TIFTON — The second annual She Leads seminar was held at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College on Sept. 20. 

The program, which is a free seminar designed to increase attendees’ knowledge about money, their own personal relationship to money, and financial issues and strategies for increasing their money confidence, was hosted by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office. 

Presenters included industry experts, best-selling authors, Presidents and CEOs of multi-million dollar companies, small business owners and government representatives covering topics such as creating a solid financial foundation, financial changes throughout life changes and individual action planning. 

Ann Baldree, senior vice president, Chaparral Boats, was one of the panel speakers. 

She said that she was impressed with the event and was glad Raffensperger was focussing on

empowering women.

“It seems like this is something he’s passionate about,” she said. “I love the idea of it and I like the commitment. From what I understand it’s going to become an annual event.”

Baldree said that it was a great conference to attend no matter what stage of life a woman is at.

“If you were a young person starting out there was some incredibly good advice for you,” she said. “If you were in the mid-stages of your career, it was at that point, what do you need to do to save your money and make your money grow. There was some really good investment advice.”

Baldree said that she, as the oldest panelist, spoke about saving for retirement. She said that she also had some valuable take-aways from the event.

“There were some discussions about preparing for long-term care,” she said. “There were discussions… about some of the resources the state has for elderly parents. A lot of women deal with their parents as they age, so there was information about that and what resources you could go to to either get assistance or information. Those were things I was not very well versed on.”

She said that the biggest take-away for her was about women overcoming challenges and persevering. 

“I think that if you were there and you listened to everything, the common theme was that we as women should definitely lift each other up more,” she said. “We should be more supportive of women, that women are still, in many markets, underpaid for what they do, not paid on par with men. There was advice about not being afraid to ask for what you deserve and making sure you’re empowering yourself with handling your own money, having independence. I think a lot of these women walked away with the feeling that they could take charge of their own life and financial future.”