Half a million women lean in for web event

Nearly 150 people (mostly women) gathered Feb. 19 at UVic to take part in a Take The Lead live-stream webcast, to address gender challenges to achieving success in the workplace. Take The Lead, a new US-based organization that works to prepare, develop, inspire and propel women to take their fair and equal share of leadership positions, drew half a million web-linked participants to its launch event worldwide. The Peter B. Gustavson School of Business and Sybil Verch of the Raymond James Group sponsored the local evening.

Speakers included TTL co-founder Gloria Feldt (author of No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power) and the laughter-inducing, gospel-music-singing Carla Harris (author of Expect to Win), who spoke about the power of authenticity—and had the Victoria audience thousands of kilometres away from the University of Arizona host site singing along with her.

Keynote speaker Sheryl Sandberg—author of the best-selling book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, current COO of Facebook and former vice-president of Google—addressed the core challenge: that women’s progress in the workplace and in society has stalled. Sandberg offered ideas about how to give success a jump-start, including encouraging young girls who are disparaged as “bossy”—noting that many women in leadership positions today had to endure similar labels on their path to success.

Referring to TTL as “today’s women’s movement,” TTL strives to be a catalyst for women to embrace power and reach leadership parity. The Feb. 19 launch event was meant to gather and galvanize women in business to redouble efforts to close the pay and leaderships gaps.