Women’s Leadership Forum bridges age divide, inspires older and younger generations alike

The 2025 Women’s Leadership Forum, part of Liberty University’s annual CEO Summit, brought together roughly 300 women, including seasoned CEOs and budding careerwomen, to pass on their experience and knowledge to each other. Held on Thursday afternoon in the Montview Student Union, Alumni Ballroom, the event featured two panels and a talk from Virginia First Lady Suzanne Youngkin, with ample time for attendees to network with each other and learn different generational perspectives on leadership and business.

Hosted by the Office of Development in partnership with Liberty’s Women in Business Club and the Office of Business Relations, this year’s luncheon focused on the theme “bridging generations of leadership.”

Kristin Boyce, director of Liberty’s Center for Entrepreneurship, and Vickey Costin, wife of Liberty President Dondi E. Costin’s, opened the event with a welcome message and prayer. The first panel featured Dr. Stacie Rhodes, executive director of Liberty’s Center for Financial Literacy; Olivia Smith, president of the Women in Business Club; Ali Berger, cofounder of Lynchburg Women in Business; and Cat Bonar, CEO of Block Reign, a blockchain technology company.

Boyce, who moderated the panel, started by asking the women how they pursue faithful leadership in their own lives. Rhodes said the “hardest person you’ll lead is yourself,” and noted that she’s found success and comfort in an “aggressive pursuit of time with God.”

“In the busyness and the demands of leadership, one of the first things that happens is the compression of time,” she said. “(The Lord) says, ‘The joy of the Lord is our strength.’ Well, I’m not finding the joy of the Lord unless I’m in the presence of the Lord.”

Boyce welcomed Virginia First Lady Suzanne Youngkin, who noted that women are leading in record numbers today. There are 418,000 women-owned businesses across the Commonwealth, making up 40% of all businesses, raking in around $84 billion each year, and employing over 340,000 Virginians.

“What’s happening in the Commonwealth is very bright and very beautiful, and I’m so glad you all are deeply engaged in it,” Youngkin said. “You are really the fruit of that, and I could not be more proud to be here.”

Youngkin said that within her own sisterhood in life, she focuses on loving, inspiring, flourishing, and endurance.

Christy Murphy, executive event director for Liberty’s Career Services, moderated the second panel, which included Shari Falwell, wife of Liberty Chancellor Jonathan Falwell; T’Neal Walea, a Microsoft executive; and Dr. Shannae Anderson, director of psychology and co-director of Ethics and Advocacy for the American Association of Christian Counselors.

Murphy asked each panelist a unique question pertaining to their career, starting with Anderson, who talked about a time when a young person’s voice impacted her. In 2019, a young man spoke at her church every few months, and it was his inspirational preaching that motivated her to speak up against churches closing down during the COVID-19 pandemic. Though she was canceled, received hate, death threats, and protests for speaking out, she did not stop, and that resulted in an opportunity to also speak out against transgender education in elementary classrooms. Even though she was scared, she thought back to that young man’s courage to speak boldly about his own beliefs, and she continued to do the same.

In response to her speaking out on transgender education, a transgender activist filed a 51-page complaint against her license and sent it to her board, her U.S. representative, state representative, city attorney, school board superintendent, and entire city council.

“They tried to take me out. And it was in that place that I realized: they are scared of me,” Anderson said. “But what Satan intended for evil, God intended for good.”

She said God worked through the trials and rewarded her for standing for her deeply held religious beliefs. Through her work with the AACC, Anderson had multiple opportunities to advance mental health awareness in the Christian community, including meetings with the Department of Justice and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about discrimination against Christian counselors.

At the end of her talk, she revealed the name of the man who propelled her years ago to speak boldly.

“The only reason I’ve been able to do this is because of the voice of that young man, that young man from my church, that young man who spoke out, and who will never know or see the impact he had on my life, because that man was Charlie Kirk,” she said. “That’s the voice of a generation behind me.”

Walea spoke about her experiences behind the scenes as a high-level executive, and how she’s learned to rely on God in the hardest moments.

“The reality is that we all go through a lot, the reality is that we have highs and lows, we have disappointments, we have crushing disappointments, we battle with anxiety, and we battle with fears, we battle with what’s next, and we battle with relinquishing control to God,” she said. “(I have to say) ‘OK, God, somehow in the middle of my mess, you’re going to take this, and you’re going to make it beautiful.’”

Falwell closed the panel by sharing the ways that God can work through each member of the audience. She said her father-in-law, Liberty founder Dr. Jerry Falwell, was a genius and could have done anything, but he yielded to God’s plan.

“(Jerry Falwell) had the vision for Liberty, and he sought the mercy of God, and then God did all of this,” she said. “That’s what He can do for each and every one of us, which is so exciting. The sky’s the limit.”

The forum concluded with members of the Women in Business Club surrounding Falwell, Costin, and Youngkin while Walea led the group in prayer.

Marina Awale, a junior studying international business and finance, said she was excited to learn from those who have gone before her.

“Experience is extremely important,” she said. “Being able to listen to people who are older than us and having them give us advice, and just listening to their story about how they got here and then being able to apply it to our lives is so important. And they’re all believers, they’re all women in faith, and that’s a really big part, especially being at Liberty University.”

The CEO Summit took place Wednesday through Friday and welcomed an extensive network of CEOs, government leaders, innovators, and influencers as well as students, faculty, and staff for a time of collaboration and fellowship through various panel discussions and keynote events.