Join us for an interactive evening of connection, wisdom, and deep dives to support you on your journey as a female leader.
This series is designed to grow community and support for women of impact to help you succeed in business. Each event will have its own unique theme, including diverse panelists and power circle discussion topics, not to mention libations and evening nibbles!
The Themes:
Women in Money // June 21st
Did you know women will gain control of 2/3rds of the nation’s wealth in a few years? We’ve invited some of the top money minds to help us identify opportunities to shift the world of finance and investing in a more sustainable and collectively beneficial direction with feminine leadership.
Women in Naturals // July 27th
We’re seeing huge opportunities the for growth of women’s leadership in the natural products arena. Join this panel of conscious leaders and entrepreneurs as we discuss how to bring the sustainability and self-care principles behind their products to influence the industry as a whole.
Women in Fitness and Outdoors // August 31st
These leaders are shifting the focus from looking good to feeling strong, capable, and connected to our bodies and surroundings. We’ll discuss how women in this market are increasing their impact by redefining fitness and outdoors as grounds for personal growth, transformation, and mutual empowerment.
Women in Social Impact // September 28th
Big change takes big vision, plus a healthy dose of know-how when it comes to execution. Join this panel of movement-makers as we discuss feminine leadership strategies that mobilize the masses to help girls, women, their communities, and the planet.
Women in Politics // October 26th
Is it safe to say we’re all fed up with the current state of politics? Let’s hear from the women working to get us back on track by running for office and managing campaigns with empathy, courage, authenticity, and heart.
Women in Tech // November 30th
We all know the challenges in this male dominated industry, but what are the opportunities? Hear from the CEOs, founders, and mentors leveraging their innate creativity and feminine leadership talents to elevate the technology landscape.
The Speakers:
We’ll be announcing the powerhouse list of speakers for this series soon. Stay tuned!
You know that the Emerging Women community is all about sharing our true selves so that we can shine as the uniquely impactful leaders we are meant to be.
That’s why we’re so excited to announce Anne Lamott as a Keynote Speaker at this year’s national event in San Francisco, CA.
Anne Lamott, author and activist, is a model of compassionate faith, unwavering humor and a voice that tells it like it is, on good days and bad.
As a memoirist and as a non-fiction writer, Anne has a gift for being irreverent and profound at the same time. She is equal parts raw honesty and real hope, with an uncanny ability to glide from heart-wrenching to hilarious without irony or detachment from the core of the matter.
She’s prolific about it, too. She’s written seven novels, several books of non-fiction, and three collections of autobiographical essays. She’s a New York Times bestseller, a prestigious Guggenheim Fellow, a nationwide teacher of her craft, and an inductee of the California Hall of Fame to boot. Rock star!
As Cheryl Strayed mentions in the video below, her work transcends itself. Bird by Bird is as much of a guide to life as it is to writing. Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith resonates with religious and non-religious people alike. We can’t wait to see what she brings to the intimate stage at EWLive16 to inspire and ignite the audience.
To get a glimpse of Anne Lamott’s style, watch as she talks with Cheryl Strayed about shitty first drafts, doubt, vulnerability and the universal impact of sharing your personal story:
When I think of Jane Goodall, one specific moment plays in my mind.
It was about 9:30 at night, and she had just finished her brilliant keynote at Emerging Women Live 2015. This was, mind you, after she had flown into San Francisco just that day, done her mic check, prepared for the event and participated in the audience for the talks leading up to hers. Plus she still had a book-signing and a media room interview to go before calling it a night.
I thought she might be tired, so as she stepped down from the stage I offered her my hand. And with classic Goodall grace, she lightly refused my help and alit from the stage like a morning-fresh ballerina in slippers.
With this simple movement, after a long day of long lines and travel and sharing her heart on stage, she helped me realize that that’s the way through. That’s the way to navigate this modern world. Bringing such a level of grace is not only what helped her make such a tremendous impact in her field, it’s also what has given her and her work such longevity.
And that’s what I want to emulate. That’s what I want to start practicing now, so I have it to hold on to in my eighties.
So, what does the incomparable Jane Goodall say we women must bring to the world today? Watch this clip from a video she taped after that night’s book-signing, still brimming with characteristic grace:
Want more inspiration like this delivered to your Inbox? Just enter your first name and email in the sidebar to the right and click “loop me in” to receive our newsletter.
Women’s leadership is on the cusp of a quantum leap.
