WHO: The Judy Project

www.rotmanexecutive.com/judyproject/

WHAT: A week-long annual leadership forum aimed at advancing more women into CEO positions and building stronger organizations.

WHERE: Headquartered at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

WHEN: Since 2002

WHY: Companies that were grooming women for senior positions just didn’t have the plans in place to follow through. “We felt that this type of program was able to marry the organizational need—aspirational goals—with the woman’s aspirational goals,” Colleen Moorehead, one of the founders, says. “And I think all of us agree there’s a strategic imperative in Canada to have Canadian companies led in a diverse manner.”

HOW: The annual forum which Moorehead calls “a spa for your ambition” is designed around personal development, new perspectives on leadership, and a holistic view of success.

INSPIRED BY …the late Judy Elder, an executive at Microsoft Canada, who said, “If you acknowledge the importance and power of your ambition, recognize that it is there to drive you to greater achievements and sustain you through the challenges…you can defeat…the doubts that we all have about our capacity to lead.”

STATS: About 30 senior women executives attend the forum every year. The result being, Moorehead adds, “We change companies and we change individuals, one by one.”

WHAT ELSE? Besides the annual forum, there are monthly advisory groups of 6 to 10 women who act as “personal boards of directors,” challenging conventional leadership thinking and established business behaviors.