Thursday, October 29th, 2026

9:30am-5:00pm

The ECHO Leahy Center in Burlington, VT

Join Vermont’s vibrant community of women business owners for a day of connection, learning, and collective action.

Running a business takes vision and resilience. The right tools and technology can help you work smarter, reduce overwhelm, and make the day-to-day parts of your business feel easier. This conference is for business owners who want practical support, better systems, and simple ways to strengthen how their business runs. You will explore approachable tools, real-world strategies, and fresh ideas that can save time, support growth, and help you feel more confident about the role technology can play in your business. You do not need to be tech savvy to benefit. You just need curiosity and a desire to find tools that truly work for you.

Event Details

• Date: Thursday, October 29th, 2026
• Time: 9:30 AM – 5:00 PM
• Location: Echo Leahy Center, Burlington, VT
• Lunch: Locally sourced and provided by woman-co-owned caterer, Sugarsnap (vegetarian and gluten free options will be provided)
• Post-Conference Networking Social at Skinny Pancake: We’re hosting a post-conference networking social at the Skinny Pancake – just down the street from Echo. Please reserve your free spot by selecting this ticket option alongside registering for your conference ticket! We’ll gather there starting at around 5:00pm.

Tickets

• Early Bird for Members (through September 30th): $99
• Members October 1st-29th: $125
• Non-Member General Admission: $150
• WBON Membership-Conference Bundle Discount – Register for a new membership with WBON and receive a code to receive your conference ticket for $99

Support The Event

• Become a Sponsor
• Become an Annual Partner

Accessibility & Inclusion

All are welcome to attend. WBON is committed to fostering inclusion for all who identify as women (cisgender and transgender), gender-expansive individuals, and allies. We welcome everyone to build community and celebrate together. The Echo Leahy Center is fully ADA accessible. If you need specific accommodations to participate fully, please let us know during registration. Your comfort and participation are our top priorities.

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Agenda

Presentations and Presenters

Emcee

Celeste Hartwell

Owner, Divine Feminine Leaders®

Celeste is a Business and Leadership Coach with Divine Feminine Leaders®. Her clients come to her discouraged and quietly exhausted — undercharging, overgiving, and avoiding the hard conversations they’ve rehearsed for years. Through her work, they get underneath the avoidance and handle it: raising their prices with confidence, making the difficult hire or firing, releasing the clients and commitments that drain them. They leave paid well by clients they genuinely want, with their time and energy their own again. Most of all, they trade discouragement for possibility.   

Grounded and Open: Meeting Technology and Change with Curiosity

Kristabeth Atwood

Owner, Rites of Passage

Presentation Description

A day devoted to technology and AI can bring curiosity and possibility, but it can also stir up anxiety, resistance, overwhelm, or the feeling that we should already know more than we do. Before we dive into the tools and information ahead, we’ll take some time to simply arrive. Through grounding and reflection, we’ll reconnect with ourselves and with the deeper “why” behind our work. Together, we’ll explore what it might mean to move through the day with curiosity rather than urgency, staying present to ourselves and open to what we might learn. There is no need to take in everything or figure it all out today. We can begin right where we are.

Biography

Kristabeth Atwood, M.Div., is a trained spiritual director, certified grief and bereavement specialist, celebrant, and facilitator based in Burlington, Vermont. She brings 18 years of experience in church ministry and now supports individuals and groups across a wide range of spiritual and secular worldviews and identities. Her work creates space for reflection, honest conversation, and deeper listening, supporting people as they navigate change, uncertainty, and the complexities of life. She brings a grounded and compassionate presence, helping people reconnect with their own inner steadiness and wisdom in the midst of full and demanding lives.

Decoding Tech Lingo

Shannon Mitchell

Co-Owner, GameTheory

Presentation Description

Get a peek behind the curtain from a leader who has spent years working with, and at times fighting with, tech. Shannon first started out in the games industry and now runs //gametheory, a Burlington studio using technology to solve problems in healthcare, government, and community work. In this session Shannon explores how tech became so exclusionary and overcomplicated, and what business owners can do about it when tech is woven through everything we do. Leave with practical guidance on how to decode the jargon, work through technology decisions on your own terms, and hold genuine say over the systems your business depends on. Expect plain language, real examples, and a chance to poke some fun at technology.

