Projects
Mentoring
Mentorship became Leigh’s go-to solution to help any young person who crossed her path. She formalized this passion in 2006 when she observed that too many sixteen year-olds in New Zealand, her second home by marriage, dropped out of school to take dead-end jobs or start families. The lack of role models in New Zealand was partially a function of the strong global market for professionals who matriculated from New Zealand’s fabulous schools: one million of New Zealand’s small population of 4 million worked overseas. Since expatriate success stories weren’t apparent on the ground in New Zealand, Leigh looked for a way to connect these remote students to the stellar role models of New Zealand’s expats. The bridge came in the form of an online mentoring program, World Mentor, whose roots originated at Hewlett Packard back in 1995 - when HP wanted to test the ability of the new-fangled communication medium called “email” to connect its managers to local high school students. The initial program was “HP email mentoring” and 22 years of lean experimentation later, the outcome is the far more robust program,
Continuing Education
Student work needs to be influenced by the careers in which they'll soon find themselves, in higher education and careers. Leigh invests time on behalf of students through personal attendance in a steady stream of first-class executive education courses, bootcamps, conferences, explorative global travel and nurturance of high-level relationships, all of which feed her knowledge about what students need to succeed in their careers and lives. in 2017 alone, these included:
January 10-12 2017: SVIBI Unconference in Berkeley, California. As SViBi Co-founder and Chair, Leigh co-created this Unconference and joined with thirty select C-Suite attendees in three days of interaction with guests Clayton Christensen, Richard Rumelt, Gary Hamel, and David Teece, among other notables.
January 18-21 2017 Presidential Inauguration, including a personal meeting with Senator Tom Cotton regarding implementation of a state-wide mentoring program for Arkansas.
March 2017: Global Talent Summit, DC, with STEMConnector, Million Women Mentors and representatives from many corporate supporters.
May 2017: Celebratory Opening and Launch of the Teece Museum of Classical Antiquities at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
June 2-4: Conference on Dynamic Capabilities, Calgary, Canada.
June 20-22 Value Investing, Dr. Bruce Greenwald, Columbia University, NYC.
August 25 - September 5 2017: Edinburgh Music Festival and Lucerne Music Festival with Cal Performances, including personal meetings with word-class conductors, composers and performers.
September 9-10 2017: Singapore Art Outreach Leigh's friends and Art Outreach founders, Diana Lim See and Jackson See, have a mission to increase visual art literacy and promote art appreciation by offering an art education program for primary and secondary school students, art events in the community, art tours for the public. This is best encapsulated in their motto: “Art Education for the Community by the Community”.
September 18-20 2017: TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco TechCrunch Disrupt is the world's leading authority in debuting revolutionary startups, introducing game-changing technologies and discussing what's top of mind for the tech industry's key innovators. Disrupt gathers the best and brightest entrepreneurs, investors, hackers, and tech fans to share stories, network and learn from each other.
September 29-October 1 2017: Private event in the countryside of Barcelona with well-known legacy artists and vintners to share stories about art and innovation, especially in wine.
October 2017: Claremont McKenna College's Kravis Leadership Institute: board meetings & panel speaker, and participant and networker Impact CMC Weekend.
October 16-20 2017 Leading Strategic Growth & Change, Columbia University, New York City
October 26-28 2017 Digital Business Strategy, Columbia University, New York City.
November 28-29 2017 STEM Innovation Task Force with STEMConnector, PepsiCo Headquarters Rye, New York. The STEM Innovation Task Force (SITF) is a thought leadership and action council comprised of more than 30 private sector and education leaders focused on collaborative approaches to address the STEM talent shortfall gap.