"My Why": The SheMoney Summit

This is a special edition of the SheMoney newsletter, because this month I’m going to be talking about the inaugural SheMoney Summit that will take place June 6th and 7th in Salt Lake City. This will not be just any summit, it will be THE SUMMIT. The summit that I have been dreaming about creating for a very long time. You see, I love events, good events, mainly because I love the combination of learning something new, having those “aha” moments, spending time with great people, being in the room when something magical happens that can never be replicated, and most importantly, having fun! I also love the topic of money, but I have to be frank. When it comes to money-themed conferences, most of the ones I’ve attended have left me wanting more.. That’s why this newsletter is going to be my who, my why, my what, and my how regarding the creation of the SheMoney Summit. As creators of live experiences, and as consumers, we have to hold ourselves to higher standards because our time on this earth is precious and finite, and that’s why I want the SheMoney Summit to be an example of what that standard might be. Ambitious? Of course. But my team and I are certainly up to the challenge, that your investment of time and money will be well worth it.

Let me start by saying that event creation and curation is in my professional DNA. It dates back to when I was a trader at Goldman Sachs in the ‘90s. I think the first “women’s event” at Goldman may have been in the equities department, while I was in the fixed income division. I can’t remember the exact order, but suffice it to say that I jumped in to create one myself. I did this because I wanted, and honestly– needed, to be in the company of other women to share our experiences in a male-dominated firm and industry. This month marks 25 years since Goldman’s IPO, and while digging through my memorabilia bin in honor of this anniversary, I found the agendas of many such events I was a part of during my tenure at Goldman.?

Looking back, so many of those events validated my experiences, and they provided me with insights and tools to navigate my career, both in general and as a woman. Women who would not have had the opportunity to get to know each other because they did not work in close proximity built friendships at these events, and because I served on the career advancement committee, when it came time to review and recommend folks, I was able to advocate for women who were not my direct reports. What we were doing was deeper than networking. It was creating social capital, although I did not have words for it back then. Did all of this effort to create and host events help me make Partner at Goldman so quickly and at such a young age? I’m sure this certainly played a part in it, and yet event creation was not my actual job at Goldman. I, like so many other women to this day, took this on as a second shift in my work life.?

Fast forward to when I moved into a position in the Executive Office, where I spearheaded our first client-focused women’s conference called ‘Ascend’ in 2002.?A commemorative poster of this landmark gathering sits in my office to this day. Of course, I also still have that agenda, and it is one of my proudest accomplishments while at Goldman. The idea was to gather our top women clients from across all areas of business, bring in our senior women leaders within the firm, and then add in outside speakers as well.? Those speakers were Meg Witman, President and CEO of eBay, and Anna Quindlen, Novelist and Columnist. It was a magical combination. I still remember the look on the face of John Thain, President and Co-COO, when he showed up to speak and saw well over a hundred powerful women in a room who were his clients. He may have been the only man in the room, I may have even asked him how that felt for him,? and he may have answered, uncomfortable and strange. While there was not a critical mass of women at any one client company, when we pulled them all together, it showcased their collective influence and power. It made women’s leadership visible.?

When I left Goldman Sachs, there were many things that I missed, but chief among them was having the platform and the context for creating events. At the time, I was living in New Canaan, Connecticut, and my work life was anchored around being a founding partner of Circle Financial Group, a multi-family office of all women partners. As a committed, life-long learner, and as a person who upon discovery of content that is amazing and positively impacts my life, my instinct is to share and amplify (one of the many reasons why I started this newsletter). Therefore, I started hosting salons in my home. One such salon, and there were many, was with Joline Godfrey, the author of the landmark book, Raising Financially Fit Kids. I discovered her brightly colored book at the time when I was looking for resources to support me in developing the money capabilities of my children, and I loved it!

I proceeded to hunt this woman down, she came to New Canaan to do a salon, and we remained connected for quite some time. This was likely around 2006, as the book was originally published in 2003. I mention this because during the early planning stages of the SheMoney Summit, I went in search of Joline Godfrey, the original trailblazer in her field. And guess what? She will be one of our amazing speakers at our SheMoney Summit! Incredibly, at the age of, well, let’s just say older than me, she is on the brink of launching a new platform called Bounce10, a creative play-based program to help parents give young children a foundation of financial readiness to serve them throughout their lives. Not only will Joline be giving one of our Money Talks, but she will also be leading a workshop as well. To have the opportunity to spend time with this woman is reason alone to come to the Summit! Drawing on my friendships and social capital from a 30 year career is what has allowed us to have world class speakers from many fields, bringing their expertise to our event. And, we are just getting started. There were so many other amazing humans I would have loved to have!

