Annual Business and Leadership Conference for Women in Massachusetts

Keynote Speakers

Holly Robinson Peete
For more than two decades, Holly Robinson Peete has starred in high-profile TV roles ranging from comedy to drama. Upon graduating college, she landed the role of Officer Judy Hoffs on the hit series 21 Jump Street. From there, she secured starring roles on long-running sitcoms Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper, For Your Love and One on One. Holly is one of a handful of actresses to star in four shows in syndication.

Since January 2008, she and her husband, former NFL quarterback Rodney Peete, have hosted “Meet The Peetes” on XM Radio’s Oprah & Friends, covering topics on family, relationships and raising kids. She became an author with her book, Get Your Own Damn Beer, I’m Watching the Game: A Women’s Guide to Loving Pro Football. Released in 2005, Holly’s first book won a 2006 Quill Literacy Award. She is currently working on co-authoring a children’s book with her daughter Ryan. Holly has received numerous awards and honors for her incredible philanthropic deeds.

Holly believes profoundly in the power of philanthropy and lives by the motto “Service is the rent you pay for living.” In 1996, the Peetes formed a non-profit, the HollyRod Foundation, with a mission to help improve the quality of life of people plagued with devastating life circumstances. The foundation was inspired by her father’s battle with Parkinson’s Disease, which ultimately took his life in 2002. HollyRod has expanded its mission recently with the formation of HollyRod4Kids which benefits many children’s causes, focusing on improving the quality of life of the children in the Gulf Coast post-Katrina, Kenya and South Africa.

Marianne Williamson
Marianne Williamson is an internationally acclaimed author and lecturer. She has published ten books, five of which -- including her newest, The Age of Miracles: Embracing the New Midlife -- have been New York Times Bestsellers. Her first book, A Return to Love, spent 35 weeks in the #1 slot on the New York Times Bestsellers list and is considered a classic must-read of the new spirituality. Her other books include Everyday Grace, A Woman's Worth, Illuminata, Healing the Soul of America, The Gift of Change and Emma and Mommy Talk to God.

Marianne hosts a daily “Course in Miracles” radio program on Oprah and Friends network XM radio 156 and is a popular guest on television programs such as Oprah, Larry King Live, Good Morning America, Charlie Rose and The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch.

Marianne is a native of Houston, Texas. In 1989, she founded Project Angel Food, a meals-on-wheels program that serves homebound people with AIDS in the Los Angeles area. Today, Project Angel Food serves over 1,000 people daily. Marianne also co-founded The Peace Alliance, a grassroots campaign supporting legislation currently before Congress to establish a U.S. Department of Peace.

In December 2006, a NEWSWEEK magazine poll named Marianne Williamson one of the 50 most influential baby boomers. To read her latest reflections, visit Marianne at www.marianne.com.

Joni Evans
Joni Evans’ 35-plus year career in publishing includes serving as President and Publisher of Simon & Schuster, and Publisher at Random House. Most recently she was Senior VP of the William Morris Agency’s literary department, where she repped such bestselling authors as Marcus Buckingham, Ann Coulter, Fannie Flagg, Quincy Jones, Mary Wells Lawrence, Peggy Noonan, Martin Garbus, James Patterson, Liz Smith and John Stossel. In her dynamic career she has brought over 100 books to the bestseller list. Joni is a member of the Young President’s Organization and the Women’s Forum and is a founding member of both the Committee of 200 and Women’s Media Group. She has served as a director of the Dreyfus Fund for 18 years. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, New York and O. Joni shoots in the 80s, golfing in northern Westchester County with the man of her dreams, Bob Perkins.

Lesley Stahl
Lesley Stahl was one of the finest reporters ever on the Washington scene during her years as the CBS White House correspondent during the Carter, Reagan and Bush #1 years. She moderated the Sunday newsmaker Face the Nation during that period, interviewing world leaders and top officials. Her memoir, Reporting Live, covers these 20 years, including the Watergate scandal.

Lesley has now been with 60 Minutes, at the top of her game, and the show’s, for 17 seasons. She reported on buying a baby on the Romanian black market, covered autism to anthrax, inspected Google and Cirque de Soleil. She interviewed Yassir Arafat, Tony Blair, Ahmed Chalabi, Ariel Sharon and the young men from the Duke rape case.

She is wed to the writer Aaron (Urban Cowboy) Latham and their pride is daughter, Taylor, who married in the summer of 2007. The soft-spoken bearded Aaron and the dynamic blonde spiky-haired energetic Lesley make quite a couple.

Mary Wells
Mary Wells broke the glass ceiling in the 1970s when she founded the ad and marketing agency, Wells Rich Greene. She was so far ahead of her time that the idea of a woman succeeding in a man’s world didn’t even have a name. But Mary gave a name to everything.

Her agency created the “I Love New York” campaign and Alka Seltzer’s “Plop Plop Fizz Fizz.” It was Mary who famously painted the Braniff airplanes in bright colors, there by smashing the competition.

She was the first female CEO to take a company public and on to the New York Stock Exchange. She is in the Advertising Hall of Fame and the Copywriter’s Hall of Fame. Ad Age said: “She is advertising’s most widely publicized symbol of glamour, success, wealth, brains and beauty.”

She is the widow of Harding Lawrence. With her family, she has lived and worked in New York, Dallas, London, Cap Ferrat France, Mexico and Brazil. Her home is now on the island of Mustique and she travels in her glamorous Feadship “Strangelove.” She wrote a memoir, A Big Life -- In Advertising, and is busy on another book, develops real estate and helps women with problems to overcome them.

See the 2007 Speakers.