Background

The Leadership Foundation was founded in 1990 as the educational and charitable arm of the International Women's Forum (IWF). The IWF, with 64 affiliates in 26 countries throughout North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, the Pacific Basin , Europe, Africa and the Middle East, is the world's preeminent association of top women leaders across all fields. The Leadership Foundation was founded to utilize IWF workplace learnings and research studies to assist women aspiring to senior leadership.

 

The Foundation established the Fellows Program in 1994 in response to the U.S. Government's Glass Ceiling Report. The report identified a stalling and dropout point for mid-career women leaders, who were approaching the executive management ranks. The Fellows Program initially selected 12 high-potential leaders from a competitive pool of applicants for a year-long intensive training program.

 

Fellows Program Goals

•  To promote opportunities for women in leadership

•  To recognize and encourage women of achievement

•  To help the next generation of women leaders from diverse backgrounds to reach new levels of achievement

 

Program Objectives

•  Enhanced qualifications and knowledge for Fellows

•  Shared information and ideas fostering joint partnerships and projects

•  Continued networks even after the Fellowship year has ended

•  Sharing lessons learned with other women

 

In 2011, the Foundation maintained the expansion of the Fellows Program, now in its 18 th year. The new 2011-2012 Fellows Class features 35 women from 14 nations. It is the most international Fellows Class in the history of the program with two-thirds of the participants coming from outside of the United States. The women in the Fellows Class represent academia, consumer goods, defense, finance, government, human resources, marketing, non-profit, science and technology, utilities, and more.

 

Special Scholarships and Projects

The Program has received high acclaim from participants and their organizations for the access, planning, and toolbox of skills it provides each participant. New partnerships have been forged – for the last nine years the Leadership Foundation has received grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to include women leaders from African universities, women that might otherwise not have the opportunity to participate in this kind of program. In early 2010, recognizing the Program's benefit to women in Africa, the Carnegie Corporation awarded the Leadership Foundation a three-year grant to include an additional 6 Fellows from East and West Africa.

 

In 2007, the Leadership Foundation was invited by the Club of Madrid and the European Union to be an associate advisor to the African Women Leaders Project. The objective of the project is to provide women political leaders in Africa with new resources, skills, and contacts. Working in conjunction with the United Nation's UNIFEM and the Council of Women World Leaders, the Foundation connects its African Fellows with the African Women Leaders Project initiatives and activists.

 

In FY2005, the United States Congress provided the Foundation with funding to sponsor one woman leader from a U.S. federal government agency each year. To date, federal government Fellows have come from the FBI, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Department of State.

 

Other Programs

The learnings of the Leadership Foundation Fellows Program have, in part, inspired IWF to develop the Executive Development Roundtable (EDR). The EDR Program, now in its sixth year, brings the teachings and experience of the Fellows Program to small, targeted audiences through a specially crafted training program delivered on location.

 

In addition, the Foundation's Fellows Program has inspired local programs around the world.

 

•  The Fellows Program inspired a locally based program in Jordan that provides women in the banking and business sectors training and workshops on issues such as communications and conflict resolution, public speaking, and crisis management.

 

•  IWF's South Africa Forum is conducting a local fellows program aimed at young women in senior management positions. This year-long training program held at the Gordon Institute of Business Science focuses on topics such as strategic management and leadership and aims to groom South African women to become in-house agents of change.

 

•  In Russia, the IWF Russia Forum recently teamed up with UNICEF and the Merck Corporation to organize an international conference devoted to women's and children's health – an issue that is crucial to the country's future.

 

•  In partnership with the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF), the IWF Leadership Foundation conducted a joint leadership seminar in Beijing to discuss the future for women leaders in China.  At the leadership session, the Foundation invited over 15 young Chinese women to meet with their elders, the current class of Fellows, and other international counterparts for a candid and fruitful exchange about the role of women in China and in particular, the role of mentoring.