MIAMI, FL - Industry members, prepare yourselves—it’s the time of year where your company's powerhouse women are returning recharged and ready to go. If the 200-plus women who attended this year’s Women's Fresh Perspectives Conference (WFPC) are half as inspired as I am, our bosses are in for some ideas, thoughts, and opinions as we “Own It.”
"I am so proud to be a volunteer and a Co-Chair for the Women’s Fresh Perspectives portfolio," Dave's Specialty Imports' Vice President Leslie Simmons tells me. "This conference proves once again to be one of the most invaluable events for women in produce at any level in their career. High-quality speakers covered timely topics and, ultimately, gave us actionable tools to take ourselves and our teams to the next level. I am thrilled to continue pushing this program forward, and to work with both women and men to support our up-and-coming women leaders."
Perhaps one of the more powerful aspects of this year’s conference was the number of first-time attendees, myself included. This year, Leslie shared with me that she saw a significant boost in WFPC rookies, with upwards of 70 percent coming for the first time and the remainder being those who returned for more.
While a number of attendees were there to seek a mentor for their fresh produce careers, many of the new faces were not at all new to the industry.
“I was pleasantly surprised to see from the attendance at this conference, just how many smart and talented women we now have in our industry,” Grimmway's Vice President of Foodservice and Industrial Sales, Lisa McNeece, shared when discussing here debut experience. “I love the sisterhood.”
It was a sentiment that Sysco's Sr. Sales & Marketing Manager Nancy Johnston shared when she first took the stage on day one of the conference, telling us all that she could remember and name the five women in produce she remembers starting out with–a far cry from what I saw in the room we currently resided in.
Emily Murracas, Mucci Farms’ Director of Marketing, and I discussed the differences she saw in the conference, this being her third time returning to the event.
“I’ve noticed a lot of companies have started bringing multiple members of their team, which I think is really great,” Emily shared with me, adding that sending more than one team member could help both to come back and implement what they learned at the conference in their own businesses and lives. “The other thing that I’m noticing is that each conference is always very relevant with what is going on with current events. The PMA staff, Conference Committee, and Center for Growing Talent Team did a great job selecting their line-up of speakers—they were captivating and incredibly inspiring.”
I have to agree, having noticed that each speaker was not only passionate and great at evoking emotion in the room, but used real-life experiences to show how far women in male-dominated industries have come and how to go even further. Educational sessions offered relevant discussions that applied to three tiers of business levels, executive, mid-level, and emerging leaders, leaving no stone left unturned that I could spot.
I could likely talk about each amazing speaker individually and how their surprising background ended up being perfect for the discussion at hand, Stacy Blake-Beard with her background as a professor of business, Eileen McDargh’s expertise as an executive coach and consultant, Molly Fletcher as one of the first female agents in professional sports, and Colette Carlson’s expertise in human behavior and communication, but it would take another story or two. Suffice it to say, each should be researched by both male and female produce members looking to better communicate and further position the company for success as a whole.
In the past couple of days, I was:
- An extrovert in a room of introverts that learned how to communicate better with her team, thanks to Mary Shapiro in her workshop Successful Introverts in an Extroverts’ World
- Taught by Cynthia Kyriazis in Wander No More, Your Time Management GPS to better manage my time and maybe even pass along some tips to others
- Helped to confront conflict and difficult discussions in a productive way by Deborrah Himsel and Diza Sauers in An Uncomfortable Woman Walks into a Bar: Achieving Power and Parity Through Difficult Conversations
- Given the opportunity to pose a question to experts Vicki Cotter, Joan Craig, and Betsy Folan, as well as the room full of experts that was conference attendees, from the comfort of a chair or bean bag
Everything was brought to a close, which like some empowering summer camp brought both excitement for bringing back what we learned and a twinge of sadness at how quickly time flew by, by the very fierce Gretchen Carlson.
And none of this includes the meals, drinks, and breaks in which I had the opportunity to learn about incredible women in produce I had never met, as well as those I hadn’t had an opportunity to get to know better until now.
This was an amazing opportunity I am excited to share, and hope to inspire more first-time attendees–no matter how long they’ve been in our industry.
