Issue 133 — June 29, 2020
One thing COVID-19 has done is make life easier for introverts.
If you break out in a cold sweat at the thought of networking, in the sense of walking into a large room full of people you don’t know and trying to make connections that will be useful to you in your professional life, while balancing a beverage — it might seem in first blush that at least that worry is over.
But the reality is your network is your net worth.
Read MoreYes, that is her family’s given surname.
Vidhi Data, founder of Lead with Impact, and the Take The Lead Leadership Ambassador spearheading the launch of Take The Lead’s Premium Coaching, gets the question often if her last name “Data” is a gimmick because she specializes in digital transformational leadership.
Read MoreThe media landscape is perhaps at its most chaotic and disrupted in history with firings of top editors, resignings, furloughs, shutdowns, accusations of racism and sexism in content, coverage and workplace culture.
Anna Wintour, the legendary Vogue editor, says the magazine’s culture is by her own admission “hurtful and intolerant,” and rarely promotes black staff. The co-founder and top editor of Refinery 29, Christene Barberich, resigned after accusations of racism. The Bon Appetit editor resigned over racist allegations. Conde Nast is accused of systemic racism.
Read More“Being uncertain doesn’t mean you are powerless,” said Jami McKeon, chair of Morgan Lewis, the largest law firm in the world led by a woman.
Speaking on the recent online panel, “Building a Better Legal Profession: Diversity, Inclusion, Technology, and the Teams of Tomorrow,” co-sponsored by Take The Lead and University of Texas’ Center For Women in Law, McKeon said COVID-19 and the most recent protests and developments highlighting injustice in the past few weeks have changed the legal profession and practices—especially for women, particularly women of color.
Read MoreThis was not the original plan. The 2020 Future For Us second annual assembly for women of color was to be live, in person and in Seattle this spring.
“This pandemic has shown our fight or flight mode,” says Sage Ke’alohilani Quiamno, CEO and co-founder of Future For Us, a community platform of more than 10,000 women of color professionals based in Seattle. “Women of color, we know what to do,” she says.
Read MoreMillions of high school, college, graduate, law, dental and medical students missed out on the walks across the stages, the diploma hand off and the chance to hear an inspiring speaker sitting next to best friends and peers this year.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 56.6 million students attended elementary, middle and high school in the U.S. this year, with 19.9 million attending college. For the nearly 4 million who will receive a college degree this season, celebrations are private, on hold or in isolation.
Read MoreIf only it were as simple as opening a playbook, reading the rules and mastering the prescribed strategies. It’s not.
Jeannette McClennan, co-founder and CEO of McClennan Masson, an innovation firm focused on human-centered digital products for women—and men—over 45, set out to solve that dilemma for what she says is an ignored market looking for help.
Read MoreTake The Lead is launching its second annual 50 Women Can Change the World in Journalism program, slated to kick off on June 16th. Applications for the digital training can be submitted here.
Watch highlights of the 2019 50 Women in Journalism program here
Sponsored in part by Democracy Fund and the Ford Foundation, the program comes at a point when women in the media are making progress but still struggling for parity amid broad layoffs and massive industry changes. For example, women have made up the majority of journalism and mass communication degree programs in the United States for more than three decades.
Read MoreThere’s a Chinese proverb that says: “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago; the next best is today.” The same can be said of saving. The best time to start is 20 years ago —or even before you were born—the second best is today.
Today, almost everyone understands the importance of saving for the future — whether it’s retirement, a down payment on a house, or children’s education expenses. Unfortunately, just thinking about saving money doesn’t actually work. You have to start somewhere, but most people don’t know where the starting line is.
Read More“Now is one of the best times to network,” says Kayla Tekus, director of marketing at The Mom Project, a Chicago-based talent and coaching company focusing on career paths of women and mothers, with a community of over 250,000 professionals and more than 2,000 companies.
The latest news for the company founded in 2016 by CEO Allison Robinson, is that they are offering $500,000 in their Stronger Together Fund to small and medium sized businesses to retain female employees or hire new ones on contracts, with $1,000 to $5,000 grants. Thirty grants have been given so far.
Read MoreThe world has changed drastically since February in every possible way across the world—for women especially. And while many are learning to adapt their professional and personal lives in what is the new mid-COVID-19 normal, adjusting to the status quo is not the only choice.
Transformation is another.
Read MoreGrowing up in Cincinnati, Kristyn Klei Borrero says the desegregation of local schools there gave her a view of K-12 education that “was not monolithic” and steeped in “white kids’ privilege.”
It would fuel her career as CEO and co-founder of CT3, a coaching services company dedicated to improving curriculum across the country by coaching and training educators creatively and serving more than 1 million students in the past 12 years.
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