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• Networking Happy Hour

  • When
    07/09/2026
  •  
    6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
  • Location
    El Torrito
  • Spaces left
    12

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  Networking Happy Hour!

  Join us for a relaxed evening outdoors to expand your network, exchange ideas, share experiences, or simply meet new people in a warm, welcoming atmosphere.

  Whether you're navigating a career pivot, building your next chapter, or just looking for genuine connection with women who get it, this one's for you.

  • Date: Thursday, July 9
  • Time: 6:00 PM
  • Location: El Torito, Milpitas

  Great company. Engaging conversations. Real relationships.

  Register in advance to reserve your seat -  space is limited!

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• Public Speaking: Building Confidence, Authenticity, and Engagement

  • When
    07/15/2026
  •  
    4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
  • Location
    Zoom

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  Speak with confidence. Lead with presence.

  
  

  Most leaders are never taught how to speak, they are just expected to. This is a practical, judgment-free session for senior women who want to own the room, not just survive it.

  
  

  Whether you are addressing your board, pitching a new idea, leading a town hall, or simply trying to feel more at ease in the rooms you already belong in, the ability to communicate with confidence changes everything.

  The goal is not to be perfect. It is to be present, clear, and unmistakably you.

  In this hands-on session, executive coach and product leadership veteran Diana Stepner shares the practical techniques she has used and taught across startups, enterprise organizations, and executive coaching engagements. You will leave with tools you can use immediately, in your next meeting, your next presentation, your next conversation that matters.

  • Event Date / Time: July 15 | 4:00 - 5:00  PM PST 
  • Location: Zoom

  What you will take away

  1. Confidence that is yours: Unlock your speaking potential and learn to channel nervous energy as fuel - not a liability.
  2. Authentic delivery: Move past performance mode and into genuine connection with your audience, every time you speak.
  3. Techniques that work: Walk away with proven methods, including Memory Bookends and the Accordion Method, for clear, engaging delivery.

  This session is designed for you if

  • Presentations, pitches, or town halls feel more draining than they should
  • You want to be more compelling without becoming someone you are not
  • You are stepping into higher-visibility roles and want to show up fully

  About the Speaker

  Diana Stepner is a Silicon Valley native who believes in the power of putting people first. She combines deep product leadership experience with a human-centered approach to help ambitious product leaders unlock their full potential.

  Diana’s background includes leadership roles across startups, enterprise organizations, digital agencies, and software consulting, including E.piphany, Cheapflights, SimplePractice, Salesforce, Monster, Pearson, Razorfish, Epsilon, and more. She holds a MIMS from UC Berkeley, an MBA from Boston University, and an ACC credential from the International Coaching Federation.

  Reserve your seat today!

  
  

  
  

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• AI x Human Leadership for Navigating Complexity

  • When
    07/21/2026
  •  
    5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
  • Location
    Canopy, Menlo Park
  • Spaces left
    0

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  AI × Human Leadership - A 3-session experiential lab for women leaders ready to stop waiting for the perfect moment  and start moving

  The leaders who thrive in uncertainty aren't the ones with the best strategy.
  They're the ones who stopped waiting for the perfect moment to act.
  Most high-performing women we know have the intelligence, the experience, and the insight. What gets in the way isn't capability.

  Join us to experience how the shift happens

  • Dates/Times:  TBD
  • Location: Canopy, Menlo Park

  Session 1: Unlocking Your Inner Experimenter 

  Most leaders facing complexity don't have a strategy problem. They have a fear response and it's completely rational. This session interrupts it. Through live micro-experiments, you'll discover why the instinct to protect and perfect is actually slowing you down and experience firsthand what becomes possible when you give yourself permission to try instead of waiting until you're sure.

