Leadership conferences promising to take your career to the next level are commonplace, as are those designed for women who are looking to break the glass ceiling, so when Stephanie Tavares-Rance, the co-founder of the renowned Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festivalset out to create her C-Suite Summit for Black women executives and entrepreneurs, she knew she wanted to create a different experience.
”I wanted women to come as they are, because I’ve been to a million conferences and everybody’s got a mask on,” Tavares-Rance told EBONY. “I don’t really care about where you work. I care about who you are as a person. I feel like, as Black women, we just need a space where we can come together and just network and coalesce and just be.”
Now in its second year, this October’s C-Suite Summit, with the theme of “Resilience,” was all that, and so much more. At times, it resembled an epic girls’ weekend — in a luxurious setting (the Park Hyatt Aviara in Carlsbad, California), with great girlfriend conversations, a field trip to Disney studios to visit the set of Reasonable Doubt and talk to its showrunner Raamla Mohammed, and even a late-night dance off.
Women wore name tags, but their business affiliations weren’t listed on them, to further underscore Rance’s focus on the person, not the position. The sessions over the four-day conference weren’t designed to help you add another zero to your paycheck or navigate office politics. Instead, attendees were given a chance to center their souls and emerge from the conference renewed and inspired.
Among the sessions were “Power, Position & Prevention: Health Strategies for Black Women Leading at the Top” and “Jump into Joy: Reclaim the Life You Were Created to Live.” “We have a mission as far as getting our corporate rewards, but we can’t get there unless we’re healthy — spiritually, physically, financially, mentally, and emotionally,” said speaker Dr. Kelly Elmorea former Walter Reed National Military Medical Center CEO who now is a healthcare wellness strategist.
To that end, there was a session covering everything from mental health to menopause, as well as a panel where women discussed why they made the pivot from corporate jobs to bet on themselves. In between sessions, attendees could do morning Afro-Soca workouts, book spa appointments, or hang out at the pool, which several made sure to do.
Some sessions, like the makeup session led by renowned makeup artist Cynde Watson with actress Vanessa Williams as her muse, ran an hour longer than the allotted time as participants sat enthralled, asking question after question. At the health panel, women talked about everything from parenting philosophies to trying to overcome past trauma. “This is beyond needed,” a conference goer said, her voice breaking, during the session.
There was a lot of emotion throughout the conference, be it laughter or tears. It closed on a spiritual high note during a session led by Dr. Wizdom Powell designed to help women reset emotionally so they can lead with positivity in all aspects of their lives. “
A lot of times, we’re taught to lead with our heads only. And that separation between head and heart and emotion is what is causing a lot of dissonance in the ways that we show up in spaces,” Powell said. “There are not very many spaces for black women leaders to actually show up whole, and because of that, we end up splitting ourselves into parts. These experiences ground women. It restores; it fills their cup so that they can then go out into the world and give them the overflow.”
During the week, some of the attendees put affirmations on a card and put it on an intention tree provided by Park Hyatt; it will be planted at the resort, “and live here in perpetuity, carrying their blessings and intentions forever,” said Brian Crail, director of event planning at the resort.
Those seeds were also planted inside each attendee, many of whom vowed to return for the third summit.
