Find Your Space, Take Your Place

Tanya is a member of the Tuck Class of 2015 and a Forte Fellow. Tuck is a proud sponsor of the Forte Foundation, which works with major corporations and top business schools to launch women into fulfilling, significant careers.  As a Forte Fellow, Tanya is presented many benefits including participation in the Annual MBA Women’s Conference.  Below, she shares her experience.

 

In June, I had the opportunity to attend the Forte MBA Women’s Leadership conference in New York City. For me, the conference was a great transition from working (I had wrapped up my job the week before) and a fantastic opportunity to spend time was other T’15s and over 300 MBA women from other schools. It was also a chance to network and learn from female leaders from companies including Bain & Company, Fidelity, Pepperidge Farm, Deloitte, IBM and Goldman Sachs.

 

Here are some of the main points I took away from the conference:

 

1) Women can “have it all” - it’s about defining what this means to you.

 

Many of the discussions throughout the weekend came back to the question of work-life balance and how to manage personal priorities while having a successful career. The theme I heard over and over was that you need to determine what is important to you and focus on that, even it means letting some of those lesser priorities take a backseat. As entrepreneur Frida Polli explained during the non-traditional careers panel, it is definitely possible to build a business and raise a family. Your limited time forces you to focus on what’s really important and makes things that used to be important seem trivial. Towards the end of this Saturday morning panel, her young daughter got antsy in the audience and came to join her mother at the front of the room. I was impressed with how Frida naturally and comfortably continued the conversation and was not at all distracted by her daughter’s presence.

 

And of course, work-life balance isn’t just about having a family. During the time management session, the discussion turned to other priorities. The advice was to identify the “non-negotiables” to you - whether that’s getting exercise regularly or cooking at home, and to slot those into your weekly schedule first to avoid time sinks (like the 4 hour Real Housewives marathon on Tuesday night) which are not fulfilling in the long run.

 

2) Staying passionate and continuing to learn are keys to a fulfilling career.

 

It was amazing to meet so many women who were passionate about their work over the course of the weekend. When someone is invested in what they do, it comes across immediately in how they describe their work, and often, this excitement is contagious.

 

The speakers during Friday’s keynote leadership lunch, Irene Chang Britt, President of Pepperidge Farm, and Kathy Murphy, President of Personal Banking at Fidelity, radiated this passion. Both mentioned the importance of staying fascinated and curious. They came back to the point that if you’re feeling comfortable, it’s probably time to move on. Have faith that you will be able to handle new challenges - however steep the learning curve is.

One of Kathy’s personal anecdotes was that she listens to an hour of customer service call recordings during her daily commute. Through this, she is able to learn from her customers and run the business with their perspective and challenges in mind.

 

3) Finding your place is about defining your key principles while being flexible enough to seize unexpected opportunities.

 

This last theme was particularly welcome to me as I sometimes feel like recruiting starts the moment we get to campus (or before) and that if I haven’t decided exactly what I’m going to do after business school, I’m already behind.

 

Many of the more senior women cautioned against narrowly defining the path you see for yourself and instead identifying your “core principles” and the things that bring you fulfillment. This way, you can stay true to what matters most and remain open to opportunities outside of your original plan. And these opportunities may turn out to be the most rewarding decisions of your life. The key point: find a balance between staying focused on your goals and exploring new interests and challenges. The job you get right after business school, while important, is not the definition of the rest of your career.

 

Overall, the Forte conference was a great experience and I left feeling even more excited to start Tuck this fall!

Is Business School the Right Place for an Entrepreneur?

The panelists at today's session on entrepreneurship say yes. Laura R. Walker, President and CEO of New York Public Radio led a discussion with four visionary young founders and business leaders: Elena Bajic, founder and CEO of Ivy Exec; Alexa von Tobel, Founder and CEO, LearnVest.com, and Danae Ringelmann, Co-founder, Indiegogo.

Ringelmann found her co-founders at business school. In fact, she pursued an MBA to exploit every resource she could get her hands on to help start her business. Bajic too found that access to professors, students, and alumnae provided fertile soil for nurturing her fledgling business idea. Von Tobel left Harvard Business School after one year, with her 75-page business plan in hand, so eager was she to start up LearnVest.com.

