The Latest

The Many Women Building the Women’s Leadership Center

From left to right: Colleen Lyell and Aria Griffin

December 5, 2024

In Honor of Quiet Violets

The wood violet is the Wisconsin state flower. It’s sweet-smelling and grows everywhere, but it flourishes especially in rich, shady woodland — like the beautiful hill where our Women’s Leadership Center is rising. Now this unassuming-but-famous little flower is being honored in the architecture of the Women’s Leadership Center. Our Council building was designed to...

November 15, 2024

Articles

Immersed in Nature: Forest Bathing

There’s a simple but effective way to improve your physical and psychological wellbeing, and all you need are some woods and a little free time. In the 1980s, the Japanese pioneered a practice called “shinrin-yoku” or “forest bathing,” which entails going for a walk in woods without a phone or agenda. You can do it, too....

November 1, 2024

Events

Investing in the Future: Drake Scholars Reunite

Over 25 women from across the U.S. gathered in Lake Geneva from September 20-22 for the second Drake Scholars Retreat. The attendees received scholarships Ann funded through AWESOME (Achieving Women’s Excellence in Supply Chain Operations, Management, and Education), the MBA program at Kellogg School of Management, or the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. The purpose of these scholarships...

October 18, 2024

News

Women’s Leadership Center Breaks Ground on Facility Dedicated to Innovation

More than 200 supporters, city officials, friends, and dignitaries celebrated the start of construction on a new Women’s Leadership Center in Williams Bay—a unique meeting place designed to foster high levels of creativity, collaboration, and contribution, where accomplished women will come together to incubate fresh approaches to complex challenges—in a groundbreaking ceremony on July 19,...

July 23, 2024

News

The Women’s Leadership Center’s ‘Launch Crew’ Reunites to Celebrate Vision

They came together initially as 55 accomplished women who were strangers to each other but believers in a shared mission. And they partnered through the summer and fall of 2023 to deepen and expand that vision. A year later, they reunited for a special gathering to celebrate the growth and progress of that vision—creation of...

July 9, 2024

Events

A Collaboration Ready for Takeoff

We all get consumed with the demands of our professional lives. Intense board meetings. Conference calls on video. Searches for just the right talent. Who has time to break away for reflection and connection? At the second annual retreat of the Women Corporate Directors’ Chicago Chapter (WCD Chicago) in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, twenty high-achieving women...

May 29, 2024

Events

To Succeed, First Grow a Growth Mindset

An astrophysicist, a nationally known consultant and author, a marketing communications specialist, and a senior strategy advisor walk into a high school. The punchline? Actually, it’s no joke: For a group of teenage girls contemplating their futures, a workshop featuring women leaders in these four roles painted a picture of the possibilities—and the mental strength...

April 24, 2024

Updates

This Spring, Toasting to New Beginnings

Dear Friends, I have good news to tell you, and—while I’d be happy to share it any day—it feels especially fitting to talk about in this season of fresh starts. In a matter of days, we’ll begin work building our new home for women’s leadership in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. It’s been quite a march to...

March 21, 2024

Community

What’s It Like to Swing with a Star?

Fun! We love having the world-famous Yerkes Observatory as neighbor and community partner. Einstein visited here, and brilliant astronomers like Edwin Hubble, Carl Sagan, and Nancy Grace Roman all conducted valuable research at Yerkes. It’s been rightly called “the birthplace of modern astrophysics.” Now, after three years of painstaking restoration, this landmark institution has reopened to...

March 20, 2024

Updates

We’re Approved! It’s Time to Begin Site Work

We’re very excited. After more than two years of thinking and planning by the incredible architecture and design team at Studio Gang, we’re finally close to starting work at the site. The Williams Bay Board of Trustees has approved a final set of plans that honors our vision for the Center while also reflecting modifications the Village...

March 15, 2024

Articles

A Ravine Runs Through It: Preserving an Essential Ecological Element

When the last glaciers retreated from North America about 10,000 years ago, they left behind not only the cold, clear waters of Geneva Lake, but also beautiful terrain that had been deeply carved. The ravine on the west side of the WLC property is a remnant of that ancient process, and one of the most...

January 22, 2024