We are excited to announce the first-ever Iron Sharpening Iron Alumnae Gathering, featuring exciting new guests as well as old favorites.
Welcoming back alumnae is our first order of business, but this event is also an invitation to join the Iron Sharpening Iron network! If you’ve ever been curious about one of our programs, there is no better way to learn about their impact than by joining us in October and hearing directly from the women who have been part of it.
Priya Parker is best known as the author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters.
Artful gathering is a lifelong practice that instills in you a curiosity, willingness, and a generosity of spirit to ask: How might we do this differently? What does it look like to design a gathering that reflects who we are—in all of our differences—and the world we desire to build.
We can think of few more important questions for the church to ask. Join us for this evening with Priya…
Thursday, October 24, 2024 @ 5:30 pm
Princeton, NJ
You are invited to join us in New York City for a special reception hosted at The Glass Ceiling.
Located in the heart of Nomad — close to both Penn Station and Grand Central Station — The Glass Ceiling is an exclusive rooftop sanctuary just up the stairs from Luminary, a lively women’s co-working space.
The reception will feature light bites and cocktails, an iconic view of the Empire State Building, and the chance to celebrate the first five years of Iron Sharpening Iron alongside alumnae and other special guests.
Friday, October 25 @ 5:30-8:30 pm
New York, NY
For alumnae who’d like to brush up on the basics, you can opt-in to sit on sessions alongside Class V.
Topics this fall include Design Thinking, led by Karen Hold; and Strategic Planning, led by Jennifer Lobenhofer. You will also have the chance to sign up for a creativity workshop with Carey Wallace, Carmelle Beaugelin, or Amy Herman.
Breakfast + lunch will be included.
Tuesday, October 22 – Thursday, October 24
Princeton, NJ
Cost
CONTENT REFRESH – $250
Available to Alumnae ONLY
Participate in the Design Thinking and Strategic Planning Plenary Sessions
Breakfast and Lunch Provided
EVENING WITH PRIYA PARKER – $75
Interview Followed by Reception
PARTY ON THE GLASS CEILING – $90
Food, Drink, and Celebration at this Unique New York City Venue
PACKAGES
REFRESH + PRIYA + PARTY – $350
Available to Alumnae ONLY
PRIYA + PARTY – $150
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Members of the ISI Network will have a special promo code applied for additional savings.
Lodging is not included in these costs. There will be a small block of rooms at the Erdman Center that will be ~$80/night. Local hotels tend to be closer to $130/night. Air BnB or VRBOs in the area range from $100-300 a night, but split with a group are quite reasonable.
Featured Panelists and Presenters
Priya Parker’s bold approach to gatherings redefines the ways people connect, learn, and develop relationships. The acclaimed author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters, executive producer and host of the New York Times podcast, Together Apart, and the founder of boutique advisory firm Thrive Labs, she helps activists, elected officials, corporate executives, educators, and philanthropists create transformative, unforgettable gatherings that allow them to step back from their daily routine, rediscover their motivations, and develop strategies for innovation.
In The Art of Gathering, Parker combines fascinating case studies culled from an international cast of characters with practices to follow—and rules to break— to connect more meaningfully with friends, colleagues, and strangers. She includes examples from her attempts to create connections, illustrating which tactics worked and which ones failed.
Parker’s The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters has been named a Best Business Book of the year by Amazon, Esquire Magazine, NPR, the Financial Times, 1-800-CEO-READS and Bloomberg. She has spoken on the TED Main Stage, and her TEDx talk on purpose has been viewed over one million times.
Parker studied organizational design at M.I.T., public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and political and social thought at the University of Virginia.
KAREN HOLD is the founder and CEO of innovation strategy consulting firm, Experience Labs. A Procter & Gamble-trained brand marketer, Karen saw firsthand how P&G drove revenue and profit growth with innovation. With over 25 years of experience, Karen has consulted for dozens of Fortune 500 companies including AARP, AT&T, Alcatel-Lucent, Audi, Chick-fil-A, Cisco, John Hancock, Mercedes, Nokia, NEC, and Porsche. She is passionate about building creative capacity in individuals, organizations and cities.
Prior to forming Experience Labs, Karen was co-founder of Broadband Publishing, where she built sales through innovative marketing partnerships with Forbes and BusinessWeek magazines. Karen’s first book, written with Jeanne Liedtka and Jessica Eldridge, Experiencing Design – The Innovator’s Journey, was published by Columbia Business School Publishing in July 2021.
Karen is a graduate of Duke University and Georgetown’s McDonough Graduate School of Business. She is the Director of DT:DC, a 5,200 member MeetUp group in Washington, DC. She is a Visiting Executive Lecturer at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business and a Visiting Professor at Ecole des Ponts in Paris, France and Casablanca, Morocco and Boston College in Boston, Massachusetts.
JENNIFER LOBENHOFER is the founder of JSL Community Strategies. She guides mission-driven organizations in envisioning, planning, achieving, and measuring their greatest imaginable impact on the communities they serve. She has more than 20 years of experience providing capacity-building education, facilitation, and consulting to organizations in the public and nonprofit sectors, and her current consulting practice focuses on providing strategic planning and program evaluation support to nonprofit organizations.
Two decades ago, Jennifer began her career examining the outcomes of pilot programs demonstrating promising new responses to affordable housing and community development needs. She then directed a statewide community and economic development training and advising program for local government officials. Those combined experiences led her to the realization that nonprofit organizations engage in the most meaningful policy implementation, innovation, and “heavy lifting” of creating real social change in communities, and that they all too frequently face significant capacity challenges in maximizing their impact. Since then, Jennifer has dedicated herself to the belief that the greatest good can only be accomplished if it is done well, and she has built her consulting practice on that foundational philosophy.
Jennifer holds a Master of City and Regional Planning degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She currently lives in Thousand Oaks, California, where she enjoys choral singing, live theatre, wine tasting, and creating handmade greeting cards.
WORKSHOP LEADERS
- Carmelle Beaugelin: Creation Divina
- Carey Wallace: Art of Ministry
- Amy Herman: Visual Intelligence and the Art of Perception
