U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will be the keynote speaker at the 25th Women’s Economic Opportunity Conference Saturday, October 1 at Vermont Technical College in Randolph Center, Sen. Patrick Leahy announced this morning.
The annual event is hosted by Sen. Leahy, who is not running for re-election this year. Past keynote speakers include Xusana Davis, Jen Kimmich, Corinne Prevot, Mary Alice McKenzie, Former U.S. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, VPR’s Jane Lindholm, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and equal pay activist Lilly Ledbetter.
Yellen most recently has taken criticism for ordering the IRS to draw up a plan to spend $80 billion to ‘transform’ its mission and capabilities. She also admitted recently that, contrary to earlier statements, the current inflation would likely be a longterm problem.
Yellen is a former chair of the White House Economic Advisors and the Federal Reserve Board. Born and raised in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Yellen graduated from Brown University in 1967 and earned her PhD in economics from Yale University in 1971, according to her Wikipedia entry. She taught as an assistant professor at Harvard University from 1971 until 1976 when she began working for the Federal Reserve Board as an economist from 1977 to 1978, before joining the faculty of the London School of Economics from 1978 to 1980. Yellen is professor emeritus of the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, where she has been a faculty member since 1980 and became the Eugene E. and Catherine M. Trefethen Professor of Business and Professor of Economics.
A Vermont Daily Chronicle reader and woman entrepreneur forwarded the invite email this morning. Sen. Patrick Leahy issued the following statement at 10:30 AM today:
I am delighted to announce that Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen will be the keynote speaker at the 25th Women’s Economic Opportunity Conference (WEOC) on Saturday, October 1, 2022. The conference will once again be in person at the Vermont Technical College’s Randolph Center campus.
In addition to Secretary Yellen’s keynote address, conference attendees will participate in workshops led by experts on career advancement, skill development, non-traditional careers for women, financial planning, and much more.
Vermont has come a long way since WEOC began in 1996. We have one of the smallest gaps between the wages of men and women in the country. Prior to the pandemic, the more than 23,000 businesses owned by women in Vermont produced a combined $2.2 billion in annual revenue.
But there remain critical gaps, particularly for women of color and women living with disabilities. The talent, skills, and energy of too many Vermont women remain underutilized and untapped to the detriment of us all. That’s why Marcelle and I started this conference 25 years ago.
The conference would not have been possible without the organizing committee members who brought their vision, energy, and connections to this event; the experts who donated their time to run workshops and take part in panel discussions; and, most of all, the women of Vermont who came to the conference and shared their experiences and expertise with their fellow Vermonters.
The conference is free, but I urge you to register early as space is limited. For more information on the conference and to register, please visit my website . While proof of vaccination is not required, for the safety of all participants, we are encouraging attendees to be fully vaccinated and take a COVID-19 test before attending or wear a mask during the event.
For Marcelle and I, WEOC is one of the highlights of the year, but never more so than this year, our first in-person conference since 2019. We are excited to host Secretary Yellen for the conference’s 25th year, and we look forward to seeing you soon.