CLOSING LUNCHEON

October 12, 2007
Grand Ballroom

 

Gay Cook's Closing President's Remarks

 

 

What a show-stopping IWF 25 th Anniversary World Leadership Conference this is!

 

Thank You!

 

• Illinois Forum and its terrific members;
• Conference Co-Chairs Lynne Nellemann, Roula Alakiotou, and Grace Barry;
• The Illinois Forum's partners in this grand production—the Michigan , Minnesota , Missouri , Ohio , and Wisconsin Forums!
• Thank You Chicago !
• Thank You IWF CEO Lillie Richardella, who has devoted much of her career, heart, and soul to helping us build the IWF and its IWF Leadership Foundation into the dynamic organizations they are today!
• And Thank You to the Amazing IWF Management Team of Chad Fleming, Heath Nash, Randi Berger, Britta Bjornlund, Katya Kuznetsova, Jessa Morrison, Joanna Northrop, Caroline Timbers, and Jenifer Yost!

 

Please join me in applauding them!

 

My Fellow IWF Members

Friends of the IWF

Honored Guests

Corporate Sponsors

 

Women Who Change the World—Shaping the Future is the essence of the International Women's Forum at age 25—and will be so as we grow the IWF forward—

 

• Seizing new opportunities;
• Expanding our current global reach in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East, North America —and beyond;
• Advancing leadership opportunities for women of today and tomorrow past the arc of the possible to the broad horizon of what can be.

At this closing luncheon of a very special World Leadership Conference and 25 th Anniversary, we celebrate also what I call the gift of the IWF—the richness of the countries, cultures, languages, and mores it embraces—the voice it gives to women worldwide.

 

This gift of the IWF is no ordinary gift that is wrapped, unwrapped, put aside.

 

This is a gift to us and future generations that has been built forum-by-forum—for a quarter century—by women committed to the vision of what an international organization of pre-eminent women leaders could become and could do.

 

With our diverse cultural, national, and other interests as the backdrop, the IWF is where we can transcend boundaries of state and nation and come together in an atmosphere of honesty and trust to:

 

• Lay down preconceived notions;
• Exchange ideas;
• Consider how each of us can contribute to helping bridge what divides us in the world;
• Exert influence in our respective communities and globally for the greater good;
• Enrich each other's lives; and
• Work for a better future in our lifetimes and for our children, grandchildren, and their descendents.

 

Here, in Chicago , we have been celebrating our past—knowing the IWF future holds enormous global promise.

 

• This year, we scored historic “firsts”—the first IWF conference ever delivered in the Arab world, hosted by IWF Jordan in Amman in May—with the largest conference attendance in our history.

 

• In May 2008, the IWF will deliver another “first” with a World Cornerstone Conference in Buenos Aires , Argentina .

 

• New forum development is under way in Germany . Groundwork is being laid to expand IWF's presence in the Arab world—beginning with Bahrain , Egypt , and Dubai .

 

• After a successful pilot, the IWF Executive Development Roundtable Program for corporate women is growing into a powerful tool for inspiring and strengthening female executive leadership around the world.

 

• With a newly enhanced and highly interactive web site platform, IWF has strengthened global communications for members and forums worldwide

 

• The IWF leadership brand now is preserved with trademark protection in the United States and European Union under the Madrid Protocol.

 

• The IWF Leadership Foundation's signature Fellows Program that trains young emerging women leaders—180 alumnae strong—doubled in size this year, and the 22 Fellows, of the Class of 2007-08, are here with us today.

 

• On the strength of the combined IWF and Leadership Foundation programming platform, the Leadership Foundation has been invited to collaborate with the European Union and Club of Madrid on the African Leaders Project to help grow opportunities for women leaders on the African continent.

 

• As we look across the five continents on which IWF has a presence, forums are beginning to build their own training initiatives to expand leadership opportunities for women in their countries.

 

And so it is—in ways large and small—that we advance women's leadership across careers, cultures, and continents—making progress in which we ALL can take great pride— leveraging global access, maximizing opportunities for women— making real the aspirations of IWF's founding mothers, who were not afraid of the space between their dreams and reality. For in their wisdom they knew if it could be dreamed, they—and we—could make it so.

 

Looking forward from this time and this place, the future of the IWF and its Leadership Foundation knows only the bounds of our collective imaginations—and of our dreams.

 

What the IWF is today is but a prelude to what it can and will become as we commit to making an even bigger footprint—to letting the world know women:

•  Walked here,

•  Led here, and

•  Worked together across careers, cultures, and continents to give voice to women everywhere.

 

Thank you all for the honor and privilege of serving as your president for the past two years—for having entrusted me with the gift of the IWF!