Speakers Bureau
The Center for Gender in Organizations offers speakers on a wide variety of topics regarding issues of gender and diversity in the workplace. In 2004, CGO faculty affiliates gave more than 50 presentations. CGO faculty are available to speak nationally and internationally to a wide variety of audiences and occasions. Recent venues include Fortune 100 companies, professional societies, universities, and non-profit organizations across the U.S. and worldwide.
Topics and recent talks include:
- Diversity — Learning from Diversity: The Effects of Learning on Performance in Racially Diverse Teams
- Leadership — Gender Dynamics in the Workplace: Implications for Women and Leadership
- Professional Development — Leveraging Your Support to Enhance Your Career
- Work-Life Balance — Gender Perspectives on Work and Personal Life
- Mentoring — Strategic Mentoring: Developing the Shareholders, Directors, and Officers of Your Career
- Gender and Organizational Change — Invisible Work: Women, Power, and the 'Disappearing' of Relational Practice at Work.
To help us find the best fit for your event or organization, please include as many details as possible when submitting a request for a speaker. If known, please describe the type of speaking engagement (keynote speaker, presenter, panelist, etc.), topic, expected audience, date, time, place, and sponsoring organization. To request a speaker or for more information, please contact Patricia Deyton at patricia.deyton@simmons.edu or 617-521-3876.
Stacy Blake-Beard, PhD
Dr. Blake-Beard speaks and publishes on the challenges and opportunities offered by mentoring relationships, with a focus on how these relationships may be changing as a result of increasing workforce diversity. Her research focuses on issues women face as they develop mentoring relationships. Her recent speaking engagements include “Strategic Mentoring” at the Linkage Women in Leadership Summit and “Team You: The Importance of Mentoring Relationships” at the 2004 PricewaterhouseCoopers Minorities in Business Leadership Conference. Dr. Blake-Beard’s recent publications include CGO Commentaries No. 4: Releasing the Double Bind of Visibility for Minorities in the Workplace (2004) and a book chapter entitled “The inextricable link between mentoring and leadership” in Enlightened Power: How Women are Transforming the Practice of Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2005).
Selected speaking engagements and publications by Dr. Blake-Beard
Ann Bookman, Ph.D.
Dr. Bookman is a national authority on work and family issues. She is currently Executive Director of the MIT Workplace Center based at the Sloan School of Management. She has held a variety of teaching, research and administrative positions in the academy at Holy Cross, Lesley College, Wellesley College, and the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College. She has also worked in government, as a presidential appointee during the first term of the Clinton administration. From 1993-6, she served as Policy and Research Director of the Women's Bureau at the U.S. Department of Labor. Dr. Bookman received her doctorate in social anthropology from Harvard University. She has authored a number of publications in the areas of women's work, work and family issues, unionization, and child and family policy. Her new book, Starting In Our Own Backyards: How Working Families Can Build Community and Survive the New Economy (Routledge, 2004), documents the difficulties of balancing work and family through an in-depth portrait of 40 working families in Massachusetts.
Robin Ely, Ph.D.
Dr. Ely speaks and publishes on how organizations can better manage their race and gender relations while increasing their effectiveness. Her recent speaking engagements include “Learning from Diversity: The Effects of Learning on Performance in Racially Diverse Teams” at the Wagner School, New York University and “New Directions for Leadership from the Private Sector: Strategies for Gaining a Competitive Edge,” presented at the American Council for Voluntary International Action Annual Conference. Her recent publications include editing the Reader on Gender, Work, and Organization with E. Foldy and M. Scully (eds.) and the Center for Gender in Organizations (Blackwell Publishers, 2003) and "Learning from diversity: The effects of learning on performance in racially diverse teams,” with D. Thomas, Harvard Business School Working Paper 04-017, October 2003.
Joyce K. Fletcher, DBA
Dr. Fletcher speaks and publishes on relational theory and feminist concepts of power and how they improve both equity and organizational effectiveness in organizations. Her recent speaking engagements include “Invisible Work: Women, Power & the ‘Disappearing’ of Relational Practice at Work” at Verizon and “The Paradox of Post Heroic Leadership: Gender Matters” as part of the Crossroads Seminar Series, Department of Organizational Studies at George Washington University. Dr. Fletcher’s recent publications include “The Paradox of Post Heroic Leadership: An Essay on Gender, Power and Transformational Change,” Leadership Quarterly 15(5) and CGO Insights No. 18: The Equity Imperative: Reaching Effectiveness through the Dual Agenda (2003).
