August Breakfast Meeting Keynote:
Jan Babiak
Professional Corporate
Board Member
Women Mean Business - Walking the Talk
Did you know companies with more women in executive leadership and board positions boast superior financial performance over their peers?
Jan Babiak will share with us the benefits of gender diversity in business and give examples of how we, as women leaders with different backgrounds, experiences and aspirations, can all be more effective. In fact, every woman with a checking account can effectively support the economy and other women by how they spend their money.
Companies that embrace gender diversity are better governed, better managed, and have better long-term growth prospects; this is particularly true when there is a critical mass of three or more women on their board. Women in the boardroom have the opportunity to truly support other women in the workforce.
Even though this clearly is a win-win proposition for both companies and their shareholders, a vast majority of U.S. companies have not yet integrated women at the board table. And to further confuse the issue, many of the companies who have not diversified their board tables have women as their primary target audience and primary employment base. Jan's presentation will give us strong reasons to take our business to their more diverse competitors.
About Jan Babiak
With nearly 30 years of business leadership, global management and international board level and public company roles, Jan Babiak has now turned her attention toward serving full time on corporate boards as her profession.
At EY (formerly Ernst & Young), Babiak held board-level and global leadership roles ranging from technology to climate change to public policy. Her experience includes serving on the firm’s most prestigious clients in more than eight different sectors.
Today, Babiak is a board member of Walgreens Boots Alliance, the Bank of Montreal, and Experian. Babiak is also co-chair and co-founder of the Tennessee Chapter of Women’s Corporate Directors and a member of the Committee of 200, a global invitation-only organization directed at advancing women in business leadership.
Locally, Babiak serves as the content designer and lead instructor on Nashville CABLE’s intensive Corporate Board Academy, which prepares qualified candidates for their first corporate board role. She is a sought-after executive coach working with global executives preparing for listed company board service.
Agenda, a Financial Times publication for board members, named her in their ‘International 100: Top Board Candidates with Global Skills’.
She is a published author and popular motivational speaker, as well as a qualified CPA in the U.S. and Chartered Accountant in the U.K.
Born in Oklahoma, Babiak has dual U.S. and U.K. citizenship. After 20 years living in London, she and her husband, Brian, now call Leiper’s Fork home base for their frequent travels to London and beyond.