The Comerica Bank Women’s Business Symposium returns to Greater Detroit helping women in business Learn, Connect, Grow & Celebrate their potential. The popular business networking event returns to an in-person format for the first time since 2019 on Wednesday, April 5, from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. at Ford Field.
Entering its fourth year, the Comerica Bank Women’s Business Symposium provides a platform developed specifically for women business owners, executives and professionals at all levels from across metro Detroit to “Power Up Your Potential.”
Through the lineup of inspiring speakers and panelists, Comerica Bank Women’s Business Symposium connects attendees to business leaders, including influential businesswomen within their communities, and offers opportunities to help them grow personally and professionally.
Emceeing the Comerica Bank Women’s Business Symposium is celebrity chef, syndicated radio host and cookbook author Jamie Gwen. Joining Gwen on stage is a powerful lineup of speakers that includes:
- Erica Dhawan: Dhawan is an internationally recognized leading authority, speaker, and advisor on 21st-century teamwork, collaboration, and innovation. Named by Thinkers50 as the “Oprah of Management Thinkers,” she is the author of two books, “Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence” and “Digital Body Language: How to Build Trust and Connection, No Matter the Distance.” Erica shares innovative strategies to unlock the collective power of teams, build a culture of trust across any distance and create authentic engagement to ensure competitiveness.
- Cassandra Worthy: Worthy is the world’s leading expert on Change Enthusiasm®. She is lighting the world on fire with her refreshingly unique take on not just ‘managing’ but growing through change. Through her training firm Change Enthusiasm Global®, she is sharing this revolutionary approach for not only embracing change but using it to propel you to heights you never imagined with thousands all over the world.
This year’s symposium opens with Conversations at Comerica, a moderated panel discussion featuring three extraordinary change-makers who lead as women founders and executives, including:
- Carolyn Cassin, President and CEO of Michigan Women Forward. MWF is a certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that expands economic opportunity for women and entrepreneurs of color, empowers the next generation, and honors the accomplishments of Michigan women. Cassin is also the General Partner and Co-Founder of the BELLE Michigan Impact Fund. She is a highly-regarded organizational development and operations expert, an accomplished healthcare entrepreneur, and is considered a national expert in end of life care.
- Nicole Lewis, CEO of Nicole Lewis & Associates. The award-winning sales and marketing executive founded Nicole Lewis & Associates, a business strategy and development consultancy. Lewis has a distinguished career defining strategies to drive growth and has succeeded in building, turning around, training and mobilizing organizations to exceed goals. She is the president of National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) Greater Detroit, which advocates for women entrepreneurs.
- Ronia Kruse, President & CEO OpTech. As a women-owned professional services firm, OpTech provides talent development and solutions services to Fortune 1000 and government clients by tailoring solutions within the verticals of government, healthcare insurance, utilities, finance (banking) and manufacturing. Kruse leverages her background as a successful entrepreneur in talent management and workforce solutions; as a Certified Public Accountant and financial expert with a big 4 professional service firm; and as a strategic change agent and human capital disrupter to help board of directors and companies achieve maximum financial results.
To register or for sponsorship and additional information, visit https://events.comerica.com/wbsdet2023.
An amount equivalent to all sponsorship dollars collected will benefit Alternative for Girls (AFG), a Detroit-based nonprofit serving homeless and high-risk girls and young women. Since 1987, AFG has provided critical services to the girls and young women we serve, including safe shelter, street outreach and educational support, vocational guidance, mentoring, prevention activities, and counseling. AFG’s goal is to empower the girls and young women we serve to make positive choices.