredibly successful professionally, and surprisingly (given how busy she must be) dedicated to enabling others to succeed and reach their dreams. She just had a birthday, and as a present to herself she wrote this great blog post over at the Harvard Business Review: Disrupt Yourself. In addition to being an insightful read, it gives some good history on her career choices. She currently is co-founder and President of Rose Park Advisors, an investment firm in in Boston. She and her husband have 2 children.

Femininity in a Rough-and-Tumble World
Moderator: Robyn Bergstrom, Dean, College of Business and Communication at BYU-Idaho
Panelists:
• Carine Clark, Senior Vice President/Chief Marketing Officer, Symantec
• Susan Walton, Associate Professor/Associate Chair, Department of Communications at BYU
• Natalie Gochnour, Executive Vice President/Chief Economist, Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce

Robyn is the dean of the business school at BYU-Idaho and focuses her course work on the communication side of things.
Carine is the Chief Marketing Office at a company that recorded over $1.5B of revenue in the first fiscal QUARTER of 2011. She has 20 years of experience in the software industry, along with an MBA from BYU. You can learn a lot more about her in this article from the Marriott School magazine - definitely worth a read.
Susan came to BYU in 2006 after 20 years of corporate communication and public relations experience with Dow Chemical, Boise Cascade (paper products/office supplies) and Harley-Davidson. 
Natalie is the Executive Vice President of the Salt Lake City Chamber and Vice President of Policy and Communications at Leavitt Partners. She worked closely with Mike Leavitt when he was Governor of Utah, head of the EPA, and Secretary of Health and Human Services. She was Wasatch Woman of the Year in 2008 and KSL did a cover story on her, which you can read here.


I am excited to learn from them - their extensive experience working in male-dominated industries should provide a great base for this panel.

Develop (and Determine) a Career Path Despite Uncertainty

Moderator: Kristen McGregor, Managing Director of Undergraduate Programs Office, BYU Marriott School of Management
Panelists:
• Casey Hurley, Law and Communications faculty, BYU-Idaho Department of Business Management
• Kim Austin, Director of Undergraduate Career Services, Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University
• Diana Peterson, Part-time Strategic Issues, Ubuntu Education Fund


Kristen is working on an EMBA from BYU and currently works with students at the Marriott School to help them succeed. Casey is a lawyer by training who now teaches at BYU. She is passionate about helping students, especially female students, navigate career planning, and wrote a fabulous paper on the subject - which, of course, I can't find on line. It's called “What if ‘Plan A’ Doesn’t Work? Helping Female Students Navigate an Uncertain Life Course,” and you can email me if you'd like a copy. She is married with one child (maybe two? I could be behind the times on that one). 
Kim spends her days helping students navigate career decisions. Prior to SMU, she headed the career services department at BYU-Hawaii for seven years and worked in China as a trainer/educator at the diplomatic training school of the Chinese Foreign Ministry for four years. She started her career with 20 years as a marketing strategist. Kim has as Bachelor Degree of Business Administration and a Master's Degree in Business Education from University of North Texas. 
Diana is the mother of two fabulous young children. She works 1-2 days a week as a consultant to the CEO of the Ubuntu Education Fund, helping him with strategic issues. Prior to that she was a consultant at Bain & Company. She studied chemical engineering at BYU and received an MBA from Harvard. She did not get where she is today because of advanced planning - her perspective on taking opportunities as they appear and making the most of your talents will be of great value.


Using Your Management Skills for Service: Serving in the Church and the Community

Moderator: Eva Witesman, Assistant Professor of Public Management, BYU Marriott School of Management
Panelists:
• Becky Douglas, President/Co-founder, Rising Star Outreach
• Kris Anne Gustavson, Management Consultant, Organization Planning & Design and recently served a service mission for the Presiding Bishopric.
• Neylan McBaine, Creative Director, Bonneville Communications

Eva is an expert in non-profit management issues. She has a B.U.S. in Philosophy of Discovery, University of Utah, an M.P.A. in Nonprofit Management and a PhD in Public Management and Policy Analysis from Indiana University-Bloomington.
Becky founded is a co-founder of Rising Star Outreach, a non-profit working with leprosy colonies in India. She is the mother of 9 children.
Kris Anne focused on motherhood while her children were at home, but also spent time working with Organization Planning & Design. More recently, she and her husband helped reorganize certain elements of the Presiding Bishopric.
Neylan is a creative director at Bonneville Communications,where she does many interesting things, but the thing you are likely most familiar with is her work with the "I'm a Mormon" campaign. She is also the founder and editor of the Mormon Women Project, a collection of interviews of LDS women from around the globe and all walks of life (including another panelist). I've read almost all of the interviews and recommend taking some time to check them out. She is also an accomplished writer and the mother of 3 beautiful girls and one very fun husband.

