Planning Committee Co-Chairs

Clinical Professor of Executive Education
Academic Director, Kellogg Executive Leadership Institute

Diana Cordova is a clinical professor of Executive Education and the academic director of the Kellogg Executive Leadership Institute at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

KELI is a specialty unit within Executive Education charged with creating new approaches for C-suite leadership development and fostering greater ties and collaboration between the C-suite of leading companies and Kellogg faculty.

In addition, Professor Cordova spearheads and provides academic direction for the Kellogg Advanced Management Program, the Kellogg Corporate Governance Conference, the Kellogg Chief Diversity Officer Summit, the Kellogg Global Women's Summit and numerous other custom and open-enrollment programs for senior business executives.

Prior to joining Kellogg, she served as vice president for leadership programs at the American Council on Education where she oversaw and led the association's extensive suite of program offerings for senior higher education administrators.

Professor Cordova began her career as a member of the Yale University faculty, where she taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in social psychology for almost a decade. She is the recipient of the 1999 Lex Hixon Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Social Sciences.

She holds a B.A. from Smith College and a PhD in social psychology from Stanford University.

Clinical Assistant Professor of Leadership
Director of Women’s Leadership Programs

Ellen Taaffe is a clinical assistant professor of leadership at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She leverages more than 30 years of leadership, marketing and management experience as the director of women's leadership programs. Ellen oversees the strategy development, operational plans and implementation of this critical initiative.

Following a 25-year career in senior brand management and corporate strategy roles, Taaffe served as president of Smith-Dahmer Associates, an award-winning brand strategy and custom market research consultancy serving Fortune 500 clients. Prior to that, Taaffe led brand marketing, including profit and loss responsibility, in divisions of PepsiCo, Royal Caribbean and Whirlpool Corporation. She also led strategy and programming for PepsiCo's Health and Wellness strategic initiative, reshaping the product mix and pipeline direction, installing new corporate marketing and advertising practices, co-developing nutritional guidelines and leading external partnership programming.

Currently, Taaffe is a member of the board of directors of John B. Sanfilippo & Son, Inc., (NASDAQ: JBSS) and Hooker Furniture Corporation (NASDAQ: HOFT), where she serves on their audit, compensation and governance committees. Since 2015, she has been an independent marketing and business strategy consultant and executive leadership coach.

Taaffe received her MBA from the Kellogg School of Management in 1997. She also holds a B.S. from the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business. Taaffe lives in Wilmette with her husband and two daughters.

Managing Director, Alumni Engagement and Networking

Wendy Weiss Kritt is currently the managing director, alumni engagement and networking at the Kellogg School of Management of Northwestern University. In this role, Kritt leads the alumni relations group, working to catalyze alumni networking to build a strong, engaged global alumni community among more than 62,000 alumni. She joined Kellogg in 2016 as chief marketing officer, leading the team that develops marketing plans and materials for prospective students across all Kellogg degree programs.

Kritt is an accomplished marketing executive with a record of excellence and transformational leadership. During her 30-year career at Kraft Foods, Kritt held leadership positions in brand management, brand activation, shopper marketing and consumer relations. Kritt has led teams of more than 100 internal and external professionals and is known for building strong connections among brands, consumers and customers. Kritt established Kraft as a leader in social media listening/engagement, customer service outreach and social intelligence as she envisioned and launched the state of the art "Looking Glass" Social Media Center.

Kritt graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. in social psychology from Tufts University and received her MBA from Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management with concentrations in marketing and finance.

Adeline Barry Davee Professor of Management and Organizations
Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Kellogg Center for Executive Women
Kellogg Global Women’s Summit Steering Committee Co-Chair, Faculty Advisory Committee Chair and Planning Committee Co-Chair

Dr. Victoria Medvec is the Adeline Barry Davee professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a co-founder and the executive director of the Kellogg Center for Executive Women. She has a tremendous passion for helping women succeed at the highest levels in organizations.

Dr. Medvec is also a leading expert in negotiation. For more than two decades, Dr. Medvec has developed strategy to guide organizations in complex negotiations that have changed their market positions and sparked dramatic revenue growth. As the chief executive officer of Medvec and Associates, she advises CEOs, senior leaders and board members on critical decisions and high-stakes negotiations including mergers, acquisitions, significant customer contracts, regulatory filings and partnership agreements.

Her clients include many Fortune 100 companies as well as smaller growth-oriented organizations across a wide variety of industries including Microsoft, McKinsey, Johnson&Johnson, OMERS, American Securities, McDonald's, Pfizer, BlackRock, Amgen, Instagram, BCG, Omnicom Media Group and GE.

Dr. Medvec has served on public and private boards for more than 10 years. In addition, she is a Ringleader in Ringleader Ventures, a unique venture fund pairing startup technology with corporate needs.

Founder and CEO of Your Career, Your Terms
CEO of Perry Yeatman Global Partners LLC

Perry Yeatman built her career on bold moves – taking on the challenging assignments others couldn't or wouldn't and delivering. Few careers span more sectors (business, government, philanthropy and education), more disciplines (from corporate affairs to HR to general management) and more nations (50+ countries). She held executive positions at several market-leading organizations including Unilever, Kraft Foods and Burson-Marsteller, and has been a senior advisor to many more, including the Kellogg School of Management. Few can say they have literally “been there and done that” to the same degree.

Yeatman is also a prolific advocate for issues she is passionate about, including the intersection of business and society, the importance of a global mindset and career advancement for women. To promote these causes and others, Yeatman has been a featured speaker at events including the World Economic Forum, The Conference Board, The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, CGI, Engage for Good and the Kellogg School of Management. She has also been a contributor to leading media, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, Stanford Social Innovation Review and Working Mother Magazine. And she is the award-winning co-author of "Get Ahead by Going Abroad" (Harper Collins, 2007) and co-author of the soon to be released book "Kellogg Women: Creating lives of impact and meaning on the way to the C-suite."

She is currently the founder and chief executive officer of the social enterprise Your Career, Your Terms, CEO of Perry Yeatman Global Partners LLC, external director/principal advisor of Mission Measurement, and vice-chair of the Corporate Partnership Council for Save the Children USA.

Her work has been recognized by numerous international awards and accolades including a 2012 Individual Lifetime Achievement Sabre Award – one of the highest honors bestowed to those in the communications and marketing profession.