Former mayor leads UNLV program to help women crack the ‘glass ceiling’

Now, the chief executive in residence at UNLV’s International Gaming Institute, a Caesars Entertainment board member and first female mayor of Las Vegas, is preparing to share her expertise with women on the verge of taking the next step toward the C-suite with a new six-month program designed to address common barriers and challenges that women are experiencing in the corporate workplace on their path to executive level roles.

The WomenUp Leadership Enhancement Program, which begins in September, is specifically crafted for high-performing, senior-level women working in corporate organizations.

Program inspired by study

The program was inspired by a 62-page “Women in the Workplace” study conducted by New York-based McKinsey & Co., a global management and consulting company, in 2022. Blackhurst said she was encouraged to develop a local program by UNLV President Keith Whitfield.

“For probably my entire career, I’ve been interested in why half of the workforce are women, but when you get to senior management levels, it’s like 12 percent and when you get to the CEO level, it’s like 5 percent,” Blackhurst said in an exclusive interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal. ”I think there’s more CEOs named John than there are the total number of women CEOs in corporate America.”

To expand opportunities for female corporate executives, Blackhurst, through UNLV, is offering WomenUp to teach the skills necessary for women to assert themselves in leadership roles in the workplace.

Here’s how it works:

The WomenUp group will meet six times between September and February, twice in person and four times online, with guest speakers, three one-hour coaching sessions and several group discussion periods. Blackhurst’s Leaderverse Initiative colleague at UNLV, Distinguished Fellow Becky Harris, is co-chairing the event with her. Michelle DiTondo, a principal with San Diego-based Avion Consulting and a former human resources executive with MGM Resorts International, will facilitate the program.

Among the guest speakers for the program are Seema Kuthuria, managing director of Russell Reynolds; Lili Tomovich, chief marketing officer of Barclays; Eileen Moore, former CEO of The Boring Co.; Ana Mendy, vice president of market, policy and innovation insight for PayPal; and former UNLV President Marta Meana, former dean of UNLV’s Honors College.

Tuition is $12,500 per person and it’s also open to male allies aspiring to be in executive roles.

“We’ll assign every woman in the group both a mentor and a sponsor so that when they go back into the workplace, they’re really comfortable in navigating how they get past just the VP level and work their way up to an executive vice president or CEO level,” she said. “You don’t need to teach them to be leaders. You can teach them skill assessment, confidence, and the ability to successfully navigate around barriers.”

Self-assessment

One of the key components early in the program is to complete a thorough self-assessment.

“It’s a 360 skills assessment, because everybody has different strengths and weaknesses and understanding where yours are as it pertains to a work environment becomes really valuable information,” she said.

Much of the program involves developing confidence.

“I use this quote all the time but it’s true,” Blackhurst said. “If a woman looks at a job description, if she doesn’t meet 99 percent of the criteria, she’s likely to say, ‘I might not be ready for this.’ If a man looked at the same job description and he had 40 percent of the skills, he’d say, ‘I’ve got this.’ You know, it’s wired differently and so the skills assessment really is important in having women understand your skills are deployable across multiple fields. You’ve got to understand and not keep yourself in this limited vision of where you can go and how you can get there.”

Blackhurst anticipates around 25 will enroll in the first of what she hopes is multiple sessions over time.

Prospective applicants should apply for the program at womenupleadership.com.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.