Today it has grown into one of the most innovative woman-owned global businesses. "We didn’t have a business plan because we thought we would only do it once like taking a balloon ride."
Susan was the chair of the Committee of 200, a group of high-achieving women, and in that capacity, she was traveling around the country visiting colleges.
She thought to herself… “Why couldn’t we use technology so we wouldn’t have to travel so much?”
At a speaking event in Madrid, she shared this thought with Tom Peters, who suggested that satellite technology could be used in place of — or as a complement — to traditional conferencing.
Susan was promoted by this idea to attend a satellite “event” with some women colleagues in a theater. Two thoughts occurred to the women:
1) What if it was women instead of men? and 2) We could do this!
According to Susan, “We knew a lot of people so we went out and started making calls. We lined up Business Week and Merrill Lynch as our first partners.”
They also hired a satellite company and a production company and then got powerful women like Hillary Clinton as speakers. That first event was in 160 locations around the world via satellite.
They realized that they had created something that this wasn’t just a balloon ride it was something that could be a long term business.
“We changed the company name from WomenFuture to wf360 in 2002 at the request of clients who wanted to us to engage all their employees, and to discuss issues beyond gender,” Susan says.
Now, wf360 has huge corporate clients who are headquartered in the US but who face challenges of how to create a conversation in countries around the world.
This can be done through an event, which then goes global via satellite and the web. Recently, the MainEvent Middle East Roadshow. It was a summit that was held in New York in 2005. There were 120 participants. 22 from the Middle Eastern. Because Susan didn’t want it to be just American and Arab Middle Eastern women she invited some Europeans. Someone from DuPont, the Economist, and the woman who is now the Trade Minister of France who was at that time with Baker and McKinsey.
One of our global speakers said "Now that I participated in one of your events, I figured out what your name means: Wonderful, Fabulous, All over the world..."
If you want to take your business global, Susan suggests that you “think creatively, and ask yourself:
- What are my skills?
- What can I and/or my company do?
- Who do I know?
Then it’s simple enough to go out and find the technologies.”
I asked Susan to tell us about some upcoming Wf360 events, and these are the ones she wanted to share with us:
September 23-24 We're conducting a "European Inner Circle" in Berlin, Germany. Amazing group of women, all leaders of European businesses, in a dialogue about Europe's productivity challenge. And we'll be having private meetings with Chancellor Merkel's team in the Reichstag.
October 25 will be our 8th annual 360 Summit, an evening at the New York Stock Exchange, involving 200 Senior Officers and Board Directors of publicly listed firms. We'll be awarding the 360 Leadership Award to Anne Lauvergeon, CEO of AREVA, the world's biggest supplier of nuclear energy. (Previous awardees are Queen Rania of Jordan; Christine Lagarde, now Finance Minister of France, and Anne Stevens, CEO of Carpenter Technologies (formerly the highest ranking woman in the automotive industry when she was COO of Ford Motor Company).
November 17-22 I'm facilitating a dialogue among 20 of the world's experts on tigers, in India. The program is being conducted by the Save the Tiger Foundation, which is determined to save wild tigers from extinction.
Susan Willett Bird, Esq., Founder & CEO, Wf360, LLC
Susan Willett Bird, Esq., is Founder and CEO of Wf360, LLC, the company that created Brandversation™, the word-of-mouth marketing tool used by blue-chip clients like Accenture, IBM, Maytag, Wal-Mart, DuPont, Dow, Alcoa, Starbucks, and the New York Stock Exchange to connect profitably with employees and customers anywhere in the world. For employees, Wf360 combines satellite and web technologies with other elements in a unique combination that engages workforces globally in
shaping their company’s future. For customers, Wf360’s Brandversation™ creates social networks among customers that connect them powerfully with what a company and its brands stand for.
Wf360 produces MainEvent®, which engages extraordinary rosters of world-class thought leaders in candid conversations about leadership issues, and includes thousands of participants simultaneously around the world. Wf360 also creates and
distributes content showcasing extraordinary business and thought leaders and produces Leading Questions™ (patent pending), the conversational tool used by companies to jump-start creative problem-solving among employees and customers.
An expert on the formation of business alliances, Ms. Bird served as President of American Mediation Council, LLC, and enjoyed a distinguished career in the real estate investment industry as a senior officer with Grubb & Ellis Company and later with her own firm. Earlier in her career, Ms. Bird practiced law at Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro in San Francisco. She received her law degree from Stanford Law School, where she was a member of Law Review.
Ms. Bird is a Founding Member and former Chair of the Committee of 200, the pre-eminent organization of women business leaders; a member of the prestigious International Women’s Forum representing 3000 women leaders worldwide; a member of
the Women’s Leadership Board of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; and a member of the International Council for the Kilby International Awards.
Bird is the author of Smart Talk: The ABC’s of Authentic Conversation and a frequent speaker and consultant on leadership issues and word-of-mouth as the most powerful marketing tool on the planet for businesses large and small. She is regarded by many as one of the world’s most able facilitators of business-based discussions.
Recent speaking engagements include The New York Stock Exchange 360 Summit; Microsoft’s Global Accounts Summit (Bangkok;) and the BIG Lottery Fund’s Investing in Communities Conference (Scotland) as well as events sponsored by the World Economic Forum (Amman, Jordan and Kuala Lumpur, Indonesia); Young Presidents Organization (U.S. and Spain); Stanford Law School; London Business School; Harvard
Business School; the Nikkei Forum of Business Executives (Tokyo); the WIN program (Italy); FWE (Paris); NESTA (London); Deloitte & Touche (Beijing); Tsinghua University (Beijing) and others. Ms. Bird facilitated the MainEvent® Middle East RoadShow in Dubai and Cairo, as well as the Asia/Pacific RoadShow in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia and the Small Business Road Show.
Bird has been featured in numerous print articles, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Newsweek, Inc., Business Week, New York Woman, Crain’s New York Business, Venture, Glamour Italy, USA Today and The Australian Financial Review, and
has participated in numerous radio and television interviews, including appearances on ABC, CBS, CNNfn, FNN, Reuters Japan, and CNBC.
Among many honors, she is especially proud of receiving the Crain’s New York Business Award for Success and Leadership in Business as well as the “Life of the City Award” from New York Woman magazine saluting her for extraordinary business achievement. Among other interests, she cites as most memorable her co-producing the Broadway show, Jelly’s Last Jam, and the fact that she joined her four sons in skydiving from 13,000 feet.
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