Business Conference Champions Women

Speakers at this weekend’s Intercollegiate Business Convention urged women to lead with their hearts instead of their pocketbooks.

Over 700 undergraduate women from around the world gathered at the Sheraton Boston for Harvard Undergraduate Women in Business’s fourth annual Intercollegiate Business Convention.

Highlights of the conference included question and answer sessions with Pinkberry founder Shelly Hwang and DreamWorks chief executive Stacey Snider, and a keynote address by makeup entrepreneur Bobbi Brown.

The weekend also featured 44 “break-out sessions” that included résumé reviews, mock interviews, lectures, panel discussions on a wide range of topics such as work-life balance, gender dynamics in the workplace, and the economy’s impact on the job search.

One theme that emerged from the conference was creating a career that fits one’s passions.

In talking about her own experience, Brown said that she never wanted to work in corporate American and never went to business school.

“Everything I learned, I learned on the job,” she said.

Each participant attended for different reasons, some from a few T-stops away and some from other states or countries.

Camila Henao, a senior at the Universidad de los Andes in Columbia, came with a delegation from the school’s Foundation for Columbian Women, at the urging of their director, a Harvard alumnus.

Others were eager to learn about how the recent financial crisis would affect their own career planning.

“Especially with the economy the way it is right now, I just wanted to see what options are still out there and what the restrictions are,” said Ruizhi Yu, a sophomore at Princeton.

Women in Business President Seema Amble ’09 said the organization has allowed her to learn from many mentors, both older students and experienced businesswomen.

“They share their stories and I get a better sense of what exactly I want to do and how to integrate all my interests and a better understanding of business overall,” she said.

At the core of Brown’s story was a simple piece of advice: “Honestly, the secret of life is really simple, Just find what you love, and everything else will follow.”