THE WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE BRINGS HEAVY HITTERS TO HAAS
All faculty, students, staff, and alumni are invited to the 6th annual Women in Leadership Conference, which takes place on Saturday, October 20.  This year's theme, "Explore, Inspire, Excel," is embodied by two exceptional keynote speakers: Donna Dubinsky, founder, president, and CEO of Handspring, and Beth Sawi, chief administrative officer and executive vice president of Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. 

The annual WIL conference is the longest-running student-run conference at Haas.  Last year it attracted more than 400 participants including current MBA and undergraduate students, alumni, and career women from the greater Bay Area. 

Dubinsky gives the first keynote address of the day.  She co-founded Handspring with Jeff Hawkins in July 1998 to create a new breed of hand-held computers for consumers.  Before joining Handspring Dubinsky served as president and CEO of Palm Computing, where she helped make the Palm Pilot the best-selling hand-held computer and the most rapidly adopted new computing product ever produced.  When Dubinsky first joined Hawkins at Palm Computing in 1992, shortly after the company was founded, she brought with her more than ten years of marketing and logistics experience from Apple and Claris.  Dubinsky and Hawkins introduced the original Palm Pilot in February 1996, a move that revitalized the hand-held computing industry.  She earned her BA from Yale University and her MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. 

Beth Sawi oversees Human Resources, Corporate Communications, Community Affairs, Legal, Compliance, Internal Audit, and Corporate Services.  She is also a member of the executive committee for The Charles Schwab Corporation.  She will give the afternoon keynote address.  

Sawi is a long-time veteran of Schwab; she started her career at Schwab in 1982.  From 1995 to 1997 she was executive vice president of Electronic Brokerage, during which time she headed Schwab's Internet launch.  Sawi took a sabbatical in Italy in 1998-99 during which she wrote her book "Coming Up for Air: How to Build a Balanced Life in a Workaholic World," published by Hyperion in February 2000.  She received a BA from Tufts University and an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.  

Throughout the day, conference attendees will interact with leaders from a variety of professional backgrounds through the conference's panel sessions and workshops.  Panels planned for this year's conference include: 
+ Management Techniques to Inspire and Motivate 
+ Women and the New Economy - Women in the Tech World 
+ International Business 
+ Wild Women 

This year's conference is sponsored by Fortune, Ford, Chevron, Genentech, J.P. Morgan, Johnson & Johnson, Accenture, Goldman Sachs, and Adobe. 

For more information on the WIL conference, please visit <http://www.wilconference.org/2001/index.html>.