Women's Leadership Conference

The 6th Annual Women's Leadership Conference
This year is all about uniting women across the workplace with a focus on generational challenges. Challenges can include differences in communication styles, general work practices, collaboration, mentorship and expectations from employers. These differences highlight how creating an environment in which all generations can work together harmoniously can be difficult. Women's Leadership Conference hopes to provide a space to not only hear how others have combated these issues but also a safe place to talk with others experiencing similar challenges. 

Agenda
8:30AM Doors open, networking
9AM Complimentary breakfast
9:30AM Speaker I: Melanie Adams discusses The Five Generations Workforce
10AM Speaker II: Perri duGard Owens discusses The Power of Female Mentorship 
10:30AM Speaker III: Kim James discusses Generational Harmony: Leveraging Differences
10:50AM Closing Remarks

Melanie Adams
Executive Director | Belmont University Center for Executive Education

In her role, Melanie leads CEE’s team of facilitators, curriculum designers, and program staff in developing programs and instructing leaders within the center’s programs. She has experience in developing and teaching fully customized leadership development programs for Fortune 100 and 500 organizations and specializes in cultivating a connection between the topics she teaches and the strategic focus of those organizations. One of the main goals Melanie has for the participants of CEE’s sessions is that they are able to readily understand and apply new concepts, fully embracing the center’s motto of “learn it today, apply it tomorrow.”

Melanie also serves as CEE’s principal consultant, working directly with clients to design customized leadership development programs for local and national organizations. Her focus is assessing and understanding the needs of both the business and the leaders in those organizations, and then working to design programs that align to both the strategic and human sides of those organizations. In her work for CEE over the last several years, Melanie has also maintained an active teaching role in programs, delivering courses such as Leading Organizational Change, Personal and Organizational Communication, Conflict Management and Difficult Conversations, Coaching and Development for Optimal Performance, Building a Winning Team, Strategic Thinking, The Generations at Work, Emotional Intelligence, StrengthsBased Leadership, Critical Thinking and Decision Making, as well as many others.

Perri duGard Owens
President and CEO | duGard Communications
Perri is an experienced marketing, communications and public relations professional who brings proven leadership, creating measurable results and building awareness to achieve goals through communication strategies. She develops strategies and programs for clients of varying sizes and enjoys dreaming big, then executing to success. Learn more about Perri.







Kim James
Executive Director | Young Leaders Council
With more than 15 years of extensive community relations, program management, donor

 engagement, and communications experience, Kim is a graduate of Fisk University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in financial economics before obtaining a master’s degree in business administration from Tennessee State University in 2003. She is the 2018 recipient of the Women in Leadership of Central Illinois’ Woman Leader of the Year Award and a 2018 graduate of the Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce Community Leadership School.