2022 AICPA & CIMA Women’s Global Leadership Summit

*Please note that this will be an interactive session for both in-person and online attendees. Attendees will participate in three rounds of speed networking with a partner. Virtual attendees will do this in Zoom breakout rooms. We strongly encourage you to turn your camera on for this exercise.*

Networks are very important to the business development success of accountants, but where do you start? And do you even know the right people to begin with? In this session, you’ll see who should be part of your professional and personal networks, as well as what you need to do to inventory your existing relationships and make needed changes. And once you have the right people in your network, how do you best leverage these valuable assets. Come learn how a network can help you build visibility and find potential clients, and then partake in a live networking exercise to begin building that network.

Between demographic, environmental, and economic changes, innovating is a requirement for all organizations to stay healthy and prosper. Some research has shown women tend to be more prone to challenge the current status. They can also bring a different point of view and purpose for driving change in process improvements, talent development techniques, and services, just to name a few. In this session, hear from a panel of women that are influencing and leading innovation in their organizations and the accounting profession. They will share their perspectives on the need for change and what is takes to be successful.

The concept of taking a career break isn’t new, but perhaps we need a new way to approach them. This session dives into the AICPA's recently released toolkit "Leave of Absence as a Retention & Re-Entry Tool, " and focuses on its practical application. The goal is collaboration between employees and employers to create a mutually beneficial path forward using extended leave _as a tool._ This session is meant to catapult organizations forward as you prioritize developing and maintaining your leadership pipelines and is ideal for leaders in firms who are looking for a new approach with practical implementation ideas. Join us to explore how to empower your employees to predictably pause their career for a set period of time in order to prioritize another part of life—but with full expectation of re-entering the workforce with their current employer.

This panel contains industry leaders who will share their best practices at attracting and retaining talent in a post-COVID world. They will share their own stories and help the audience take practical steps in transforming their own leadership and organizational talent management practices.

We’ve all heard about mindfulness and meditation, and yet, we may not have created a practice that seems to stick. In this workshop we will go over the landscape of various somatic practices that are able to increase your rest, resilience and help your recharge. We’ll go over the research and try on a few practices in the room to see which can be embedded into your daily life and use a tool called a ‘habit stack’ to support your practice sticking.

*Please note that this will be an interactive session for both in-person and online attendees. You will be assigned to roundtables or virtual breakout rooms for a group discussion.* 

Concerns about pay equity have created momentum in the direction of greater transparency in compensation. Employees also crave greater transparency about how their performance is measured. Greater pay transparency without greater performance transparency is likely to create frustration and friction. An over-reliance on metrics like hours and tenure fall short in measuring real impact. Many other factors considered in promotion and compensation decisions tend to lack transparency without discernable metrics. Join us for an interactive session exploring how we might go deeper than inputs and effort and better measure our value and impact. Bring an open mind and your best ideas to share in the conversation.

This empowering session will focus on the skills and attributes that help women "Lead the Way", overcome barriers and build successful careers. Packed with data, guidance from the professions most successful women and action steps and tools, the session will allow you to consider how best to leverage your strengths. Women will share perspectives, fresh ideas and inspiration, and learn from each other’s challenges, triumphs and career journeys.

Great leaders have very diverse networks because they are inclusive leaders. Inclusive leaders create psychological safety and belonging, a strong sense of caring community, collaboration, and connection. Join us to expand your network with heart-based leaders committed to DEI+Belonging and allyship at work. Learn more ways to be inclusive across many dimensions of diversity. This session will include practical advice on activating your inclusive leadership lens to lead by example and better together.

Team members are walking away from jobs by the millions and that includes CPA firms. Is your "good" culture, good enough? Nothing is off limits in this conversation as we talk about opportunities to win when it comes to attracting and advancing talented individuals in your organization. We'll be talking employee experience vs. client experience, culture by design, achieving a sense of belonging in hybrid workplaces, challenging the traditional thoughts about career ladders/paths, and sharing specific ideas for a leg up on retention and recruiting.

ALAYNE WHITE has owned her own business for the last twenty five years. Being a business owner is a wild ride to begin with; life comes at all of us who experience the joy of owning our own. More often it is how we manage the ups and the downs, sometimes in the same day, that can create feelings of success or failure. Things happens that challenge the viability of any successful business and Alayne will entice you into considering the very definition of success. Alayne’s personal mantra, what gets her happily out of bed in the morning, is to live the life you are living while you are living. She will speak about her amazing pivot by trying out many different ideas- almost daily- to see what would stick, especially her resilience during the last two years. What worked, what didn't and how she kept joy as her main driver during the often bumpy ride. Her enthusiastic and frank approach in letting you in on her adventures in the beauty and e commerce business will leave you with an upbeat and positive look at how she turned many negatives into many more positives (and didn't freak out in the meantime).

Negotiation is a skill that can bring significant value for everyone, yet women are far less likely to engage in the practice. With good reason. Studies and anecdotes galore tell us that women are often penalized for negotiating. In 2001, only 7% of women negotiated their first salary compared to 57% of men. Labeled aggressive instead of assertive or attracting the dreaded b-word, they avoid the process for fear of retaliation. Are women terrible negotiators? No. In fact, as expert communicator and negotiator Fotini Iconomopoulos shares, the opposite is true. Women’s superior trust and empathy skills make them ideal negotiators. Often they just need to work on their confidence and employ some subtle communication strategies to get what they want — without that dreaded label. Listen to Fotini share her negotiation war stories and how she overcame gender and age discrimination to go on to be the expert that Fortune 500 executives seek out for their high stakes scenarios. You’ll leave with the motivation and confidence and the knowledge to tackle your next negotiation with ease.

Energy in this session means the enthusiasm and dedication we have to complete our daily tasks. What if you had more of enthusiasm, more energy? Here you will learn the Energy Leadership Foundational principles, self-development to become the ideal leader; building on what stress triggers keep us from seeing opportunities and solutions. This is the roadmap to work life balance! Energy Blocks, identify and remove inner and outer blocks that keeps us from tapping into our highest potential. Learn tools to apply immediately and begin to gain more energy.

As a woman in business, you need executive presence to inspire others, establish trust, build credibility, and drive outcomes. Research has shown that women have specific strengths that, when applied in business, result in higher profitability, greater collaboration and create a better work environment. Join Angela Dingle, Author of Discovering Your Girl Powers, to learn more about a woman’s unique ability to use her style, poise and presence to become empowered and successful.