Montgomery High School's Future Business Leaders of America Hosts a Successful Women in Business Event
On November 16th 2019, Montgomery Future Business Leaders of America hosted its first ever Women in Business Event. With over 200 attendees from eight different schools, this event was a huge success. For their inaugural year, the team chose the theme of uplift.
After checking in and breakfast, students went into the auditorium to start off the event. The keynote speaker was Kate Healy, Managing Director of GenNext at TD Ameritrade. She spoke to the students about her career path and imparted advice to them. In her job today, she is focused on advocacy for sustainability issues facing the RIA industry. Following Ms. Healy's endearing keynote, eight panelists got up on stage. They shared their stories and gave advice to the attendees.
"It was an honor to have helped organize this event" said Emily Ren a senior at Montgomery High School. "The response received was heartwarming and I am glad to have met so many new people."
After an enticing keynote and provoking panel, students were let out to six workshops designed to inform and empower. Workshops ranged from entrepreneurship and finance to interview etiquette and many more.
"Hospitality and Management was a wonderful workshop. Nathalie Yachouh from Cherry Valley Country Club was an excellent speaker, whose presentation I enjoyed the most. Learning a lot about the management side of business, it provided me with a different perspective of the field. It was a wonderful experience for girls and boys. I hope to participate next year" said Praneeth Yaduguru a junior at Montgomery High School.
After the first round of workshops, attendees filed into the cafeteria to network and eat lunch before going to their next workshop. They were able to sit among the very panelists and workshop leaders and truly forge lasting relationships. "To be able to interact with the business leaders around us was inspiring. We were really able to put our people skills to good use" said Praneeth.
To end off the event, the Women in Business (WIB) team lead an ideation activity to spark innovation among participants. The students split themselves into groups and created a product that would help productivity. After twenty minutes, students stood in front of their peers and presented. From the many great ideas, there was a sticker that would shock if one was procrastinating and an app that would allow parents to pay their children a small allowance for finishing tasks.
Apart from the main event, Montgomery Women in Business also organized two separate charities. Amrutha Bhavaraju, the Community Affairs Manager, led a successful women's business attire drive around the Montgomery area. They also organized an initiative for UN's Girl Up as each attendee put in five or more dollars on the day of the event.
The Montgomery Women in Business team would like to thank all of their attendees, sponsors, and speakers for making the event such a great success. Amazing job to the WIB Team: Emily Ren, Shrika Anugula, Sanjna Chokshi, Amrutha Bhavaraju, Khushi Pandey and Hargun Ghai.