Women's Leadership Summit

July 24 – 26, 2024

Ojai Valley Inn

Ojai, CA

The values we live by

We are building on key areas last year's participating shared with us:

Substance

We will discuss marketing, parenting, caregiving, relationships, and advancing careers while balancing personal commitments.

Conversation

Throughout the summit, you will be in small groups, sharing with people facing similar challenges. We advance personal and professional growth through conversation.

Friendship

We focus on forming lasting friendships beyond the Summit. Room members care about and help each other. The women who attend want and nurture this network.

Renewal

It’s enjoyable. Yes, the topics are serious, and we foster intellectual growth, but we also schedule yoga, wine tastings, and even play games. We have memorable conversations not just about work.

An Exclusive Experience
This invitation only Women's Summit is created for and by senior women executives in marketing. The idea is simple: bring women in leadership roles together to engage in discussions about achieving personal career success while fostering an environment for women to connect and exchange marketing insights with one another. This experience is based on 3 core values:
  1. Professional development goes hand-in-hand with personal growth.
  2. Problems get solved by very smart people in small groups.
  3. Powerful networks are built on meaningful connections.

The Summit Experience

2024 Women's Summit Agenda

9:30 am - 1:30 pm Ojai Valley Inn

Arrival Shuttles from LAX & SBA

3:00 pm - 5:00 pm Hacienda Foyer

Registration Desk

5:00 pm - 7:00 pm Orchard Pergola

Happy Hour & Light Food

6:00 pm - 7:00 pm Orchard Pergola

Networking Activity

7:00 pm - 10:00 pm Orchard Lawn

Dinner

7:00 am - 8:00 am Shangri-La

Mind Body Yoga (Optional)

8:00 am - 9:00 am Hacienda Foyer & Terrace

Breakfast

9:30 am - 11:00 am

General Session (timing breakdown below)

9:30 am - 9:50 am Hacienda Ballroom

Summit Opener

9:50 am - 10:35 am Hacienda Ballroom

The Don't Want What You Want

Two-thirds of women under 30 aspire to top jobs but have different needs, values, and expectations than prior generations. How can you connect, engage, and inspire them?

10:35 am - 11:20 am Hacienda Ballroom

Embrace Your Why: Empowerment, Sisterhood, and Giving Back with Malinda Williams

Join Courtney Harrow and Whitney Wolder, the entertaining co-hosts of the "Hey Sis, Eat This" podcast, as they sit down with the multi-talented Malinda Williams—actor, author, and entrepreneur—for an inspiring main stage session. This conversation will explore the significance of focusing on the "why" rather than the "how" in both personal and professional realms, emphasizing the essential role self-esteem plays in shaping our lives and careers. They will celebrate the strength of sisterhood, encouraging women to support, collaborate, and advocate for each other, while discussing practical ways to give back at the summit and in our communities. The session is designed to inspire, uplift, and unite women leaders in their journey towards empowerment.

11:20 am - 12:00 pm Hacienda Ballroom

The Boundary Blueprint

This workshop empowers you to break through self-imposed limitations by setting healthy interpersonal boundaries. You'll learn to identify your goals, understand what is holding you back, and build communication skills to establish boundaries that will help you live a more balanced life.

12:00 pm - 1:15 pm The Farmhouse Great Room

Lunch + Workshop

The Boundary Blueprint in action - This workshop will put into practice the themes we learned in the prior session. You will have the opportunity to identify your goals, identify your boundaries, and practice communication with your peers.

1:30 pm - 3:00 pm

Roundtable Discussions

Hacienda Ballroom A

Roundtable A: What are the most important ways we can connect with consumers?

We all became marketers because we love communication. We’re paid to communicate with customers, but how do we even do that anymore? Even if we can find them on the planet, how do we communicate authentically and imaginatively? TV has fragmented into a billion channels, and the most influential medium for young people might get shut down this year. BTW, these young are pretty jaded about ads. So now what? What compelling strategies can we deploy that reach and engage our target audiences? And how do we convince the rest of our orgs?

Hacienda Ballroom C&D

Roundtable B: Let's get better at running our businesses

Anyone with P&L responsibilities runs a business. Whether you are managing a department or running the whole show, your lingua franca includes growth strategies, prognosticating the future of your business, 3-5 year planning, accounting, organizational design, and leadership. This roundtable will explore how we can become better managers, entrepreneurs, and CEOs. Specifically, we will examine what women do differently, enabling companies to thrive. Most importantly, we want to discuss our next five years as leaders. What do we want for ourselves, our teams, and our companies? What should people say about us as women who run companies, divisions, or departments in the year 2030?

4:30 pm - 6:30 pm Artist Cottage

Networking Activity

Join us for an afternoon of creativity and connection at the Ojai Valley Inn's Artist Cottage. We will have interactive stations and tastings. Embrace the magic of Ojai while making new friends.

