Keynote Speakers

Meg Whitman, Former President & CEO, eBay, 2010 California Gubernatorial Candidate
Meg is one of the world's most respected business leaders, and has earned a reputation as a smart, tough problem solver, a collaborative team builder, and a proven job creator. On February 9, 2009, she created an Exploratory Committee for the purpose of running for Governor of California in 2010. Leading eBay from 1998 to 2008, Meg helped the company grow from 30 employees and a little over $4 million in revenue to more than 15,000 employees, nearly $8 billion in revenue, and a network of 12 million users in California alone. Meg is only one of seven women to be consistently ranked among the world's most influential people by TIME magazine. The Wall Street Journal named her one of the "50 Women to Watch" in 2005; Fortune ranked her the most powerful woman in business in 2004 and 2005; and BusinessWeek has included her on its list of the 25 most powerful business managers every year since 2000.

Safra Catz, President, Oracle Corporation.
Named the 16th Most Powerful Woman on Fortune Magazine's 50 Most Powerful Women in Business, Safra has been a President of Oracle Corporation since January 2004 and a Director since October 2001. She served as Oracle's Chief Financial Officer from November 2005 to September 2008, as Executive Vice President from November 1999 to January 2004, and as Senior Vice President from April 1999 to October 1999.

Patrick Lencioni, Founder, President, The Table Group.
Cited as one of the nation's top five business speakers in the Wall Street Journal (May, 2008). The wide-spread appeal of Lencioni's leadership models have yielded a diverse base of speaking and consulting clients, including a mix of Fortune 500 companies, professional sports organizations, the military, non-profits, schools and churches. Lencioni is the author of eight best-selling books with over 2.5 million copies sold. After six years in print, his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team continues to be a fixture on national best-seller lists. His recent work, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job (2007), became an instant best-seller in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and BusinessWeek.

Ann F. Lewis, Senior Advisor, Hillary Clinton Campaign
Ann served as Senior Advisor in the historic Hillary Clinton for President Campaign, where she oversaw outreach to women voters, and was a member of the Communications Team. Lewis brought extensive political experience to the campaign, having served in the White House from 1997-2000 as Director of Communications and then Counselor to President Bill Clinton. She was Director of Communications and Deputy Campaign Manager for the Clinton-Gore Re-Election Campaign in 1995- 1996, and Senior Advisor to the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton for U.S. Senate in 2000. As the National Chair of the DNC Women's Vote Center from 2002- 2004 she led the Democratic Party's major initiative to reach, engage, and mobilize women voters.

Laura Liswood, Secretary General, Council of Women World Leaders, Senior Advisor, Goldman Sachs.
In August 1996, Laura co-founded the Council of Women World Leaders with President Vigdís Finnbogadóttir of Iceland. Liswood is the Secretary General of the Council, which is composed of current and former women Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Heads of Government. Laura is currently a Senior Advisor at Goldman Sachs & Co,and the author of Women World Leaders. Liswood holds a BA from California State University, San Diego and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She earned her J. from the University of California, Davis, School of Law, and is admitted to practice law in California and Massachusetts.

Joanne Maguire, Executive Vice President, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company.
Under her leadership Space Systems Company (SSC) provides a full spectrum of advanced-technology systems for national security, civil and commercial customers. Joanne was named one of the Top 50 Women in Technology by Corporate Board Member magazine in 2008. She earned a Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State University and a Masters in Engineering from the UCLA. She is a graduate of the executive program in management at UCLA's Anderson School of Management and completed the Harvard Program for Senior Executives in National and International Security.

Deborah Doyle McWhinney, President, Citi Personal Wealth Management.
Citigroup Inc. recently named Deborah head of the bank's wealth-management group, Citi Personal Wealth Management. After retiring as President of Charles Schwab Institutional in 2007, Deborah served as CEO and President of the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation. Prior to that, she served on Schwab's Management Committee, the Board of the Charles Schwab Bank, N.A., the Charles Schwab Foundation Board, and was Chairperson of the Global Risk Committee. Before joining Schwab, she was an Executive Vice President at Visa International and spent the preceding 17 years with Bank of America Corporation. In 2002, President Bush appointed Deborah to the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). She is a past chairperson of the University of Montana Foundation's Board of Trustees. In 2007, she was elected to the California Institute of Technology Board of Trustees.

Valerie Coleman Morris, former Co-Anchor of CNN's The Flip Side, and former Anchor of the network daily personal financial segment, Smart Assets, Founder, MoneyVal.

