Renowned and inspirational keynote speakers will help participants clarify the issues around returning to work after a hiatus.

• Vivian Rabin, co-author of Back on the Career Track http://www.backonthecareertrack.com/  and www.iRelaunch.com
• Pamela Stone, author of Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp
• Leslie Bennetts, author of The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much? http://www.thefemininemistake.com/
  

Speaker Bios

Leslie Bennett is the author of The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much? A controversial, provocative, meticulously reported investigation into the risks of economic dependency and the benefits of work for women, the book was published last April to acclaim from all over the world. The paperback will be released in March of 2008. A longtime journalist, Bennetts has been a contributing editor at Vanity Fair since 1988, writing on subjects that have ranged from movie stars to U.S. anti-terrorism policy. Her 2005 cover story on Jennifer Aniston was the best-selling issue in the magazine’s history.
Prior to joining Vanity Fair, Bennetts spent fifteen years as a newspaper reporter, including a decade at The New York Times, where she covered national politics, metropolitan news, City Hall, Style and cultural news. She was the first woman ever to cover a presidential campaign for The Times. She also worked for The Washington Star and The Philadelphia Bulletin, where she started covering so-called “women’s issues” in the early 1970’s. She has continued to write about women, marriage, families and parenting ever since.

Patricia V. Imbimbo, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist, a college administrator, and an executive coach.  She is the Director of the Starr Career Development Center (SCDC) at Baruch College where she administers a career services program for the almost 13,000 students.  In addition, she is a psychotherapist, and has worked with corporate managers for almost 20 years as a career coach with the Center for Creative Leadership and as an outplacement associate with Drake, Beam, Morin.  Dr. Imbimbo served for two years in the U. S. Peace Corps in India, and was the director of a large New York city daycare center prior to her career in higher education.  Since 2000, she has made two trips to China on a grant from the Ford Foundation as a consultant to college career centers and she is currently the President of the CUNY Career Services Association. Dr. Imbimbo received her Masters degree in Education from New York University and her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Columbia University.  She is passionate about her career and believes that in-depth self exploration is the most important step in the journey toward finding meaningful work. 

Mary Kern, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of management at the Zicklin School of Business of Baruch College. Prior to joining academe, Professor Kern worked for Deloitte as a CPA in the Advisory & Assurance Group, and then as a Recruiting Manager in both the local and global practices. Professor Kern received her BBA in Accounting from the University of Notre Dame. She received her MS in Human Resources and Industrial Relations from Loyola University-Chicago and her Ph.D. in Management and Organizations from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Professor Kern has received numerous awards and grants, including the Kellogg School of Management Teaching Award. Her research interests focus on the complexities inherent in bringing together culturally-diverse people to work on a project team, negotiate a deal, or even to have an informal conversation. Her work was most recently published in Harvard Business Review. Professor Kern currently teaches undergraduate, graduate, and executive courses in negotiation and conflict resolution, and the MBA core organizational behavior course.

Ginny Malone is in charge of Reuters Academy which trains about 150,000 clients in the United States, Canada and Latin America to use Reuters’ financial data products. Before joining Reuters, she ran her own business, ILM, Inc. for 10 years designing remote and classroom training (Colgate-Palmolive, Hewlett-Packard). Before that, she held similar positions at Bankers Trust’s Private Bank and Citibank’s Private Bank. She was a college recruiter at Morgan Bank and has interviewed hundreds of  candidates. She ran a networking group (TNL Group) for about 150 professionals in New York from 2002 to 2006. At Baruch, she is a judge for the Executive MBA Program and is a Council Member of the Bernard L. Schwarz Institute of Communication. She has a BA from Hunter College, and has attended NYU’s Digital Multimedia Certificate Program. She is a speaker at professional organizations.

Vivian Steir Rabin is the co-author of Back on the Career Track: A Guide for Stay-at-Home Moms Who Want to Return to Work (Warner Books, June 2007) and co-founder of iRelaunch, a company connecting mid-career professionals on career break with each other, with resources to update them and, when they’re ready, with companies interested in reengaging them.  After 10 years in business, including roles in finance and human resources at Lehman Brothers and the Advisory Board Company, Ms. Rabin took a seven year career break to care for her five children. In 2000, she returned to the workforce as a retained executive search consultant. During the transition from home to work, she saw that there were no resources for others seeking to make this same transition, and formed a long-term goal of “doing something about the reentry problem.”  As a result of the book and iRelaunch, Ms. Rabin is a frequent speaker and consultant on the topic of career reentry.  She and her co-author Carol Fishman Cohen have been quoted in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Fast Company, as well as in several popular blogs and websites, including msncareerbuilder, msnbc.com and mojomom.  iRelaunch was awarded the 2007 Workplace Innovations Award by the Women’s Leadership Institute of Bentley College.  Ms. Rabin is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School. 

