This week is Spring break!!!! Many of my fellow WIL members are off traveling! Some are in Belize snorkeling, some in New Orleans on a service project, and some in Tahoe hitting the slopes! I has originally planned to be in Japan with 70 of my classmates on a trip organized by Japanese MBA students at Haas. Due to the horrible events in Japan, the trip was cancelled. Very fortunately each of my classmates' families are okay. The school has been very supportive and there have been several fundraisers. I am hoping to join the trip next year and add a service component to the northern region.
I've used this time to catch up with friends, television, and school. This weekend my fiancé and I will be heading down the coast for a long weekend. That is the great part about living here--there is a vacation right in your backyard!
This week gave me time to reflect on my experience at Haas and with WIL. Most recently we held our 15th annual Women in Leadership Conference! It was an incredible event! Having lived in the bay area before Haas, this was the third WIL conference I had attended.
This year, one of my classmates, Sue, and I organized and led the technology panel! What a great networking experience and a highlight of my time at Haas. On our panel we had a senior director from Sony PlayStation, a product manager from Google's boutiques.com, the head of national sales for Facebook, the VP of Pacific Sales for Bling Nation, and the head of business development for Twitter. Our panel focused on how technology is changing the way we shop, communicate, and learn.
Sue and I had started working on our panel last Fall. Under the leadership team of the second year MBA students we were given tools, resources, and a proposed timeline---the rest was up to us to shape a panel on a topic we were interested in!
Aside from the experience organizing the panel, the conference held many other highlights for me! Each year I have attended the conference, I am amazed at the caliber of women leaders! I leave every year inspired to achieve and learn more. This year, a highlight for me was listening to our first keynote speaker Nancy Mahon, a Senior VP at M.A.C. Cosmetics and Executive Director of the M.A.C. Aids Fund. As an aspiring marketer, Nancy's speech challenged me to do good within marketing. Hearing her talk about the Lady Ga Ga and M.A.C. partnership and what that has meant for the campaign was inspiring. I have not taken many corporate social responsibility classes during my first year, but I hope to during my second year. It is very important for me to work on products I feel like are benefiting the world---Nancy's speech was a reminder of that.
Well it just started to rain a bit---I'm going to do some ethics reading and off to yoga! Looking forward to school being back on Monday and our upcoming WIL social events--a pre-Bar of the Week (BOW), a private class at The Dailey Method, and our graduating MBA sendoff party!