  You'll leave with:

  • Your specific "gremlin" pattern named and defanged  the internal voice that surfaces whenever change, AI, or bold action is required

  • One small, real experiment to run before Session 2, tied to a challenge right now

  • A visceral  understanding of why experimentation is the fastest path through complexity

  Session 2: The Good Enough Start 

  Perfectionism isn't about high standards. It's about waiting;  and waiting is a strategy for staying stuck.We open by debriefing the experiments you ran between sessions. Every outcome is treated as data, not judged as success or failure. Then we go deeper on what makes it so hard to start before you're ready, and what actually happens when you do.

  You'll leave with:

  • Real data about your own leadership patterns, drawn from your own experiment

  • A concrete protocol for giving yourself and your teams permission to start 

  • The Learning Autopsy: a simple framework for extracting insight from anything that didn't go as planned

  Session 3: The Agile Leader 

  The goal was never to be right. The goal is to learn faster than the world is changing. This closing session integrates everything from the lab and sends you home with practices built to last not just intentions that fade when Monday hits.

  You'll leave with:

  • A personalized experimentation practice specific enough to actually do, anchored real challenges

  • A 30-day plan you'll start before you leave the room

  • A learning partner and a clear picture of how to extend this practice to the teams you lead

  Reserve your seat today (14 spots total, this fills fast) 

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• Trust Is the Work: The Leadership Infrastructure We Can't Afford to Ignore

  • When
    08/18/2026
  •  
    4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
  • Location
    Zoom

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  Trust is one of the most frequently cited leadership priorities—and one of the least understood. Leaders talk about earning trust, rebuilding trust, and cultivating trust, yet few have been taught how trust is actually created, sustained, or repaired when it breaks.

  In today's workplace, where change is constant, teams are distributed, and expectations continue to evolve, trust is no longer a "soft skill." It is essential leadership infrastructure. Without it, communication breaks down, engagement declines, and even the strongest strategies struggle to gain traction.

  Join leadership strategist and executive coachAila Malikfor an engaging and practical conversation about the role trust plays in effective leadership. Drawing on more than two decades of experience coaching senior executives through organizational change, career transitions, and high-stakes leadership challenges, Aila will introduce a powerful three-layer framework for understanding and building trust:

  • Workability— creating shared clarity and alignment
  • Credibility— establishing confidence through knowledge, evidence, and consistency
  • Vulnerability— fostering connection through authenticity and shared humanity

  Through real-world examples and actionable insights, participants will learn how to identify trust gaps, navigate resistance more effectively, and create the conditions that help people feel safe enough to engage, contribute, and grow.

  Whether you're leading a team, managing through uncertainty, stepping into a larger leadership role, or navigating your own career transition, this session will provide practical tools to help you build trust intentionally—and lead with greater confidence, influence, and impact.

  What You'll Learn

  By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

  • Identify and apply the three layers of trust—Workability, Credibility, and Vulnerability—to strengthen leadership effectiveness and team dynamics.
  • Reframe resistance and disengagement during periods of change by shifting from"Why won't they follow?"to"What would make this feel safe?"
  • Recognize trust as a strategic leadership asset and develop practical approaches for building it across teams, organizations, and key relationships.
  • Strengthen their ability to lead through complexity, uncertainty, and transition with greater empathy and effectiveness.

  About the Speaker

  Aila Malikis a leadership strategist, executive coach, and founder of Venture Leadership Collective, a consultancy that partners with venture-ready organizations to advance equity, sustainability, and long-term impact. For more than 20 years, she has coached high-performing leaders through complex transitions, helping them navigate organizational change, build trust-centered cultures, and lead with greater clarity and purpose.

  Aila is also a sought-after speaker, children's author, and lifelong advocate for global learning and community impact. She once homeschooled her three children while traveling to 41 countries in 54 weeks, partnering with more than 25 nonprofits dedicated to preserving cultural and environmental wisdom.

  Her leadership and impact have been recognized through numerous honors, including being named aPresidential Leadership Scholar, aSilicon Valley Business Journal Woman of Influence, and a2026 Silicon Valley Business Journal AAPI Leadership Award Honoree. She holds a Juris Doctor from Santa Clara University and a Bachelor of Science from UC Santa Barbara.

  
  

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