Professional Connections Forums

Nearly 600 women attended the first two Professional Connections Forums in Stamford, CT and Tarrytown, NY. The Professional Connections Forums offer a chance for leading employers to connect with hard-to-find, highly educated, mid to senior-level current and returning professional women who search for new opportunities through personal connections—not typical "job fairs", internet job postings or newspaper ads.

The Professional Connections Forums have been sponsored by AmeriCares, Axiom Legal, Bank of America, Faith Popcorn's BrainReserve, Goldman Sachs, Institutional Investor, JP Morgan, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, New-York Historical Society, Pepperidge Farm, Pitney Bowes, Prudential Financial, RBS Greenwich Capital, Reed Exhibitions, Tauck World Discovery, TNS Global and UBS.

The Professional Connections Forum evolved from an event Women@Work held for returning professional MBAs, major employers and leading business school representatives. This event gave major employers access to top talent that is not in their usual recruiting realm and opened some very productive discussions about how to attract and maintain a diverse work force. A long list of prominent employers were in on the discussion--representing the investment banking sector (Goldman Sachs, Lehman, JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, UBS); financial services (Booz Allen, Northwestern Mutual, Principal Financial Group); and corporate America (Johnson & Johnson and Time Warner).

Based on these events, we know that employers find great value in meeting with current and returning professional women in our network. The women in our network search for new work-life opportunities through personal connections--not through recruiters, typical mass market job fairs, internet job postings or newspaper ads. The Professional Connections Forum builds on our networking foundation, giving employers a chance to meet informally with highly educated women who have mid to senior-level professional resumes and significant non-profit leadership experience.

The October, 2007 Forum in Boston has been postponed. Watch for more details about the next Professional Connections Forum in the New York Metropolitan area—to be held in 2008.