The passion each of these women have for what they do energized the room. "The most important thing you can do is think about the products that you want that are missing from your life, where you're customer number 1 and you're passionate about what you're doing," says von Tobel. "I'm passionate about financial planning. It really shouldn't be a luxury. I read customer feedback every night." Ringelmann said the same: early on, she worked raising money for theater and film. Frustrated by the inherent difficulty of raising money for the arts, she realized that she wanted to revolutionize the way people with good ideas get access to funds. Driven by her idealism about "democratizing finance," she enrolled in business school, and started gearing up for what eventually became Indiegogo. "I spent the next two years in business school milking it for everything it offered - every class I took was about Indiegogo. We used incubator space. We launched my second year of business school."

To be sure, it wasn't easy:  "I was one of those people in college who was obsessed with getting an A," says Ringelmann. "But when you start a business, it's not like that - there are no pats on the back, sometimes for years. I went to business school knowing that I was spending lots of money. I didn't care if I looked stupid. I asked any question I needed to ask."

All three founders are "past startup mode" as Walker put it. But they recall very vividly the lessons of that fairly recent startup phase. "You're making a lot of decisions, fast, every day," said Alexa. "In the first year-and-a-half, I couldn't tell you exactly what was going to happen in the next year. Now that we're in a different phase, I can tell you exactly what's going to happen over the next three years."

Surprisingly, all three gave the sense that raising investment funds wasn't the most challenging part of founding a business. In fact, Ringelmann recalled that, by the time the money started flowing in from Silicon Valley venture capitalists, she and her co-founders had just one slide: "All it showed was the numbers, going up and to the right - that was all we needed." But a lot of muscle went into building things to that point: focusing on brand, partnerships, and customer experience. Bajic shared a similar story: "It took us awhile to raise funds," she recalled. "We finally got an angel, but by that time, the business had already grown that year 300% and we were profitable. We took in the funding and it helped fuel the growth and stabilize. Since then we've grown 1300%." And she, like the others, admits: "The first years are tough. You're really boot-strapping the business. You're doing everything yourself." But as von Tobel put it "It's the best ride ever!"

We'll cover the discussion with these inspiring entrepreneurs in more detail in our upcoming newsletter. Meanwhile, thanks to ALL of our phenomenal speakers at the 2013 MBA Women's Conference, and to our engaged and engaging audience of talented MBA women! Share your favorite memories of the 2013 MBA Women's Conference at #ForteMBA.

Making Time to Make Time: Tips from Laura Vanderkam, author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think

This afternoon, our 2013 MBA Women's Conference participants are spending their time in concurrent sessions ranging from Checking the Rearview Mirror: What I Wish I had Known as a 1st Year MBA to Passport to Pursuing a Global Career. With so much going on, it's easy to wish for more time to take it all in. If that sense of wanting for time is familiar to you, you might enjoy the work of author Laura Vanderkam, who led a sesssion called 168 Hours: Time management strategies for work, school and life.

Vanderkam suggested that we give ourselves a "time makeover." How to do that? Start with a time log. Figure out what's filling your days. Then take inventory of your priorities, and start making a schedule that clears space for the things that are really important to you. Having a list of dreams helps too, so that you can ascertain what activities feed your real ambitions.

"Time is elastic," she noted. "When something is important to you, you make the time happen. So the trick is to figure out what's important to you."

What can you do best at work and at home? And how can you spend less time on everything else? Vanderkam terms this "playing offense" - taking charge of your days. Here's how:

• Think in terms of 168 hours, not 24. Things do not need to happen every single day in order to be part of your life.
• Use your mornings. Time has a way of getting away from you. Willpower is like a muscle - it gets fatigued by the end of the day. If you schedule something late in the day, it's a lot easier to come up with a good reason not to do it.
• Do not multitask. If you need to check email frequently, you're better off being on for 20 minutes, then off for 40.
• Pay attention. "It can take hours to rebuild the connection you burn in a two second glance at your phone while someone is talking to you," Vanderkam observed.
• Ignore, minimize, outsource. If something isn't nurturing you, your career, or your relationships, get rid of it.
• Use bits of time for bits of joy: a quick walk, a phone call to a friend, writing in your journal.

For more tools and tips, visit LauraVanderkam.com.

Tell us what you heard at the 2013 MBA Women's Conference! #ForteMBA

MBA Women: You Have What You Need (live from this morning's keynote with Fawn Germer)

"So much has happened to open the world up for women, and you're right here to take advantage of that!" began Fawn Germer, this morning's keynote speaker. Germer is an author and speaker with a background in journalism. One day at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, she got what she called a "brand-new bosshole." He told her she'd never be a columnist, would never rise above the ranks of reporter. "You have mentors? I had a tormentor!" she recalled.

