MPWOMEN SUMMIT INITIATIVES
Fortune created Most Powerful Women as a cover package in 1998 with a simple idea that women were gaining significant power in the corporate world and had become a lot more interesting than in the old days when women leaders, to thrive, had to behave like men. One thing we've done, consciously, over the past 12 years is humanize these MPW and urge them to realize and deploy their power outside their silos. Real power is personal power—what you use outside of your job and your tenure.
Through the MPWomen Summit—which has quickly become the premiere gathering of women leaders in business, government, philanthropy, education and the arts—we've created several programs to help our community of women leaders spread their influence well beyond their organizations and empower the next generation.
Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership
In 2006, Fortune and the U.S. State Department launched the Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. The program brings rising-star women from developing countries to the U.S. each May to shadow participants of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit. We then follow them as they “pay it forward” back in their home countries. MPW mentors have included CEOs Ursual Burns of Xerox, Andrea Jung of Avon, Ellen Kullman of DuPont, Ann Moore of Time Inc, Pat Woertz of ADM and Helene Gayle of CARE. This program has proved to be a rich, personal experience for both the mentors and the mentees—with lasting friendships formed and exponential results. To date 117 women from 43 developing countries have gone through the program, and 35 women are set to be mentees in 2010.
The Young Leaders Program
The Young Leaders Program is an innovative partnership with Fortune, ExxonMobil, and the National Math + Science Initiative. The program pairs outstanding U.S.-based college juniors majoring in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields with top female leaders in business. The goal is to share lessons of leadership while showcasing myriad career options available to the next generation of leaders. Each executive’s commitment includes participating in one monthly web seminar, contacting the student several times throughout the program, hosting a student or group of students at your company, and covering the student’s travel expenses.
Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs
Our MPWomen Entrepreneurs initiative, a partnership with American Express, honors ten of America’s most promising entrepreneurs, brings them to the Summit, and helps small and large businesses learn from each other. During the summer of 2010, Fortune will choose ten female small-business entrepreneurs to join the Summit. The program, which debuted at the 2009 Summit, targets entrepreneurial women who are game changers, ground-breakers and innovators in their fields.
Power in MPWomen terms, is really about expanding your influence horizontally to do good and make an impact beyond your job and your tenure. This is why Building a Legacy is our theme for the 2010 Summit. At this year's Summit in Washington,D.C. October 4-6, we'll cast the spotlight on these programs and urge the MPWomen community to do even more.
