Speakers announced for annual WOW! event

The annual WOW! Forum is a day-long event featuring nationally recognized speakers who educate and motivate the hundreds of women attending the largest professional development conference in this region. Since its inception 14 years ago, the event continues to flourish and inspires attendees professionally and personally.

Coordinated by the WOW! Forum Advisory Committee, every detail of the day is focused on supporting and empowering women in the workplace.

The 2018 WOW! Forum will be held Oct. 5 at the Carole & Ray Neag Performing Arts Center of the Warner Theatre. The theme for this year’s conference is Women of Strength & Courage.

The WOW! Forum is excited to have speaker Silvia Baldini. Silvia was born and raised in Turin, Italy, a town where the bond to your own family is as strong as the one for beautiful food and good wines. She moved to California when she was 17 and graduated from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and then moved to New York to work in advertising.

Following a distinguished and award-winning career as an art director on Madison Avenue, Silvia pursued culinary training at ICC in NYC and Cordon Bleu in London. She worked at Michelinstar kitchens in Europe including Ottolenghi and the Ritz Carlton in London and has since established her own creative food group named Strawberry and Sage.

In an appearance on a Food Network show, Chef Chris Santos declared her dessert: “The best dessert on this show ever.” She became the first professional female chef in Connecticut to win Chopped, the award-winning show on Food Network. She has returned to Food Network as one of 16 chefs competing in the last season of Chopped Champions and has recently competed on Beat Bobby Flay.

Silvia also has a cooking series on FabFItFun.com with over seven million viewers. She is the lead chef, recipe developer and spokesperson for Realeats.com, a healthy meal delivery service. She is the coowner and founder of The Secret Ingredient Girls who believe wellness, beauty and happiness begin with wholesome ingredients- a place where she can share her passion for food, cooking and wellness with others. She has a large and loyal social media following on all platforms.

Silvia’s work and recipes have been published in Food and Wine, Bon Appetit, Parents Magazine, TeenVogue, Readers Digest, Thrillist, Refinery29, Country Magazine, Saveur, Martha Stewart, Cherry Bombe, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Independent. She has made television appearances on CNN, ABC, and Dr. Oz, to name a few.

She is highly sought after as a keynote speaker and industry panelist with extensive experience in the food and media industry. She is a member of the New York Women’s Culinary Alliance and the Toklas Society.

As speaking at this year’s Forum is Sara Laschever. Sara has spent her career investigating the obstacles, detours, and special circumstances that shape women’s lives and careers. She is the co-author, with Linda Babcock, of two groundbreaking books about women and negotiation, Women Don’t Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation—and Positive Strategies for Change and Ask for It! How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want. She has written extensively about women in business, women in literature and the arts, women in academia, and women in the sciences. Her work has been published by The New York Times, The Harvard Business Review, The Guardian, The New York Review of Books, Vogue, Glamour, and many other publications.

Sara is frequently cited in the national and international media as an expert on women’s leadership, the persistence of the wage gap, women and conflict resolution, work-life balance issues, and the multiple factors influencing women’s long-term career success. She lectures and teaches workshops about women and negotiation for corporate audiences, colleges and universities, law firms, government agencies, and women’s leadership conferences in the U.S. and around the world.

A founding faculty member of the Carnegie Mellon Leadership and Negotiation Academy for Women, Sara served as Academic Coordinator for the inaugural WIN Summit, a global women’s conference focused on women and negotiation. She provides private and group coaching services to women navigating critical career transitions, taking on new leadership roles, and preparing for high-stakes negotiations.

Check back next week for other speaker bios.

Tickets for the WOW! Forum are on sale now. More information, the schedule of events, and tickets can be found online at www.wowforum.org. The Premier Sponsor of the WOW! Forum is TD Bank, America’s Most Convenient Bank.