Courage is the prerequisite to confidence. This powerful phrase from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management Professor Ellen Taaffe’s book The Mirrored Door inspired a special workshop hosted by the Women’s Leadership Center at Williams Bay High School. The event, titled “Courage Creates Confidence,” took place on Thursday, February 9, 2025. It was the second annual...
February 21, 2025
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In Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talks about climbing onto a wooden motorboat bobbing on Geneva Lake in Wisconsin early one September morning. “We were all a little wobbly,” she admits. Some of the wobbles came from gobs of celebrating the day and night before...
February 4, 2025
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Jeanne Gang, the world-renowned architect whose design for the Women’s Leadership Center at Williams Bay is now rising on the banks of Geneva Lake in Wisconsin, was honored on December 5, 2024, with the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award by ULI Chicago, the local district council of the Urban Land Institute. Jeanne Gang is the founding partner of Studio Gang, an...
December 16, 2024
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The warm months of summer and fall saw us pouring footings and foundations for all three main buildings — the Lodge, Council, and Cabin — and installing utilities. Now, interior walls are going up so that we can put in HVAC ductwork and wiring for electrical service. By the time snow flies we plan to...
December 12, 2024
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From left to right: Colleen Lyell and Aria Griffin
December 5, 2024
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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