Onward and Upward

I’ve always loved the New York State motto: Excelsior: Onward and Upward. It’s especially apt for us at WOMEN Unlimited as we move forward following the milestone of our 20th Anniversary Year.

Past. Present. Future—With the Accent on Future

Our 20th Anniversary year was marked by a number of events, activities and innovations that both celebrated our successes and laid the groundwork for advancing our contributions to diversity at the highest levels of corporate America. Here are some of the highlights that will define where we’re heading:

An integrated approach to developing high-potential women: Through Executive Forums, one-on-one interactions and surveys, our corporate partners reinforced the importance of programs and strategies that allow them to develop company-wide, integrated approaches to achieving diversity. We intend to continue helping existing and future corporate partners achieve this objective in a variety of ways:

• Offering programs that provide learning and development for high potential women, their managers and executives, company-wide.
• Serving as a thought leader to Human Resources executives and top management on best practices for insuring that managers across the board are on the same page when it comes to diversity plans and objectives
• Providing advice and counsel on the most effective methods for changing attitudes that may be knowingly or unknowingly impeding diversity
• Developing strategies that strengthen mentor relationships at all corporate levels, with emphasis on best practices for BOTH mentors and mentees.

Expansion to Asia Pacific: On May 21st, we launched our first TEAM program in Singapore. After extensive research and input from our corporate partners, we chose to expand our offerings to this region because of its unquestionable importance to both individual corporations and the global economy. In the fall, on September 10th, we will launch TEAM in Shanghai.

In the months and years ahead we will continue to carefully expand our programs geographically, while remaining critically aware of never spreading ourselves too thin.

Evolving our Programs: Businesses and their people change and evolve. It has always been our strategy at WOMEN Unlimited to monitor these changes and ensure that our programs are aligned with the accompanying changing needs. To that end, we have completely restructured TEAM, our program for early-career women. This new program will cover six key areas that today’s global marketplace demands for individual and corporate success:

• Owning Your Career: Focus, Awareness, Agility
• Savvy Relationships: Expanding Your Influence and Increasing Your Impact
• Developing “Brand You”: Confident, Visible, Vocal
• Bolstering Your Business Impact: Personally and Virtually
• Beyond Your Department: Broadening Your Business Acumen
• Change and Innovation: Your Career Catalysts

This new program is currently piloting in New York and San Francisco and will take complete hold in September.

To all who contributed to our successes so far, a resounding “thank you.” To the successes that lie ahead, an excited “I can’t wait.”

Dr. Rosina L. Racioppi
President & CEO
WOMEN Unlimited, Inc.