Three Detroit female leaders, a roomful of business, technology, and education professionals with great questions, and an expert moderator guiding the conversation resulted in an engaging discussion about women and leadership at last night’s quarterly women’s event in downtown Detroit.
Hosted by Google and Grand Circus, the panel discussion featured:
- Stephanie Jones, attorney at General Motors
- Melissa Grusche, account executive at Google
- Christianne Sims, program manager at Build Institute
The panel was moderated by Tara Reed, CEO of Kollecto and Google CODE2040 Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Grand Circus, who I heard speak at last year’s TEDxDetroit 2015 event.
https://twitter.com/redcrew/status/722551855855886336
Panelists answered questions, offered tips, and shared their personal stories about leadership and what women face in the workplace.
The panel discussion was well-received, with several attendees asking questions during the Q & A section at the end of the event. There were long lines to chat with panelists after the discussion ended.
My Takeaways
I was excited to attend my first quarterly women’s event at Grand Circus. It was great to see a diverse crowd of women (and several men!) in the audience, of all ages.
Attendees included a range of business and technology folks, including students taking classes at Grand Circus. Before the discussion, I spent time chatting with Rose, a recent college graduate, who attended along with three of her fellow JavaScript classmates.
While the panelists represented three different areas, business, technology, and non-profit, their stories and examples complimented each other.
They weren’t speakers I had met before, so I was very interested in hearing about their work and background.
When I spoke with Melissa afterwords, it seemed we knew each other from someplace in the past, but we couldn’t name it.
Tara Reed kept the panelists and audience engaged with her insightful questions.
Four key points from the panel discussion stood out for me:
- As a female leader, you often need more tact than a male leader
- Document your accomplishments, and share them with your manager often, showing how you saved money, streamlined process, etc.
- Know what you want at your job, and be willing to ask for it
- If you’re not able to get what you ask for, negotiate. Everything is negotiable, whether it’s salary, title, job responsibilities, benefits, resources.
After the discussion ended, I spoke with Stephanie Jones to learn more about her involvement with speech recognition in her work at General Motors.
I left the panel discussion inspired and motivated! Thanks to Google and Grand Circus for hosting these quarterly events.
Social Chatter
Check out some of the social conversation from the panel discussion:
https://twitter.com/redcrew/status/722563708036194304
https://twitter.com/redcrew/status/722556744937906176
https://twitter.com/redcrew/status/722563233111007232
https://twitter.com/redcrew/status/722564631353507840
Did you attend the panel discussion? Any thoughts you’d like to share in the comments?
