Highlights of Women Lead Change history

2006: Women Lead Change begins when Donna Katen-Bahensky, the former CEO of University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City, pulls together 30 Eastern Iowa women leaders to create a by-women, for-women leadership conference to expose women to role models with national and international reputations.

2007: The first Iowa Women’s Leadership Conference was held in April in Coralville, with 450 women and men attending. Speakers include Ilene Lang, CEO of Catalyst; Marie Wilson, president of the White House Project; author and columnist Arianna Huffington; and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland.

2009: The second conference attracts 600 participants. Speakers include polar explorer Ann Bancroft, author Naomi Wolf, athlete and writer Diana Nyad, poet Erica Jong and Marian Wright Edelman, founder of The Children’s Defense Fund.

2010: Diane Ramsey, a former executive with Alliant Energy and Rockwell Collins, becomes the nonprofit’s executive director, with a board of directors established in 2011.

2011: More than 900 attend the sold-out conference to hear novelist and poet Maya Angelou and White House press secretaries Dee Dee Myers and Dana Perino.

2013: Gloria Steinem and Martha Stewart headline the sold-out conference in Coralville. Later, celebrity chef Giada de Laurentis headlines IWLC’s first fundraising event in Cedar Rapids.

2014: The organization keeps its initials but changes its name to Iowa Women Lead Change to more accurately reflect its mission and vision.

2015: IWLC for the first time hosts four conferences in Iowa — in Eastern Iowa, central Iowa, Dubuque/Tri-state and Siouxland. A men’s track is added to the Eastern Iowa conference. The IWLC full-time staff expands to seven.

2017: Tiffany O’Donnell, who had been IWLC’s chief operating office for two years, succeeds Ramsey as CEO. The organization records 2,500 attendees at its conferences.

2018: IWLC moves to a new office in the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance building and opens offices in Des Moines and the Quad Cities.

2019: The nonprofit rebrands itself as Women Lead Change, dropping the “Iowa” designation and signaling a desire to expand beyond the state’s borders.

2020: As the COVID pandemic sets in, conferences switch to virtual events, with only Siouxland able to host an in-person conference.

2021: Women Lead Change launches a new website, designed to guide users based on their career path. A wide range of guest speakers is offered virtually.

2022: Women Lead Change celebrates its 15th year, highlighted by the first in-person conference in Cedar Rapids since 2019.

Source: Women Lead Change