6:30 pm - 9:30 pm The Farmhouse

Dinner

7:00 am - 8:00 am Meet at the Spa

Guided Fitness Walk (optional)

8:00 am - 9:30 am Hacienda Ballroom

Breakfast

8:00 am - 1:30 pm Anacapa Foyer

Shipping Desk

9:30 am - 10:30 am

Workshops

Anacapa Ballroom

Workshop 1: The Art of Self-Promotion

All executives must find ways of constructively communicating their value to the organization. Join us to scrutinize the moments when we’ve self-advocated and when we haven’t. What were the results and what can we learn from them?

Anacapa Ballroom

Workshop 2: Navigating Politics

All large organizations have inescapable political dynamics. Yet nobody’s college or business school education prepared them to excel at reading the tea leaves. Instead, we need to collaboratively self-educate ourselves. In this roundtable, we will share our politics with the group and get actionable advice. When we return to the office, we will have a new proactive approach to our organizational dynamics.

Anacapa Ballroom

Workshop 3: Managing Generational Differences

Lost in the knee-jerk narratives about GenX/Z/Millennials is that the digital revolution has produced different approaches to life and communication during the past 30 years. It’s not good enough to complain about differing attitudes. We need actionable solutions. Join this conversation because you have case studies on what works and want to emerge energized to lead.

Anacapa Ballroom

Workshop 4: C-Suite Primer

You come prepared to share what has worked and not worked in your interactions with the C-Suite. How did you crush that meeting? Where have you failed? What could have gone better? Ultimately, we want a toolkit to better position ourselves and our ideas for a more successful set of interactions. We get there by revealing our proudest and toughest moments inside the C-Suite.

Anacapa Ballroom

Workshop 5: Don’t Sweat it

Is there anything worse than sitting at a conference table with a half-dozen senior colleagues and finding yourself dripping in sweat and needing to shed layers even though the AC usually freezes the room? Menopause causes significant changes for women who are at the peak of their power, yet we don’t discuss it, and many of us feel shame. This is a discussion about getting Menopause into the corporate light, but it’s also about having an instant support network.

Anacapa Ballroom

Workshop 6: Taking Care of Parents, Kids, and Partners

Whether or not you have a terrific partner, society hasn’t evolved that much. In American society, women do much of the caretaking. This is not a gripe session. Instead, you show up to say, “Here’s how I’ve hacked the system.” The result is that attendees go home with actionable advice and a renewed belief that balance is possible.

Anacapa Ballroom

Workshop 7: Managing the AI Moment

Too much of the AI discussion focuses on the whizz bang of the technology. The real conversation needs to focus on change management. WSJ and HBR say it’s arrived, but where’s the evidence? We’re still in the discovery phase and CFOs want us to cut our teams in half while dramatically increasing our output. That said, this is real. What can we do this year to set realistic budgets and expectations, while harvesting this fertile terrain

10:30 am - 11:00 am Anacapa Foyer

Networking Break

11:00 am - 12:00 pm Anacapa Ballroom

Workshops

Anacapa Ballroom

Workshop 1: Workplace Diversity for Real

We may need to catch up on how diversity breeds competitive advantage. More viewpoints can lead to creative solutions. How do we evolve our recruiting outreach, job descriptions, and organizational design to create space for more intellectual and cultural diversity? Join us to discuss your organization and how you are succeeding or challenged in building an organization you lead with people from diverse backgrounds.

Anacapa Ballroom

Workshop 2: From Company to Community

You are accomplished if invited to this summit. But for some of us, our careers cannot be the sole focus of our life energy. How do we marshal our talent and energy into community, education, and charitable endeavors?

Anacapa Ballroom

Workshop 3: Intentional Career Pathing

Sometimes, you’re 20 years into a career that just happened. But with sound career management techniques that include – mentorship, networking, workplace skill development, and self-promotion – we can position our journey for greater and more diverse opportunities. Why did you leave one job? Why did you get that promotion? Do you want to be the CMO or is there another end goal? Ultimately, what does trajectory look like? Join us to reflect, plan, and prepare to be more intentional.

Anacapa Ballroom

Workshop 4: The Older I get, The More I Learn

Our attendees have a 25-year age range. How do we unlock the wisdom of experiential difference, and in particular, how do we upend the conventional framing that older is wiser? This is a roundtable about how more seasoned professionals learn from their younger colleagues and update their worldviews and, more importantly, their management techniques.

Anacapa Ballroom

Workshop 5: Making Hard Decisions

We have cliches for it: face the music, bite the bullet, grin and bear it. Join us to share how you have succeeded and failed when the going gets tough. What can we take away from your experience, and what can you take away from the stories you hear about the promise and peril of managing change?

Anacapa Ballroom

Workshop 6: Reverse Ageism

Does it feel that younger men are taken more seriously by their colleagues than younger women? If so, we need a case study to combat this alarming trend, which could keep women from maximizing their opportunities. This is a workshop to emerge armed with the tools to self-advocate when you return home.

Anacapa Ballroom

Workshop 7: Leadership Unmuted

You know what’s hard. Staying true to your values when you see things that are not good for your company, colleagues, or customers. This requires a level of courage, confidence, and conviction that is hard. It’s easier not to speak up when you worry you are rocking the boat, offending your colleagues, or risking your employment. Yet, you’re here because you are senior, and those leadership positions come with the responsibility to set an example. So, how do we find and sustain our voice when we must speak up?