Fast forward once again to 2009 and my time with Women Moving Millions. WMM started as a campaign to encourage women to make million dollar charitable gifts to women-focused non-profits. To celebrate the campaign’s wrap up, Helen LaKelly Hunt, the visionary behind the campaign, and her team planned an event. This event will FOREVER be etched in my memory, as it was catalytic in unleashing my philanthropic leadership. It also showed me what an event anchored around women and money could be and do to catalyze a movement

First up, we had to arrive at the event location, the Brooklyn Museum, early because Helen had arranged for none other than Annie Leibovitz to take a photo of all the women who had participated in the campaign. Needless to say a lot of consideration went into the planning of my outfit, hair, and make-up that day. We waited offstage in groups, and then 3-5 at a time we were gathered onstage while Annie worked her magic. She had us pose and have fun, and she managed to bring out the personality in all of us. It took a while, but all those photos were magically connected to create a photobook that stretches out, accordion style, to over twenty-five feet in length. If you are curious, if you ever find yourself in the SheMoney offices, I will show it to you. Of course, see my picture here!

After the photos were taken, we went to the atrium for remarks. A number of women took the stage, including the feminist artist, Judy Chicago, which was apt considering that the event was being held in the Brooklyn Museum. Art lovers will know that the Brooklyn Museum is the permanent home of Judy’s large scale art installation, The Dinner Party. This artwork consists of 39 dinner place settings, set around a triangular table, with each place setting honoring an incredible woman in history, including the Fertility Goddess of antiquity, Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi, and suffragette Susan B. Anthony. The Dinner Party is one of my favorite artworks, and to be there, at that event, listening to the artist speak, was simply incredible

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When it came to be seated for dinner, Helen and her team recreated the table settings and plates of the artwork. Each woman in attendance had their name placed in the center of their place setting, because every woman, in making their commitment to WMM, was indeed pulling her chair up to take a seat at the table. The ultimate feminist funding table. Never in the history of the world had women come together as million dollar (minimum) donors specifically to women-focused organizations and women's funds, and that was why this night was so special. Near the end of the evening, each woman was presented with what Helen called an “unlock it” instead of a lock-it, which was a mini purse on a chain that would open to signify the opening of our purses to fund women.I left that event forever transformed, and it solidified my personal commitment to take WMM from campaign to community.?

That event at the Brooklyn Museum, that celebration, checked every single box in terms of what an event should aspire to be and to achieve, and it became the new and higher standard for me as a benchmark for all future events. During my leadership of WMM, the big thing we put so much time and energy into was our annual summit, because it served as our anchor event for building community. We took so much time picking every speaker, planning every meal, and making sure there was a fun component built into the gathering. And every year, it almost killed us, because every single year, we raised the bar in terms of what that event could be. After every summit, we would debrief, talk about what worked and what did not work, and reached out to our members for feedback.

To this day, I have members tell me that they never knew what an event could be, could mean, could do, until those summits.?

Back to WMM, as I am on a roll, and I’m not sure when I will write about this again. Our summits were anchored in one money move, Give. The WMM Summits showcased our members and their strategies, non-profit leaders who ran organizations focused on women and girls, and usually a celebrity component. We had the honor of inviting, hosting, and interviewing the following women over the years (in alphabetical order): Tyra Banks, Melinda Gates, Demi Moore, Loreen Powell Jobs, Gloria Steinem, and Meryl Streep, just to name a few. And I will tell you what worked, and more importantly, what rarely worked. What worked best were single person talks, fireside chats, and roll-up your sleeves workshops. What rarely worked, unless the moderator was deeply knowledgeable and super prepared, was panels.

Single person talks, on the other hand, can be magical when the presenter is really prepared and is able to deliver a message on a topic that they themselves feel passionately about. TED Talks are living proof of this. Not only have I watched hundreds of TED talks over the years, but I have also attended TED Women every year since it was created in order to be in the room when a talk is recorded. I know that attending live is not accessible for most people, but if you are lucky enough to be in the room when THAT talk happens and you experience it's magic, that is a gift. It’s the gift of a live experience. We are aspiring to have our Money Talks create those moments , and we are so grateful to Comcast, and more specifically Deneiva Knight, for sponsoring our event with full media coverage so that we have the opportunity to share these out over time.?

Fireside chats also really work when the moderator is prepared and the interviewee is fully present and willing to be vulnerable. This is always risky, but when it works, it leaves the attendees feeling a part of an intimate conversation that may never happen again. One incredible example of this was the year that Demi Moore spoke at our summit. She was there to talk about her non-profit organization called Thorn, whose mission is to defend children from sexual abuse. She ended up sharing her story, for the first time in public I believe, about her history with addiction, body image issues, and childhood trauma. It would be a number of years later when she would fully share her story in her memoir, Inside Out.

When she chose to go there, to share her story, you could feel the energy of the room laser in on her. It felt like the audience stopped breathing independently and went into synchronized breathing, and I remember looking over to my partner in crime with all things summit, Jessica Houssian, and quite literally mouthing, “Holy shit.” We were not filming, and people were not on their phones or using their phones to capture what was happening. None of that. It was the kind of magic that does not happen often but when it does happen, you know you experienced something you will never forget.?

To curate and execute events well, takes so much work, attention to detail, commitment, thought, planning, and so much time, energy, and money. No wonder only the absolutely insane people even dare to take this on. That said, when it works, it is absolute magic. Pure magic.?

