Women Leader Series
Kansas City is fortunate to have strong women leaders blazing trails for all women. This series offers an opportunity to peer into the careers of some of the most successful women in our community.
Programs in this series alternate between the downtown and south locations.
Non–members are welcome with advanced registration and payment of $30.
Jo Anne Gabbert
President, Bicknell Family Holding Company
January 6, 2010
An analytical mind, an understanding of people, and an instinct for opportunity have propelled Jo Anne Gabbert in her career. After graduation from Central Missouri State University, Gabbert spent nine years as an analyst with Southwestern Bell. She accepted an offer to return to Kansas City to join Ernst and Young’s Management and Consulting group. There, she helped many Fortune 500 Companies with process improvement and customer operational excellence projects.
In 1999, Gabbert founded her own consulting firm. In the nine years that she owned Adams-Gabbert, Inc., she was personally recognized with the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2001, 2002 and 2003, as well the Women Who Mean Business Award. In 2003, Adams-Gabbert was named one of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce’s Top 10 Small Businesses and the Lee’s Summit Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year. In 2005, Adams-Gabbert was honored as a “Top 25 Under 25” Company by Small Business Monthly.
Gabbert sold her company in 2008 to the Bicknell Family Holding Company (BFHC), and later assumed the role of president. She is responsible for all of the operating companies in the $400 million portfolio and assists with due diligence on private equity acquisitions and integrating acquired companies. In 2009 Gabbert was recognized as one of Midwest CEO Magazines Most Influential Women throughout Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma.
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Esther George
First Vice President and COO, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City
February 9, 2010
With her promotion last fall to first vice president and chief operating officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Esther George became only the eighth person to hold the position since the bank opened almost a century ago. In this capacity, she directs the Bank's operations throughout the Tenth Federal Reserve District.
From 2001 through the appointment to her current position in 2009, George was senior vice president in charge of the Division of Supervision and Risk Management. That made her the top bank regulator in the region. George was responsible for the supervision and regulation of the District's 170 state-chartered member banks, as well as nearly 1,000 bank and financial holding companies.
During George’s tenure in banking supervision, she was directly involved in the Tenth District's banking supervision and discount window lending activities during the banking crisis of the 1980s and post-9/11. She is a former chair of the Federal Reserve System's Community Banking Organizations Management Group. She is also a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's Management Committee, which is responsible for strategic planning and policy direction.
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Alicia Herald
Executive Director, Teach for America - Kansas City
March 3, 2010
Teach For America’s mission is to build the movement to eliminate educational inequity by enlisting our nation's most promising future leaders in the effort. The organization recruits outstanding recent college graduates of all majors and career interests and working professionals to commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools, and invests in the training and professional development necessary to ensure their success as teachers in the country’s highest-poverty communities.
A Kansas City native, Alicia Herald is the founding executive director of Teach For America-Kansas City. She joined Teach For America in 2007 as a recruitment director in St. Louis, where she increased applications from her portfolio of universities by more than 200 percent. A 2005 Los Angeles corps member, Alicia led her fourth graders to make significant academic progress, raising their scores on the Los Angeles Unified School District examinations in math from an average of the 17th percentile to above the 82nd percentile. She earned a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis where she majored in Political Science, Spanish, and Legal Studies.
The local Kansas City site opened in 2008 and currently places over 120 teachers in the Kansas City, Missouri School District, Hickman Mills School District, and a number of charter schools.
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