The Women’s Leadership Institute hosted the Recruiting, Retaining and Advancing Women event at the Questar Center on Tuesday, January 26 to discuss the progress on the ElevateHER Challenge.
“For decades Zions Bank has recognized the critical role played by women in our organization, including the significant contributions of women in leadership across the bank,” said Scott Anderson, president and CEO of Zions Bank. “Accepting the ‘ElevateHER Challenge’ from the Women’s Leadership Institute has helped us shine an even brighter light on the issue of gender diversity within our organization. Our ongoing efforts to elevate the stature of women’s leadership have helped us strengthen our existing employee development programs and have connected us more deeply to our clients and communities.”
WLI invited business leaders and professionals across the state to accept the ElevateHER Corporate Challenge in May 2015. The challenge encourages organizations within the state to seven action steps. The steps include increasing the percentage of women in senior leadership positions, increasing the retention rate of women at all levels of organizations and increasing the number of women on companies’ board of directors or extend influence in related industries by encouraging women to serve on paid boards.
At the event, a panel of business leaders discussed how companies are successfully advancing women in the workplace. The event also included a question and answer session and an exchange of ideas with peer organizations. Patricia Jones, CEO of the Women’s Institute; Lori Chillingworth, executive vice president of Zions Bank; Spencer Cox, Lieutenant Governor; Victor Ingalls, general manager of American Express; Ben McAdams, Mayor of Salt Lake County; and Mike Weinholtz, chairman of CHG Healthcare were all featured at the event. Ron Jibson, chairman, president and CEO of Questar Corporation, also spoke on the impact the ElevateHER challenge had Questar.
“The ElevateHER Challenge has created a wonderful new focus for all of us at Questar,” said Jibson. “We have experienced over time the tremendous value created by having diversity in our company and now our renewed focus created by the challenge is creating new opportunities that are moving us forward. I only wish we had started ten years ago but the most exciting aspect is knowing what we will be like in the next ten years as a result of our involvement with ElevateHER.”
The Women’s Leadership Institute is led by Patricia Jones, CEO of WLI; Lori Chillingworth, executive vice president of Zions Bank; Trish Hatch, director of WLI; Laura Kaiser, executive vice president and COO of Intermountain Healthcare; Heidi Walker, COO of Salt Lake Chamber and Natalie Gochnour, chief economists, senior advisor and associate dean of David Eccles School of Business. WLI strives to elevate the stature of women’s leadership by improving society’s understanding of the value of diversity in leadership roles, training women in leadership skills and conveying the positive impact women leaders have on economic development, vitality and the overall health of the state of Utah.
To learn more and accept the ElevateHER Challenge, visit http://wliut.com/elevateher-
