A manager has given notice and interviews for a replacement will start soon—should you apply? Your year-end performance review is coming up—is it time to ask for a promotion? Or maybe you have taken on additional job responsibilities and want to request an increase in salary. When faced with these and similar career crossroads, what is the best way to remind your managers about your contributions to the team without sounding self-serving? Last March, a powerhouse mother-daughter team, Ann Brennan and Claire Heffner, walked us through some strategies that can help us navigate these tricky situations.

Patrick Kilner, author of Find Your Six, kicked off our Leadership Seminar series on October 5 with a compelling account of the observations and experiences that led him to look at business relationships in a way that can result in a more fulfilling view of work as well as more rewarding results.

The “rebirth” of MHI in-person activities took place on November 6, 2021 with an ethics case discussion led by Bettina Alonso, Executive Director of Development of the Archdiocese of New York. The theme of the discussion—“Is Over-trusting Negligent?”—was sparked by a case study of Berkshire-Hathaway’s corporate policy, one that runs counter to so many others: Instead of relying on legal support and compliance experts, why not build a culture of trust by hiring trustworthy people and letting them do their job without undue interference? The relevance of this policy to the principle of subsidiarity, one of the guiding principles of the social teaching of the Catholic Church, was pointed out and potential benefits and risks were debated.

The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, based at Santa Clara University, deals with ethical decision making as it applies to real-world problems. The work of the center encompasses all fields, including biology, technology, and business. On October 20 we were pleased to welcome Ann Skeet, Senior Director of Leadership Ethics at the Markkula Center to speak about “Making Ethical Decisions—A Framework for Leaders.”

Our mentoring program, developed with the help of many, has become the backbone of our organization, prompting many initiatives including the spring 2021 launch of MHI-CONNECT. At the same time, some of the most significant personal experiences have taken place “behind the scenes” with one-on-one encounters between women as they make connections before and after our events. Alessa Caridi, founder and owner of JōbuFIT, a workplace wellness program, shared with us one of those moments, which she recounted in an interview for Authority magazine.

The growth and development of our MHI mentoring program have given us an opportunity to expand our resources. We are pleased to announce a new program available to current and past MHI Mentees: MHI-CONNECT, a network that fosters business and personal advancement, peer support and mentoring, and great friendships.

MHI-CONNECT brings together current and past MHI mentees to take their networking and professional development goals to the next level. With each MHI-CONNECT meeting, members will walk away with greater professional acumen, a more expansive network, deeper alliances and strong friendships.

Meshell Baker is a confidence coach and teacher of vision. On February 10, Meshell lit up hearts when she passionately delivered her virtual presentation "Unleashing Your SuperPowers: Cultivating Your Inner Voice Champion." The conversation centered on believing in yourself to help realize your dreams and live your vision, and the necessary habits to support that.

For many of us, our lives took a dramatic shift last spring as our usual routines and activities were suddenly upended because of the pandemic. Some of us were flooded with plans of what we might do “now that we have more time.” We would learn a new language, listen to a different online opera each week, clear off the treadmill and actually use it. But maybe we had so many ideas we did not know where to start, or perhaps our psychological energy was exhausted from coping with so many changes in daily living. On January 7, Kara Herman Fransted took us through some exercises to help us determine our personal priorities and evaluate how we are spending our waking hours to align with what is most important to us.