Lauren ankeles

13-147 July 5, 2013

This case was prepared by Lauren Ankeles, Marine Graham, and Priyanka Ramamurthy (MBAs, Class of 2013), and Senior Lecturer Roberta Pittore.

Copyright © 2013, Lauren Ankeles, Marine Graham, Roberta Pittore, and Priyanka Ramamurthy. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Sink or SWIM Lauren Ankeles, Marine Graham, Roberta Pittore and Priyanka Ramamurthy

How could a sunny February afternoon take such a turn for the worse? The clock ticked in the MIT Sloan Student Life Office (SLO), where the three Sloan Women in Management (SWIM) club co- presidents and two conference directors were gathered.1 SWIM’s 3rd annual conference, 11 months in the making, was scheduled to take place the next day. A winter storm was looming, with weather predictions varying widely from three to 50 inches of snow in the next 48 hours. It was almost 2:00pm and a decision had to be made – setup was slated to begin in minutes, and speakers were boarding their flights for Boston. Should the conference be canceled, modified, or go forward as planned? SLO Associate Director Marco Esquandolas looked at the five women seated in front of him and asked, “Ladies, what is your final call?”

Background on SWIM

The Sloan Women in Management club was founded in the 1980s and had become one of the largest clubs at MIT Sloan. The organization’s primary goals were to create an inviting and supportive community for all Sloan women; advance the careers of current female Sloan students; work with faculty, administrators, and the greater business community to increase opportunities for women in business; and, attract top female students to MIT Sloan.

1 The Student Life Office provides programs and services to foster a graduate student community based on collaboration and contribution. This includes oversight of student organizations and support on student events and initiatives.

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In an effort to meet all of these goals and cater to the broadest set of women, SWIM hosted a variety of year-long programming including networking events, speaker series, professional development workshops, mentorship programs, and community building events. In addition, the club held three flagship events, one of which was an annual conference where students could dialogue with leading women in business. As of February 2013, SWIM had approximately 300 members,2 550 Facebook fans, 640 Twitter followers, 270 LinkedIn group members, and 300 individuals on the alumnae mailing list. The annual conference had quickly become the organization’s largest event, despite its inception just two years earlier. After the relatively small-scale initial conference featuring panelists primarily from the MIT Sloan community, the 2012 conference directors sought to create the gold standard in women’s business conferences. The “Innovating through Adversity” 2012 conference brought several renowned speakers including Fortune 500 CEO Laura Sen (BJ’s) and VP of Google Local/Maps/Localization Marissa Mayer to a sold-out crowd of over 400 attendees. All who participated hailed the conference a tremendous success. Male and female students who attended agreed that of the roughly 30 annual MIT Sloan conferences, SWIM’s was the best conference of the year. There was strong support and interest from the administration due to the high profile of 2012’s conference. As SLO Director Christine Pugh noted, “The 2012 conference knocked it out of the park – probably based on some learnings from the 2011 conference. I heard it was just phenomenal, enough people really raved about it that I’m very confident in saying that.”

The 2013 Conference Leadership Team

The 2013 SWIM club co-presidents, Rachel, Lea, and Tarini, were eager to build on the previous year’s success and, immediately after their election to their leadership roles in February 2012, they began planning for the 2013 conference.3 As the conference was the club’s largest event of the year, Rachel, Lea, and Tarini agreed that they wanted to maintain the previous year’s structure of heavy involvement with the event, taking on the roles of conference CFO, COO, and CMO, respectively. They would next need to select two directors who would oversee the content of the conference, including selecting the theme and speakers, motivating a large team to execute the event according to their vision, and serving as the masters of ceremonies for the event. The 2013 conference directors, Janet and Merrill, were selected in March 2012 by all of the co- presidents, both past and present, and the previous year’s conference directors. According to Janet, “I

2 Members include women from various Sloan programs (MBA, Leaders for Global Operations, Master of Finance, Sloan Fellows, Executive MBA). 3 Names of people from MIT Sloan have been disguised for the purposes of this case.

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was thinking through my next year’s goals. Something I wanted to do was make a substantial impact on Sloan. There were lots of ways I could do that. I decided that one of my goals would be to work on the SWIM conference which has a very tangible output with a group of people I really respect.” The theme for the 2013 conference was set as “Dare to Fail: Taking Risks When it Matters Most.” Soon after deciding the theme, the directors finalized a shortlist of keynote speakers, began brainstorming speakers for panels, and scheduled meetings with relevant Sloan faculty and administration. The past presidents warned Rachel, Lea, and Tarini that they experienced significant tension the previous year over who had final authority in the decision-making process. Despite this warning, the same dynamic quickly developed with the new team. The co-presidents wanted be included in all key decisions, believing they needed to have a say in the selection of speakers and topics, both for the purposes of the conference, as well as to ensure integration with the SWIM brand and overall organizational strategy. The conference directors felt that they were being micromanaged for an event that they were directing. As the SWIM leadership team headed off for the summer to five different cities to pursue internships, expectations were set that Merrill and Janet would focus on recruiting speakers, and Rachel, Lea, and Tarini would work on sponsorship, operations, and marketing (including ticket sales), respectively. The five loosely agreed to check-in calls, though specific dates and milestones were not set. Maintaining contact during the summer proved challenging, as the group of five were in different time zones and had different work schedules. Throughout the summer Merrill and Janet continued to chip away at speaker recruitment without much success. Despite sending out multiple keynote requests, they continued to hit dead-ends due to scheduling conflicts and non-responses. On August 10 the first keynote was confirmed – Four Star General Janet Wolfenbarger – and the team breathed a small sigh of relief. As they all geared up to return to campus in the fall, however, there was still significant concern from the entire team about the lack of progress that had been made over the summer in finalizing speakers. Shortly after General Wolfenbarger was confirmed, the group faced yet another unanticipated setback. Merrill, whose summer internship had been at a start-up, had been offered significant equity to leave MIT Sloan and continue in her role at the start-up. On August 20, she sent the following email to the co-presidents:

…I am nothing less than obsessed with this event – and with working with Janet and each of you – and I seriously considered returning to school JUST to direct the conference. However, that didn’t seem like the most logical decision, and I ultimately didn’t feel that giving up my stake in

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the company was worth the conference, regardless of how amazing the conference is going to be. I do, however, have a proposal… I would like to ask to continue to co-direct the conference with Janet. I am committed to this event’s tremendous success, am passionate about the theme, and will work incredibly hard to develop speakers and panels that are worthy of SWIM. I’ve spoken with Janet, and she is in support of this.

While it was not clear how involved Merrill would be moving forward, the co-presidents agreed to this arrangement. They were concerned about finding an alternate director given the late stage in the planning process and trusted that Janet and Merrill had discussed managing their time appropriately. The five-person team committed to weekly meetings to ensure that communication lines would remain open and progress would continue.

Conference Planning

Despite these challenges, the team maintained a positive outlook upon returning to campus for the fall semester, and worked hard to harness the energy of the first year MBA students. The annual conference was historically a crucial way to engage new students and identify future leaders for the organization. Committees were created to focus on speaker recruitment (led by Merrill and Janet), marketing (Tarini), operations (Lea), and sponsorship (Rachel).