"The whole magic of what happens to you in the here-on-out comes in the obstacles," she went on. Not finding a book that could give her the guidance she needed in a time of crisis, Germer set out to write it herself. Today, she's the author of several well-known books, including Pearls, Hard Won Wisdom, Mustang Sallies, and The NEW Woman Rules, that include interviews with hundreds of women leaders, from Hilary Clinton to Olympic athletes, CEOs, and more. What did she learn? She learned that even amongst the world's most established women leaders, self-esteem is a perpetual issue. "If I could hear every negative thing you've said to yourselves about yourselves, there would be so much noise in the room!" Germer said to the crowd today. "What matters most is how you see yourself. You are saying things that are meaner to yourself than you would say to a stranger. Yes or no? If you were a mother, and somebody said those things to your kid, what would you do? Understand that your imperfections are fine. You're fine as you are. Don't fixate on the negative. Work what you've got. You have everything you need; it's enough."

Stand up for yourself. Set boundaries. Don't settle for a bad relationship, with your work or at home. Own up to your ambition and don't be afraid to win. Advertise your abilities, skills, and achievements. When you see a need, volunteer to handle it. The promotions and money come as you elevate yourself. Don't let security be your dangerous anchor. Germer gave a frank rundown of the advice she gleaned from women who have already been there, and the lessons she's learned firsthand.

"I know a lot of people who spent decades learning that they have the power to end a bad situation and make good choices," Germer said. Today's MBA women have the opportunity to learn from each other, and from mentors like Germer, to be their own best version of themselves.

For more on our MBA Women's Conference, follow us at #ForteMBA.

Live from our MBA Women's Conference! A Candid Dialogue with Irene Chang Britt and Kathleen Murphy

Pattie Sellers, Fortune's Senior Editor at Large, and Executive Director of MPW/Live Content, Time Inc., is back for her fifth Dialogue with Leadership at our annual MBA Women's Conference hosted by Goldman Sachs. This year, Pattie is joined by Irene Chang Britt, President, Pepperidge Farm, and Senior Vice President, Global Baking and Snacking, Campbell Soup Company, and Kathleen Murphy President of Personal Investing, Fidelity Investments: two women business leaders who are truly at the top of their career game.

Interestingly, both Irene and Kathleen report to women who themselves are on the Fortune 50 Most Powerful Women in Business list. "We're getting there!" Irene said to the crowd of 400 MBA women assembled for the event. 

The Dialogue is always a candid conversation with women leaders willing to share their acquired wisdom. Kathleen (who grew up the third in a family of six kids, with "a lot of brothers") recalled that after graduating from college, she had no idea what she wanted to do, so she bought time by enrolling in law school at University of Connecticut. She knew she was interested in the intersection of law, economics, and social issues. "As a lawyer, I always gravitated toward the business side of law." She joined Aetna, where she learned to "get out of my comfort zone and take risks." In fact, at one point in her mid-twenties, she swore that she'd never work in financial services; yet, today, she oversees the retail business at Fidelity, including a group of more than 11,000 employees in charge of personal investments.

Irene, who grew up in Taiwan, was a self-proclaimed "nerdy cellist" at a teenager, and a competitive cyclist as a teenager, and studied anthropology at Queen's University. With her brother, a landscape architect, she opened a high-end bicycle store in Toronto. "It ended up being a profitable million-dollar business," she noted, with still-evident surprise. At the time, Irene was just a freshman in college. Her mother suggested she get an MBA, and "that started me in business," she recalls. 

"Business school went horribly wrong, at the beginning," Irene continued. "They probably never should have accepted me. I came in in Lycra. I had ridden my bike 20 miles to the orientation, and I still had stuff under my fingernails from fixing bikes." She failed her first semester, but eventually graduated on the dean's honor list. "I finally realized that business was business, and business is people, and I knew selling. It started to make sense to me." 

Both Irene and Kathleen talked about communication, and motivating a team. Kathleen noted: "Communicating to over 11,000 people is challenging from a number of perspectives. You have to get out there. I spend a lot of time on the road making sure I'm close to the field. I insist on candor. To me, candor is a form of respect. But once you invite candor, you have to do something about it. You have to act on the feedback you get."

Communication with the field flows both ways. When Kathleen joined Fidelity, her team handed her an iPod they had stocked with 20 hours of customer calls for her to review: "It was fantastic," she says. She still listens to recorded customer calls today, as a way to get closer to the day-to-day business in the field. "You're learning the business on every single call."  

Irene, too, responded to the idea of staying close to employees, and identifying the next generation of business leaders: "You have to have lieutenants," she said. "You grow leaders and they go out and listen too." "I absolutely agree," said Kathleen. "And people want to be part of something bigger than themselves. When you're out there, you have to paint a picture of something bigger than themselves that they can be motivated by."

