MISSISSAUGA, Ont. — Women executives tackled topics such as how to build awareness, insight and initiative in the workplace during this morning’s Women’s Foodservice Forum (WFF) Spring Leadership Roundtable, held at the Toronto Airport Marriott Hotel in Mississauga, Ont.
The sold-out event by the Dallas, Texas-based organization featured table discussions led by industry leaders, including Rossann Williams, SVP and president of Starbucks Canada, Jill Holroyd, SVP of Communications and Research at Restaurants Canada and Kimberly A. Freeburn, VP and CFO at Sysco Canada, Inc., who initiated conversations about pivotal points in careers, mechanisms for feedback, building networks, monitoring morale and fostering curiosity and innovation.
Williams, who’s been on the WFF board for three years, says what she loves about the roundtable event is that everybody shares a piece of advice that can be brought back to the workplace. “I think that there was a fairly strong common language about the two competences that we talked about today, about initiative and awareness, and one of the things I learned was that everybody has such a different view of what these are.”
It’s also about creating new opportunities for advancement, she added. “I think sometimes we over-award those type-A personalities, those go-getters,” she said. “We need to be better from a leadership perspective in really listening and asking better questions because not everybody is going to charge the hill for their career — we have to create opportunities for people to have their advancement, and it may not be the person saying ‘pick me pick me.’”
The WFF will be hosting upcoming roundtables in Calgary (May 5) and Montreal (May 12). For more information visit womensfoodserviceforum.com.
