Looking Back: 2024 Women's Leadership Summit

ALL Insights
May 15, 2024

On May 8-10, PrimeGlobal met with our members from the North America region for the Women's Leadership Summit, in Seattle.

This conference highlights Women's Leadership and success in the Accounting Profession, and what better city to highlight women in leadership than Seattle! Seattle is home to Belle Alexander, the first woman to work at Boeing, and Berhta Knight Landes, the first woman mayor of a major American City. This city welcomed our group with open arms!

This year, PrimeGlobal was joined by 58 incredible women in the NA region to share insights and ideas for the success of women in the profession and to create a network of like-minded professionals advocating for the promotion of women. Joined by fantastic speakers this event has so much to offer women and their allies in the profession. Read on for an overview of the event!

Shattering Limitations and Daring to Thrive

Dima Ghawi is Middle-Eastern in her genes, American in her heart, and a global citizen in her soul. Overcoming many personal obstacles throughout her life: a culture that oppresses women, death threats from her own father, and learning what it takes to find who you are and develop into that person, Dima did it! Sharing her belief that “knowledge is light” Dima took us on her personal journey for discovering self-worth, gaining her education and freedom. Using a vase as a metaphor for the limitations all people face, if a vase is cracked, you throw it away…. BUT what if we are cracked? Must we also be thrown in the trash? On stage, Dima shattered -literally shattered- her vase, showing that we are meant to have cracks, a perfect vase shows the limitations in which we hold ourselves. By shattering our vases, we are able to let ourselves be free and no longer hold ourselves to unrealistic expectations.

After shattering her own limitations on stage, Dima invited PrimeGlobal’s own Nicole DiMuro, AAFCPAs, and Ramona Thornton, Sikich, to shatter their own personal vases with the entire audience cheering them on! What a great experience, seeing all of our women come together to encourage and uplift one another!

Strategic Resilience: Navigating Career Challenges

Talk about sharing your personal journey! In Strategic Resilience: Navigating Career Challenges, Kelly Mann, CEO of AuditMiner- a 401k Audit software, shares her deeply personal story of how to overcome anything that is thrown your way! Her 5 seemingly simple steps provide an outlook on how to overcome any task at hand, small or life altering!

  1. If you are labeled as a ‘bull in a China Shop’. You must get out of the China Shop.
  2. Own your vision
  3. Do the work – even when it’s not easy
  4. Put one foot in front of the other
  5. Trust your gut

A favorite quote from her session “I don’t know what I’m doing so I want to do the best I can”. Even when you are faced with the unknown or have questions, you should always just try your best!

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The Improvised Life

Katie Goodman is an award-winning comedian, author, and international speaker. Katie has been featured on Showtime, Impractical Jokers, and has an Off Broadway show “Broad Comedy” that tours nationally! Katie shared with us the tools of improv comedy that will help our women to handle absolutely anything- including being more creative, courageous, and confident.

The 8 tools of improv:

  1. Stay present
  2. The “yes, and” principle: innovate and collaborate
  3. Be Flexible, spontaneous & think on your feet
  4. Surrener attachment to a specific goal
  5. Take creative risks
  6. Gag your inner critic
  7. Get lost
  8. Be authentic

During her session, we played many games to learn these rules, let loose, and understand what it would really mean to practice the rules of improv as a leader! I do believe we have some future improv stars among our attendee list!

Key Drivers of Professional Success - Bridgett Rich & Danielle Berg

Showing the importance of women in the profession, PrimeGlobal was joined by Xero a global partner. Bridgett Rich- Director of Enterprise for Xero, hosted a fireside chat with Danielle Berg. Danielle is a leadership and executive coach but has an extensive background in the C-Suite at top firms, Aprio and MGO (Macias Gini & O’Connell LLP). Danielle had so much advice for the women in the room! She really understood the messages that were presented throughout the conference and applied them to the accounting profession. Just some memorable and important quotes to reflect on from her session include:

  • “Nothing changes around us, until something changes within us”
  • “You need to show up every day in the energy of the person [or role] you want to become [or be promoted to]”
  • “Imposter syndrome is only self-confidence without self-worth”

Danielle is now offering executive coaching! If you are interested, please reach out to Bri Ridgely (bridgely@primeglobal.net)

In Conclusion

It’s imperative that we continue the success of this event. Women make up 38% of the accounting profession worldwide (Financial Reporting Council, 2023) and need as much support as possible to advance through leadership positions. We look forward to the next Women’s Leadership Summit and can’t wait to see what’s in store!