Town Hall

The Women’s Edge Town Hall:
Leading Through Extraordinary Times

Overview

Town Hall is a unique opportunity to discuss top-of-mind issues with several Massachusetts business leaders spanning healthcare, media, education, technology, finance, and nonprofit.

OVERVIEW

Town Hall is a unique opportunity to discuss top-of-mind issues with several Massachusetts business leaders spanning healthcare, education, technology, finance, and nonprofit.

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DESCRIPTION

Our 8th Annual Town Hall: Leading Through Extraordinary Times is a unique opportunity to discuss top-of-mind issues with Massachusetts business leaders spanning media, education, technology, healthcare, and finance.

This lively gathering brings together prominent Massachusetts leaders, representing various sectors, to engage in insightful discussion, share perspectives, and foster meaningful connections.

The conversation will be led by you! Network over breakfast and consider the questions that have been on your mind. You’ll have the opportunity to pose your most pressing questions directly to our panel. This is your chance to drive the conversation, gain insights from industry experts, and contribute to the collective wisdom of our business community.

EVENT DETAILS

May 16, 2024

7:30 – 10:00 am
Seaport Hotel

Meet the Town Hall Panel

Featured Massachusetts Leaders

Hilina D. Ajakaiye

Executive Vice President
Meet Boston
READ BIO

Tye Brady

Chief Technologist
Amazon Robotics
READ BIO

Julie Chen

Chancellor
UMass Lowell
READ BIO

Reshma Kewalramani

CEO
Vertex Pharmaceuticals
READ BIO

Kevin McGovern

Managing Partner
Deloitte
READ BIO

Janet Wu

Anchor/Reporter
Bloomberg News
READ BIO

Past Town Hall Events

“We are all leaders, and we all have the opportunity to demonstrate what leadership means.”

Jackie Jenkins Scott, Interim President, Roxbury Community College

Town Hall 2022

PANELISTS

Marcela del Carmen, MD, MPH
President, Massachusetts General Physicians Organization

Jackie Jenkins Scott
Interim President, Roxbury Community College

Lee Pelton
President & CEO, Boston Foundation

Jane Steinmetz
Boston Office Managing Principal, EY

Tracey Zhen
President, Zipcar

MODERATOR

Liz Walker

Town Hall 2021

PANELISTS

Kate Bueker
Chief Financial Officer, Hubspot

Kevin B. Churchwell, MD
President & Chief Executive Officer, Boston Children’s Hospital

Renee Graham
Associate Editor & Columnist, Boston Globe

Christina Royal, PhD
President, Holyoke Community College

Pallavi Verma
Senior Managing Director, Accenture

MODERATOR

Liz Walker

“We all have the ability here to make decisions and make a difference… we have to have it in the forefront of our mind, as we think about gender equity and racism, it’s the intersectionality that is critical.”

Paula Johnson, President, Wellesley College

Town Hall 2020

PANELISTS

Paula Johnson
President, Wellesley College

Shirley Leung
Columnist & Associate Editor, The Boston Globe

Stefania Mallett
Co-Founder & CEO, ezCater

Quincy Miller
President, Eastern Bank

Betsy Nabel
President, Brigham Health

MODERATOR

Liz Walker

Town Hall 2019

PANELISTS

Kate Walsh
President & CEO, Boston Medical Center

Deborah Jackson
President, Cambridge College

Dave Krupinksi
Co-Founder and CTO, Care.com

Sophie Vandebroek
Vice President, Emerging Technology Partners, IBM

Jay Ash
President & CEO, Mass Competitive Partnership

Meghna Chakarbarti
Host, On Point, WBUR & NPR

MODERATOR

Liz Walker

Past Event Gallery

Thank you to our sponsors!

Questions about Town Hall? Contact us.

Hilina D. Ajakaiye

Executive Vice President, Meet Boston

Hilina D. Ajakaiye is the Executive Vice President at Meet Boston, bringing nearly 20 years of sales, marketing, and operations expertise to her role at the organization. She leads many important initiatives related to community engagement, workforce development, accessibility, and a wide range of mission-critical work in the equity, diversity, and inclusion space.

At Meet Boston, she spearheads a partnership with Tourism Diversity Matters (TDM) that aims to diversify the travel and hospitality workforce, particularly in the upper management and leadership tiers. She also currently serves as co-chair of the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Committee for Destinations International.

For Ajakaiye, partnership is the foundation of success. She is leading an overhaul of Meet Boston’s traditional membership structure to replace it with a partnership paradigm. In her endeavor to drive greater value proposition, Ajakaiye has developed a 501 (c)(3) private foundation that will allow the organization to pursue charitable work and community partnership like never before.

Ajakaiye is the Founder of the R.I.S.E. Women’s Leadership Conference, for which she was named “Rhode Islander of the Year” in 2019 by Rhode Island Monthly. She is an inductee into the Big Brothers, Big Sisters “People We Admire” program and is a graduate of The Partnership, Inc.’s Leadership Program. Along with her husband and two children, she is an avid traveler who embraces the notion that travel breaks down barriers, allows for cultures in contact to flourish, and cultivates global citizens.

