WOWE Women in Leadership Summit 2021 – Rise and Lead!
A few weeks ago, we held our second annual WOWE (Women of Walker Edison) Women in Leadership summit. Employees of all genders were encouraged to attend. We started the day off with yoga led by our Associate Director of Merchandising, Emily Meacham. After yoga and a break for breakfast, we began by going over some of the big accomplishments WOWE has made this past year and listening to our keynote speakers, Liz and Lizi from The Food Nanny!
Throughout the day we had so many amazing sessions with our fabulous speakers: Dr. Melissa Jones, Olivia Jaramillo, Susan R. Madsen, AND a great panel of women executives from here at Walker Edison! The summit ended with a class on how to bake baguettes with Lizi from The Food Nanny. It was an amazing and inspiring day for all, and we are so thankful to everyone who made this summit possible.
Walker Edison’s Senior VP of Global Sales and Partner Growth, Lance Ferguson, said of the 2021 Summit, “It is really nice taking this step back and having a day of learning and development. It feels really good, and it puts fuel back in the tank. Good timing right before the Q4 insanity. It is very easy to come when we all truly believe that these changes are necessary and are necessary to take each of our individual team members to the next level at work and in their personal lives. Today's messages have been so powerful and each of these have been as strong or stronger than so many summits I have attended around the country. Incredibly well put together and the WOWE team has put together another incredible summit. I really do look forward to these!”
It has now been a year since the Women of Walker Edison group was formed during our first annual WOWE Summit. Since then, we have built out a fifteen-person committee that spearheads companywide initiatives and events for women-identifying employees and their allies, such as:
- Pledge the ElevateHER Challenge
- Celebrate and acknowledge Women’s History Month
- Collaborate with Walker Edison Leaders for brown bags on networking, allyship
- Created the WEchat series - casual conversations on tough topics
- Created the Working Parents series
- Hosted two golf clinics
- Assisted in the creation of WE’s inclusive language glossary and acronyms page.
- Hosted two women in leadership summits
The WOWE group is led by Rosario Bibiano, Walker Edison’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator, and Lacey Poulsen, a member of our partner growth team who serves as co-chair on the WOWE committee.
Lacey Poulsen said of WOWE, “The last year I have gone from feeling a little lost and needing connection to being a part of the WOWE Committee and stumbling into the role of Co-Chair. It has given me a sense of purpose and community that I was looking for in my career. The summit was so fulfilling and an amazing learning experience overall. I am excited to see where WOWE takes us all in 2022.”
We are so grateful for all the WOWE committee does here at Walker Edison, and we are thankful to everyone who made our 2021 summit possible - all our wonderful speakers, the WOWE committee for putting this event together, and our talented graphic designers for the amazing swag!
Let’s now rise and lead as we look forward to the rest of the year’s initiatives and the next WOWE Summit!
