Courtesy of Sabrina Guo

From Feb. 1-2, the Yale Women’s Leadership Initiative held its annual conference, which brought women from across diverse backgrounds to celebrate and promote female leadership.

This year’s conference, co-organized by WLI and YaleWomen, a community of Yale alumnae, featured 20 accomplished speakers who shared insights on leadership and strategies for career advancement in fields such as law and policy, STEM, arts and media, healthcare and sustainability. The conference offered a unique opportunity to over 150 participants to interact with faculty, alumnae and leaders, per Jessi Avila-Shah ’25, co-president of WLI. 

“At its core, we love hosting this conference because it brings together female leaders from all over the world,” Avila-Shah told the News.

This year’s speakers included keynote Ann Olivarius ’77 LAW ’86 SOM ’86, chair of the executive committee of the law firm McAllister Olivarius; Genevieve Scott, a visiting clinical lecturer in law at the Yale Law School; and Keli Huang, a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP.

Students who attended the conference spoke highly of the experience, noting the invaluable opportunities to network with professionals and peers and gain insights from trailblazing leaders, per Avila-Shah.

“I really valued the ideas they shared on leadership as women in STEM,” Janice Hur ’27, a staff reporter for the News, said. “In particular, the speakers’ comments on how to balance effective leadership of high-performing teams with support for individual team members was insightful.”

Sabrina Guo ’27, joined the Yale Women’s Leadership Initiative as a first year to help build an inclusive and welcoming women’s leadership and empowerment organization at Yale. After serving as a speakers liaison and moderator for the 2024 WLI Conference, she became a co-director of the conference committee for the 2024-25 season and helped co-organize the 2025 WLI Conference.

This year, Guo spearheaded the inaugural 2025 WLI High School Essay Contest where participants submitted an essay answering “Why is women’s leadership important in today’s world, and how have you contributed to women’s empowerment in your school and/or community?”

The competition received submissions from all over the U.S. and internationally, with finalists from India, South Korea, Sri Lanka and China. 

The competition also received a large number of submissions from male students. One of them, Meng Cheng Cai, an 11th grader from Poly Prep Country Day School of Brooklyn, was the sole male essay winner and was invited to attend the conference.

“Although my mother had great achievements in business, she was never promoted to a higher position because of her gender. Gender does not define a person’s ability, and it should never be the standard for judgment,” he wrote. “The advantages that female leaders bring can be seen in every way — from peacekeeping to innovation–and only by eliminating this bias can we create a more equitable society.”

Second-place contest winner Katie Qin of Princeton High School in Princeton, New Jersey, said she learned about the importance of self-advocacy.

“Self-advocacy, a trait that countless girls are forced or taught to abandon, is one of the keys to becoming a trailblazer,” Qin said.

The Yale Women’s Leadership Initiative was founded in 2006.

Correction, Feb. 26: The dates of the conference have been corrected to Feb. 1-2.