For Single Women, No Place Like Home

If homeownership is important to wealth creation, more single women now are building a strong financial future via the housing market than are single men. According to the National Association of Realtors, 21% of homebuyers these days are single women versus just 9% of single men. (The remaining 61% of homebuyers are married couples.) So,...

Continue reading

How to Win the Future

Why are some leaders more successful at driving—and surviving—innovation? Three Chicago area women executives explored this topic and how they’re staying abreast of fast-moving change in a lively panel discussion called “Winning the Future: Components of Leadership Vision” on May 7, 2026. The event—hosted by Lisa Madigan and Kirkland & Ellis LLP in downtown Chicago—was...

Continue reading

From BINGO to Breakthroughs: Inside Two Days of Student Empowerment

Bravery doesn’t always look bold. Sometimes it looks like a teenage girl showing up powerfully by sharing where she doesn’t feel brave or powerful – yet.  On April 27 and 28, representatives of the Women’s Leadership Center at Williams Bay met with female students at Big Foot High School and Williams Bay High School for...

Continue reading

“Sneak Peek” Tour Introduces Women’s Leadership Center

A collective of women leaders from Chicago area organizations got a “dress rehearsal tour.” Their opinion: It’s show time. It still looks like a construction site, with visitors wearing hardhats and navigating around mud puddles to get inside the buildings. Plastic sheeting still wraps the door handles and some of the windows. But in a...

Continue reading
No Planet B

Climate change may affect everyone on Planet Earth, but it affects women more.

Reports from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UN Women state that women and children are 14 times more likely to die in disasters created by extreme weather than men. Furthermore, the UN Women’s Gender Snapshot Report 2025 suggests that 158 million more women and girls will be pushed into poverty by 2050, with...

Continue reading
WLC Team posing for 2026 International Women's Day

Celebrate the Gift of Giving: International Women’s Day is March 8

It’s a beautiful irony: The more we give, the more we get. That’s why “Give to Gain” is the theme of International Women’s Day this March 8, 2026.It takes a lot to sustain momentum towards advancing women’s leadership in areaswhere we’ve been underrepresented historically. To that end, we all need help, whichcan take many forms:...

Continue reading
team at WLC site

It’s Almost Time!

It’s almost time! Years of dreaming, planning, and building are paying off: Construction of the Women’s Leadership Center is approaching completion. To celebrate, our entire team recently visited campus together. It was really a moment: While every member of the team has played an important part in bringing this dream to life and many of...

Continue reading
Image of The Lodge building under construction

Building Progress Update February 2026

The end is in sight. Most of the heavy work of constructing buildings, installing infrastructure, and laying down hardscaping (the paths, walkways, and driveways) has been done. A year ago, our teams had to battle winter’s cold as they worked inside structures without walls or complete roofs. Today, the crews get to enjoy warm, dry...

Continue reading
WLC Admin Office Sign

Introducing Our New Office in Downtown Williams Bay

We love our new offices at 36 W. Geneva Street. We’ve now opened an administrative office for the Women’s Leadership Center in downtown Williams Bay. It will be our base for operations in tandem with the full campus on Constance Boulevard — close to everything so we can hold meetings, host small gatherings, and stay...

Continue reading

In Creative Assembly: Meet the Artists Shaping the Women’s Leadership Center

It is one of the most difficult, dangerous, and hard-to-manage artforms there is: molten glass. Yet in the hands of a master, it remains one of the most beautiful and ancient means of artistic expression that exists. Something about glass art feels so right in our new space. It’s made of naturally occurring organic material...

Continue reading
WLC and AWE Logos

A new chapter for AWESOME

We’re pleased to share an important milestone for AWESOME (Achieving Women’s Excellence in Supply Chain Operations, Management, and Education). As of January 1, 2026, AWESOME is part of the Women’s Leadership Center at Williams Bay (WLC).  In 2013, Ann Drake founded AWESOME to advance and transform the future of supply chain leadership by bringing together...

Continue reading

Scientista Podcast Spotlights the Women’s Leadership Center at Williams Bay

Scientista is a global non-profit that amplifies, empowers, and connects “women leading with science” – a mission deeply aligned with our own. The Scientista Podcast, hosted by behavioral scientist Dr. Sweta Chakraborty and former Assistant Secretary of State Monica Medina, spotlights candid conversations with changemakers and thought leaders from around the world. A new episode...

Continue reading