Earlier this year, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce announced the appointment of Susan Penta as the new Chair of its Women's Network Advisory Board. In this new role, Susan will lead a diverse and dynamic group of senior-level women from the Chamber’s Board of Directors and general membership. The Advisory Board helps to shape the vision and strategy of the Women’s Network to successfully connect, advance, and celebrate professional women in the region.

In February, Susan kicked off the network's exciting lineup of events for 2022 with The Journey to Success: Celebrating Female Entrepreneurs, which featured some of the area's top female entrepreneurs as they shared their journeys building successful businesses.

The Women's Network signature event, The Pinnacle Awards, was held at the Omni Seaport Hotel on March 4th. As a long time sponsor, our team attended its first in-person community event in almost 2 years, celebrating the accomplishments of this year's stellar class of honorees who demonstrated resilience, strength and impact despite global challenges.

As part of the pre-event workshops, Susan moderated a virtual panel featuring several of her fellow past Pinnacle Award honorees in a lively discussion on Empowering Leadership. The discussion focused on the importance of working with and supporting women across generations and how it creates a positive ripple effect for different perspectives, skills and collaborative relationships.

One of the highlights of our year took place on March 29th, as Susan sat down with Hill Holliday's Karen Kaplan as she shared her journey from receptionist to CEO of one of the largest marketing agencies in the country. Touching on everything from embracing opportunity to leading during the pandemic to the importance of championing women, this lively session definitely left the audience wishing for more!

On April 6th, MIDIOR proudly sponsored the Center for Women and Enterprise's annual fundraiser, Celebrating Women Who Lift Up the World.  After two years of having to hold this event virtually, the organizers were thrilled to welcome guests back in-person for a night of inspiring programming and exciting bidding. Congratulations to the CWE team on successfully raising $290,000, surpassing their fundraising goal by nearly $50,000!

As a founding member of WPI's Women's Impact Network, Susan Penta has always demonstrated a passion for education, leadership and philanthropy, which she shares with this diverse group of visionary women in this organization. On February 8th, she participated in an interactive presentation on entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship: Ideation to Creation and Beyond, during which she and WPI Professor Rosanna Garcia shared their experiences and ideas on how attendees can get their ideas off the ground and take their businesses to the next level.

In honor of International Women's Day, Susan Penta participated in an enlightening panel discussion, Unpacking the Shecession: Reimagining a New Workforce for a New World. Over the past two years, women have left the workforce at an unprecedented rate. They often occupy jobs that require them to physically show up to work, yet many are also parents with young children at home who need oversight and attention or are the caretakers of aging parents. As a result, in the last quarter of 2021 alone, as many as 1 in 3 women reported considering leaving their job, reducing work hours, or changing jobs. Panelists discussed the lack of policies that allow people to balance caregiving and work responsibilities, pay inequality, and the outdated view of the expendability of women in the workforce.