'Highlight gutsy women': Hillary Clinton is featured speaker at leadership summit
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Hillary Rodham Clinton places great value in women telling stories about their lives and the lives of the women that inspire them.
The 67th United States Secretary of State, who has spent her career fighting for the rights of women and girls and supporting other women to follow in her leadership footsteps, says telling these stories remains as important today as in the past.
"We need to be trying to tell stories today that continue to highlight gutsy women who are making history, who are breaking down barriers, taking risks, who are speaking out because we believe that we need that as much today as any time," she said during an address last year in the US.
In February, Former Secretary Clinton will be sharing her own story to thousands of Australian women across the country including some of our most remarkable public service leaders and young emerging leaders as a featured speaker at the 2024 Public Sector Women in Leadership Summit that's being held simultaneously in Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne.
Appearing in a live video across from the US, Former Secretary Clinton will be in conversation with one of Australia's most successful women, award-winning journalist Leigh Sales, on the topic, Leading through success, adversity & everything in between under the unwavering public eye.
In the exclusive Q&A, Former Secretary Clinton, who has spent four decades in public service as an advocate, attorney, First Lady, US Senator, US Secretary of State, and presidential candidate, will give her unique take on what it is like to traverse success as well as adversity while under extreme public scrutiny and bigotry.
Encompassing a wide range of topics, other keynote speakers at the Canberra event will include Federal Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek, former Services Australia chief executive officer, Rebecca Skinner, Australian National University Professor, Michelle Ryan, as well as Ms Sales, whose address will reveal the lessons on success, failure and resilience she's gleaned from interviewing some of the world's most powerful and inspiring people
There's also a packed agenda of panel discussions, case studies and workshops covering topics ranging from tackling gender equality in the workplace to important health issues such as menopause and endometriosis that can affect the careers of many women, as well as the importance of allies, both male and female, in the leadership journey.
In particular, the 2024 summit will have a focus around diversity and tackling intersectionality, exploring First Nations leadership, LGBTQIA+ leadership, linguistically-diverse leadership and disabled leadership.
Now in its seventh year, the annual summit is tailor-made to inspire women to become "remarkable" leaders by connecting aspiring and current women leaders with the collective wisdom of women leaders in the Australian public sector, says Andrew Savage, managing director of The Hatchery, the leading public sector events company behind the summit.
"Our purpose is to connect people with the knowledge to inspire change, by hearing all of these stories from women who have trodden the same path as them previously," he said.
"We try to address issues that are not necessarily being talked about and we hope the knowledge attendees gain will give them the confidence to go back and be a change for their departments and their teams."
Mr Savage said that in designing the Women in Leadership Summit agenda the aim was to highlight the issues and challenges that face public sector women at different stages of their careers.
"We bring in these different elements over the two days which gives it a more holistic approach towards what it means to be a public sector female leader today," he said.
"We carefully curate our sessions to make sure there is a mixture of inspirational stories, information about policy affecting female leaders, panel discussions and case studies so people can share their journeys."
Mr Savage says the inclusion of male voices is an important element of the event which this year includes Jim Betts, the Secretary of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport Regional Development, Communications and the Arts whose topic is Creating Male Allies for Women in Leadership.
"We know that including male voices is important because women want to understand the male perspective, but also so we can encourage male allies or men who are aspiring to be allies to the women in their teams and within their organisation," he said.
"We certainly encourage men to attend as well so that they can gain that experience so they can also go back and be a better leader themselves."
As well as tapping into the invaluable advice and insights of the leaders who've been brought together, the summit seeks to uncover the authenticity of the woman behind the role.
At a time when what it means to be an effective leader is being redefined, the quality of authenticity is being recognised as a core skill.
"It's recognised that people value authenticity and want to work for authentic leaders," Mr Savage said, "So looking at what it means to be an authentic leader is an important part of the summit.
"It's a natural skill that we see some people have and a lot of people aspire to so it's very valuable for attendees to hear the stories from these inspirational women who've been in their shoes."
To find out more about the 2024 Women in Leadership Summit on from February 28-29 2024 visit go.the-hatchery.co/women-in-leadership-summit-2024