Female leaders everywhere are inching toward the unknown, leaning into the new, announcing their readiness to the future that attracts them. Our passion, commitment, intention, and will may very well collapse the probability of equality and manifest it into a reality some day in the near future.
Denied access to the centers of power for so long in our history, we have become experts on the margins. We are masters at networking, advocating, circling, co-creating, transforming culture—working for the marginalized in every field imaginable. Women leaders are at the forefront of change from the grassroots to governmental levels.
Not About Me, It’s We
In the 1970’s, when the second wave of feminism washed over this land and changed everything in its wake, the phrase “the personal is political” became a slogan as we discovered together how the culture had shaped and silenced us. There was a sense of “It’s not just ME, it’s all of us,” and that fueled our interest, our outrage, and finally our courage to stand up and speak our truths.
Now, two generations later, young women are assimilating into every institution—corporate, civil, religious, creative—and speaking their truth to power,from power, and about power.
As evolutionary women leaders we are abandoning old tactics and strategies; we are transcending patriarchal, hierarchical models of leadership and creating circular spaces for the surfacing and sharing of collective wisdom. We are creating new vocabularies, replacing words like compete, control, power, motivation with collaborate, co-create, process and transformation.
It takes women only moments to find our commonness, and generally, in every women’s circle, it is always agreed upon that what we are seeking is what is best for the whole. From business women to nuns to non-profit leaders, an awareness of our interdependency underlies every question and answer. And we often believe that if there is a striving to be had, it is to be the best for the world, not the best in the world.
The Value of Questions
Philosopher and scholar Jacob Needleman suggests that the real art form of today is “group pondering.” This resonates as an idea with me, although its execution calls for deep creativity. How does one facilitate “group pondering?” How does a leader mine the wisdom of the group? How do we evolve ourselves into more subtle sowers of collective insight?
The best leaders are the ones with the best questions. The ones who are humble enough to not be the center of attention, but to center the group’s attention. The ones who can laser focus the desire of the group, the intention and will of the group, in order to unleash the group’s ability to create a reality it agrees upon.
After a few decades of facilitating groups for higher levels of leadership and creativity, I’ve come up with some questions that aim at authentic and imaginative truth-telling. Answering these questions will give people an opportunity to find common ground with others, acknowledge what they are passionate about, decide what they are committed to, and proclaim their next steps in the matter.
People pay therapists thousands of dollars for this, but a good leader can bring about these clarifications in a short time by simply asking the right questions and engaging in this kind of group pondering. Here are a few ideas for starters:
What is one thing you know for sure based on your lived experience?
In what ways have you shared that knowing?
In what ways have you advocated on another’s behalf?
What success have you had in this area?
Have you ever felt silenced as a woman? If so, how?
Do you feel an affinity with any marginalized groups? If so, what is your response?
Do you know the difference between your original thoughts and your inherited beliefs?
What inherited beliefs have you disinherited? (about your body? your religion? your sex?)
How have you been changed by another woman’s story or creation?
If someone funded a documentary that you could produce, what subject matter would you choose?
If you had a superpower, what would it be? What would you do as a result?
Where does the imbalance of feminine vs. masculine show up most for you?
What is the impact of that?
In what ways are you bringing more balance to our society?
Tips for Facilitating
If there are many tables in the room, a dividing of the questions and sharing is an excellent way to foster more collective pondering. Introverts often need more time to think about their answers, so it might be wise to list these questions on paper and give people five to ten minutes to reflect and answer. The work of the leader is to create a safe space for sharing, to be self-disclosing and answer a few of the questions from her own perspective before having the group do the assignment.
I read once that the Old English term for leadership comes from the phrase to go first. The greatest leaders are the ones ready to go first, to risk being vulnerable. They speak from their lives. They learn how to master their ordeals, process their tragedies and transform them into stories that hold truths both personal and universal.
If She Can, I Can—The Power of Story
Everything we know happened to us in a story. All the wisdom in our cells came from our trials, our tears, our commitment to keep going in the face of every obstacle. Great leaders tell those stories. They don’t just share what they know. They share how they learned it. That’s what we all hunger for. Those tales of transformation. Those stories that remind us, “If she can, I can.”
You can stop reading leadership books anytime now. Just open up the book of your own life. See what you’ve been up against. See what kept you going. See what you’ve achieved and where you’re headed now. See how connected you are to all the others. And tell those stories. Tell them right from your heart. Don’t be afraid of your tears. This is heart work, after all.
