The College of Business hosted its annual Women In Leadership Conference on Friday in the Bowen-Thompson Student Union.

This is the third year the University has held this conference.

The theme for the all-day conference was, “Designing Your Career,” focusing on the idea of empowerment and knowing financial value/worth as a working woman.

Pamela K. M. Beall [1984 University graduate], Director and President of MPLX, Senior Vice President, Corporate Planning, Government and Public Affairs of Marathon Petroleum Corporation; Maribeth S. Rahe [1970 University graduate], President and CEO of Fort Washington Investment Advisors, Inc.; and Jane Heppe [1974 University graduate], President of the Americas Burberry were speakers that gave addresses and breakout sessions to all students in attendance.

Presenting the keynote speaker was the University’s Women in Business Leadership president Marlee Alt, who said the organization was founded off the Women in Leadership conference.

Following Alt, Kirk Kern, a professor and director of the Dallas-Hamilton Center in the College of Business, spoke about the College of Business and the projects that the college puts on, most specifically The Hatch project.

Following Kern, Sharon Speyer, regional President of Huntington National Bank, segued into the keynote speaker by talking to the women in the room directly.

Speyer expressed her happiness with a university who has a female president. “This makes this conference worth it, to know that you have a woman in high leadership,” she said.

Speyer then spoke to how impressed she was with the turnout of the conference.

“I know it’s hard to take time away from your friends, family or studies,” she said. “But you’re investing in yourselves.”

The keynote presenter for the conference was Amy DuBois Barnett, Executive Editor for ESPN. Barnett was the former editor-in-chief one of the “oldest African American magazines and most successful,” according to Ebony.com.

Her address was titled, “You Can Have the Career You’ve Always Dreamed Of,” in which she spoke to young women directly about having complete control over your own destiny.

“I love the topic of women in leadership, about goals,” Barnett said.

Barnett explained how she dedicated her life to empowering women and to follow the seven steps that helped her succeed: Embrace fear as growth, be true to yourself, realize your value and demand the best, put into the universe what you want back, have integrity, stay independent and to do something meaningful everyday.

“I learned very early in life [to be determined] because it’s a mindset,” she said. “As women we are waiting for someone to save us, let us save ourselves.”