12:00 pm - 1:30 pm Anacapa Ballroom

Town Hall & Lunch

Our final session aspires to be action oriented: let’s synthesize the Summit’s discussions into a set of principles that are actionable. What will we do differently? What are key tenants we want to push forward? Dinner by dinner, month by month, and summit by summit we have an agenda to advance. Let’s codify at our Town Hall.

2:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Departure Shuttles to LAX & SBA from Ojai Valley Inn

This Year's Discussion Leaders

Amy Tunick

National CineMedia (NCM)

Angela Gruzka

Charitybuzz

Cathy Collette

PadSquad

Hilary Cook

Marriott International

Jamie Olson

Blue Chip Worldwide

Johanna Wahlroos

DoubleVerify

Kathy Bugbee

Silverpush

Lisa Collings

Mindshare

Lisa Giacosa

Spark Foundry

Liz Reeves

Crate and Barrel

Madelyn Sheldon

UTR Sports

Megan Owsik

Influential

Michelle Chester

General Mills

Molly Bechert

Zeta Global

Natalie Lennox Medina

Delta Air Lines

Nicole Kane

Grupo Bimbo

Sage Edson

Nexxen

Stephanie Warner Juhas

Digital Remedy

Summit Underwriters

Hayley Nelson

Moderator

Bio coming soon.

Duncan Houldsworth

Moderator

Bio coming soon.

Beth Mach

Advisor / Moderator

Beth Mach brings over 25 years of experience driving growth through marketing, media, and technology solutions for Fortune 500 brands. She is currently the Co-founder and COO of Spacely and a moderator and advisor for The Room. Beth actively contributes to several start-ups such as Compliant, Brandstory Architech, and Influential and is also an accomplished public speaker, mentor, investor, and active volunteer.

Aaron Cohen

Advisor / Moderator

Before The Room, Aaron was the CEO of five digital media companies from 1998-2018 including Bolt (sold to GoFish), The GirlsOn Blog Network (sold to Oxygen) and Menupages (sold to Grubhub). 15 years ago, he became a professor of Internet media history at NYU where he continues to teach undergraduates.

Lou Alaimo

Lou Alaimo

Advisor / Moderator

Bio coming soon.

Nicole Healy

SVP, Experience

Nicole is the SVP of Experience at The Room where we define ‘experience’ as the intersection of community and event operations. She previously held leadership roles as Chief Strategy Officer for a VC backed start-up and as Co-Founder of VMA Media, a marketing events company she took through acquisition in 2018.

Micca Tuason

Community Supervisor

Micca is passionate about creating exceptional event experiences. As part of the Community team, she contributes to the entire event lifecycle, from planning and execution to post-event follow-up.

Lauren Carlucci

Community Manager

Bio coming soon.

Laiza Cabarrubias

Community Growth Coordinator

Bio coming soon.

Katie Burke

Senior Community Manager

Katie currently serves as a leader in community and event management, driven by her innate creativity and passion for fostering connections. Her career spans roles in business development, event management, field marketing, and community building. In her free time, Katie runs a thriving global community of 50K+ 20-somethings called ‘Not Wasting My Twenties.’

Justin Buen

Sales Coordinator

I have over five years of experience in sales operations, executive assistance, and customer service. I enjoy supporting teams by keeping schedules on track, improving workflows, and ensuring clients are well taken care of.

Josh Messinger

Partner

Josh has been bringing together marketers for over 20 years. He has seen multiple companies through acquisitions, held leadership roles as VP, Online, President, and founder at media companies including dmg :: events, iMedia, ad:tech, and VMA Media.

Jess Porec

Experience Manager

Bio coming soon.

Doug Bandes

Doug Bandes

VP, Sales

Bio coming soon.

Danny Fishman

Partner

An authority in the converging media space, Danny is known and respected for his accomplishments in the entertainment, media, advertising & marketing, digital, and technology industries. For the past two decades Fishman has been a highly successful serial entrepreneur, leading multiple companies to exponential revenue growth, category dominance, and financially lucrative exits.

Dan Orcino

Senior Experience Coordinator

With 20 years of experience delivering exceptional customer service in the BPO industry, Daniel Orcino is a passionate advocate for sales and leadership. He excels in operations management, team leadership, and facilitation. Beyond his professional pursuits, Daniel enjoys traveling and exploring the great outdoors, always seeking new adventures.

Cathleene Tagari

Executive Assistant

Prior to joining The Room in September 2023 as an Executive Assistant, Cathleene honed her skills in client relations. She now leverages this experience to provide comprehensive support to the partners, collaborating closely with them to optimize workflows, enhance productivity, and reach goals.

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Request your place aboard.

Space is limited to qualified marketers. Every seat is personally considered.

Cocktails & Canapés
Private Dinner
Thursday boat excursion
Anything else you'd like to share?