GW Women in Business Look to "Start Something" at Annual Conference

by Melissa Lee

credit/ Melissa Lee

The banner for the GW Women in Business Spring Conference hung at the entrance of Funger Hall, where the keynote addresses for the conference were held. 

On Saturday classrooms in GW’s Funger and Duqués Halls became business workshop centers for over 250 people who attended the university’s fourth annual GW Women In Business Spring Conference. The conference was sold out for the first time this year as hundreds of women and even some men gathered to hone their skills in business, learn more about new fields of interest, and network with accomplished female professionals. Most attendees were university students, but the event was open to people of all ages looking to improve their business skills.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Start Something,” with GWWIB encouraging conference attendees to tweet about the event throughout the day using the “#startsomething” hashtag.

Sarah Robb O’Hagan, former Global President of Gatorade and current President of the fitness company Equinox, opened the conference by describing her business journey through the athletic product industry. O’Hagan noted the importance of sports in her own life.  She stated that sports were a great source of empowerment for women, as they taught principles of perseverance, teamwork, and dedication to accomplishing goals. Ultimately, she stressed the importance of “playing to win” in business and other areas of life instead of playing not to lose.

After O’Hagan’s welcoming address, conference attendees made their way to different classrooms in Duqués Hall, each home to a workshop session on topics including law and policy, marketing, entrepreneurship, and personal branding. Each workshop session included four or five panelists who were professionals in some aspect of the subject covered.  They served as both instructors and potential job or internship resources for the session attendees.

The second workshop session included topics on technology, sports, fashion and design, and finance.

credit/Melissa Lee

The technology in Business workshop session.

After a catered networking lunch, there was a keynote address by Janet Gurwitch, founder of Laura Mercier Cosmetics, and Alli Webb, Co-Founder of Drybar. The two described their own personal business experiences, as well as their joint business venture in Drybar, a bar that specializes in affordable, quality blowout hairstyling. Both women described how they took two different paths in their personal lives (Webb chose to rethink her career strategy in order to account for her growing family, and Gurwitch was always more or less strictly career-oriented), but both found success doing something that they loved.

Two more workshop opportunities followed the second address. The first round of sessions included workshops on philanthropy and business, food and events, media and communications, and food and events. The second round included topics such as Financial Literacy and How to Start Something.

The final keynote speech of the day was made by former Editor-in-Chief of Cosmopolitan magazine Kate White, who emphasized to the audience to always “go big or go home.”  She told the audience that when pursuing dreams in business, people should always ask themselves how they could make their goals and ideas bigger. Her speech included hilarious self-references when describing her work at Cosmo. Each conference attendee was also given a copy of White’s new book, I Shouldn’t be Telling You This.

Catherine Jessen, a GW student attending the event, said she loved the conference. 

“I chose to attend the event because I saw it online and it looked like there were a lot of amazing speakers,” Jessen commented.  “I’m a women’s studies major and I think it’s so invaluable to learn from women who have been successful in their own careers. There just seemed like there would be amazing women speaking and a great opportunity to learn.”

credit/Melissa Lee

Conference attendees gather to receive free "swag bags" from Rent the Runway and to pick-up their catered lunch.