Connecting at the Forté Foundation's Annual MBA Women's Leadership Conference

Yale SOM is a proud sponsor of Forté, an organization whose mission is to get more women into business school and positions of leadership in business. Forte’s annual conference, Let’s Power Up, took place last week in Washington, D.C. In addition to hearing more about the great initiatives the Forté Foundation is pursuing for the next year, including some new branding that you’ll begin to see on their website, we were also treated to not one, but two panels featuring current MBA students talking about their experiences and about how they have worked with their classmates to support the Forté mission of increasing the number of women at their schools.  

A presentation by the Pew Research Center was also enlightening, presenting new findings from their work on gender and wage gains and gaps, and insights about women and leadership from public-opinion surveys in the United States. Thursday concluded with a fun cocktail hour and the opportunity to meet Yale SOM students at the Forté Fellows reception (female Yale SOM scholarship recipients are also named Forté Fellows, joining a program that comes with multiple benefits, including access to special events featuring Forté sponsor companies, webinars, networking opportunities, and mentoring).

For women considering an MBA (as well as current MBA students and those who have already obtained an MBA), being a member of the Forté Foundation is a no-brainer; membership is completely free (for a small yearly fee, you can also gain access to premium content), and the content is dynamic, supportive, and prolific (including webinars, articles, and blogs). If you are a year or more from entering an MBA program, you might want to also consider MBA Launch, an intensive prep program that assists women in applying to business schools.

Forté recently announced the dates and locations of the 2015 Forté Forums. Forums are held in 12 cities around the U.S., as well as Toronto and London, and are designed to offer women the chance to meet with school representatives and attend both an alumnae panel and an admissions panel—all for no cost! Our Yale SOM Admissions staff will be in attendance at several of them. We hope to see you there, or at another of our events taking place over the next several months (check out our entire roster of upcoming events; we are everywhere!).

It is always fun, empowering, and inspiring to be in a room full of bright, engaged, and successful women, and as always, I left the event feeling energized and inspired and excited for the beginning of our next admissions cycle. I look forward to personally seeing you at the Chicago and New York Forté Forums in August and September; stop by and say hello!