Niether woman shrinks from competition. In fact, in response to a question from our audience about how you navigate sexism, both were frank: "Focus on what matters, which is winning," said Kathleen. "You can get distracted by a lot of other stuff. But what most companies want is people who can win."

"Kathleen and I are of an era when a lot of women went to non-line roles. Not enough women ran line businesses," said Irene. "If you can, go run line businesses," she counseled. "Have the P&L. In the worst moments, put up your P&L. That's the argument-ender." 

"When you're asked to be the expert every day, it's hard to say what you don't know, but you have to keep pushing yourself to learn," continued Irene. "I mentor a lot of women around the world who don't even work for our company, and I do that because I want to build great people."

On a similarly reflective note, Kathleen summed up: "I want to look back at the end of my life with no coulda/woulda/shoulda. I want to be satisfied that I committed to excellence: in business, in the philanthropic work I do, and, most importantly, with my family. I don't have any pre-determined course. I just want to have fun."

We'll post video of the Dialogue with Leadership soon. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more from our 2013 MBA Women's Conference!

Final Conference 2013 Reminders

To help get you ready for the MBA Women's Conference on June 28 and 29, we've included a list of things to know before you go. This important information will help make your experience at the conference a success!

• List of Conference Sessions
• List of Presenters Bios

• Company Expo Information including company list
• Networking and Profile of Attendees List (check your email – sent to registrants)

ADDITIONAL DETAILS

LOCATION

Goldman Sachs

200 West Street, New York, New York (Map)

Note: Please use the Main Building Entrance at the corner of West St. and Vesey St.

WHERE TO GO FOR CHECK-IN

When you arrive, you’ll enter through the Main Building Entrance which is at the corner of West St. & Vesey St. You’ll check-in on the first floor. Make sure you have a valid ID available for the security check.

WHAT TO WEAR

Attire for the conference is business casual.

WHAT TO BRING

• Please make sure to bring copies of your resume, and if you have them, business cards. There will be plenty of opportunity for you to network with companies looking to hire future MBA graduates.
• Please hold on to your name badge
• Identification (you will need to this in order to enter Goldman Sachs)
• An umbrella! It is scheduled to rain both Friday and Saturday.
• Your cell or smart phone. We encourage you to be interactive and let others know what you're up to while at this conference. Post messages on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or other social media.

Photo Contest!
Join Forté on Instagram and you could win a gift card! Post pictures to Instagram using the tag #ForteMBA and you could win for Best Caption, Best Moment of the Conference, Best Group Shot, and Best NYC Shot. We’ll email the prizes to the best photos next week, so get shootin’!

Follow Forté on Instagram: fortefoundation

See you in NEW YORK CITY!

How to Launch your MBA Experience at the Forté MBA Women’s Leadership Conference

by Jenn Ash, UNC Kenan-Flagler Forté Fellow, 2012

What would you do if you had hundreds of the brightest minds in the country together in one place for 48 hours? Think beyond building a longer contact list - to building ideas into action. You are a leader, a goal setter, a movement launcher.  Bring your whole self to the Forté MBA Women’s Leadership Conference and leave with more of what others have to offer. Here are seven ways to launch your MBA experience to a higher level at the Forté Conference.

Tell your story. In this distinguished group of women, we share common qualities of intellect and leadership, so what makes you different? Your experiences thus far have unusual moments, game changing decisions and interesting details. Share your best highlights, not just your hometown and career function.  The more you share, the more others can connect with you.

Seek out diversity. We learn most from others who are not like us. It’s comfortable to group with who you know.  Step out of your comfort zone for a few minutes and reach out to a friendly face who can bring you new perspective.

Know your goals. If you aspire to work in finance, think about the milestones that will help you get to that final result. These might include: insider knowledge of company culture, deadlines for required applications or possible team assignment options. Recruiters can help you with more than just qualifying for the interview.

Introduce others. In a mixed crowd, this puts everyone at ease and makes others grateful to you. It is also great practice for active listening and helps build connections for others. For example “Hi Katie, I’m Jenn and this is Tiffany. She worked in Energy because she has a passion for sustainability”.

Capture action items. As you absorb the great content from speakers and attendees, write down not what you hear but what you want to do about it. You’ll leave with a greater purpose and more than a notebook of great quotes.

Follow Up. This is the differentiator between those you aspire and those who succeed. Organize yourself to keep track of details and make time to build a connection after the event. Connect on LinkedIn, send them a relevant article or provide some value to the others you meet. Nice to meet you emails are easy to write and forget.

