Join us for a lively conversation on Future-Fit leadership with Halla Tómasdóttir, CEO of The B Team, a global collective of business and civil society leaders catalyzing a better way of doing business for people and planet, and Rha Goddess, author of The Calling, co-founder of White Awakening and nFormation.
Across business and government, our current organizational and societal leadership structures do not match the needs of our time or the diversity of our world. A crisis of conformity in leadership has led us to heightened risk, a lack of innovation and a limited ability to problem solve. That crisis of conformity has been fuelled by myths about the type of person that can be a leader, and has long excluded women, people of color, indigenous communities and other historically marginalized groups – the very same people that are hardest hit by our world’s problems (from COVID-19 to climate change).
This conformity holds companies back and leaves them ill-equipped to take on the world’s most pressing challenges. We know that in order to change how we do business we need to change who is in leadership by making concrete commitments to diversifying leadership teams and decision-making spaces.
Join us for a lively conversation on Future-Fit leadership with Halla Tómasdóttir, CEO of The B Team, a global collective of business and civil society leaders catalyzing a better way of doing business for people and planet, and Rha Goddess, author of The Calling, co-founder of White Awakening and nFormation.
'Leadership pipelines have long been touted as a roadblock when it comes to advancing diversity in leadership. We know the talent is out there. That’s not the issue. It’s the roadblocks that are barriers to entry: structural inequities, lack of mentorship, and the limiting way that potential leaders are assessed.'
- Halla Tómasdóttir, CEO of The B Team
Meet Our Featured Speakers
Halla Tómasdóttir is the CEO of The B Team, a global collective of business and civil society leaders catalyzing a better way of doing business for people and planet. Halla started her leadership career in corporate America working for Mars and Pepsi Cola. She was on the founding team of Reykjavík University where she established the Executive Education Department, founded and led a successful women’s entrepreneurship and empowerment initiative and was an assistant professor at the Business School. She was the first female CEO of the Iceland Chamber of Commerce and later went on to co-found an investment firm with the vision to incorporate feminine values and ESG into finance. The company successfully survived the infamous economic meltdown in Iceland. In 2016 Halla was an independent candidate for the presidency of Iceland. She entered a crowded field of candidates and finished as the runner-up with nearly 30% of the vote.
Rha Goddess is the co-Founder of White Awakening, and the acclaimed entrepreneurial soul coach behind hundreds of breakthrough changemakers, cultural visionaries and social entrepreneurs. From multiple NY Times Bestsellers to multi-million dollar social enterprises, Rha’s unique methodology has empowered a new generation of conscious entrepreneurs to stay true, get paid, and do good. From the onset of her more than 30-year career as a cultural innovator, social impact strategist and creative change agent, Rha has drawn on the power of creativity, culture and community to move hearts, minds and policy.
Rha’s work has focused on issues of racial justice and equality, electoral politics, offender aid and restoration, mental health and youth and women’s empowerment and contributed to initiatives that have impacted millions of lives. Rha’s book, The Calling (St. Martin’s Press) leverages her unique methodology into a step-by-step blueprint for finding your purpose and making your most profitable contribution.
We also know that the path to the top is not the same for all people - and that we must employ an equity mindset and an intersectional understanding of inequality in order to account for the interwoven and simultaneous impacts of race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexuality, disability, socioeconomic background and more.
To change how we lead and do business, we must change who is in leadership.
Yet through all of this, we need to redefine leadership altogether. Twenty-first-century challenges and realities are unlike those of previous eras, and we must uplift a leadership model that is well-equipped to navigate these uncharted waters. With more diversity in leadership and a focus on humanity, empathy, sustainability and equity, companies will be better equipped to deliver a future that will benefit generations to come.
