You belong here. As you are.

What you’ll take away

• Build confidence and increase your professional visibility.
• Recognize opportunities instead of waiting for them.
• Use mentorship and representation to open pathways for others.

About Amy Henningfield

An accomplished leader and advocate for women whose work demonstrates the power of visibility, confidence and creating pathways for others.

What you’ll take away

• Identify which opportunities deserve more of your time.
• Balance immediate demands with long-term professional goals.
• Make decisions using a more intentional time-investment framework.

About Valentine Torres

A strategic professional whose perspective helps women move beyond being busy and begin investing their time where it creates the greatest long-term return.

What you’ll take away

• Understand how your presence affects the people around you.
• Respond with greater intention when pressure is high.
• Use energy, mindset and self-awareness to create positive impact.

About Dr. Nancy Trimboli

A trusted voice in personal growth and intentional living who helps people understand how mindset, energy and self-awareness shape every room they enter.

Hope isn’t a feeling that shows up when life calms down. It’s a discipline you practice, especially when you’re running on empty.

In this workshop, Buffy, “Your Official Hope Dealer,” shows women how to stay steady when the hard days stack up. You’ll learn how your thoughts and words shape your daily experience, how to reset your nervous system in the middle of a stressful day, and how to choose what you carry and what you set down.

You’ll leave with simple, practical steps you can use right away, because small changes build real resilience. If you’re exhausted, stretched thin, and still showing up for everyone else, this session is for you.

What you’ll take away

• Start your day on purpose. Use three short morning statements—before the phone, before the news, before the world gets a vote—to set your mindset and practice hope as a daily discipline.
• Build margin before a crisis. Spot the difference between everyday exhaustion and crisis exhaustion, and refill your tank now so you have something left when the storm hits.
• Turn your tired into information. Stop treating exhaustion as failure. Pause, get quiet, and ask what it’s trying to teach you.
• Move before you feel motivated. Take the first small step and let motivation catch up, instead of waiting for the perfect moment.
• Hold the rope for others. Show up, sit down, say “me too,” and be the person who makes someone else feel less alone.

Plus, a worksheet to take home: All workshop participants receive a helpful worksheet to clear the noise and reclaim time for things that fill you up instead of drain you.

What you’ll take away

• A simple framework for deciding what to hand off to AI and what to keep for yourself.
• Live demos of practical workflows anyone can repeat immediately.
• A personal AI goal you set during the session—with a plan to make it stick.
• What tends to go wrong, and how to keep your own judgment in the loop.

About Dr. Elizabeth Volini

Dr. Elizabeth Volini leads AI adoption at JLL, one of the world’s largest commercial real estate companies, where she helps more than 110,000 employees build the skills and confidence they need to work effectively with AI.

She holds a Doctorate of Business Administration from DePaul University, where her research focused on how everyday people adopt AI—and how to recognize and navigate AI bias. She continues that work as a Researcher in Residence at DePaul and speaks nationally on AI adoption, responsible AI, and navigating change.

Elizabeth also founded and chairs Women Transforming Tech at JLL, a global community of more than 1,000 members across 30 countries. She lives in Valparaiso and is glad to bring this work home to the Northern Indiana professional community.

What you’ll take away

• Understand why uncomfortable conversations matter and the choices you have when approaching them.
• Prepare for difficult conversations with greater clarity and intention.
• Use a practical framework to communicate directly, respectfully and effectively.

About Amy McCarthy

A people-development and leadership professional who helps individuals approach difficult conversations with greater clarity, confidence and purpose.

Leadership, recognition, and the work that too often goes unseen

In this interactive session, Lesley Neff invites you to take an honest look at the layers in your workplace. Why are they there? Whose voices travel through them, and whose get lost? You’ll explore what leaders may miss when they see only the final result, why people behave as they do within a system, and how you can lead and influence others even without a leadership title.

Through reflection and conversation, you’ll practice asking questions with curiosity and listening differently across roles. The goal is to see more clearly what is happening beneath the surface—and discover what choices might open up.

You’ll leave with

• A clearer view of the people, pressures, and workplace layers behind the results you see.
• A better understanding of the influence you already have, regardless of your title.
• Questions you can bring back to your team to open up new ways forward.

Create a Personal Board of Directors to help you grow your career.

In this interactive session, Sabrina Wilson will help you build your own Personal Board of Directors: an intentional mix of mentors, sponsors, allies, and trusted supporters who offer guidance, honest perspective, and access to opportunities. You’ll map the people you currently turn to, notice where you may be relying too heavily on one person or missing a perspective, and decide which relationships to strengthen next.

You’ll leave with a clearer picture of the support you have, the support you need, and a practical plan to build the relationships that can help you make decisions and move forward.

Attendee takeaways

• Build the right mix of developmental relationships based on your goals and current career needs.
• Map and analyze the current state of your Personal Board of Directors to identify strengths, gaps, over-reliance, and missing perspectives.
• Create a personalized action plan with concrete next steps to strengthen key relationships and intentionally expand your network.

In this session, Brittany will break down what’s working on social media right now, what isn’t, and how businesses can create content with more intention. She’ll cover the different roles content can play, when to use Reels, carousels, photos, and Stories, how to create stronger hooks, and how to think about content from the audience’s perspective instead of simply posting about the business.

Attendees will also learn how to look beyond likes and use their analytics to understand what’s working, what isn’t, and what to try next. Attendees will leave with a better understanding of what to post, where to post it, and how to know if it’s actually working.

What you’ll take away

• Understand the different jobs your content can do.
• Choose when to use Reels, carousels, photos, and Stories.
• Create stronger hooks that give your audience a reason to keep watching or reading.
• Look beyond likes and use analytics to guide your next move.
• Get clearer on what to post, where to post it, and how to know if it’s working.