Empowering change

This leadership program provides women in engineering, science, and technology with the practical business knowledge and inspirational spark to confidently advance in leadership roles.

From Specialist to Strategist is a game changer.  It's where emerging managers learn cross-functional business knowledge, enhance their leadership skills, and gain a broad management perspective. And they benefit from one of Smith’s most unique advantages: an all-women executive education environment, which research has proven inspires increased risk-taking and greater confidence – especially for women working in male-dominated fields.

2013 Topics

Setting the Stage for Strategic Leadership

  • Develop your creative capacity to respond to complex situations with speed
  • Discuss common traps that limit your productive thinking
  • Learn strategies to recognize valuable unseen patterns and innovative possibilities

Energy for Performance in Life

  • Become more productive under pressure by managing energy effectively
  • Learn to apply the science of performance technology, exercise physiology, and nutrition
  • Engage the four dimensions of life: physical, mental, and spiritual

Managerial Decisions and Shareholder Value Creation

  • Speak and understand the language of finance
  • Appreciate the connection between operating strategy and financial results
  • Understand shareholder value creation and appreciate its significance

Negotiation for Leaders: Rethinking the Way We Manage the Process

  • Analyze and develop a vocabulary and framework for negotiations
  • Learn to plan and prepare for complex negotiations
  • Develop tools to expand and claim value to achieve high-quality outcomes

Communicating Your Message for Maximum Impact

  • Understand your audience to tailor your message to their needs
  • Develop effective strategies and techniques to humanize complicated information and bring your story to life
  • Create a powerful presence so others see you as a take-charge communicator

Takeoff For Teams Simulation

  • Employ tools and skills to improve productivity
  • Build a customer-oriented high performing team
  • Practice intentional leadership to leverage your strengths

Strategic Leadership in Action

  • Bring the future to the present and conquer uncertainty
  • Inspire people and evoke passion with a compelling noble purpose
  • Create an environment for collaborative value innovation

Executive Panel: Architecture of a Successful Career

  • Hear from diverse senior executives about their career journeys
  • Get advice from and network with successful women in the field

Daily Reflection

  • Integrate knowledge with personal insights and wisdom for greater clarity and purpose

Bonus: Additional leadership benefits include a daily wellness program that shows you how to increase your energy, well-being and stress-resilience, and post-program access to networking and learning opportunities. Participants also receive a one-year membership in the Society of Women Engineers!