An Emmy Award-winning journalist, she has a broadcast career that spans more than 35 years. Morris uses her insightful and sensitive commentary to address a variety of life issues, including financial empowerment and the financial futures of women. Morris' "passion" is to give women the tools to become financially savvy and independent. She can be heard on CBS Network Radio in a nationally syndicated radio column called "With the Family in Mind", which focuses on family and sandwich generation issues and their money implications.

Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz, President, Charles Schwab Foundation. Senior Vice President, Schwab Community Services, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc
Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz is president of Charles Schwab Foundation, a private, nonprofit organization funded by The Charles Schwab Corporation, whose mission is to create positive change through financial education, philanthropy, and volunteerism. In addition to overseeing the Foundation's strategy and resources, she speaks and writes extensively about personal finance issues, offering guidance and advice for American consumers. Schwab-Pomerantz serves as an expert on two committees of the President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy, which is chaired by Schwab-Pomerantz's father, Charles R. Schwab. She has also testified in Washington D.C. before the federal Financial Literacy and Education Commission, and has advised members of Congress and other federal officials on the issue of financial literacy.

Kavita Ramdas, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Global Fund for Women.
Kavita provides leadership and direction for the largest grant making foundation in the world, focused exclusively on supporting international women’s human rights. During Ramdas’ tenure, Global Fund assets have increased from $6 million to $21 million, grant making has risen to more than $8 million per year, and the number of countries in which the Global Fund has made grants has nearly tripled.  Ramdas has also overseen the Global Fund’s first ever endowment campaign and the creation of the groundbreaking Now or Never Fund to ensure women’s participation on critical international issues.

Jackie Speier, US Congresswoman, Founder, PBWC.
Jackie served eighteen years in the California State Assembly and Senate, where she shattered all records by authoring more than 300 bills that were signed into law by both Democratic and Republican Governors. Upon her election to Congress, Speier was picked by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve on The House Committee on Financial Services, and The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Jackie is the Founder of PBWC.

Mark Curtis, Author, Former News Anchor, Mark Curtis Media.
Mark is a 30 year professional in Radio and TV, all over America, and is especially known from his many years with KTVU. Mark covered the entire 2008 Presidential campaign, traveling the country with all of the candidates as a blogger and freelance political analyst. His new book, Age of Obama: A Reporter's Journey with Clinton, McCain and Obama in the Making of the President 2008 is being released Inaugural week 2009 by Nimble Books, Inc.

Seminar Speakers

Kim Arnold, Director of Leadership and Employee Development, McAfee.
Seminar Session - Being a Talent Leader
Kim joined McAfee in April of 2008 and leads a team responsible for Talent Management, Succession Planning, Leadership and Management development as well as employee development in areas of personal effectiveness. Before joining McAfee, Kim spent 5 years at Dell managing organizational and leadership development for the $19 billion Corporate Sales department. In a prior Dell role, she led executive level leadership development for Dell's 600+ executives worldwide. Before Dell, she was the VP of Organizational Development for one of JPMorgan Chase's global business segments.

Karen L. Auguste, Small Business Trainer, Consultant, Purple Lynx.
Seminar Session - Starting Your Own Business
Karen has over 20 years of business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketing communications experience. She began operations of Purple Lynx in January 2000,a full-service, award-winning, woman-owned, veteran-owned, minority-owned, small business. In addition, she teaches a series of marketing and business planning classes to entrepreneurs at the Renaissance Center in San Francisco and the Women's Initiative for Self Employment in Oakland.

Colette Carlson, M.A., Sales, Communication, and Negotiation Consultant, Speak Your Truth.
Seminar Session - Leverage Your Language to Get the Respect, Results and Rewards You Deserve
Colette comes to the platform with over 20 years of experience. She has worked for real estate legend Tom Hopkins, Brian Tracy, and US West. Collette brings every lesson, module, technique and real-life experience to her role as a nationally-recognized motivational speaker on sales, negotiation, communication and balance. Corporate clients include Microsoft, Boeing, Merck, Cisco, PepsiCo, Chevron-Texaco and ExxonMobil. Her book, Speak Your Truth, is due out in Spring of 2009.

Dana Curtis, Co-Founder of RockRose Institute, Lawyer and Mediator.
Seminar Session - From Conflict to Connection
She has designed and taught hundreds of courses about mediation and communicating in conflict, including at Stanford Law School, for over twenty years, and has written on mediation, empathy and forgiveness. She has been acknowledged as one of the Top 50 Neutrals in California.

