Women to Watch

By Liz Wing on 05/06/2009 @ 07:30 PM

Last night I attended a very inspiring awards dinner, the Women to Watch Awards, presented by Running Start. The Women to Watch Awards honor young women who have made great achievements. The awards show also serves to inspire young women and girls to take their leadership to another level.

The honorees were incredible. I am going to share a few that really stood out to me:

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz: At the age of 26 she became the youngest female legislator in the Florida's history, as State Representative. Now, 41, she is rated the 24th most powerful member of the U.S. House of Representatives. You may recall my past blog entry about her courage and tenacity. In her comments, she remarked: “I wouldn’t be where I am if I didn’t start young.” Indeed, that is just what Running Start is about.

Betsy Fisher: At age 37 she is the Executive Producer for “Meet the Press”, the longest running television program in the world. Fisher mentioned that she is often asked why there aren’t more women on the show. She explained that she would love to have the show jam-packed with women, but the reality is we need more women campaign managers, legislators and political leaders. In fact, she said, “I hope that in 50 years the current Executive Producer will be asked ‘Hey, why don’t you have more men on the show’?”

Julie Gilbert: Age 38, she is the Founder and CEO of WOLF Means Business. After being an executive at Best Buy for years, she created this innovative approach to make Best Buy the place for women to work and shop through a simple concept: support women. Her initiative has increased Best Buy revenue by $4.4 billion, and reduced female employee turnover by more than 5% each year, while increasing the number of women at all levels of the company by more than 18%. She is a businesswoman who saw the injustices that many women face in large companies, and has sought to change it for many women to come.

One of the final speakers stole the show: Camille Henderson, who is one of the young girls who had recently participated in the Running Start political leadership training. She explained how important this training was in gaining confidence, and what a great diverse group of young women she met at the training. Her presence on stage was incredible and her natural speaking ability had clearly been nurtured at the training. In speaking to what she is going to do, now that she is armed with the skills and knowledge from the workshop, she simply said: “Allow me to show you instead of tell you – because I am going to do things. Big things.” I have no doubt she will.

Indeed, this event was awe-inspiring and it was proof that women can – and do - make great accomplishments, especially when they get a boost from one another.

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