Breakout Session 4 – The Cultural Advantage: How to Lead Up Without Losing Your Seat
June 3 @ 2:45 pm - 3:30 pm
Overview: You are sitting in a meeting, and you see it happening in real time. A decision is being made that you know is culturally tone-deaf. A campaign is being greenlit that will miss the mark. A moment is being misread by the people in the room with the most power. You know what they don’t. The question is, what do you do with that?
For mid-level professionals navigating largely homogeneous leadership structures in media, entertainment, technology, and sports, cultural intelligence is often the sharpest tool in the room. The problem is knowing how to use it without it being used against you. This session is an honest, unfiltered conversation about how to turn cultural fluency into leadership currency, how to speak up strategically, build influence authentically, and move up in organizations that may not yet fully understand the value of what you bring.
What We’ll Explore:
- How to use cultural intelligence as a strategic leadership asset rather than a personal burden
- Practical frameworks for managing up in environments where your cultural perspective is undervalued or misunderstood
- How to build influence, credibility, and allies across an organization without losing your authentic voice
- What the next generation of culturally intelligent leaders looks like, and how to position yourself there
Who This Session Is For: Mid-level professionals who are ready to move into senior leadership and want to use their cultural perspective as a competitive advantage rather than navigate around it.