Hello Friends,

As we enter my favorite time of year, the longest and warmest days, I am feeling a particularly deep sense of gratitude for the gifts of good health, great family and friends, and the privilege of doing meaningful heart-singing work with clients whom I adore. I can't imagine it gets any better than this!

Since the last IWL eNews, we've had the great opportunity of completing an in-house Women Leading Change for the wonderful women who actually move the oil through the 800 miles of the Alaska oil pipeline. They are inspiring women who have an enormous commitment to the environment, the safety of each and every employee and the advancement of women and Native Alaskans as leaders in their organization. You can read more about one of them since Lorena Hegdal is this quarter's profiled IWL alum. We hope to conduct another program before the end of the year. Jody daSilva did a masterful job of co-leading the program and will be 'flying solo' as the next WLC program leader within months.

Speaking of Jody, she and I are co-producing and leading a new seminar series called 'Leading Through Influence' beginning in October. We've partnered with the Alliance of Technology and Women to offer this exciting new program in the Bay Area. Once we complete the three Bay Area seminars we will look at rolling it out to other geographies. See the announcement earlier in this newsletter and please do come check it out.

I just presented a breakout session called 'Leadership Being: The Last Frontier' for the executive track at the WITI National Conference in San Jose in June. It was very well-received and I met a fantastic new colleague, author Barbara Annis, whom we hope to do more work with in the near future. Barbara is an expert in gender differences and how those differences play out in organizational culture -- the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects of it! Stay tuned for more about our future endeavors.

As I write this the ink is just drying on a book contract between Linkage Inc. and Jossey Bass Publishers. It is a wonderful anthology of women's leadership articles edited by IWL alums Ellen Wingard and Lin Coughlin. My chapter was accepted and hopefully will be the catalyst for doing more writing for the infamous book that I keep trying to author! It is scheduled to hit the market in March 2005 and you will get plenty of advance
notice about its availability.

We completed the extraordinary Executives Leading Sustainable Change program in May which culminated in a wonderful celebration party at my home in Redwood City. I proudly showed off the award-winning memorial garden which honors my late mother. Every single participant declared the ELSC a breakthrough in their development and the creation of a lasting community of support. We are launching an advanced student curriculum as part of the next ELSC program in September. Our intention is to train executive women who choose to become masterful at transferring Contextual Leadership to others. Please contact me if you or any of your colleagues in senior management are interested in a training and development experience second to none in the industry.

Another exciting IWL milestone is the expanded consulting capability made possible by Heather Hinrichs and Helen Waters, who serve our larger client organizations. In addition to three years of exemplary account management, Heather has been getting her coaching certification through New Ventures West and is now providing excellent coaching and consulting for IWL clients. As of mid-July, Heather will be leaving IWL to expand her international consulting and coaching practice to include many new companies and organizations while continuing her association with IWL as a coach and consultant with IWL clients.

As you may remember from last newsletter Helen came on board as Director of Consulting Services and because she is so talented and trustworthy I have asked her to assume the role as IWL President. Helen's leadership will allow me to focus more on the R&D and delivery of Contextual Leadership training and consulting. I will continue to lead our sales and marketing efforts for now. As we grow, I envision hiring someone to take over that accountability, too. This is a big change for me and after 14 years at the helm it feels very good to share the responsibility with someone of Helen's competence.

Lastly, the next 14 months while daughter, Chelsea, is completing her high school senior year, I will be spending more time in the Bay Area so that I can be with her more before she flies off to college. I hope to see many of you who live locally or any of you who travel through the Bay Area. Please feel free to call. Every day is brighter when I hear from one of you. Take care and please make sure you are staying on top of your health check ups and general well-being.

Love,

Rayona Sharpnack
Founder and CEO
Institute for Women's Leadership