Engage. Like many things, you get out of it what you put into it. Listen carefully, pose a question during Q & A and ask others’ opinions afterward. The more you participate, the more value you will get on the time you’ve invested. During your MBA, the most valuable thing you have is your time, so push yourself to engage, lean in and reap the benefits.

These strategies will heighten your experience at the Forté MBA Women’s Conference.

As you embark on your first or second year of your MBA program, keep in mind the MBA bigger picture: the chance to learn more about yourself and others while growing your skills and expertise to serve the world. This perspective sounds like a lofty notion, but can keep you centered on the goal as the days fly by.  It’s a chance - an opportunity - that you can seize each and every day. Go get ‘em.

 

Jenn Ash is the Editor of AvenueGray.com, a blog about blending work and life. As a Content Marketing Strategist, she advises entrepreneurs on growing their business with dynamic marketing. To access her free creative marketing resources, visit www.jennash.com/forte. She was a Forté Fellow at UNC Kenan-Flagler and currently lives in Charleston, SC.

Know Before You Go: Prepare to Network with Companies

Preparing to network with companies at the MBA Women’s Conference is more than just brushing up your resume. Jodi Glickman, Founder of Great on the Job, discusses all of the aspects related to networking events. You'll walk away with tips and strategies for introducing yourself, breaking into conversations, exiting gracefully, asking good questions, conversation starters and more.

Listen to this webinar today by clicking here!

Follow Jody on Twitter: @greatonthejob

Work+Life Fit: The Modern Skill Every Young Woman Needs to Succeed

Check out her session "The Secrets to Work+Life "Fit" Success" on Friday Morning of the conference.

By Cali Williams Yost, CEO and Founder Flex+Strategy Group/Work+Life Fit Inc.

I graduated from Columbia Business School in 1995, and have spent the last two decades in the trenches working with hundreds of companies and thousands of individuals to create new ways to manage work, life and business. 

Earlier this year, Columbia invited me back to present to a group of prospective female students.   I began by asking the 200 bright, ambitious young women in the room, “How many of you are sitting here today making career choices based upon future personal responsibilities that you don’t even have yet?”  Almost every hand in the room went up. 

Perhaps, like those young women, you see personal and professional conflict looming in your future.  They needed a ray of hope.   Thankfully, I was able to I provide it.

First, I urged them to “go for it 100%” professionally, get as much experience as they can, and make themselves as valuable as possible.  I shared my personal stories of managing my work and life, as a business owner, wife, and mother, and I shared other examples of women who had creatively and flexibly found success on and off the job. 

But then, I translated the secrets from those stories into a “how to” practice they could apply in their lives throughout their careers.  I explained how to take action and find their own solutions based on their unique circumstances, because knowing how to manage your work+life fit, day-to-day and at major life transitions, is a modern skill we all need to succeed.  But, unfortunately, few have.

Those concrete answers gave them hope.  Their concern about future limits lightened.  After the presentation, a number of the young women approached me and said, “We are always told how impossible and hard managing our work and life will be.  Not only did you tell us that it will all be okay, but you actually told us how to do it!”

Join me on Friday, June 28^th at the MBA Women’s Leadership Conference for my presentation, “The Secrets to Work+Life "Fit" Success,” and I will tell you how to do it too.   I will share the commonsense, real-world secrets for success on and off the job that every woman should know at the start of her career.  Secret #1: There is no balance! 

For more, I invite you to check out my Work+Life Fit blog, follow me on Twitter @caliyost, and “like” our Facebook page. 

www.worklifefit.com/blog

https://twitter.com/caliyost

facebook.com/worklifefit

Cali Williams Yost is an internationally recognized workplace flexibility expert who has pioneered new ways to manage work, life and business in the modern economy for nearly two decades.  She is the author of the new guide for everyday success on and off the job, Tweak It: Make What Matters to You Happen Every Day, (Center Street/Hachette, 2013), and the formal work and life reset "how to", Work+Life: Finding the Fit That’s Right for You (Riverhead/Penguin Group, 2004).   

When Elevator Speeches Fail: The Secrets of Effective Networking

Check out her session "The Secret to Confidence: Upgrade Your Success Story" on Friday Morning of the conference.

By Angela Guido, Founder, Communicate Yourself

Don’t get me wrong. I am a huge proponent of preparation. Practice makes perfect they say, and there is certainly some validity to that adage. Practicing the things you might like to tell someone in an interview or at a networking event is useful because it gives you the chance to collect your thoughts, organize them in an orderly fashion, and recall the key vivid details of stories you might want to tell. In that regard, practicing an elevator speech or any other story about your life can be very valuable.

