Join the Women’s Supply Management Community for an energizing, insight-rich conversation with Megan McConnell, a thought leader from McKinsey & Company, as we unpack the latest Women in the Workplace 2025 report—one of the largest annual studies on women’s advancement in corporate America. This year’s findings point to a shifting landscape: many organizations are showing declining commitment to women’s progress, and women report receiving less career support and fewer opportunities to advance. The report also highlights persistent barriers like the “broken rung,” along with evolving dynamics around sponsorship, manager advocacy, flexibility, and the workplace changes that may shape women’s careers in the year ahead.

In this session, we’ll translate the data into practical takeaways for women in supply management—what the research signals, how to interpret it in your own workplace, and the actions you can take to increase visibility, access opportunity, and build meaningful career support. We’ll close with a guided discussion so participants can share what they’re seeing, compare notes, and leave with next steps.

Aligned with our mission to connect, promote, empower, and advance women in the supply management profession, this is a must-attend session for professionals at every career stage. All are welcome to attend, ISM membership is not required.

Learning Objectives

• Identify the report’s headline themes shaping women’s advancement—and why progress is at risk of stalling or reversing in some organizations.
• Understand how career support, sponsorship/advocacy, and opportunity access connect directly to women’s willingness to pursue advancement. Understand how career support, sponsorship/advocacy, and opportunity access connect directly to women’s willingness to pursue advancement.
• Leave with practical moves to build career support (relationships, visibility, stretch work, and sponsorship pathways) within your sphere of influence.

Presented by:

Megan McConnell, Partner at McKinsey & Company

Megan is a Partner in McKinsey’s Washington D.C. Office with a focus on People and Organizational Performance for large, complex public institutions and private companies.

Since joining McKinsey in 2008, she has led holistic operating model transformations to simultaneously raise performance and productivity levels; driven major overhauls of human capital systems and HR functions; and counseled clients in attracting, retaining, and reshaping their workforces to capture the value from new technologies. She has also advised senior executives on organizational health, culture, enterprise-wide change management, and HR technology.

Within McKinsey, Megan leads the firm’s U.S. client service on People and Organizational Performance for the public sector, social sector, and healthcare institutions. She serves as a co-author of McKinsey and LeanIn’s annual Women in the Workplace report. And she is currently working alongside the firm’s technologists to research the talent and organizational implications of agentic AI, and to help her clients put these changes into practice.

Megan lives in Alexandria, Virginia with her husband and children. She has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia in Economics and Spanish and an M.B.A. from Harvard.