Tye Brady

Chief Technologist, Amazon Robotics

Tye is a leading strategic thinker and engineering professional with more than 30 years of hands-on experience in robotic systems. Tye is chief technologist at Amazon Robotics, where he heads advanced technology and research efforts to further establish Amazon as the preeminent robotics organization in the world. As an accomplished and proven leader, Tye is shaping how robotics can benefit industry, community, and the Amazon customer.

Prior to Amazon Robotics, Tye spent 15 years with Draper Laboratory holding a variety of technical and leadership roles, each advancing technologies and teamwork for robotics and spacecraft engineering. Tye is a founding partner of MassRobotics, a not-for-profit organization that has become the world’s largest robotics incubator and serves on a number of boards to promote STEM learning and advancement within his community. He is the recipient of the Exceptional Public Service Medal for outstanding technical leadership from NASA and has been recognized by the Boston Globe as a top ten Technology Power Player in 2022 and 2023. He holds over 30 patents and has authored over 30 publications related to robotics and autonomy. He has been featured by major media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Wired Magazine, PBS Nova, NBC, Bloomberg, BBC, and many others. Tye holds a Master’s Degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering from MIT and a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace from Boston University.

Julie Chen

Chancellor, UMass Lowell

Julie Chen, a recognized leader in research, STEM and economic development in higher education, is the fourth chancellor of UMass Lowell.

Chen was named chancellor after leading the university’s growing research franchise into a nearly $95 million annual operation. She was unanimously appointed by the UMass trustees in May 2022 and assumed her role as just the second woman to lead the university of more than 17,000 students on July 1.

In her first year as Chancellor, Chen led the development of a new five-year strategic plan, focused on four strategic priorities: 1.) Enrollment and Student Success, 2.) A Diverse, Welcoming and Inclusive Campus, 3.) Research Excellence and 4.) Partnering with Our Community for Mutual Benefit. In the past year the university has experienced increases in undergraduate enrollment, retention, six-year graduation rates and philanthropic gifts, which hit a new one-year record of $37.4 million. Forty-eight percent of 2023 first-year students identify as students of color.

Research funding has continued to increase in the last year – reaching $111 million – and UMass Lowell sits on the precipice of Research 1 status, the highest tier of research university in the country. The designation will further accelerate UMass Lowell’s growth in research, external partnerships with industry, non-profits and government agencies. It will also provide additional opportunities for students, faculty and alumni seeking internships, research collaborations and jobs.

Chen previously served as vice chancellor for research and economic development, a role that included managing industry partnerships, technology transfer, startups and innovation, core research facilities and economic development programs. As UMass Lowell’s chief research officer, she facilitated numerous innovative models that brought together industry, government and academia.

Chen joined the UMass Lowell faculty in 1997 after six years as an assistant professor at Boston University. From 2002 to 2004 she was director of the Materials Processing and Manufacturing as well as the Nanomanufacturing programs at the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C. Chen was appointed UMass Lowell’s vice provost for research in 2009, and she was promoted to vice chancellor in 2016 with an added external and outreach focus.

Chen has served on many editorial boards, advisory committees and review panels for journals and federal agencies including the National Science Foundation; the National Institutes of Health; the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine; the U.S. Department of Energy; and the U.S. Department of Defense.

She serves on boards of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center and MassTech Collaborative, as well as the Massachusetts Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative and the Massachusetts Military Asset and Security Strategy Task Force.

An advocate for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives, she served as co-lead for UMass Lowell’s Council on Social Justice and Inclusion. Additionally, she was a co-principal investigator on a $3.5 million National Science Foundation ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant to support and elevate women faculty in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines.

Chen received her Ph.D., Master of Science, and Bachelor of Science degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in mechanical engineering, where she was an Academic All-American in softball and field hockey.

In 2019 she was awarded an honorary degree from Queens University Belfast. She is a recipient of the U.S. Army Public Service Commendation Medal – the Army’s fourth-highest civilian honor – for her leadership in developing the innovation ecosystem.

Chen and her spouse, Susu Wong, reside in Wilmington.

Reshma Kewalramani, M.D., FASN

Chief Executive Officer & President, Vertex

Reshma is the Chief Executive Officer and President at Vertex, a Fortune 500, global biotechnology company. She trained in internal medicine and nephrology before entering the biopharmaceutical industry, where she has dedicated her career to discovering and developing new medicines. She joined Vertex in 2017, served as Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President of Global Medicines Development and Medical Affairs and became CEO in 2020.

In this period, Vertex expanded its success in treating cystic fibrosis (CF), with medicines that hold the potential to treat patients as young as one-month old and as many as 90 percent of all patients diagnosed with CF. Building on that work, Vertex’s R&D pipeline has treatments in multiple disease areas and across multiple modalities including small molecule, mRNA, cell and gene therapies. Since 2017, Vertex has doubled its employee base and the number of medicines it offers, significantly expanded its clinical-stage pipeline, and augmented its footprint in Boston’s Seaport and around the world. All the while, Vertex continues to foster its strong culture of belonging, diversity and equity. Continuing the tradition of excellence in the workplace, Vertex has consistently been recognized as a best place to work, including by Science magazine, The Boston Globe, Newsweek and Fortune.