The problem though is that you can’t create the “perfect story” that will work every time. Perfection implies something is fixed and frozen. If your goal is to memorize something and use it over and over again, it may work from time to time, but more often than not your networking attempts will fall flat. I am sure we can all remember that time we sidled up to someone we really wanted to meet, launched into our planned talk, and midway through realized it just wasn’t connecting and our value wasn’t getting across. That’s because in a first conversation with someone – the kinds of dialogue you might have at a networking event or with a busy executive in an elevator– the goal is NOT to get your point across. The goal is to make a human connection.

The people you follow up with, the people you remember are the ones with whom you make a connection. This is true no matter where someone sits in the organizational hierarchy. If the CEO likes you when she meets you in that elevator, then the door may be open for a follow up conversation. If you fail to make a human connection, at best she won’t remember you; at worst, she might even avoid you. Elevator speeches often fail

So why does the elevator speech so often fail? Because it’s an attempt to transmit a fixed monologue instead of participating in what should be a spontaneous dialogue. You know what I am talking about – a conversation is a living thing, born in the present moment through collaborative interaction among the people having it. If it’s your goal to “get your message across,” it will go over like a lead balloon. Or worse, like freight train crashing through a lively party.

To succeed in these all-important first interactions, you need to be in the present moment. You can’t rely on a script from conversations past. Although I try to avoid tipsterism, this is a blog post, so I’ll leave you with some tips for being more present in the moment so that you can make deeper and more meaningful connections through your networking efforts:

Get happy. It’s very important to enter a conversation in a good mood. Most importantly, you need to make sure you are feeling confident in who you are.  If you had a bad day at work, if that negative performance review has just flitted across your mind, stop. Do not start a conversation now. Instead, remember some things that you are really proud of – your manager’s kind praises of your most recent career success, that tutoring student who turned her performance around because of you, the giant risk you took in planning a solo trip to a foreign country that turned out to be a magical journey. Do not try to approach others until you are feeling great about yourself first.

Let go of your agenda. There may be something you want from the person you are about to talk to. Putting your attention on that inherently makes you focus on the future and not in the present moment. That is a sure-fire way to fail to make a connection. So just let it go. If there is something you want – like an introduction or an opportunity to interview at the firm – just remind yourself that those details can work themselves out later. Your only job is to connect with the person in front of you. Save agenda items for follow up if that helps you stay focused here and now.

Think about a question you really want to know the answer to. Ironically it is easier to make a connection with someone else by listening than by talking. You will engender more affinity if you give the other person the chance to talk about something that really matters to them and then listen to what they say with sincere interest in understanding them and their perspective. Let the conversation follow naturally from there. That may sound like hollow advice, but if you think about it, you actually know you can do it. The ability to spontaneously interact with other human beings is a natural gift we all have. You don’t have to prepare for what you will say next, just trust yourself. Whatever you do, do not try to think of what you will say next while the other person is talking. That is not listening and people really know when you are not listening.

When in doubt, focus on what you love. It’s great to give other people space to talk about what matters to them. When the spotlight is on you, you will see why. Some subjects just light you up, and that is a wonderful feeling. If you remember to leave your agenda for later, then the subject of conversation doesn’t even matter – it doesn’t have to be professional or serious. It just has to be something that you come alive talking about – that you genuinely enjoy sharing. For me, it is often food or travel or the books I am reading. Talking with genuine passion and allowing your true self to shine through will always make a connection. So find those things that bring you to life and talk about them!

To learn more about the Secrets to Creating New Connections and Discovering the Power of Spontaneity, please join us at this year’s Forte MBA Women’s Conference for our Communicate Yourself Networking Workshop!

5 Ways to Instantly Improve Your LinkedIn Profile

Check out her session "Harnessing LinkedIn For Your Career Success" on Friday Morning of the conference.

By Lindsey Pollak, Best Selling Author, Corporate Consultant and Next Generation Career and Workplace Expert

Most MBAs and MBA candidates have LinkedIn profiles. But are those profiles the best they can be? Here are 5 tips to improve your LinkedIn profile quickly and effectively.

1. Get a professional headshot. A high quality photo instantly says that you are someone to know. Wear what you would for a job interview or an important day at work. Many university career centers and job fair events offer photo booths to provide these photos – take advantage!

