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November 21, 2007
Guardian Holds Second Annual Women's Leadership Summit
Conference focuses on building relationships and ensuring professional growth
Guardian's 2007 Women's Leadership Summit was held in Phoenix, Arizona in mid-October. The event, which was themed "New Horizons ... Your Dreams Without Limits," provided over 100 of the company's leading female Financial Representatives, Marketing Directors, and Long Term Care/Disability Income Specialists with a forum to network and share best practices to help take their careers to the next level. Planned by Guardian's Home Office management in partnership with the Women's Leadership Advisory Board, an organization comprised of talented Financial Representatives from various General Agencies at Guardian, the Summit focused on making connections. The goal of the event's organizers was to ensure the professional growth and future success of Guardian's female Financial Representatives by facilitating:
 | connections that: open doors for developing professional relationships; |
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| connections with other Guardian advisors and guest speakers that help participants learn from each other; |
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| connections to interactive workshops for optimum knowledge-sharing; and |
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| connections to unlimited opportunities for networking and mentoring. |
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"Everything we do at Guardian is based around building relationships and celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit that differentiates Guardian in the marketplace," says Emily Viner, Field Vice President, Agency Growth and Advanced Markets Group. "Our Women's Leadership Summit supports and encourages our female sales associates as they build their practices with Guardian's help. These professionals realize what an amazing career they have found as they are able to take their entrepreneurial skills and build a business - being in business for themselves, but not by themselves."
Empowered to Succeed
Attendees at the Summit had the opportunity to hear from some of their esteemed colleagues and members of Guardian senior management on various topics such as growth opportunities in charitable planning, how to run a more productive and efficient business, and how to reach the impossible and realize your dream. They also gained important insights about how to be successful working in the small business marketplace through a series of presentations and workshops that were centrally themed around this topic.
"Guardian is committed to be known as the 'go-to' company for providing solutions for small businesses and their owners, and many of the Summit's presentations and workshops supported this aspiration," says Maria Umbach, CLU, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Individual Markets. "We understand that in order to be successful in serving this important segment, our career agency sales force must make building the right relationships - both inside Guardian and in the marketplace - an essential skill set. Our Financial Representatives bring an abundance of talent and experience with them to work each day, and are strongly encouraged to share best practices, learn from each other, and take their careers to the next level. Through conferences, events, and Field-directed study groups, our sales associates are empowered to enhance their individual success and to play a key role in helping Guardian achieve excellence in the business market."
Thinking Differently
Carol Hurley, LUTCF, CLTC, a Financial Representative from Guardian's Lifetime Financial Growth Agency in Pittsburgh and a member of the board that planned the Summit, was pleased by the number of her colleagues in attendance and underscores the most important take-away from the event. "Coming to the Women's Leadership Summit provides a unique and valuable opportunity to meet other women who do what you do, share information, and interact with senior management," she says. "This learning experience, which is unlike most other training sessions or workshops, fires you up and motivates you to start thinking differently about how to be successful in this business. Thanks to the free flow of ideas and best practices, my colleagues and I left the meeting engaged with what's going on in the company and excited about what new success is around the corner."
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