Hello from Boston Women in Finance! 

We hope that all of you are having a wonderful Summer, enjoying time with family and friends, taking a fabulous vacation (or staycation), and are energized for the Fall.   

The BWF Board has been working over the Summer to set up a slate of interesting monthly webinars and networking events for the 2021-2022 program year.  Boston’s recent return to the indoor mask mandate, however, means that the Fall is not shaping-up as we had all hoped.  Although we had high hopes to kick-off our program year with an in-person fun, food-based event for our members, last week we decided that we will continue holding remote events via ZOOM at least through November 2021 and most likely for the entire program year.  This means a quick change in our September program to a virtual event and, most likely, our December in-person networking event as well.  However, we will continue to keep you posted.

As we head into the final weeks of Summer, we hope that you will take a moment to review the BWF Fall programming schedule.  We are finalizing the dates; however, our webinars are usually held on the second Tuesday of the month from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m.   Our webinars will be on ZOOM and will remain free to members and non-members as we continue to navigate this uncertain time together.   However, we will continue some select programs for BWF members and welcome any non-members to transition to a BWF member status anytime.

•  September 2021 - [TBD]: Members only event. Stay tuned! We are looking for an on-line alternative to the in-person September kick-off event.  This will most likely be an evening ZOOM event.

• October 2021 - Midterm Elections (12:00 p.m. webinar): Instead of our usual financial year forecast talk in January, we will host a bi-partisan panel on the potential impact of the midterm elections on financial and business markets.  

• November 2021 - Exit Stage Left (12:00 p.m. webinar): Women leaving the workforce. Reasons, Impact, Implications.  COVID has disproportionately affected women’s employment and careers but it’s also affected how they want to engage in and view their own lives, careers, and employment.

• December 2021 - Joint Networking Program [TBD] Stay tuned! BWF has traditionally held a joint networking event with other women’s financial and business groups each December. At the beginning of the Summer, it appeared that it would more than safe to have a large indoor gathering by December. However, that milestone seems to be slipping into the future.  We will provide an update in November. 

• September – December 2021 – Drop-in Member Discussion Groups [monthly, noon, dates TBD]: We are still developing ways to keep our members engaged with BWF and each other in a remote world.  As a replacement for the networking and discussion we enjoyed when gathered at our monthly lunch events, BWF held virtual discussion groups after our 2020-21 webinars.  Surprisingly, we rarely discussed the seminar topic!  Instead, we chatted about our careers and lives and most often our discussions turned into information gathering and coaching sessions for people starting businesses, refocusing their careers, rebalancing their lives, etc.  So, this year we will continue these drop-in discussion groups but leave the topic open and just enjoy the conversation and each other’s company.

Thank you for your interest and participation in BWF and we welcome your ideas, comments and suggestions to continue to engage and strengthen this organization of great, women from various backgrounds and industries.