Recap: At the Helm: Women in Biz Los Angeles Community Event

I was incredibly excited about the Los Angeles stop of my At the Helm: Women in Biz tour. Los Angeles is my hometown, and it is also the birthplace of At the Helm. What started as a conference here in L.A. has grown into a national network and movement.

I believe in the importance of collaboration and in each town this tour stops in, I reach out to resources in the community to connect the audience with. Sometimes, we don’t even know about things that are right under our nose!  For the LA stop, I co-hosted this event with Shelly Ulaj, founder of Women Empowered, a fantastic women’s organization that has national reach, but is centered here in L.A. Our host and sponsor for the night was Nextspace @ Amplify in Venice Beach. The space was beautiful, and I know those who work at the space can’t help but be inspired by their surroundings.

Chatting it up with Shelly

Our first speaker of the evening was Nick Smoot, Co-Founder of Here on Biz, an At the Helm partner for 2013. I LOVE the Here on Biz app and was excited that Nick saw and understood the mission of At the Helm and has been supportive of everything that’s going on. People were eating up the information he gave and had tons of questions.

Nick Smoot, Here On Biz

Our second speaker was Marquita Thomas, a savvy business woman and connector who gave a great talk about how to network in a way that feels good for everyone involved. Her well received talk was a great segue into our activity for the night – speed networking! I haven’t hosted a speed networking event in at least four years and Shelly and I both agreed that we’d do something unique with the activity.

Marquita Thomas

It was great to have an event in my hometown and it’s a great warm up for the upcoming conference this fall.After that, everyone had a chance to mix and mingle. Connections were flying everywhere and we practically had to push people out the door to go home.

I’m so grateful to Shelly, who was so easy to work with, to our great speakers, and to my AWESOME L.A. Ambassadors – Anetra Henry-Hunting, Vanessa Beard, DeAnna Dupree, Yvonne Elm Hall and Queenie Johnson – for their support!

For more information about At the Helm, visit www.athwomen.com