Harvard Club of Toronto

Prof Robin Ely: Celebrating and Advancing Women in Business

Event September 25, 2013

Prof Robin Ely: Celebrating and Advancing Women in Business

The Harvard Club of Toronto is pleased to promote an event presented by the Harvard Business School Club of Toronto and the Harvard Business School in continuing the year-long celebrations marking the 50^th anniversary that women were admitted to HBS.

Following a successful HBS dinner in May that was open to female alumni only, all alumni and their guests are invited to join us on Wednesday, September 25^th as we welcome co-chair of the W50 initiative, Professor Robin Ely to Toronto.

In her role as Senior Associate Dean for Culture and Community, Professor Ely is heading a culture change initiative at Harvard Business School to ensure that all members of the HBS community are able to thrive and reach their potential for advancing the mission of the School. 

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of women’s admission, the School developed an idea for an ambitious project: an extensive and innovative survey to capture the arc of the careers and lives of alumni. Initial findings of The Life and Leadership After HBS survey were published in April and can be found here. [link to http://www.hbs.edu/women50/images/womens_survey_preview_130424.pdf].

We are very grateful to be one of the few cities selected by HBS to welcome Professor Robin Ely, who will discuss the ground-breaking work the school is doing in setting an agenda for accelerating the advancement of women leaders who make a difference in the world.

Event details

About Professor Robin Ely:

Robin Ely is Diane Doerge Wilson Professor of Business Administration and Senior Associate Dean for Culture and Community at Harvard Business School.  She conducts research on race and gender relations in organizations with a focus on organizational change, group dynamics, learning, conflict, power, and identity.  Her recent work includes a study of men and masculinity on offshore oil platforms, research on the impact of racial diversity on retail bank performance, and presently, a study of how professional women experience holding positions of power.  In her role as Senior Associate Dean for Culture and Community, Professor Ely is heading a culture change initiative at Harvard Business School to ensure that all members of the HBS community are able to thrive and reach their potential for advancing the mission of the School.  Professor Ely has taught MBA courses in leadership, diversity, teams, and statistics and doctoral courses in field research methods; she has also taught in HBS’s executive education programs, including leadership programs designed specifically for women. 

For the past several years, Professor Ely has maintained an active faculty affiliation at the Center for Gender in Organizations, Simmons Graduate School of Management, in Boston.   Prior to joining the HBS faculty, she taught at Columbia University and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.  Professor Ely received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Yale University and her Bachelor’s degree from Smith College.  She is a member of the Academy of Management, has served on numerous editorial boards of academic journals, and is a past associate editor of Administrative Science Quarterly.