LAS VEGAS — Black Enterprise has exemplified once again why its annual “Women of Power Summit” is peerless in its ability to attract many of the nation’s most influential Black women executives to its conferences at prestigious locations around the country every year.
The esteemed magazine’s senior vice president and executive editor at large, Alfred Edmond Jr., elucidated on how the conference has become the premier gathering spot for over 1200 Black women executives as well as mid-level and upper-level corporate managers.
“There are a lot of great conferences for women in general and Black women in particular. What sets the Women of Power Summit apart are a couple of things. One, it comes from a legacy of business and corporate achievement, which is what Black Enterprise is about,” Edmond told rolling out during the 2022 WPS conference inside the Bellagio Hotel and Casino.
“We are targeting women in corporate America, particularly Black women, who are trying to navigate in large businesses and multinational corporations in environments where they’re likely to be maybe the only person of color. They’re in situations where they have to manage people who don’t look like them. Many of the people who are evaluating them don’t look like them. And they are operating in isolation.”
The majority of the attendees at Women of Power, Edmond explained, are Black women and other minorities who are powerful, connected, well paid, highly educated and looking for additional tools to climb to the next level. It has become the place where Black women procure invaluable insights and make powerful connections.
“This grew into this sisterhood of women who are like, ‘no matter what industry I’m in, if I’m a senior vice president in the consumer products business, and you’re an executive vice president of a technology business, we understand the challenges that we’re facing and we are aspiring to the C-suite to be a CEO.'”
Another attribute of the WPS that makes it unique is that the women can coalesce around issues unique to them while engaging in intensive sessions during the three-day conference.
“We’re going to put you in an environment where you’re going to get leadership skills, you’re going to get development skills, you’re going to develop greater networking skills and develop relationships that are going to actually help you advance your career and help you move up the ladder.”
Fortune 500 companies, therefore, have been more than willing to send their executives to the Women of Power Summit where they learn from legendary executives and pioneers in business.
That’s why Edmond says WPS is not just a women’s conference, but more so “a corporate leadership conference. And that’s why so many companies say ‘we’re going to send you to this event,’ and they can legitimately justify it to the HR department and to their talent development division.”
“Corporations know the women are going to come back better executives for their companies,” according to Edmond.
