Date: Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Time: 4:45 to 5:50 p.m.
Location: Virtual
Cost: Free (Please register below. )
         **Please consider a donation to the WLiT scholarship fund**
Speaker: Teresa Sande, CEO, Mirror Mirror Strategies

Please join us Tuesday, February 16^th, for our first Women Leading in Technology event of the New Year. We are thrilled and honored to kick off our 2021 season with a special welcome from Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook and founder of LeanIn.Org! Ms. Sandberg is passionate about helping women achieve their ambitions and creating a more equal world. She has frequently spoken about imposter syndrome and its impact on women and their careers. As such, we are pleased to announce our formal program that will follow Ms. Sandberg’s welcome, featuring Teresa Sande, CEO of Mirror Mirror Strategies, who will join us for a facilitated conversation about imposter syndrome in the session titled,

Find Your Fierce and AIM for Success

Have you ever felt like it was just a matter of time before someone figured out you weren’t as amazing as they thought? From the outside no one would know it, but inside you’re secretly wondering if you belong or if there’s a shoe about to drop and you will fail. If this sounds at all familiar, you’ve experienced imposter syndrome.

While the term “imposter syndrome” might evoke images of someone with low self-confidence or someone who’s a fake, the reality is imposter syndrome strikes some of the most confident and competent people, often at a point of high achievement. In fact, over 70% of people have acknowledged experiencing imposter syndrome, though the price being paid is much steeper for women and people of color. Sneaky and subtle, you might not even know it’s happening until you’re so far down the rabbit hole, it’s hard to claw your way back up – but don’t let it rob you of your success. Overcoming imposter syndrome is about more than just self-confidence; it requires understanding and changing the fundamental flaws built into the systems of which we are all a part. In this illuminating session, you’ll learn:

• What imposter syndrome is, where it comes from, and how it shows up;
• Tools and techniques to recognize and combat imposter syndrome to ensure your success as you continue to grow your career;
• The role unconscious bias plays throughout organizations that feeds imposter syndrome, particularly for women and people of color;
• Ways to influence the systems of which we are all a part, to shift the culture and minimize the impacts of imposter syndrome on leaders in the pipeline.

If you’d like to familiarize yourself with the topic in advance of our 2/16 event, go to www.teresasande.com/find-your-fierce to purchase a copy of Find Your Fierce. Currently available at a discounted pre-sale price, WLiT attendees will receive an additional discount using the following discount code: WLIT.

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Teresa Sande is passionate about equity in the workplace, healthy corporate cultures, and ensuring people are valued and rewarded for their contributions. Teresa holds her master’s degree in Organizational Effectiveness & Communication and has 20+ years’ corporate experience as an executive with Intel, Capital One, Cargill, and UnitedHealth Group. She has dedicated her career to creating effective Talent Strategies that enable business results including leadership development, executive coaching, succession planning, and inclusion and diversity.

In addition to being an accomplished HR executive, she is a consultant, coach, author, speaker, and imposter syndrome expert. Having battled imposter syndrome herself, Teresa knows firsthand how these feelings—particularly for women and people of color—are rooted in and fed by flaws that exist in organizational systems. If they go unchecked, there is a hefty price to pay for all involved.

Decades of corporate experience, countless hours of coaching top talent, and nearly 100 interviews with high achieving executives have culminated in the creation of her debut book, Find Your Fierce: Interrupt Imposter Syndrome and Own Your Success. Leveraging her proprietary frAIMwork^TM readers gain fresh perspectives and easy to apply techniques to conquer imposter syndrome.

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SUPPORT THE MISSION OF WLiT: Donate to the WLiT Scholarship Fund
WLiT seeks to promote, educate, and empower women in technology across Minnesota. We believe in “reaching back” to support our future technology leaders and practitioners. With the help of the Minnesota Technology Foundation, WLiT awards scholarships to underrepresented individuals who aspire to a career in STEM. Funds raised in 2021 will create scholarship awards to off-set the cost of tuition for deserving individuals at The Software Guild, a local technology bootcamp.

In lieu of a registration fee for this event, WLiT gratefully accepts your donations. While we ask that you consider a donation of $20, donations in any amount are much appreciated. Donate thru the Minnesota Technology Foundation’s GiveMN site here. The donation process is separate from event registration.

If your company has a matching program, please send the match to the Minnesota Technology Foundation so it can be added to the scholarship fund.