VBR Launches Executive Leadership Series with Award-Winning Filmmaker

2014-Newsom-PR-Web

Women’s Advocate, Filmmaker and ‘Dynamo’
Jennifer Siebel Newsom Is Coming to Vermont in October

Vermont Business Roundtable Launches Its Inaugural Executive
Leadership Series with ‘What’s Holding Women Back in the Workplace?’

September 2, 2014 – South Burlington, Vt.—Despite graduating from college and graduate school in greater numbers than men, women continue to face significant hurdles in the workplace.

  • Barely five percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women.
  • Men are twice as likely to advance in the workplace, according to the Wall Street Journal.
  • Middle-management women get promoted on performance while middle-management men get promoted on potential, according to McKinsey, the global business consultancy.

Why?

Women’s advocate and filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom thinks she knows. And she plans to share her experience, knowledge and recommendations for action with Vermonters on October 1 at the first annual Executive Leadership Series event sponsored by the Vermont Business Roundtable in a talk entitled “What’s Holding Women Back in the Workplace?” The morning event will take place at the Sheraton Burlington Conference Center and can accommodate a maximum of 400 attendees. Already more than half the seats are spoken for.

Ms. Newsom is CEO and president of The Representation Project and is the writer, director and producer of the documentary film Miss Representation. In the film she exposes how mainstream media contribute to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America. She challenges the media’s limited and often disparaging portrayals of women and girls, which make it difficult for women to achieve leadership positions.

“Jennifer Siebel Newsom is a dynamo,” says Mary Powell, chair of the Vermont Business Roundtable and CEO of Green Mountain Power. “She’s sassy and smart and on point, and ready to help Vermont women and men together figure out how to create more leadership opportunities for women in the Vermont workplace.”

According to Lisa Ventriss, CEO and president of the Vermont Business Roundtable, gender equity and full representation in positions of power and influence are as much an economic issue as an equity issue. “For the economic well-being of Vermont we need to tap the full potential of all our citizens,” she says.

The Roundtable is encouraging business, non-profit and government leaders to attend the event in small groups, bringing their organizations’ leadership teams to listen to Ms. Newsom so that afterwards they can figure out how their particular organization might begin to change its culture to better encourage and support the development and emergence of women leaders.

The October 1 event begins with a networking breakfast at 8:30 am, followed by Ms. Newsom’s keynote address, which concludes at 10:30 am. Ms. Newsom will participate in a press conference with Vermont media between 10:30 and 11 am. Then she will meet privately with a select group of college students from Champlain College, Middlebury College, St. Michael’s College, and the University of Vermont.

The cost to attend the networking breakfast and the keynote address is $1,200 per table of 10 seats or $600 for five seats. The leadership session with college students is by invitation only. A few individual seats at $140 may be available depending upon demand for the group seating.

For more information or to register, visit http://vtroundtable.org/events/executive-leadership-series/

The sponsors of Ms. Newsom’s visit and presentation include Green Mountain Power, Free Press Media, KPMG, National Life Group, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont, Coldwell Banker Hickok & Boardman Realty, Comcast, Dinse, Knapp & McAndrew, Fletcher Allen Health Care and the Vermont Economic Development Authority.

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About Jennifer Siebel Newsom

Jennifer Siebel Newsom is a filmmaker, speaker, former actress, advocate for women, girls and their families, and a mother of young children. Ms. Newsom wrote, directed and produced the 2011 Sundance documentary Miss Representation, which explores how the media’s misrepresentation of women contributes to the underrepresentation of women in positions of power and influence. In response to the film, Ms. Newsom launched Misrepresentation.org, a call-to-action campaign and media organization established to shift people’s consciousness, inspire individual and community action and ultimately transform culture so everyone, regardless of gender, age or circumstance, can fulfill their potential. Ms. Newsom received both her BA and MBA from Stanford University. She resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, and their young children.

Learn more about Ms. Newsom and her work at http://therepresentationproject.org/