Santa Clara University

Allison Leopold Tilley is a partner with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman in Palo Alto.  She focuses on the representation of technology companies in securities and venture capital transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, private placements, public offerings, venture funds and joint ventures. Ms. Leopold Tilley is co-leader of the Corporate Securities & Technology practice, leader of the Silicon Valley Business and Technology Group and co-leader of the Southeast Asia team.  In 2003 Ms. Leopold Tilley was named one of the top 20 lawyers under age 40 in California by the Daily Journal. Ms. Leopold Tilley is a member of the Board of Directors of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs & Executives and former Co-Chair of their Advisory Board

President, Center for New Futures -- Barbara has earned a reputation for excellence in her work as a management consultant and program leader for more than 30 years.  She was asked to testify for the U.S. Glass Ceiling Commission.  She is co-author of the book.  "When the Canary Stops Singing: Women’s Perspectives on Transforming Business". 

Barry Posner, is former Dean of the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University.  He is a co-sponsor of the GWLN, a member of its faculty, and on the Board of Advisors.  He is the co-author of the award-winning and best-selling leadership book:  The Leadership Challenge: How to Keep Getting Extraordinary Things Done in Organizations.  Described as a groundbreaking research study, The Leadership Challenge combines keen insights with practical applications and captures both why and how leadership is everyone’s business.  Barry is an international renowned scholar who has published more than 80 research and practitioner-oriented articles in such journals as the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Human Relations, Personnel Psychology, and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.

Carol Sands, is the Chair of The Global Women’s Leadership Network Board.  She is also the Founder and Managing Member of The Halo Funds and The Angels’ Forum. Carol has spent the last 40 years of being an investor, an self-funded entrepreneur in her own nine start-ups or an intrapreneur in large corporate institutions such as Xerox, Motorola, First Bank Systems, Arthur Young, and Coopers & Lybrand. She is active in Silicon Valley’s start-up communities of board members, investors and entrepreneurs and is an instructor for Stanford University’s Continuing Education Program.

Ms. Hopkins has served as Citi’s Chief Innovation Officer since 2008. Her mission is client-focused innovation. Based in Palo Alto California, Ms. Hopkins focuses on building partnerships with venture capitalists, start-ups, corporations, universities and thought leaders to support the incubation of emerging technologies in the design, development, and implementation of disruptive customer-centric business models. In this role she works across all Citi’s business units to maximize creativity and to ensure operating efficiencies globally, across products, regions and the enterprise as a whole. Further, she serves as Chairman of Citi Venture Capital Initiatives seeking investment opportunities that support and enhance her mission.

Since joining Citi in 2003, Ms. Hopkins has held several senior roles at the company. From 2003 to 2005, she was Chief Operations & Technology Officer. Prior to that, she was Head of Corporate Strategy, Mergers & Acquisitions. She has served also as Co-Chair of Citi’s Women’s Initiative.

Before coming to Citi, Ms. Hopkins held senior-level positions at several global companies, including CFO for The Boeing Company and for Lucent Technologies. Prior to that, Ms. Hopkins was Vice President of Finance for General Motors Europe.

In addition to her positions at Citi, Ms. Hopkins is a Board Member at QlikTech Inc and serves also on the Advisory Board of Riverwood Partners. She was a member of the Board of Directors for DuPont between 2000 and 2005. Fortune magazine has twice named her one of the most powerful women in American business and in 2011 she was named to Institutional Investors top Tech 50 list.

Mr. Woods a partner at Dewey & LeBoeuf and is co-chair of the firm's Global Insurance Industry Sector Group, a long-standing member of its Executive Committee and Executive Committee liaison to its Silicon Valley office. Mr. Woods has represented numerous insurers and insurance-related entities for more than 30 years on a wide variety of issues. He also represents many e-commerce companies involved with insurance-related issues and co-founded an online insurance business. Mr. Woods has authored many articles on insurance issues.  Mr. Woods became the only law firm partner to join an impressive group of insurance industry leaders recognized for their commitment of charitable services (May 16, 2009)

 is a Financial Advisor / CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.  He works with investors and their families to manage their personal wealth and partners with Nonprofit to optimize the philanthropic potential of their donors.  In addition to GWLN, some of the organizations that Jeff works with include the Salvation Army, One World Children’s Fund, the Big Turtle Fund (for sea turtle research and environmental education) and numerous organizations working in Africa.  While at a GWLN event in September of 2009, Jeff had the idea to develop a network to promote synergy between people and organizations working in Africa.  He founded a group called “Collaborate for Africa” .  In 2008, he co-founded a forum call “Continuing the Conversation” that focuses on issues facing our Silicon Valley magnified by the 2008 Financial Crisis.  In 2006, Jeff and his wife, Dr. Shirley Chen, Ph.D, Esq., developed their “Little Eagle Scholarship Program” to support talented, disadvantaged students at Shirley’s high school in rural Southern China.

Is the former CEO Health Forum which offers health care leaders access to new information and fresh ideas to strengthen their organizations’ performance, and to improve the health of the communities they serve.  She is a graduate of Indiana University and earned her Masters degree in Organizational Behavior at Boston University. She served as the Director of Management Development at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, was awarded a three-year Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship.  She was selected Woman of the Year in 1992 by the Women Health Care Executives of Northern California and in 1993, she received the Key Award, the highest honor bestowed by the American Society of Association Executives. She was named the 1995 recipient of the UniHealth America Foundation’s prestigious Pinnacle Award. In 1998, she was honored by the Women’s Business Network for her outstanding leadership in Association Management.  She is an active participant in many global issues.

 Linda Alepin, Founding Director, is the Dean’s Executive Professor of Leadership.  She has more than thirty years experience in high technology.  She has spent ten years teaching leadership in the corporate arena.  She spent more than ten years as a Vice President and officer of a Fortune 300 IT company and was CEO and Founder of an early Internet start-up.  Linda is a noted public speaker on leadership and management.