.png)
.jpeg)
Empowered Women
Join us for the Intentional: Women's Conference! This empowering event is designed to inspire and uplift women from all walks of life. Get ready for a day filled with engaging workshops and meaningful connections.
Whether you're a student, professional, retired, or discerning your next chapter this conference is for you. Our lineup of dynamic speakers will share their expertise, covering topics such as personal growth, wellness, and finding peace. You'll leave with practical tips and tools to live a more intentional life.
Connect with like-minded women and make lifelong friends. Don't miss this opportunity to invest in yourself and be part of a supportive community. Reserve your spot today and get ready to be inspired at the Intentional: Women's Conference!
Inspired Women
Meet The Speakers
Rev. La Tonja Ellis
Rev. La Tonja D. Ellis is an innovator, educator, pastor and community leader. Rev. Ellis is a career Human Resources professional with over 20 years of experience in private industries higher education, non-profit organizations, and public sector (mental/health substance abuse, community counseling and foster care and family wrap around services). She currently serves as the Director of Human Resources and Culture at the Children's Defense Fund. Over her career, she has utilized keen negotiation and communication skills, combined with in-depth knowledge of business environments, to provide the qualities needed to successfully help all clients. She also currently serves as the Senior Pastor at Grant Memorial AME Church in Chicago, IL.
Dr. Inger Burnett-Zeigler
Dr. Inger Burnett-Zeigler is a licensed clinical psychologist and associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. She has two decades of clinical experience helping people with stress, trauma, mood and anxiety conditions, and difficulty in interpersonal relationships. In her clinical practice she promotes holistic wellness through mindfulness, self-compassion and healthy behavior change. Inger’s scholarly work focuses on the role that social determinants of health play in mental illness and treatment, particularly in the Black community. She is the author of the book Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen: The Emotional Lives of Black Women. Inger is an advocate for normalizing participation in mental health treatment and ensuring that all individuals have access to high-quality, evidence based mental health care. She is an active contributor to the public discourse on mental health and she has been featured in the New York Times, TIME Magazine, and Chicago Tribune.
.png)
Rev. Dr. Shakira Sanchez-Collins, MD
Dr. Shakira Sanchez-Collins, known as “Dr. Shakira”, is a wellness advocate, physician, preacher, pastor, speaker and writer.
Dr. Shakira helps people flourish in mind, body and spirit. Through her work, she focuses on addressing the whole person. A gifted speaker, Dr, Shakira was inducted in the 35th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers at Morehouse College. She has been featured in the Chicago Tribune and has also appeared on the podcast, Black Girl Fit Files. A prolific writer, Dr. Shakira has published articles in ABC News Online, Urban Cusp Magazine, American Diabetes Association Diabetes Spectrum Journal, among others. Dr. Shakira serves on the board of The Daughters of the African Atlantic Fund, an organization that seeks to enhance the quality of life of continental and diasporan African women and girls. She has been featured on CBS Chicago and in the Chicago Tribune.
Dr. Constants Adams
Dr. Constants Adams completed her undergraduate education at the University of South Carolina where she graduated with honors. She attended the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, where she was awarded the American Medical Association’s Physicians of Tomorrow Scholarship for excellence in leadership, women/infants health advocacy and research.
Dr. Adams completed her OB/GYN residency at Northwestern where she served as Clinic Chief Resident.
She is interested in all aspects of obstetrics and gynecology. She has special interest in the management of abnormal bleeding including fibroids and adenomyosis. She has a passion for minimally invasive surgery and is skilled in traditional laparoscopy and the Da Vinci Robotic System.
She currently a Clinical Assistant Professor for Feinberg School of Medicine and is in practice at Northwestern OBGYN Consultants.
Rev. Dr. Gloria White-Hammond, MD
Rev. Gloria E. White-Hammond, M.D. is Co-Pastor of Bethel AME Church, Boston, MA, www.bethelame.org and the Swartz Resident Practitioner in Ministry Studies at Harvard Divinity School (HDS).
Dr. White-Hammond’s “ministry of healing” spans four decades and 2 continents. She served as a pediatrician at the South End Community Health Center from 1981-2008. In 2002, White-Hammond co-founded My Sister’s Keeper to provide humanitarian and human rights support to women and girls who were victims of conflict in Sudan and South Sudan.
Dr. White-Hammond serves alongside her husband, Rev. Ray A. Hammond, MD, to pastor Bethel’s 500-member congregation. Her innovations include Shatter the Silence, a faith-based network of congregations committed to addressing sexual victimization of women and men in predominantly African American communities; Planning Ahead, a ministry to encourage church members to begin conversations and complete their advance directives regarding their wishes for end-of-life care; and Sacred Conversations which equips clergypersons from diverse faith traditions to provide more effective support for seriously ill congregants.
As Harvard Divinity School’s Swartz Resident Practitioner in Ministry Studies, Dr. White-Hammond co-directs the Harvard Divinity School and Harvard Medical School course, “Medicine and Spirituality in Healing”; and facilitates a group, “Meaning Making: Understanding the Minister's Role in Making Theological Sense of Life Experience.”
Dr. White-Hammond is a graduate of Boston University (AB, 1972), Tufts University School of Medicine (MD, 1976) and Harvard Divinity School (MDiv, 1997). She is a former member of the Board of Trustees and current member of the President’s Advisory Council of Brigham and Women’s Hospital; trustee emeritus at Tufts University; trustee at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; and a member of Boston’s COVID19 Health Inequities Task Force.
Vendor Information
The 2024 Intentional Women's Conference is offering space for vendors. As a vendor, you will have your own table space in our vendor spaces. Conference attendees will be directed to check out the vendor spaces during the conference breaks. Please complete the registration form and complete payment either by check or on our online registration website.