2017 Session | Power, Parity & Influence: Driving Change in the Workplace

Becoming a leader in a boys’ club is a tough one. The structural issues around gender exclusion are real, but they don’t have to affect your ability to rise every day and act with clarity when you see the impediments. Women CAN influence the distribution of power to drive positive change. This intimate discussion will bring you up close and personal with Margaret McKenna—the first woman deputy White House counsel, the first president of Walmart Foundation, and the first woman president of Suffolk University. McKenna has forged the path of firsts and has also been a change agent in her different roles, from leading an effort to appoint more women and people of color to federal judgeships, to prioritizing hunger as the signature issue for the Walmart Foundation and driving governance change at Suffolk University. She has moved from government to the university life to the largest company in the world. How did she obtain these positions? How did she learn to navigate such different environments? What lessons did she learn about creating positive change? Led by friend and colleague Marian Heard, we will answer these questions, and you will leave with strategies to influence change.

Moderator: Marian Heard, president and CEO, Oxen Hill Partners and founding board member, MA Conference for Women

Speaker: Margaret McKenna, 1st woman Deputy White House Counsel, 1st president of Walmart Foundation and first woman president of Suffolk University

Emcee: Wendy Howell, chief of staff, technical services product management, Cisco