By Angela Sun
This past Saturday, while the Tufts campus buzzed with Homecoming festivities, the top level of the Hynes Convention Center in Downtown Boston was swept away by a different kind of excitement.
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| (Photo: Fillshoes.com) |
One look at the agenda and I knew why so many students dragged themselves out of bed as early as 4 AM to get to Hynes. The conference was packed with a truly incredible lineup of established speakers, representing JP Morgan, PwC, Google, NBC, Hewlett Packard, Estee Lauder, Citi Bank, and start-ups.
Our day opened with a keynote address from Sara Robb O'Hagan of Gatorade and Equinox Holdings, then broke out into three panel sessions. Lunch was followed by a keynote address from Donna Karan of DKNY, more panels, and a mini career fair. Panel choices included "Dress for Success: Expert Advice on Self-presentation for Young Professionals", "ECO-Centricity: Using Sustainability to put the Soul back in Business", "Finance 101", "Making the Rules: Public-Private Partnerships", and more.
I attended two panels. The first was "Deciphering the Dot-Com: Internet-Based Businesses". This session featured Joanna Boor, VP Sales and Advertising Operations at Pandora; Amanda Pouchot, Founder and CEO of Levo League; Peipei Zhou, Global Accounts Manager of Facebook; and Sarah Fay, Free Agent in Digital Marketing and Advertising; and Nimi Katragadda, Associate Product Marketing Manager at Google.
During this session, these incredibly successful women spoke frankly about their experiences and challenges as women in an industry so disproportionately dominated by men. Pouchot explained that there is not always universal understanding of the importance of increased workplace diversity. She recounted a time when a male colleague asked 'why do we need more females as engineers? what's wrong with the way it is now?' A female colleague of Pouchot's responded gracefully, "If our end-user is diverse, then it is important for the team behind the product to be diverse, so we can produce a product better tailored for our users." Pouchot concluded, "There is a lot to educate, but also learn from men." Boor urged, "Women tend to mentor each other, while men tend to sponsor each other. It's time that we start putting skin in the game. It's time for women to start sponsoring each other as well."
As I was listening to this panel, it struck me how meaningful that hour was. This panel was a safe place for women to speak openly about the realities of gender imbalance in the workplace, and also to give and receive honest advice about how to frame and address the issue. Indeed we've come a long way, but there is still many changes happening right now, and as Zhou emphasized to the attendees, "You, as young women, will be trailblazers in the workplace."
The second panel I attended was "Managing Medicine: Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals". Now I don't have a background in this topic at all, but that's exactly why I attended the session - I wanted to expand my knowledge base. The panelists Sophia Mian, Senior Analyst at Health Advances, and Jacqueline Hehir, Advisory Healthcare Consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers made very industry-focused presentations. Both described their quintessential consulting experience, working in teams, with client-based projects, a lot of number-crunching, and late nights. I found Hehir's narrative particularly striking because, as she emphasized, PwC falls under the umbrella of an auditing firm...not what one associates first with 'healthcare'. However, this was precisely why Hehir found her passion in healthcare, "It's specialized, but also overarching, depending on how you define it. It's related to the campaign debates, and Donna Karan brought it up in her keynote address."
It's true, she did, which brings me to my last story....Donna Karan's keynote address during lunch. (One quick note, I was really glad I had attended the 'Dining with Confidence' event last year - please make sure you sign up next time Career Center offers it!) Now, I was beyond excited that Karan was speaking. As she walked across the stage, the little girl voice inside me kept squealing, "I love your clothes! I love your clothes!" And I could tell from looking around that most others were trying to keep it together as well.
Karan adjusted her mic, and began tracing her life story. She started from her being born on 7th Avenue, to getting fired from Anne Klein, to leading Anne Klein right after having a baby and Klein's death from cancer, to meeting her dream partner, and then losing him. As she said herself, her life was continuously marked by life and death. And it was these critical moments that became the driving force behind the evolution of her career and mission. For example, many of her close friends passed away from aids and ovarian cancer, which spurred to her to call upon the fashion industry to spearhead educational and fundraising efforts such as 'Seventh on Sale' and 'Super Saturday'. Most recently, as an ode to her husband Stephen Weiss, Karan has been working on Urban Zen, a foundation dedicated to well-being programs.
Looking at photos of Urban Zen initiatives and clothing collections on the screen, I began to appreciate the soul behind the clothing I adored. For each fantastic line, there was a vision and a purpose--be it to support the busyness of the modern professional, or to bring her back to a place of calm and zen. As Karan said, "I began dressing people, but also addressing them, from the inside." And this lesson is applicable to every field and industry. Every career path is an opportunity to make a difference, be it through the provision of information, financing, networks, or services. It was a powerful message for us students, who stand right at the starting line of our professional careers, and a highlight to my experience at the conference.
I strongly recommend students attend professional conferences like these. I met students from a wide range of backgrounds, from freshmen to seniors, and everyone got something out of it, be it a contact, an opportunity, or a message of inspiration.
This particular conference is an annual event. Tufts students can select the group rate, and input 'Tufts University', for a discounted price of about 30 dollars.
