Susan Elliott-Rink
Managing Director, The Institute for Women's Leadership
With over two decades of Contextual Leadership, Gender Partnership, Women’s Leadership and Unconscious Bias experience, Susan works tirelessly to build inclusive cultures in organizations and communities. The current national narrative calls for a bold stand for diverse and inclusive conversations, with curiosity and compassion being the keys to end the gridlock.
Her mastery has been earned through twenty-one years of training and delivering programs, speeches, coaching participants, and mentoring leaders worldwide. Susan had the privilege of becoming one of only fifty-two leaders certified to train worldwide and she personally led programs to nearly 30,000 participants in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and New Zealand. She has brought her humor, quick wit and deep personal experience and observations to over 250,000 people around the world.
Over the past two years, Susan has invested thousands of hours in the study of Gender Partnership, serving as the Managing Director of the Eastern US office for the Institute for Women’s Leadership and the Institute for Gender Partnership. Her mastery of this topic paved the way for a licensing agreement with the Institutes and the launch of Allinium, Inc.
From the start of her career, when Susan was named National Sales Manager for an Italian eyewear company seeking to break into the U.S. market, she has produced extraordinary results. Her approach to breaking into this tough market- male-dominated, highly competitive, and over-saturated- was to create a culture in the organization that would attract the best talent and establish a loyal customer base. Her achievements resulted in her becoming one of the first women to achieve an executive-level position in the industry.
Susan's other achievements include:
• Designing coed workshops and programs to empower men and women to work together and create cultures in organizations of full Gender Partnership.
• Leading executive coaching sessions for senior women and being instrumental in building contextual frameworks to support the growth and success of women in executive positions.
• Being a featured speaker at the Intelligence Community’s Annual Women’s Summit, promoting the work of Gender Partnership to support the safety of our citizens, country, and world.
• Philanthropic work coordinating a million-dollar renovation project for a nonprofit pet-rescue organization that had no funds to do it. With no experience in the nonprofit sector nor in construction management, Susan succeeded in having some 350 contractors donate their skills and over 140 material suppliers to provide needed materials free of charge.
Speaking Topics
The Brain Science behind Gender Partnership
Equal doesn’t mean we’re the same. There are 7 physiological differences between a male brain and a female brain. These differences, when hidden from our awareness, lead to misunderstandings, miscommunications, resentments and unworkability in our organizations and in our lives. Anyone who has men and/or women in their lives will find this insightful and entertaining.
The Context is Decisive
Used by Fortune 500 companies for the past 25 years, the Contextual Leadership Methodology has allowed multinational corporations, federal governments, global nonprofits, and emerging businesses to achieve ambitious and sustainable goals. Allinium is proud to have earned the privilege of being a fully licensed provider of this powerful work.
The Contextual Leadership Methodology, designed to reveal the prevailing context, has been featured in the national media as “a breakthrough approach” to enable individuals and organizations to move from great to extraordinary.
This methodology does not focus on changing the structure and process of the current system; instead we shift the context from which the system operates. Most change programs don’t work because they address content (the knowledge, structure and data in a company) or process (the activities and behaviors), but they never address the context in which both of these elements exist. Because people act based on how they perceive the world around them, we focus on shifting context or perception as the most effective way to enable change.
By attending the Context is Decisive Workshop, participants will:
Leave with a clear understanding of the methodology and how to use it to alter their own context and the context of the people with whom they work.
Have access to distinguishing facts from conclusions
Be introduced to the fundamental design of human beings, giving them access to impacting behavior and results with velocity.
Create actionable insights they can use immediately
Invisible Impressions
Susan examines how all human beings have impressions of themselves, others and life. Those impressions are often invisible, yet dramatically shape our behavior. Even the most self-aware among us navigate through life with these conclusions and impressions masquerading as facts.
Sales and Marketing in the 21st Century
As a top sales performer in the 80’s & 90’s, Susan discusses how the landscape has shifted in this century. Sales and marketing teams are required to become “gender lingual” in order to outperform their competitors. 85% of all buying decisions are made or largely influenced by women. An organization’s culture is a critical piece of their branding to tap into the best male and female talent.
Client Feedback
"Working with Susan Elliott-Rink exceeded all of my expectations. Initially engaged to assist the WBN Board with strengthening our structure to ensure the sustainability of the ERG, we emerged with a new mission and a commitment from senior leadership to focus on programs to ensure a culture of gender partnership. More than the probing questions she asked, she listened intently, and helped our board shift our context. I’m looking forward to our continued, and expanded, relationship with Susan."
Linda Aronson
Managing Director
National Chair – JLL Women’s Business Network
JLL