The Women’s Emerging Leadership Forum Sells Out Once Again

The Lam Fam College of Business celebrated the 10^th year of its Women’s Emerging Leadership Forum (WELF) with a sold-out event held on October 25, 2024, at LinkedIn's headquarters in downtown San Francisco.

This year, the flagship event of the Lam-Larsen Community Engagement (CE) Initiative  centered on the theme “Unlock Growth Through Lifelong Learning" and brought together a distinguished line-up of speakers. In business discourses there is a lot of focus on professional growth: how to acquire certain skills, build up a resume, and climb to the top. While these topics are important, the CE Initiative wanted to also emphasize personal growth, since this topic is usually overlooked despite being an integral part of professional growth. By combining personal and professional growth and investing in both, Gulnur Tumbat, Director of the Lam-Larsen Community Engagement Initiative and Professor of Marketing at San Francisco State University, believes people can become productive, healthy, and happy members of our society and of the institutions where they work. This was the motivation for Tumbat and her team to put together this year’s WELF with a focus on unlocking growth through lifelong learning. 

Under the leadership of Tumbat with a renewed vision in its last three years, WELF has aimed to step outside of the SF State campus to connect with people from various communities. This has been partly realized by WELF’s collaborations with major corporations in the SF Bay Area. In the previous two years, the CE Initiative collaborated with KPMG, and this year it partnered with LinkedIn. Both organizations have helped increase WELF’s visibility and participation from industry professionals. As a public higher education institution, such collaborations with the business world are very important for SF State. Another part of WELF’s vision materialized by bringing together a diverse audience: employees from industry and non-profit organizations, along with SF State alumni, students, faculty, and staff. The forum assembled and hosted an audience and speakers that represented a wide range of organizations such as JPMorgan, Sephora, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bank of Marin, StitchFix, Kai Ming, and Grid Alternatives. The interaction among everyone was highly engaging and productive.  

The Lam-Larsen Community Engagement Initiative expressed their gratitude to all the speakers for their time and the personal insights they shared.  Tumbat stated, "It was only through the commitment and generosity of all our guest speakers that WELF 2024 became a forum that celebrated and supported personal and professional growth." 

Rebecca Tierney, CEO and Co-Founder of Ada-Marie, took the audience on an intimate journey of her life’s trajectory from being a high-end lawyer at a major law firm in LA to building a platform that supports women in STEM. She reminded everyone that life is not a straight line and there always will be ups and downs, likening it more to swimming in an ocean. Alumna Tani Girton (MBA, ’90), EVP and CFO of Bank of Marin, shared her story of becoming a pioneering force in her sector. She asked the audience the questions that shaped her life trajectory: rationalization or realization? settling or leveling up? The forum included a panel discussion made up of LinkedIn employees and moderated by Nicole Serena Silver, an author, entrepreneur, and Forbes contributor. One of the panel speakers, Megan (O'Meara) Jacobson, Talent Acquisition Manager of LinkedIn’s Global Business Organization, emphasized the personal side of networking where trust and authenticity wins. Another LinkedIn panel speaker, Hope Diwata, Employee Programs Coordinator of the Social Impact Team, shared the importance of curiosity, highlighting the fact that career paths do not have to be linear. The third panelist, Dina To, Director of Legal, shared her story of pushing boundaries through intentional learning and encouraged everyone to use LinkedIn more as it democratizes networking.  

Maya Kraft, a leadership and organizational expert and Dare to Lead™ certified facilitator, led a session that introduced the audience to BRAVING leadership, which includes boundaries, reliability, accountability, vault, integrity, nonjudgmental, and generosity. Kraft helped participants to get a clearer understanding of their values in their professional and personal life. At the end of the program, Guisselle Nuñez, Associate Vice President of Strategic Marketing at San Francisco State, uplifted the crowd with her interactive workshop on personal branding. The audience appeared highly engaged and inspired by all the speakers and facilitators. SF State student Elizaveta Kucherova said, “I can't say enough words of how insightful this conference was. All speakers were sharing their unique stories of success that were incredibly interesting to listen to. Moreover, the networking was great; not only was I able to make connections with speakers but also with the audience who was present during the event.” Another WELF first-time attendee, Glendy Chan, a former JP Morgan Chase & Co. employee and current SF State MS in Business Analytics program graduate student, commented on her LinkedIn page, “I experienced something truly special at WELF, brilliantly organized by Professor Gulnur Tumbat. There's an undeniable magic when people gather to share their authentic stories, and WELF delivered exactly that.”

Tumbat added, "We are also thankful to our event collaborators, LinkedIn and their logistics team, and our student volunteers for their contributions to making this event such a successful and unforgettable experience for everyone.” 

Watch a short video of WELF shared by Nicole Silver on LinkedIn.

Visit the WELF 2024 Event Photos page to view more photos from this special event.