Women In Agriculture Brush Up On Networking Skills

Women in agriculture met in Calgary on Thursday, January 24 to polish up their networking skills.

Luree Williamson, CEO of Agriculture for Life which hosted the ConnectHER event, says it's important to put on these types of functions to support women in the industry.

"We had three amazing panelists who came and spoke to us about effective networking and what has been successful for them in their careers, so I think all in all it was a really great night."

The three panelists were Nutrien Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer, Leslie Donoghue, RBC Vice President of Commercial Financial Services, Tasha Brown, and President and CEO of UFA Co-operative Ltd., Carol Kitchen.

carol kitchen ufa connectHER jan24
President and CEO of UFA, Carol Kitchen.

Kitchen says one of her networking tips was to know who your personal board of directors is.

"People that are going to challenge you, give you good feedback, maybe give you some tough love when you need it, but who are those people? They could be some peers, people that are above you, or people in other industries."

Kitchen reflected on her early career when there was no one reaching back to help her navigate a complex career path.

"I think opportunities like these events are way for people like me to reach back, and make sure that other people have maybe a different perspective and can see the way to different roles. There's lots of jobs, there's lots of organizations in our industry, so how do you navigate those things? Hopefully some of our comments tonight help these women do that."

There was about 40 ladies at the first ConnectHER event in this year's series.