Staying Home, Staying Connecting: How to Maintain Skills and Connections While Focusing on the Family

Moderator: Chrysula Winegar
Panelists:
• Leslie Graff, Artist, Mother, and Psychosocial Developmental Specialist, Vascular Birthmarks Foundation
• Michelle Linford, Mother, Member of the Marriott School’s Undergraduate Advisory Board, and Managing Editor at mormonwoman.org
• Cathy MacLennan, Mother and President/Founder, Frontera Recruiting Solutions

I'm really excited about this panel. Not only do we have 3 dynamic panelists, but the concept is one that likely resonates with many LDS women with business skills/background.

Leslie is a mother of 3 boys. Much of her free time is spent painting, and her work is fabulous (she was recently featured on designmom.com). I find myself wanting this print (though I really like her abstract work as well). She has a masters degree from BYU and did her child life clinical training at Johns Hopkins and maintains her skills by volunteering, including as a psychosocial developmental specialist for the Vascular Birthmarks Foundation.
Michelle is also a mother of 3. She has an MBA from BYU and worked for several years as a consultant before starting her familiy. She loves being a stay-at-home-mom and isn't sure if she will return to work full-time when they are grown, but she has remained highly involved in the community nonetheless. She is highly involved at the Marriott School at BYU and is passionate about helping women succeed in school and their chosen post-school route.
Cathy was surprised to be invited to speak at the conference - a response that was surprisingly common among this group of dynamic women. She is a wonderful example of a woman who is a stay-at-home-mom yet has continually kept up and developed her business-world skills. She started a small business when she had 3 young children and sold it a few years later, enabling her to cover all the costs of her husbands graduate school (living, tuition, all that). She recently started business #3 and has always been highly involved in church and the community. She is married with 5 children, 4 of them off the family payroll.

Up and Running: Starting Your Own Business

Moderator:
• Robyn Bergstrom, Dean, College of Business and Communication at BYU-Idaho
Panelists:
• CK Woolley, Co-founder/President, Shabby Apple
• Sarah Davis, Founder/President, Fashionphile
• Carla Meine, CEO, Ideal Shape

The LDS community is full of female entrepreneurs. The three we'll hear from in this panel have achieved commercial success

Robyn is the dean of the business school at BYU-Idaho and focuses her course work on the communication side of things.
CK had no real business background when she started Shabby Apple, a clothing company that makes attractive and stylish clothing that cover what you want to stay covered, with her friend Emily. She now runs a multi-million dollar company. Pretty impressive. Not only does she run the business side of things, but she has designed a lot of the clothing you see on the site. She is married with a little one on the way.
Carla is a seasoned business executive and entrepreneur. Before starting her first company, she was an executive at Morris Air and Mrs. Fields. She then founded and ran O'Currance, a telemarketing company that enabled employees to work from home. Over a decade later she sold that and did some venture capital work before starting her latest venture, IdealShape. She and her husband have 7 children.
Sarah took a love of handbags and a desire to pay off students loans and 10 years later she has a $5M+ business on her hands. Fashionphile is the #1 reseller of used high-end (Louis Vuitton, Hermes, you know - all those brands I don't own) handbags. She was featured in Forbes here.

Building Women's Networking Groups

Moderator: Rixa Oman, Assistant to the Dean/BYU Management Society Executive Director, BYU Marriott School of Management
Panelists:
• Jennifer Armitstead, Professional Career Coach/Owner, JA Career Coaching
• Maria Pribyl, President/Owner, M.L. Pribyl and Associates
• Pat Bluth, Senior Leadership Consultant, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Now that we know there are LDS women in business all over (and at all stages of life), we can start organizing! These women will give us ideas on what's been done to date, and how we can take the momentum building here and run with it.

Rixa oversees all the Management Societies worldwide (and is a big part of getting this conference off the ground). Her insight into what's happening in Management Societies across the globe will be a great place to start.
Jennifer is head of the women’s organization in the Salt Lake City Chapter of the BYU Management Society. In addition to her professional experience networking, she has (clearly) first-hand experience of getting women organized and engaged in a good cause.
Maria is President of Silicon Valley Women of the BYU Management Society - so like Jennifer, she has real-world experience getting LDS women connected.
Pat has many years of experience within the Management Society. She also has many years of experience in the corporate world, as a a Corporate Organizational Design manager for IM Flash Technologies and in strategy for Procter & Gamble for 20 years. She has an MBA in Operations and Organizational Behavior from BYU.