Reshma is committed to supporting biomedical innovation, the next generation of scientists, and her community. She serves on Year Up's national board of directors, the Biomedical Science Careers Program’s board of directors, the Massachusetts General Hospital board of trustees and the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine Dean’s Advisory Board. She also serves on the Ginkgo Bioworks board of directors, where she chairs the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee.

She completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and her fellowship in nephrology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital combined program. She received her medical degree, with honors, from the seven-year medicine program at the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, and is a Fellow of the American Society of Nephrology. She is an alumna of the Harvard Business School, having completed the General Management Program.

Reshma has received a number of distinguished honors and awards for her leadership and contributions to science and innovation, including the Harvard Business School Alumni Achievement Award, the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Boston University School of Medicine, the International Institute of New England Golden Door Award, the New England Council New Englander of the Year award, and the Asian American Business Development Center Pinnacle Award. She has been named one of Fortune's Most Powerful Women, one of Boston Business Journal's “Power 50,” one of Boston magazine's most influential Bostonians, and one of Business Insider's “10 People Transforming Healthcare.”

Kevin McGovern

Partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP

Kevin McGovern is a partner with Deloitte & Touche LLP and was the New England managing partner for Deloitte LLP until March 1 of this year. Kevin has more than 38 years of experience with Deloitte having served a wide array of clients primarily in the financial services industry. Prior to his role as New England managing partner for Deloitte LLP, Kevin served as the managing partner of Deloitte’s Regulatory & Legal Support practice.
The New England practice has more than 3,500 professionals delivering audit and assurance, consulting, tax and risk and financial advisory services. As New England managing partner, Kevin drove the strategy for growth, business development, social impact, and other strategic initiatives in the marketplace, as well as Deloitte’s Community Impact agenda across New England. He met regularly with civic and government leaders to determine where Deloitte’s citizenship efforts could have the highest impact for New England and the organization.

Kevin is on the board of Embrace Boston, the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, the New England Council, the National Association of Corporate Directors (New England chapter), and the Boys and Girls Club of Lawrence MA. He’s a member of the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants and American Society of Certified Public Accountants.

Kevin and his wife Tracy live in Boston and have 5 children and 3 grandchildren. He is a 20+ year Pan Mass Challenge cycling veteran.

Janet Wu

Anchor/Reporter, Bloomberg News

Janet Wu is a Boston-based anchor and reporter for Bloomberg Radio and Television. She interviews the entrepreneurs, investors, and business leaders of the innovation and finance hub primarily for “Bloomberg Baystate Business.” Prior to joining Bloomberg, she held various roles at 7News in Boston, including longtime weekend anchor and healthcare reporter. Her op-eds and essays have been published in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, and The Norton Sampler series of essay collections. She graduated from Yale with a dual major in philosophy and psychology and earned a master’s degree in journalism and international affairs at Columbia University. She serves on advisory boards for the New England Conservatory of Music and Franciscan Children’s Hospital. She was named the 2015 New England Girl Scouts Leading Woman of the Year and delivered a TEDxCambridge talk on exploration and resilience. She plays the piano and cello and has traveled to 88 countries, 39 of them alone.

“The Women’s Edge supports systematic, sustained progress for women into leadership roles throughout the business community.”

Elizabeth Hailer, CEO

“There aren’t many places that you can go where the only agenda is for you to be successful.”

CEO forum member

“The Women’s Edge supports systematic, sustained progress for women into leadership roles throughout the business community.”

Elizabeth Hailer, CEO

Registration now open for Strategies for Success Program. Leaders from corporations and nonprofit organizations alike are encouraged to participate.

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“The Women’s Edge supports systematic, sustained progress for women into leadership roles throughout the business community.”

Elizabeth Hailer, CEO

The Women’s Edge Town Hall:Leading Through Extraordinary Times

Town Hall is a unique opportunity to discuss top-of-mind issues with several Massachusetts business leaders spanning healthcare, media, education, technology, finance, and nonprofit.

Town Hall is a unique opportunity to discuss top-of-mind issues with several Massachusetts business leaders spanning healthcare, education, technology, finance, and nonprofit.

May 16, 2024

Meet the Town Hall Panel

Hilina D. Ajakaiye

Tye Brady

Julie Chen

Reshma Kewalramani

Kevin McGovern

Janet Wu

Past Town Hall Events

“We are all leaders, and we all have the opportunity to demonstrate what leadership means.”

Jackie Jenkins Scott, Interim President, Roxbury Community College

Town Hall 2022

Town Hall 2021

“We all have the ability here to make decisions and make a difference… we have to have it in the forefront of our mind, as we think about gender equity and racism, it’s the intersectionality that is critical.”

Paula Johnson, President, Wellesley College

Town Hall 2020

Town Hall 2019

Past Event Gallery

Thank you to our sponsors!

Questions about Town Hall? Contact us.

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Hilina D. Ajakaiye

Tye Brady

Julie Chen

Reshma Kewalramani, M.D., FASN

Kevin McGovern

Janet Wu

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The Women’s Edge Town Hall:
Leading Through Extraordinary Times