ADVISORY/Hot Job Market but Rocky Road Ahead for Women MBAs: Women Business Leaders Flock to Ann Arbor to Help.

Business Editors & Women's Writers

ADVISORY...for Friday (March 17)

--(BUSINESS WIRE)

This year's business school graduates are about to enter one of the best job markets ever. But the story doesn't end there for women, who can expect significant hurdles to career advancement because of their gender, hurdles requiring special skills and strategies to get ahead. Women at one top business school will have an extraordinary opportunity to prepare for what lies ahead: a hypermarket of strategies, planning, and one-to-one assistance from some of the nation's most successful women business leaders.

Why is this necessary? Women can expect hurdles to career advancement and, to a great degree, have to play by a separate set of unwritten rules. Knowing the rules, and the strategies for overcoming gender-specific hurdles, is often pivotal to long-term career success. What better way to prepare than to tap the knowledge, experience, and strategies of the seasoned women veterans who've successfully overcome the challenges of being a woman in the business world?

The session comes courtesy of the Committee of 200, an invitation-only organization of many of the nation's top women in business, looking to "invest in women." The beneficiaries will be women about to graduate from the University of Michigan Business School, one of the nation's top five MBA programs. The women MBAs will have an extraordinary opportunity to load up on the tools they'll need to take on the special challenges of being a woman in the business world. The conference was organized by students after C200 put its resources at the students' disposal, and sessions are based on a poll of key issues the women students identified as pivotal.

What/Where

Women in Leadership Conference

By the Committee of 200 and Michigan women MBA students

Friday, March 17, 2000

University of Michigan Business School

701 Tappan Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 

Some of the participants:

Bernee Strom, President of Infospace.com

Connie Duckworth, one of Goldman Sachs' first female managing

directors;

Doris Meister, chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch Trust Company

Sheli Rosenberg, president and CEO of Equity Group Investments

Judith Spreiser, president of Sara Lee Foods

Among the key issues to be covered, identified as pivotal to success:

Conflict Resolution: The fact is, women often need different approaches to conflict resolution than do men.

Assertiveness: It may be an old saw, but no less true: Getting credibility, selling ideas, and leading determine success or failure-and research shows women frequently face an uphill battle because of gender.

Glass Ceiling: It still exists, but the successful women from the Committee of 200 have broken through it. How they did so is precious information for aspiring women business leaders.

Other sessions will address such topics as careers in key industries, succeeding as an entrepreneur, and drafting a blueprint for success.

Reporters are welcome to attend. For more information or to attend the conference, please contact John Showalter (212-780-1900) or Keith Decie (734-936-2150).