Robyn Denholm, Executive Vice President, CFO, Juniper Networks.
Seminar Session - Financial Models for Healthy Companies
Robyn is responsible for the company's finance, planning, real estate, information technology, business process re-engineering, field operations, investor relations and internal audit functions. She also oversees the company's operational excellence programs, partnering with the executive team to ensure a uniform, efficient and scalable infrastructure for all of Juniper Networks. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Australia. Robyn holds a Bachelors in Economics from the University of Sydney and a Masters in Commerce from the University of New South Wales.

Justine Durrell, Co-Founder of RockRose Institute, Lawyer.
Seminar Session - From Conflict to Connection
Justine litigates cutting-edge cases in the areas of sexual torts, toxic torts (including mold cases), biotechnology torts and insurance bad faith. She is a Former Board member of the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association and Former Chair of its Women's Caucus. Justine writes in the area of biotechnology and the law.

Erin Ganju, Co-Founder & CEO, Room to Read.
Seminar Session - Turning Your Passion Into A Business
Erin is CEO and Co-Founder of Room to Read and is leading the collaborative effort with in-country teams to design Room to Read's programs and launch new Room to Read countries. She currently manages all day to day operations for the organization, overseeing the Programs, Development, Finance and Human Resource departments. Erin is an experienced international business development professional having worked most recently as Vice President, Business Development for Dejima, Inc., and also for Unilever N.V. and Goldman, Sachs & Co.

Robin Gerber, Author, Lawyer, Senior Fellow.
Seminar Session - Leadership Lessons From Barbie's Mom - Ten lessons about leadership, reinvention, and redemption from the founder of Mattel Toys.
Robin is the author of several books including her new book, Barbie and Ruth: The Story of the World's Most Famous Doll and the Woman Who Created Her. Other books include Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way: Timeless Strategies from the First Lady of Courage, Katharine Graham: The Leadership Journey of an American Icon, and Eleanor vs. Ike. She is a lawyer and senior faculty for the Gallup Organization, and a senior fellow in Executive Education at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland.

Yvonne Hunt, Vice President of Global Social Investment, Hewlett-Packard Company, Executive Director of the HP Company Foundation.
Seminar Session - Strength, Courage and Wisdom: Leading a Personal Reinvention in Complex Times
She provides strategic direction for HP's social investment efforts, guiding grant making of more than $47 million in HP cash and equipment to improve the lives of people in communities around the world. Yvonne graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Science from Bradford.

Julie Cavanna-Jerbic, Vice President of Sales Operations, Hewlett-Packard.
Seminar Session - Strength, Courage and Wisdom: Leading a Personal Reinvention in Complex Times
Julie has been with Hewlett-Packard for 24 years. Previously, she was the Senior Finance Director for Global Functions Sales and Marketing and formerly E-Business and Customer Operations, with responsibility for driving capital planning and financial execution; creating and stabilizing a finance organization to drive from business charters to execution ranging from $300M to $2.7B.

Michael Johnson, Founder, Diamond Dynamic.
Seminar Session - He Said - She Heard^TM. Why Men and Women Have Trouble Communicating
Mike is founder of Diamond Dynamic^TM a consultancy dedicated to helping companies create an integrated environment to realize the full potential of its employees through clear empathetic communication. While raising his daughters, Mike became interested in the vast differences in the way men and women think and act. He explained these differences to his daughters and gave them suggestions on how to communicate with men to get the outcomes they wanted. This experience became the foundation for Diamond Dynamic^TM.

René Kim, Senior Vice President Shared Strategic Group, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.
Seminar Session - Schwab MoneyWise^TM - Foundations of Financial Fitness
René is responsible for leading a centralized product development group covering the brokerage, individual retirement, trust, education and managed accounts, deposit and lending products for Schwab and its individual investors and independent advisors. She has almost 20 years' experience in the financial services business, and began her career in consumer banking most aspects of retail banking and marketing. She has bachelor degrees in English and Italian and a Master of Business Administration from the University of California at Davis.

Nancy Long, Senior Vice President of Global Human Resources, Hitachi Data Systems.
Seminar Session - Strength, Courage and Wisdom: Leading a Personal Reinvention in Complex Times
Nancy is responsible for all aspects of HR throughout HDS including HRIS, Workforce Planning/Staffing, Total Compensation, Performance Management, Management Development/Leadership Succession Planning, Employee Survey and Diversity/Advocacy, HR-Legal Compliance and OD/Management Support Consulting. Prior to joining HDS in 2006, Nancy was Sr. Vice President at O'Connor Hospital. Nancy's experience at O'Connor provided a new perspective on many elements of human resources challenges that are unique to health care.

