The 5th Annual Women in Leadership Luncheon. Three screens. Two keynotes. Every word heard in the room.

The Southwestern Vermont Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with Beacon Bank, hosted the fifth annual Women in Leadership Luncheon at Hildene’s Lincoln Hall on Wednesday, May 13, 2026 — an afternoon designed to center, uplift, and honor local women. Over 150 guests filled the room for keynote presentations by Emily Bush (Vermont Women’s Fund) and Rhoni Basden (Vermont Works for Women), who presented a scaled-down version of the Vermont Women, Work and Wages Report. The report, developed with the Vermont Commission on Women, examined Vermont’s gender wage gap in a post-pandemic context — including findings that women earned 86 cents for every dollar earned by male counterparts in 2023, with a $9,000 annual earning gap and a $13,300 lifetime retirement savings gap.

Our production role was to keep that conversation audible and visible in every seat. Three 75-inch 4K monitors carried looping motion graphics and presentation content from welcome through transitions, with a dedicated holding slide whenever laptops slept or presenters stepped away from the podium — no desktop chrome, no half-loaded decks. Wireless presentation sync kept Bush and Basden aligned with what the audience saw. A six-speaker distributed audio system and dual back-fill stage lighting supported both keynote voices and the award ceremony that followed, so every remark landed clearly in a historic hall that already commands attention on its own.

Val Harrington presented the Young Women in Leadership Award to Mikayla Fisette. Kate Bryan presented the Woman of the Year Award to Maria Reade. Susan Plaisance presented the Lifetime Achievement Award to Sean-Marie Oller. SVCC President Shannon McLenithan closed the afternoon with a call to keep uplifting women across the community. The Bennington Banner covered the event in full — photography by Ryan Pacheco.