Women Leading in Technology

Name: Women Leading in Technology
Start: 2026-10-27T16:30:00-05:00
End: 2026-10-27T19:30:00-05:00
Location: American Swedish Institute

Details

Date: October 27
Time:
4:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Event Category: WLiT

Venue

American Swedish Institute
2600 Park Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55407 United States + Google Map

Influence, Visibility, & Leadership Growth

Tuesday, October 27 | The American Swedish Institute | 4:30pm – 7:30pm

Join us in a new-to-WLiT space – the American Swedish Institute – when we’ll host a conversation with distinguished executives Barb Johnson, Thrivent; Amy Patton, SPS Commerce; Michelle Hermanson, Land O’Lakes; and Amy Browne, Prime Therapeutics. This multi-faceted conversation – Influence, Visibility, & Leadership Growth – will focus on helping women leaders and rising stars strengthen their influence, elevate their visibility, and create meaningful opportunities for themselves and others.

From building confidence and securing sponsorship to increasing visibility and leading through change, we’re exploring the skills that help women advance and thrive in today’s workplace:

- The confidence gap vs. the opportunity gap, focusing on the importance of sponsorship and self-advocacy.

- Leading and influencing during change and uncertainty.

- Building an authentic personal brand with executive presence, while increasing visibility.

- Developing high-performing teams, investing in people and future leaders, and achieving results without burning out your people.

Learning objectives include:

- Recognizing common barriers to advancement, including confidence challenges, visibility gaps, and self-limiting assumptions, and applying self-advocacy, sponsorship, and relationship-building that accelerate career growth.

- Strengthening your ability to lead through change by building trust, influencing decisions, and mobilizing stakeholders with or without formal authority.

- Increasing your influence and visibility by elevating your executive presence, expanding your professional network, and creating a clear path toward your next career opportunity.

- Communicating your personal brand with authenticity and articulating your value.

- Applying leadership practices that foster high-performing, engaged teams and support employee growth and well-being.

Barb Johnson is vice president of digital advisor experience at Thrivent, a Fortune 500 financial services organization. She leads teams that design unified but flexible digital solutions for financial advisors across product offerings and service channels. A seasoned product leader, Barb helped implement Thrivent’s product operating model and coached teams behind the award-winning Thrivent Planning Platform. Before joining Thrivent in 2021, she led the launch of a digital PPP loan application at TCF Bank, delivering over $2 billion in aid. Barb thrives at the intersection of business and technology, fostering strong team culture and driving customer-focused outcomes.

Amy Patton is Vice President of Technology at SPS Commerce, where she leads teams responsible for technology operations, platform and infrastructure engineering, onboarding across the SPS network, and tech learning services — enabling SPS technology teams through education and curated patterns and tools, while ensuring the systems that power SPS’s supply chain network run reliably, securely, and at scale. She is a member of the MnTech Foundation Board of Directors and is an active and passionate supporter of the Minnesota Aspirations in Computing (MnAiC) program.

Michelle Hermanson is a business-focused senior technology leader passionate for delivering value-added solutions that fuel business results. She is highly skilled in moving from strategy discussions and implementation planning to directing execution across large workstreams and is an inclusive team leader and collaborator, with the keen ability to build strong relationships and high-performing teams.

Amy Browne is a strategic technology executive known for transforming organizations, elevating business value through modern engineering practices, and leading high-performing teams with clarity, empathy and results-driven focus. As Vice President of IT at Prime Therapeutics, she oversees the engineering organization, partnering closely with executive and business leaders to turn ideas into scalable, high-impact solutions.

With more than two decades of global leadership experience, Amy has built high-performing teams, led major digital and data transformations, and delivered scalable technology solutions across the US, Europe and Asia. She is known for her practical, user-centric approach, her ability to turn complex ideas into measurable outcomes and her commitment to developing leaders and empowering teams.

Event Summary

Date & Time: October 27, 2026 | 4:30 -7:30pm
Agenda: Networking 4:30-5:30 & 7-7:30
Executive Panel 5:30-7:00
Discounted Turnblad Mansion – ASI Tours available pre-program ($5)
Location: American Swedish Institute (2600 Park Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55407)
Parking: Free parking in surface lot + unmetered street parking surrounding ASI when lot is full
Cost: $45 members | $55 non-members (walk-ins available the day of the event)

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Show your support for Women Leading in Technology and highlight your company to an engaged audience. In 2025, attendance was 185 people per event. We have various levels including Presenting Sponsor, Signature Sponsor, Event Supporter, Company Table. Visit MnTech’s Sponsorship Page to learn more, or email Amanda Hardy.