Iowa Women Lead Change begins 2019 with a growing vision – as a result, its name will change to Women Lead Change.

The growth as an organization to move beyond the state’s borders came about naturally, said Tiffany O’Donnell, CEO of the women’s leadership development and training organization.

“The ‘Iowa’ in front of the WLC required explanation when we would be in these other states,” she said as the changes were announced today at news conferences in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines. For instance, the group’s conference in Dubuque draws attendees from Wisconsin.

“We are taking that step to make it official and to share the good work that was born in Iowa,” O’Donnell said in an interview with the Business Record. “What we do has expanded in terms of leadership development. These are global entities that use our work in their organizations, period, regardless of what they are.”

Last year was a year of transition for the group, which took shape in 2006 after some women business leaders identified the need. Since then, IWLC has opened offices in five locations (including Des Moines), expanded its conferences from one day to two days, and has added the EPIC Corporate Challenge and Women of Achievement Bridge honorees to its list of duties. EPIC, created by the Nexus Executive Women’s Alliance and IWLC in May 2016, is Iowa’s first public-private partnership to motivate companies to commit to add and retain women at all levels of their organizations.

In 2018, WLC also added staffing to support its growing conference and event duties. It also is debuting a 12-month training program, Ascent, that kicks off Jan. 24.

“Iowa has had a lot to do with our success. You have heard me say that I don’t believe our relatively quick shift in the larger number of women in leadership in Iowa, could have happened at this rate anywhere else. Our relationships are one-degree of separation, border to border,” O’Donnell wrote in an open letter to IWLC partners and members.

Read more at www.wlcglobal.org.