2. Add keywords to your profile headline. Your profile headline is one of the most important pieces of real estate on your profile. It’s what determines whether someone will read further. Include keywords that a recruiter, hiring manager or other VIP would use to find someone like you. And there is no need for a complete sentence or perfectly crafted phrase. A headline such as “MBA Student / Consulting Background / Expertise in Pharmaceutical and Medical Device industries” can be extremely effective.

3. List your skills. LinkedIn’s new endorsements feature is very popular, so give your connections something to endorse. List at least 15 to 20 skills or areas of expertise that you possess. These are also important keywords that a recruiter might use to find you, so be sure to include words that appear in the job postings that appeal to you. Recruiters do look at endorsements to see what people in your network recommend as your top skills, so make sure you are happy with the choices you are providing your connections.

4. Add the Volunteer Experience & Causes Section. LinkedIn has many optional sections you can include in your profile – Certifications, Publications, Patents and more – and the most important is this one. Volunteer experience demonstrates qualities like leadership, teamwork and community involvement, all of which are important to employers and other networking contacts.

5. Update your status on a regular basis. I’ve heard the LinkedIn status box (which you can update on the LinkedIn home screen or directly from your profile page) referred to as a person’s “professional billboard.” It’s true: status updates are an effective way to stay on people’s radar screens in a relatively passive way. Post articles that would be valuable to the people in your network, share announcements about events you are attending and give people brief updates on your career. You never know when a short post might spark someone to reach out to you with an opportunity.

Above all, remember that your LinkedIn profile, like your resume, is a constant work in progress. Update it when you have changes in your professional experience and delete information that no longer serves your goals. Good luck and I’ll see you on LinkedIn!


Lindsey Pollak, Bestselling Author, Corporate Consultant and Next Generation Career and Workplace Expert 
Lindsey Pollak is a bestselling author, corporate consultant and recognized expert on next generation career and workplace trends. She is an official Ambassador for LinkedIn and the author of Getting from College to Career: Your Essential Guide to Succeeding in the Real World. Lindsey’s advice and opinions have appeared in such media outlets as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Glamour, CNN, NPR and NBC Nightly News. Her clients and audiences have included Barclays, GE, PwC, Ralph Lauren, Time Inc., UBS, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Wharton and many others. She is a graduate of Yale University.
Twitter: @lindseypollak

Preview of Conference Keynote on "Hard Won Wisdom"

Saturday Morning Keynote

By Fawn Germer, Best-Selling Author and Leadership Speaker

I am looking forward to seeing you all at the Forte conference in June!

The one piece of advice I always tell young people is this: You can be spectacularly brilliant but a miserable failure if you don’t put as much energy into your people skills as you do into your actual expertise.

The world revolves around relationships. You need to know how to network and leverage your network. You need to know how to assess the culture of your office environment and find a way to fit in without being high maintenance.

There is a cliché, “It’s not what you know but who,” and there is a reason it is a cliché. It’s true.

People will drive your success more than the results you can deliver. You need to know the right people, but you need to know them in a way that makes them want to help you. Fortunately, this is pretty easy.

I have seen many people make the mistake of assuming that networking is a matter of shaking hands, swapping business cards and following up with appropriate e-mails. You do all of that, but make sure the exchange sparks something personal and memorable. It is far more important that you know that the person has to be home on Thursday night for Grey’s Anatomy or that they have an overweight Dacshund than it is to recite their title. Relationships are all about friendships. Make friends in high places.

You do that by consciously working on growing your exposure. When there are events that expose you to people who can influence your growth, show up. And, don’t just stand there. Work the room.

I know it is hard to talk to strangers, but it is much easier if you come prepared with a few subjects to talk about and a few questions you can ask.

Know something about the people you need to meet so you have someplace to go with your conversation. You always have a conversation entry point when you know that the person is from your hometown or went to your school or likes to surf or is an avid knitter or any other detail that will get the person to talk.

You do not have to focus your conversation on work, but you should be able – in thirty seconds – to summarize what you are doing and where you are heading. If it is going well and isn’t too much of a violation of chain of command, ask to have coffee or lunch, whatever. Just make sure you leave with contact information and tell the person you would like to stay in touch. Then, STAY IN TOUCH. You don’t have to be the person’s pen-pal, but you can forward interesting articles or just send a quick note once a month to stay on the radar.

The point is, your brain gets you your job and keeps you in the game. Your personality advances you. There will certainly be exceptions to this rule, but think of how much more you can do if you don’t count on an exception. Just be exceptionably personable.



