The Undergraduate Michigan Business Women hosted their seventh annual “Women Who Win” event aimed toward uplifting future women in business Thursday evening at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. The event, which drew more than 300 attendees in the Robertson Auditorium featured keynote speaker and U-M alum Jenny Just, a notable entrepreneur from Poker Power, which focuses on building strategic skill through playing poker. Other speakers from the Engineering Center for Entrepreneurship highlighted women-led innovations such as SoarAway, a nonprofit for empowering African youth and the NeoNest Global project to reduce newborn deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa.
MBW organized the event with the aim to showcase innovations made by women that influence the next generation of women in business. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Business senior Anjika Jain, MBW co-president, said the event was so large this year due to big sponsors, including Poker Power. Jain said the event centered around giving women confidence to go into fields such as business.
““Women Who Win’ is really about celebrating and showcasing the incredible talent we have here, not only at (the University), but just in general of women in the business field, and empowering all of these women who are looking to go into those fields,” Jain said.
LSA sophomore Preeti Sonawane, an MBW executive board member, told The Daily she felt inspired and motivated after listening to the conversations at “Women Who Win” events because of how candid the speakers are.
“I think because you hear from such a variety of women in different fields and industries, you gain a sense of what being in each field means, and they all share their unique experiences,” Sonawane said. “They’re always so transparent about their experiences and that’s something I’ve really gained a sense of, even transparency about being in male-dominated workplaces and how to navigate that. … Their transparency helps guide me and several other women to where we go in the business world.”
The speaking portion of the event ended in a conversational dialogue between Just and Business School Dean Sharon Matusik about Just’s path to success as a self-made female billionaire and her brand Poker Power, which has taught analytical skills to employees from more than 200 companies. Just left the audience with lessons about the importance of following their passion and the strategic depth of poker’s calculations and risk-taking.
“(Poker Power’s) mission is to teach a million girls about a new game, and not because we need them to play poker in a casino or even play poker for fun,” Just said. “We’re really teaching strategy, teaching taking risks, we’re teaching capital allocation and we’re giving you a place to practice doing those things.”
The event ended with opportunities to play poker for attendees in order to both learn the game and spend more time chatting with Just about entrepreneurship. In the final moments of her chat with Matusik, Just noted poker is an opportunistic game that holds power for change.
“Poker is a game that offers us (the) opportunity to be in leadership positions,” Just said. “That is what you’re trying to do to try and make change. That is what you heard from these amazing women who came up earlier. They have to do something around their money. That’s where the equity happens.”
Daily Staff Reporter Kaelyn Sourya can be reached at ksourya@umich.edu.
Correction 3/15: This article has been updated to reflect that Michigan Business Women hosted the event, not the Business School and correct a misspelling of Anjika Jain’s name.
