Alfred Edmond Jr. is the senior vice president and executive editor-at-large at Black Enterprise. Edmond spoke with rolling out ahead of the 2023 Black Enterprise Women of Power Summit about what they can learn during these conferences, and why they’re important to someone’s career.
What can women learn at these types of conferences?
It’s about all things leadership and excellence in corporate America, and this is about leadership development for Black women in major corporations. But it’s also about how you have that level of excellence outside of the workplace because obviously, those two things go together. We try to put together a program that’s going to help the attendees go back to their careers, their jobs, and achieve and even exceed the goals that they have for one another, as well as make sure they don’t sacrifice the lifestyle we need to have because ultimately, it shouldn’t just be about living to work. It’s about working to live. That’s what we try to equip the attendees with when they come to the conference.
Why are conferences like these important to someone’s career?
The secret ingredient or the secret sauce is the women themselves. Many of these women work in isolated industries and isolated environments, and maybe they’re the only ones in the industry or the only ones in the company at the level of leadership they’re at. It can be very easy to believe that they’re out there by themselves. What happens at the Women of Power Summit is they meet 1,800 women just like them. They may be in different industries around the country but they get what they’re dealing with, and they can say, “Listen, you don’t have to go crazy because of what you’re dealing with in your company, call me and I’ll share some strategies that helped me get past that. A lot of what happens at this conference is that these women are sharing leadership strategies to help them get through. So maybe I’m already a senior vice president, and you’re trying to get there, but you’re in a different industry and you’re facing the same barriers. Instead of trying to figure it out on your own, you have a sorority and sisterhood that’s your resource, and they’re going to help you navigate this. When you need mentorship, sponsorship, or maybe just want to change jobs, you need to know what the opportunity looks like, they can help you do that. That’s the real power of this event, and I can say with a straight face, there’s no other event like this for Black women.