Biography

Recognized by Bustle as a “Woman Redefining What It Means To Work In STEM”, Shannon is co-owner of GameTheory, a Vermont-based studio that applies the power of games, technology, & design to create social change. Through her work, she has designed dozens of successful social projects in areas like civic engagement, social work, mental health, art, medicine, and more. In addition, Shannon serves as an Adjunct Professor at Champlain College, event organizer, IGDA mentor, and industry coach to foster intersectional diversity within games, entrepreneurship, and tech. Shannon sees her work as a step toward a future where design thinking is applied to solve today’s problems in an accessible, enjoyable, and sustainable way.

From Goals to Growth: Building a Strategy you can Measure

Alison Abry

Owner, Alison Abry Finance Consulting, PLC

Presentation Description

Building a Strategy You Can Measure is a practical, hands-on session designed to help women entrepreneurs turn their 2027 business goals into a clear, actionable plan. We’ll begin by looking back at your 2026 results—what you accomplished, what worked, what didn’t, and what you learned—so you can use real insights to shape the year ahead. From there, you’ll work through a focused SWOT analysis to identify your business’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats that may impact your growth in 2027.

You’ll have dedicated time during the session to work on your own business plan, rather than simply listening to a presentation. Through a “Start, Stop, Continue” exercise, you’ll identify the activities and priorities that deserve more attention, what may be holding your business back, and what is worth continuing. We’ll finish by translating your goals into measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), giving you a practical way to track progress and know whether your strategy is working. By the end of the session, you’ll have greater clarity about where your business is going in 2027—and a framework for measuring your success along the way.

Biography

Alison is an accounting consultant & Fractional CFO helping businesses grow and increase profitability.  Throughout my Vermont career, using technology to make work easier and teaching accounting professionals has been my passion.  I’m excited to work with businesses and share my knowledge in these areas, to create efficiency improvements and relieve the stress on the accounting departments.  I’m a CPA with over 20 years of experience in public accounting, where I was a partner in a local firm.  My career transitioned to a CFO role with a rapidly growing technology client after they completed a private equity placement.  Since then I have worked on financial consultant jobs in manufacturing and banking.  My mission in these roles has been to create highly functioning finance teams that serve the organization and provide the best business decisioning information available.

Which AI is Best For You: ChatGPT vs Claude vs Gemini vs Copilot vs Perplexity? (With Real Use Cases)

Pat Heffernan, CMC®

President, Marketing Partners

Presentation Description

Five leading AI tools. Four common business jobs. This fast-moving, practical session compares ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity using real small-business use cases. Rather than crown one winner, we will explore where each tool is strongest, when a free or individual plan may be enough, when a business plan earns its cost, and how to protect customer and company information. You will leave with resources, a decision matrix, and a realistic two- or three-tool stack matched to your work, budget, and current Google or Microsoft environment.

Biography

An English major and word lover, Pat has harnessed technology for many years now —since being told repeatedly in her MBA program and in higher ed management that women could not. From assembling her original Apple 1 computer, to teaching CCV’s first “Introduction to Computers” course for Vermonters, writing software reviews for Inc. Magazine, beta testing multiple new tech products for major companies, while testing and evaluating tech tools for Marketing Partners Inc, Pat likes to think of technology as a communication challenge — how to explain its potential, risks, costs, and trade-offs in language accessible to everyone who could benefit — while avoiding overwhelm. As a CMC® (Certified Management Consultant), an internationally recognized credential, Pat has enjoyed discovering that’s an appreciated skill to have.

Panel Moderator

Beth Peters

Owner, VIVID Workplace

Photos From the 2025 Conference

Credit: Karen Wilkinson, Wilko & Sage

FAQ:

Refunds

Tickets are transferrable upon request (email info@wbon.org) but refunds shall not be granted.

Sponsorship Opportunities

Promote your business while supporting WBON! Email Christine at info@wbon.org for more information.

Food

Lunch will be provided. Coffee, tea and water will be available throughout the day. Contact info@wbon.org with any dietary restrictions.

Disclaimers

By registering you are consenting to your photo being taken and potentially used in future WBON promotions.

Parking

There is metered street and lot parking all around Echo.

For questions contact Christine Golden, WBON Operations Manager, at info@wbon.org.