Fawn Germer, Best-Selling Author and Leadership Speaker
Fawn Germer is the best-selling author and global leadership speaker who has interviewed the most accomplished women of our times – everyone from Hillary Clinton and Jane Goodall to legends like Susan Sarandon, Martina Navratilova, Carly Fiorina, Nobel Peace Prize winners, Academy Award Winners, Olympic athletes, CEOs, prime ministers and world presidents. She is the best-selling author of seven books and a four-time, Pulitzer-nominated journalist. Fawn is a veteran investigative reporter who wrote for The Washington Post and U.S. News and World Report and The Miami Herald. When she went into management as an editor, she struggled mightily as a female manager in a male-dominated environment. She sought the mentoring wisdom that led to her first book, Hard Won Wisdom. That book was rejected 15 times, but perseverance pushed it to best-seller lists and onto Oprah, where Oprah told the world how “very inspiring” Fawn’s book was. Fawn’s second book, Mustang Sallies, hit best-seller lists within two weeks of its release. Fawn is an international speaker on leadership and performance issues and recently presented at the Harvard Business School’s leadership conference, in China, Taiwan, Spain and throughout corporate America.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch MBA Diversity Fellowship Program

The Bank of America Merrill Lynch MBA Diversity Fellowship Program will award merit-based fellowships to women, Blacks/African Americans, LGBT, Hispanics/Latinos, Alaskan Native/American Indian, military veterans, and students with disabilities entering business school in Fall 2013.

PROGRAM DETAILS:

• The Fellowship will cover $40,000 of total tuition and fees for the first year of the recipient's MBA program
• Bank of America Merrill Lynch will provide a paid summer internship (between the first and second year of the MBA program) within the Global Banking and Markets (GBAM) groups: Investment Banking, Research, Public Finance
• Upon successful completion of the GBAM Summer Associate Program and acceptance of a full-time offer for 2014, the Fellowship will cover $40,000 of total tuition and fees for the second year of the recipient's MBA program.
• Please note: Fellowship amount may be adjusted for students receiving funding from alternate sources.

APPLICATION CHECKLIST:

• Complete Online Applicant Summary Form
• Create a candidate profile and apply
• Resume
• An essay of 500 words or less describing your career goals and their relation to the BofA ML MBA Diversity Fellowship
• Copy of one essay submitted with your business school application
• Two letters of recommendation - Letters of recommendation can either be submitted as an attachment to your Taleo candidate profile or sent to mbafellowship@bankofamerica.com

Please Note: All supporting documents can be uploaded via the Taleo link above when creating your profile. You will have the option to upload up to five files on the My Documents screen (4th screen after Licensing & Registration). If your file size is over the limit, feel free to send your documents to mbafellowship@bankofamerica.com.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS:
To be eligible, students must be admitted to an AACSB accredited business school for the 2013 - 2014 academic year.

APPLICATION DEADLINE:
Monday, April 15th - FINAL Applicant Deadline

Apply now for this opportunity.

Forté Conference: Starting my MBA Journey

by Jessica Weaver, Forté Fellow
MBA 2014, University of Illinois Urbana – Champaign

Ocean breezes, palm trees, gorgeous weather, and inspiring women.  What do these things have in common?  This is what welcomed me to my MBA journey, which began at the 2012 Forté Conference in Los Angeles.  Reflecting back on the experience, the top five ways attending the conference prepared me for starting my MBA program were: 

•  It built my network:  I met women from other MBA programs and companies.  It was a delight to run into them later in the school year at other career fairs and conferences.  Plus, I got to know women in my program better. 
•  I learned about career options:  Prior to earning an MBA, I worked in the public sector.  I honestly did not know what a career in finance could look like.  The conference gave me a safe place to learn about career paths and meet women on these paths. 
•  The career fair prepared me for fall recruiting:  Similarly, I did not know what the internship and job search would look like.  At the Forte Conference’s career fair, I got a picture of what the career fairs I would attend would be like, which helped me be more prepared for the internship search. 
•  I met companies I liked:  Similarly, I began building relationships with companies I wanted to work at before I even got to campus.  This helped me find recruiting events to attend, internships to apply for, and more. 
•  Inspiring women gave me confidence:  The best takeaway from the conference was meeting truly inspiring women who encouraged me to get as much value as I can from my MBA experience.  I came away with excitement, enthusiasm and confidence about the opportunities ahead.

Now a year into my MBA, I would encourage both first and second year MBA women to attend this summer’s conference in New York City.  It’s an invaluable learning experience and a great chance to meet like-minded women.  I’ll be in New York this summer interning in consulting at Accenture, and I will be at the conference, so I hope to see you there!