Eileen McDargh, Author & President, McDargh Communications.
Seminar Session - Work for a Living and Still Be Free to Live
Eileen is recognized for her ability to speak the truth with clarity, wisdom, humor and compassion. Executive Excellence magazine continually ranks her as one of the top 100 thought leaders in leadership and among the top ten consultant providers of leadership development. She has authored Work for a Living & Still Be Free to Live, The Resilient Spirit, Talk Ain't Cheap... It's Priceless - Connecting in a Disconnected World, and Gifts from the Mountain: Simple Truths for Life's Complexities.

Loren Mahon, Vice President, Global Business Services, Oracle Corporation.
Seminar Session - Financial Models for Healthy Companies
Loren leads a team responsible for delivering financial support and services to all lines of business around the globe. She is responsible for driving the internal use of Oracle applications and partnering with development in defining best practices around the use of applications and in designing operations to maximize efficiency, effectiveness, customer service, internal controls, and data integrity. Loren has spent the last 19 years at Oracle managing various functions within finance and has participated in numerous internal application development and implementation efforts.

Nilofer Merchant, CEO & Chief Strategist, Rubicon Consulting.
Seminar Session - About New Era, New Culture, Change How Work is Done - "The War Inside Your Organization"
Nilofer is a sought after global high-tech industry thought leader and trusted strategic advisor for companies such as Adobe, Symantec and VMWare. As Rubicon's CEO, she has built a distinguished team of fellow strategists, who collaborate with a wide range of Silicon Valley executives at client firms such as Autodesk, Cogito, Hewlett-Packard, Pinnacle, Riverside, SAP, VA Software and others. Rubicon's proprietary methodology continuously delivers significant material results to clients, driving revenue growth, market share-price and profits.

Kim Moses, Executive Producer, Director, Writer, SANDERS/MOSES.
Seminar Session - Career Spotlight: Women In Film & Television                                                            Kim has developed and executive produced over 150 hours of primetime television programming. She is currently executive producing "Ghost Whisperer," a Touchstone Television/Paramount Studios series for CBS. For the past three years, Moses has created and produced electronic event programming for the Internet, including "Confessions of a Desperate Housewife" for abc.com, "Laugh Out Loud" - a dimensional comedic experience sponsored by Dodge for UGO.com and Electronic Entertainment Expo Internet events for UGO.com.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Founder, Girls' Club Entertainment
Seminar Session - Career Spotlight: Women In Film & Television
Jennifer formed Girls' Club Entertainment, LLC as an umbrella entertainment company to develop and produce independent films with strong social, political, and cultural significance, focused primarily on empowering women. She graduated with honors from Stanford University and Stanford Business School. Upon graduation, she moved to Los Angeles to act and produce. She has performed studio and independent films (In the Valley of Elah, Rent, Something's Gotta Give,) and TV shows (Life, Mad Men, NUMB3RS, Strong Medicine).

Sandy O'Gorman, Vice President, Human Resources, ARC International.
Seminar Session - Strength, Courage and Wisdom: Leading a Personal Reinvention in Complex Times
Sandy brings to ARC decades of experience as an HR executive who has helped growing companies transform to world class, multinational organizations. Most recently, she was responsible for global HR services for more than 2,000 employees in 20 countries at software giant Hyperion Solutions. Sandy also held executive HR positions at Quantum, SyBase, and Sun Microsystems. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree and completed HR administration gradaute-level coursework at San Jose State University.

Dev Patnaik, Founder and Principal, Jump Associates.
Seminar Session - Wired to Care
Dev is a trusted advisor to senior executives at General Electric, Nike, Procter & Gamble, Target and Hewlett-Packard. Dev was a recently, featured guest on "The Business of Innovation," a series on CNBC. His articles on innovation and strategy have appeared in BusinessWeek, Brandweek and the Design Management Review. Dev is also an adjunct professor at Stanford University.

Shannon Penn, Small Business Trainer, Consultant, The Women's Initiative.
Seminar Session - Starting Your Own Business
Shannon is trained as a social worker turned business woman, and has extensive finance and marketing experience to the classes she trains. If you need help with your cash flow and budgets Shannon will make you think you showed up to the world's best party. Shannon holds an MSW and has an extensive repertoire of business connections and clients.