Selected speaking engagements and publications by Dr. Fletcher
Evangelina Holvino, EdD
Dr. Holvino speaks and publishes on race, gender, and class in organizations, Latina leadership, and organizational diversity strategies. Dr. Holvino’s recent speaking engagements include “Gender Schisms and Other ‘Isms’: The Deadly Intersection for Women of Color,” a panel presentation at the Spelman College Women of Color Leadership Symposium and Conference, and “Latinas at IBM: At the Crossroads of Leadership” at the 2004 IBM Latino Symposium. Her recent publications include “Class: ‘A difference that makes a difference’ in organizations,” The Diversity Factor (2002) and “Theories of differences: Changing paradigms for organizations” in D.L. Plummer (ed.), Handbook of Diversity Management: Beyond Awareness to Competency-Based Learning (University Press of America, 2003).
Selected speaking engagements and publications by Dr. Holvino
Deborah Kolb, PhD
Dr. Kolb speaks and publishes on effective problem solving through empowerment and connection in negotiation. Her recent speaking engagements include “Her Place at the Table: A Woman’s Guide to Negotiating Five Challenges of Leadership” to the Association for Corporate Growth, and “Everyday Negotiation: Creating the Conditions for Leadership Success” at the Campbell Soup Co. Dr. Kolb’s recent publications include “Staying in the Game or Changing It: An Analysis of Moves and Turns in Negotiation,” Negotiation Journal (April 2004) and Her Place at the Table: A Woman’s Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success (Jossey-Bass, August 2004).
Selected speaking engagements and publications by Dr. Kolb
Eileen M. McGowan, Ed.D.
Dr. McGowan is a national specialist in developmental relationships. Her work focuses on the establishment, implementation, maintenance, and evaluation of mentoring programs. Eileen’s recent doctoral research at Harvard concentrates on understanding the complexities of formal mentoring relationships and their implications for organizational diversity and leadership development. Dr. McGowan consults with a number of different types of organizations including urban school systems, institutions of higher education, and for-profit organizations. In addition to her research and writing, she is adjunct faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Simmons School of Management. She is a Principal at Mentoring Strategies, an independent consulting firm.
Deborah M. Merrill-Sands, Ph.D.
Dr. Merrill-Sands speaks and publishes on gender dynamics in the workplace, women and leadership, women in science, and organizational change, especially in a global context. Her recent speaking engagements include “Gender Dynamics in the Workplace: Implications for Women and Leadership” at the Northern Trust Company and “Women and Business: Aspirations for Leadership and Power” to the Research Committee of the Boston Club. Her recent publications include “Creating and Sustaining Diversity and Inclusion in Organizations: Best Practices for Today and Tomorrow” (with E. Holvino and B. Ferdman) in The Psychology and Management of Workplace Diversity (2003) and “Social Differences Lens” (with E. Holvino) in R. Ely, M. Scully, and E. Foldy (eds.), Reader in Gender, Work, and Organization (Blackwell Publishers, 2003).
Selected speaking engagements and publications by Dr. Merrill-Sands
Karen Proudford , Ph.D.
Dr. Proudford speaks and publishes on group and intergroup dynamics, diversity, and conflict. She has written about the experiences of black female managers and about coalition-building efforts between white and black women. She is currently working on research that examines the conditions under which women rise to leadership positions in U.S. organizations. Her recent speaking engagements include “The Ins and Outs: New Trends in Diversity Research and Practice” at Volunteer State Community College and “Balancing Act: Triads of Connection Between and Among Groups” at the Academy of Management. Her publications include “Group Membership Salience and the Movement of Conflict: Reconceptualizing the Interaction among Race, Gender and Hierarchy” in Group and Organization Management (2003) and CGO Working Paper No. 16, Viewing Dyads in Triadic Terms: Toward a Conceptualization of the In/Visible Third in Relationships Across Difference (February 2003).
Maureen Scully, Ph.D.
Dr. Scully speaks and publishes on meritocracy and its effect on equality in organizations, as well as on the dynamics of employee caucus groups. Her recent speaking engagements include “No More Escape to Work: Virtual Work and the Blurring of the Work/Home Boundary” at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology annual meeting and “The American romance with meritocracy and the implications of exporting it” at Skidmore College. Her publications include editing the Reader on Gender, Work, and Organization with E. Foldy and M. Scully (eds.) and the Center for Gender in Organizations (Blackwell Publishers, 2003) and “Confronting errors in the meritocracy,” Organization (2003).
