Two of DistributorCentral’s ladies attended this year’s PPAI Women’s Leadership Conference last week. Amelia Madl, Senior Account Manager and Tiffany Tarr, CAS, Vice President of Sales participated in the conference held in New Orleans.
More than 130 women from across the U.S. and Canada, including 50 first-time attendees, traveled to New Orleans for two and a half days of networking and professional development where they learned about leadership, empowerment, strategic planning, succession planning, business challenges, accountability, personal branding, mentoring, budget development and technology.
Tiffany Tarr recounts her experience for us. “As a first time attendee my experience was very positive. All of the woman attending the conference were engaging, welcoming and really showed an interest in strengthen the relationship between female leaders in the industry.”
Tiffany said her motivation for attending was the networking that these events create. “Throughout my career, I have found tremendous value in these types of events. These conferences create an opportunity to network on a one-on-one basis that you don’t get in large industry events. It’s creates an environment that really allows you to build long-lasting relationships.”
Her favorite professional development session was called “How to Maneuver the Professional Landscape” with professional speaker and author, JJ DiGeronimo. In this session, JJ shared key strategies for enhancing one’s professional journey while weaving in life strategies. She gave real life examples and tips on how to balance all of the tasks and people in our lives. Tiffany found her session very insightful and looks forward to applying some of her suggestions immediately.
Tiffany stated, “All of the speakers were fantastic. The sessions that I was the most interested in were the planning and budgeting sessions. Rosanne Webster from SnugZ made looking at budget reports simple and understandable. I kept finding myself struggling to choose which breakout session to attend; I wish we could have attended them all!”
In addition to attending educational sessions, attendees had the opportunity to mix and mingle offsite for dinner. This was Tiffany’s favorite networking experience. She noted that she had a very fun group of ladies. Laura Holt from Geiger had a fun table game that her table played called “two truths and a lie” in which they got to learn some really fun facts about the group. In closing, the overall experience was positive. “I want to thank Gretchen Demke from PPAI for being out table leader,” said Tarr. “I met people I would probably not have had the opportunity to get to know on a more personal basis, and it was a really fun night!”
