Women & Leadership Summit June 18, 19 & 20, 2008 Toronto

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Letter from the Director

Dear Colleague:

As a corporate executive, vice-president, director or senior manager, you know the importance of developing your leadership skills. Whether it's communicating, negotiating, networking, managing your career-path or achieving work-life balance, there are core competencies you must master in order to lead organizations as well as accelerate your own professional growth.

As a woman, you also know how tough it is to climb the corporate ladder, especially when a barely cracked glass ceiling keeps you from going any further. Indeed, the key grievance today is no longer about getting women to the workplace but their very visible under-representation within a company's senior ranks.

Moving forward, there is new found support for the business case for diversity, which asserts that organizations that recruit, retain and advance women will have a competitive advantage in the global marketplace. In fact, companies with a higher representation of women in senior management positions financially outperform companies with proportionally fewer women at the top, according to a study of 353 Fortune 500 companies conducted in 2004 by Catalyst, the leading research and advisory organization working to advance women in business. Increasing the number of women at the senior level won't happen overnight but studies like Catalyst's are at the source of emerging initiatives to create a corporate culture supportive of talented women's goals and career aspirations.

Our 4th Annual Federated Press Women & Leadership Summit will build on the success of its forerunner and feature key insights gained by top-ranking women executives - some of whom are heralded as some of Canada's Top 100 Most Powerful Women by the Women's Executive Network - as they discuss:

- Best practices for developing leadership skills and preparing for a position of power
- Career management strategies
- Creating a flexible work environment and other strategies for attracting, managing and advancing talented women employees
- Key skills: image management tips, conflict resolution strategies, negotiation techniques
- Diversity and inclusive workplace models
- Forging mentoring relationships



With such a wealth of practical experience at this event, this is one Summit you cannot afford to miss. Register now by calling (416) 665-6868 or 1-800-363-0722. We look forward to seeing you there! (signature) Lise Ponton, Vice-President



P.S. Don't miss our practical workshop sessions where you will learn about the behaviours of highly successful influencers as well as all-important strategies for effective communication and persuasion techniques.