There is a term that I recently learned about: collective effervescence. I heard it while listening to a recent podcast featuring two of my favorite writers and podcasters: Brené Brown and Esther Perel. In it, they start talking about what it means to experience something together, as a collective, using music as an example. You can listen to what they have to say, starting at the 37:43 mark, but to summarize, they talk about the songs that inspire everyone to start singing together, no matter where in the world you are, and how “Country Roads” is the number one song sung at Oktoberfest in Germany. Say what?! Esther goes on to talk about why she is going on tour, why having a live audience experience is important, and it all comes back to the theory of collective effervescence. For people to be together, in a room together, experiencing a moment together, whether good or bad, is needed in order to realize that whatever you’re going through, you’re not going through it alone.

When it comes to money, I think most people feel like they are going at it alone. However, I have a theory that when you put a bunch of people in a room together, expose them to Money Talks by experts in their field, have interludes where actors will get up and perform Money Monologues based on anonymous submitted stories by attendees (think Vagina Monologues, only about money), have a DJ and green juice greet you upon arrival, be whisked off to a Money Workshop where you can learn about negotiating, investing, raising financially capable kids, smart giving, and financial trauma, have meal times where you can connect and build your social capital,, and dance your feet off to a money themed playlist to end the day, magic might just happen.

Trust me when I say that what we are planning for attendees has not been done before. I have to give the biggest shoutout to all of our team members. We are only six people, but I especially need to give all the kudos to my partner, Madison Limansky. She is a production genius, and there is no way this could happen without her. We are pouring our hearts and souls into this because we believe so wholeheartedly in our mission and purpose.?

So what will this Summit look like in practical terms? First up we have our Money Talks, which will be short talks inspired by the powerful TED format, delivered by incredible leaders in the money space. Please see our summit website for speaker bios. Our Money Talk speakers and presentation themes include:

• Jacki Zehner - A Money Manifesta!?
• Rosie Rios - Inspirations and Aspirations, Using Money, History and Power to Influence the Present/Future of Women and Girls
• Shubhi Rao - The Future of Financial Health?
• Chantel Chapman - The Trauma of Money?
• Ashley Bell - Impact Investing, The Future of Allyship?
• Nathalie Molino Ni?o & Valerie Red-Horse Mohl? - Future-Proofing your Legacy
• Heather McCulloch - What if the Economy Worked for Women??
• Joline Godfrey - Raising Financially Fit Kids

Additionally, we will have two workshop blocks, with a total of seven practical and actionable workshops to choose from, all led by industry experts and thought leaders. Our workshops include (subject to change):

• Money + NEGOTIATION with Kathryn Valentine?
• Money + ENTREPRENEURSHIP with Nathalie Molina Ni?o
• Money + PHILANTHROPY in partnership with Fidelity Charitable?
• Money + KIDS with Joline Godfrey?
• Money + INVESTING? - Jatali Bellanton?
• Money + SPENDING with Amanda Christensen
• Money + TRAUMA with Chantel Chapman

Join us for this incredible lineup of speakers and workshop leaders. Apart from traditional talks and workshops, our team?challenged ourselves to brainstorm ways that the SheMoney Summit can stand apart from your typical, run of the mill, conference experience. That’s why we’re sprinkling in a heavy dose of what we are referring to as Money Moments and Money Media throughout the Summit. With respect to our Money Monologues, please click here to anonymously submit your money story today. We are also partnering with Utah Film Center and Comcast NBC Universal to present a short film competition, wherein all submissions have to feature money as their main theme. Whether you are an a novice or experienced filmmaker we encourage you to submit, and help spread the word. Additionally, there will be a money-themed pop up store, green juice shots, an opening night dance party, a few surprise activations, and plenty of time to connect and share.

I hope you will leave our summit having experienced a combination of learning something new, having those “aha” moments, spending time with great people, being in the room when something magical happens that can never be replicated, and most importantly, having fun!?

So there you have it. The why, the what, and the who!? We are so excited and proud to be planning a big, bold, fresh, unique, and unprecedented money event designed for women+, by women+, where Money Matters.

I hope you can join us, join me, the evening of June 6th and a full, impactful day on June 7th in Salt Lake City. Register today!

*We are so grateful to our earliest and biggest champion, Zions Bank and specifically Scott Anderson for his allyship and shared value of greater financial health to all. Thanks as well to Comcast who created a commercial for the summit and the film competition in partnership with the Utah Film Center, and for their day off event video production support. Additional thanks to The University of Utah, and specifically President Taylor Randall, for being an early champion and supporter.? Special Gratitude to KNOWN investment bank, Redemption Bank, Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity. And to our most recent additions, Fidelity Charitable, J.P. Morgan, and the three women Elaine Martyn, Danielle Wright, and Laura Davis, women championing this support. While I am thanking people, a huge thanks to each and every one of our speakers and workshop facilitators. All of these amazing humans are showing up in support of our mission. I thank them with all my heart.

For sponsorship inquiries please email [email protected] . It is not too late to be a part of this amazing summit.?