FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saint Mary’s College Welcomes Back the Key4Women Forum
Media contact:
Gwen O’Brien
Director of Media Relations
Saint Mary's College
(574) 284-4579
May 6, 2011 (Notre Dame, Ind.)—The Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative (WEI) at Saint Mary's College is proud to welcome back KeyBank’s Key4Women® Forum, featuring nationally recognized speaker, consultant and executive coach Cindy Solomon. The event is titled “Creating a Culture of Courage™: The New Leadership Challenge”. The luncheon will take place on Tuesday, May 17 at the Gillespie Conference Center at the Hilton Garden Inn, adjacent to the College campus. Registration and networking for the Key4Women® Forum will start at 11:30 a.m. The cost is $15 and is considered a donation to the Kelly Cares Foundation, an organization started by University of Notre Dame Football Coach Brian Kelly and his wife Paqui, devoted to promoting breast cancer research and awareness, among other causes. The Kelly Cares Foundation is KeyBank’s designated local charity. Luncheon registration closes on Sunday, May 15.
Solomon is president of Solomon & Associates Inc. and is one of the most sought-after leadership and customer loyalty speakers in the country. Over the past two decades, she has helped hundreds of organizations build bottom line results by creating profitable, long-term relationships with customers, leaders and employees. She will share her personal insights based on her work as a strategic consultant with organizations like the Ritz Carlton, Google and Cisco. Solomon spoke previously in the area at the Key4Women® Forum this past September.
“Saint Mary’s Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative’s purpose is to partner with community businesses, non-profits and organizations to provide financial and business education services to women entrepreneurs. This forum is an example of how we do this,” said Susan Vance, WEI’s senior project director and professor of business law and accounting at Saint Mary's College.
KeyBank announced this week it has appointed Vance to the national Key4Women Advisory Board. Vance joins 22 other new advisory board members to form the 2011 board, comprised of women business owners, leaders and experts from a cross section of industries across Key’s footprint. Key4Women is a Key Bank program dedicated to helping women business owners achieve success. Key4Women has lent $3 billion to qualified women business owners since 2005 and has recently committed to lending another $3 billion by 2012.
About the Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative (WEI): In 2009, the College received a $245,000 Small Business Administration grant to support women’s entrepreneurship programming in the South Bend community, which led to the creation of WEI. The initiative was developed through the collaborative efforts of the Department of Business Administration and Economics (BUEC) and the staff of the Center for Women’s Intercultural Leadership (CWIL). Through WEI, which got underway in the spring semester, the College is partnering with community businesses, non-profits and organizations to provide a number of financial and business education services to women entrepreneurs. WEI is pronounced "we."
About Saint Mary’s College: Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Ind., is a four-year, Catholic, women’s institution offering five bachelor’s degrees and more than 30 major areas of study. Saint Mary’s College has six nationally accredited academic programs: social work, art, music, teacher education, chemistry and nursing. Saint Mary’s College ranks among the top 100 “Best National Liberal Arts Colleges” in the U.S. News & World Report 2011 College Guide. Founded in 1844, Saint Mary’s is a pioneer in the education of women, and is sponsored by the Sisters of the Holy Cross.