In a year defined by transformation and accelerated change, leadership requires more than ambition. It requires clarity, courage, and intention. The Ascend NorCal IAG / AEN Conference brings together early career professionals, mid-career leaders, and executives in one integrated experience designed to turn insight into action.

Held during Women’s History Month, this conference challenges leaders to move beyond recognition and into responsibility. It creates space to examine how meaningful progress often depends on intentional partnership, the courage to share power, and the discipline to lead in ways that expand opportunity across generations and identities.

The program is intentionally structured to move from reflection to application and from personal insight to collective responsibility.


Opening Plenary (Allyship in Action)

Drawing from lived experience, this candid conversation will explore what real partnership looks like when roles shift at home and at work. It will examine how supporting a spouse or partner through career growth, navigating evolving family dynamics, and stepping back so others can step forward reshapes one’s own leadership lens. Attendees will reflect on how witnessing resilience, reinvention, and vulnerability up close challenges ego, expands empathy, and strengthens perspective. The session moves allyship beyond corporate language and into daily practice, translating personal lessons into visible leadership behaviors that build trust, accountability, shared ownership, and collective success.


Interactive Breakout Sessions (Mixed-Level Dialogue)

Throughout the conference, participants will remain integrated across career stages. Each breakout group will intentionally include early career, mid-career, and executive leaders to create a dynamic exchange of perspective. The voice of an early career professional can surface blind spots, question assumptions, and challenge traditional thinking. A senior leader’s lens can provide context, pattern recognition, and strategic framing. Together, these conversations strengthen judgment and broaden decision-making.

Breakout discussions will center on:

• Strategic decision-making under pressure

• Influencing without formal authority

• Managing competing stakeholder priorities

• Communicating difficult decisions with integrity

• Aligning values with leadership action
  

These sessions are designed to foster real-time mentorship, reciprocal learning, and practical leadership skill-building rather than passive listening.


Closing Plenary and Cross-Generational Panel

The conference will conclude by bringing forward key insights from the breakout discussions and elevating them through moderated dialogue among early career, mid-career, and executive leaders. This session will connect individual reflection to collective leadership responsibility and reinforce the commitment to grow, contribute, and pay it forward.

This is not a traditional conference. It is an interactive leadership lab. Participants will leave with sharper clarity, stronger cross-level relationships, and actionable frameworks to lead with intention in the moments that matter most.

When we lead with purpose, we do more than respond to change. We shape what comes next.

Time Zone: Pacific

Please read the Ascend Terms of Registration and Participation carefully.