Edward G. Rogoff, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Management of the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College.  He received a Ph.D. from Columbia University, where he wrote his dissertation under the supervision of Nobel Laureate William Vickery. Dr. Rogoff founded and was CEO of two media companies that owned 23 radio stations throughout the United States.  He currently serves as the Academic Director of the Lawrence N. Field Center for Entrepreneurship at Baruch College, one the highest ranked Entrepreneurship programs in the United States. He teaches and conducts research on entrepreneurship, particularly relative to minority and later-life issues. He has been recognized for excellence in teaching with awards from both at Baruch College and by New York University. In addition, he has written articles for the New York Times, Forbes, and Newsday, and has been a frequent guest on CNN.  His books include Bankable Business Plans, Bankable Business Plans for Entrepreneurial Ventures, The Entrepreneurial Artist, Bankable Business Plans for Non-Profit Organizations, and with co-author Michael Corbett, The Entrepreneurial Conversation.

Lori Rotskoff, Ph.D., is a cultural historian with a specialty in women's studies.  She teaches part-time at the Barnard Center for Research on Women, and is currently working on a book about childrearing, gender roles, and American culture from the 1970s to the present. She has published book reviews and articles in The Chicago Tribune,  the Women's Review of Books, and other national Publications.  She is also the author of the book Love on the Rocks: Men, Women, and Alcohol in Post-World War II America.

David Schmier is the Founder and Executive Director of New York-based career consultancy, GetHired, a seminar and training business that uses paradigm-shifting strategies and tools to help people get great jobs. David founded GetHired in 1999 and since that time has helped hundreds of people acquire GetHired skills and get the job they want. His ideas have reached large audiences in over 30 major newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, and through his book, When Can you Start? The 5 New Rules of Job Finding Success. Prior to creating the GetHired system, David spent over 15 years as a senior manager at major companies where he was responsible for hiring and managing hundreds of staff. As the former Director of Interactive Marketing at AOL, Senior VP at the Sterling Group, and Head of Production for Mattel Toys, David learned the intricacies of hiring in the corporate environment. As a freelance producer of television commercials, he managed the hiring of staff and large crews for a wide range of Fortune 500 clients, and learned how to repeatedly get himself hired with each new project.

Jennifer Shaheen, eMarketing and Technology Therapist®, is an expert at helping small and mid-sized companies use technology to leverage effective marketing strategies and increase business productivity. In addition to her years of in-depth technological experience, Jennifer has an understanding of how technology can be used in practical business applications. Her techniques have boosted sales, enhanced staff productivity, and increased market share. Jennifer is a strong advocate of small women-owned businesses. Jennifer is a certified software trainer and educator.  She is one of the premier Certified Instructors in the area of Web Development. Jennifer has shared her expertise as the featured speaker in multiple national business conferences. Her key topics have included eCommerce essentials for start-up businesses, Effective email marketing, and Winning Business Online. Jennifer is a contributing author for Womenandbiz.com and Women's Radio. In addition, Jennifer writes a business blog which was nominated for a bloggers’ choice award and ranked in the top 20 of the business blogs.

Pamela Stone, Ph.D., is Professor of Sociology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.  Her research interests are gender inequality in employment, occupational classification and measurement, job segregation, pay equity, and the work-family interface.  Her research has been supported by a variety of funders including the National Science Foundation and the Sloan Foundation.  Former chair of the Department of Sociology at Hunter, Stone was the recipient of a Public Policy Fellowship at Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, where she also served as Associate Director of the Radcliffe Public Policy Institute.  Her recent book, Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home (University of California Press, 2007), has been featured on NBC’s “Today” and “Weekend Today,”  “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,” and “ABC World News Tonight,” among other TV and radio appearances, and she has been widely quoted in such publications as Time, USA Today, US News & World Report, Newsweek, and More.  A graduate of Duke University, Stone received her PhD in Sociology from Johns Hopkins University.