Betsy Rafael, Vice President Corporate Controller and Principal Accounting Officer, Apple
Seminar Session - Financial Models for Healthy Companies
Betsy has over 20 years experience in finance and operations with Silicon Valley's prominent companies. She is currently Apple's Principal Accounting Officer, Vice President and Corporate Controller. Prior to joining Apple, from April 2002 to August 2007, Betsy was employed by Cisco Systems, Inc., where she served in various positions including Vice President, Corporate Controller and Principal Accounting Officer and Vice President, Corporate Finance & Planning. Betsy currently serves on the Echelon Corporation Board of Directors.

Maja Ramsey, Co-Founder of RockRose Institute, mediator and teacher of conflict resolution.
Seminar Session - From Conflict to Connection
Maja was the President of the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association and selected by TIME Magazine as one of America's Top 10 Women Lawyers. Maja also teaches conflict and collaborative communication skills working with horses.

Margaret Ryan, Founder & President, Women's Independent Cinema
Seminar Session - Women In Film & Television
Margaret is a social entrepreneur and the founder and president of Women's Independent Cinema, a film distribution company located in San Francisco. Prior to launching WI Cinema Film Collection, Ms. Ryan has launched a slew of successful companies in both the United States and Britain. Utilizing her vast experience in the business world, and her experiences as a forty-plus year-old-woman, she has created a wealth of knowledge which she enjoys sharing with women who want to create their own successful, interesting, sustainable and balanced lives.

Rayona Sharpnack, Founder, Institute for Women's Leadership.
Rayona founded the Institute for Women's Leadership in 1991 - an organization renown for its' groundbreaking work throughout the United States, Australia, and Canada. Drawing from her successful careers in education, professional sports and business, Rayona is considered a pioneer in this field and has become an inspirational teacher, coach and mentor for executives in Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, emerging businesses and non-profit organizations. Rayona's new book Trade Up: 5 Steps for Redesigning Your Leadership & Life from the Inside Out has enjoyed a great deal of success with individuals and organizations across the U.S.

Cindy Solomon, Speaker, Author, Consultant, Solomon & Associates, Inc.
Seminar Session - Courageous Leadership^_TM: Building High Performance in Turbulent Times
As one of PBWC’s most requested and highest rated speakers, Cindy brings her insights to literally thousands of leaders a year.  Her client list is a who’s who of Fortune 100 organizations who have sought out her insight into how they can create stronger leaders that can address the ever more demanding realities of the marketplace.  Organizations like Cisco, Genentech, Eli Lilly, State Farm, University of Phoenix and The Mayo Clinic have asked Cindy and her company to help them attract, retain and nurture both the leaders of today and tomorrow.  Cindy is a speaker, author, executive coach and consultant in the fields of leadership development, customer loyalty and employee retention.  She can be reached at Cindy@CindySolomon.com and welcomes your comments and requests!

Rebecca Westerfield, Co-Founder of RockRose Institute, mediator with JAMS, and former judge.
Seminar Session - From Conflict to Connection
Rebecca was named Mediator of the Year by the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association, and is recognized as one of the Top 10 mediators in the Bay Area. She has been twice acknowledged as one of the Top 50 Neutrals in California, and named one of the Top 30 mediators in California by The Daily Journal Extra, 2006.

Wendy Wallbridge, Principal, On Your Mark Corporate Coaching
Seminar Session - Strength, Courage, & Wisdom: Leading a Personal Reinvention in Complex Times.
Wendy, a pioneer in the coaching field, helps executives identify areas of unique strength and vision, assess areas of leadership risk, strategize about key relationships, and promote the immediate and long-term success of their companies. On Your Mark provides leadership and team development to Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 companies such as Apple, Disney, Wells Fargo, HP, SBC and Intel as well as technology and financial institutions including Ameritrade, Oracle, Network Appliance, Symantec, Nvidia, and Alcatel.

Fran Zone, Founder and CEO, Zone Communication.
Seminar Session - Recession Proof Your Career
Fran Zone is one of the most popular and requested speakers in the history of PBWC. An award-winning communication expert, executive coach, and creator of stellarBeginnings.com, Fran's tools for maximizing personal style and mastering the art of 'deliberate communication' are utilized by White House staff, Fortune 500 Board Members, Intel, People Magazine, and Johnson & Johnson. Fran will show you how to constantly create Stellar Beginnings that open doors and give you the run of the building.