Jan Phillips—Emerging Women
Jan Phillips, is the co-founder and executive director of the Living Kindness Foundation, a co-sponsor of Emerging Women, and an artist and author. She’s written No Ordinary Time, Finding the On-Ramp to Your Spiritual Path, The Art of Original Thinking-The Making of a Thought Leader, Divining the Body, and more. To learn more about her work, you can visit her website.
Chelsea Brookshire
Executive Assistant and Relationships Manager
Chelsea has over 15 years of experience in administrative and executive support. After her years of working in the legal and oil and gas industry, Chelsea has made it her passion to fill her life with creativity and incorporates that into everything she does. Her position at Emerging Women allows her to expand on that creativity and assist with empowering women around the world. She is a native of Colorado and enjoys spending time with her husband, her son, bonus son, family, and friends. In her free time she loves camping, painting, and all things creative.
Michelle Caggiano
Online Business Manager
Michelle studied Marketing and received her degree from Metropolitan State University of Denver. Her passion for marketing, combined with great attention to detail, and over 7 years of experience in the tech-world makes her a valuable asset to the team! In addition to Emerging Women, she is also a solopreneur and works with a number of different clients in the online business realm. She is an experienced Online Business Manager and Virtual Assistant who specializes in marketing operations, project management and online course launch management. She is a Colorado native, mother of two dogs, a cat, and a turtle, and step-mother to an amazing little girl. In her spare time she enjoys live music, good food, traveling, and spending time with her friends and family.
Jen Jefferson
Power Circle Administrator
Jen comes to Emerging Women with over 25 years of experience in event operations and volunteer management. She has worked various types of events as a Volunteer Manager for Integral Life conferences and as an Event Coordinator for various large arts and sports festivals throughout Colorado. Alongside her passion for creating and producing events, she worked as a hospital administrator for over a decade in one of Denver’s largest hospitals helping make care affordable to hundreds of patients. Jen was born in Lima, Peru but has spent most of her life in Colorado. In 2016, a year sabbatical morphed into a life living abroad. Jen has been living in Cusco, Peru for the past four years and cherishes her life in the Andes mountains. In her spare time she enjoys exploring the world, playing capoeira, and deepening her yoga and meditation practices.
Nicole Fegley
Director of Power Circles
For over 13 years, Nicole has been a producer and connector in the field of personal and professional growth and transformation, creating diverse content, life-changing curriculum, and exquisite live and online experiences. She loves to unite and facilitate people in their work to live more good, true, and beautiful lives. She’s honored to bring this diverse expertise to Emerging Women. For the past two years she has been the lead producer for Emerging Women Live, and now is bringing her extensive production, coaching and facilitation skills to EW’s Power Circles. Nicole works in private practice as a Certified Integral Master Coach™, through her company, Unabashedly You, and has worked with hundreds of women (and men) individually and as a group facilitator. She also creates programs and interviews fascinating teachers and wellness experts in her role as U.S. Content Producer for Conscious Life. She is the co-founder of Core Integral, an educational company offering a comprehensive and accessible approach to learning integral theory. Prior to this work, she owned a large and lively restaurant and brewery in Pennsylvania. She has studied extensively and worked alongside Ken Wilber (Integral Theory), Daniel Brown, PhD (Tibetan Buddhism, Self-Development, Attachment, and Positive Psychology), and Sofia Diaz (Hatha Yoga and Feminine Embodiment). She holds a Masters Degree from Lehigh University. She regularly delights in the sunshine and mountains of Colorado with her two dogs and her partner Clint, and is a new mama to her daughter Truly Golden.
Chantal Pierrat
Founder & CEO
Chantal’s mission is to increase women’s leadership across the globe. After earning an MBA from the University of Colorado, Chantal left a career in medical device manufacturing in search of work that would align her dedication to transformative leadership with her passion for living an inspired, impactful life. In September 2012, she founded Emerging Women, a global leadership and media platform that serves over 70,000 women worldwide and has advanced women’s leadership within Fortune 500 companies such as HP, Oracle and more. Chantal’s ultimate vision is to weave feminine leadership and authenticity into businesses, and to create a world where women have a strong voice in the shaping of our future. Prior to Emerging Women, for over a decade, Chantal served on the executive team as the VP of Sales and Marketing for Sounds True, a multimedia publishing company focused on spirituality, personal growth, and holistic living. Chantal is a sought after speaker delivering keynotes at The Grace Hopper Celebration, Wisdom 2.0, and many other stages where women’s leadership is critical to the conversation. When she is not dancing or working to empower women around the world, Chantal enjoys family time with her husband and two sons in Boulder, CO.
