Event info
2022 Business Leadership Celebration
Experience Foster
30th Annual Business Leadership Celebration
The Foster School of Business educates leaders who better humanity through business. Our coursework, delivered by world-class faculty, comes to life through the indelible experiential learning opportunities we provide. Foster students study abroad, consult small businesses and Fortune 500 firms, learn to lead in student organizations and on non-profit boards, intern with blue chip companies, test their mettle in case competitions, and drive entrepreneurial ideas from business plan to marketplace. These—and many more—profound learning experiences endow them with both purpose and power to build a better world through their careers.
Please join us for a special evening to Experience Foster and support our experiential learning programming. We’ll feature Brad Smith of Microsoft as our keynote speaker, honor this year’s Distinguished Leadership Awardees, and meet some of the students who are being informed and inspired by learning experiences at Foster. More than 600 business leaders, Foster supporters, and students will attend. Net proceeds directly support Foster School of Business experiential learning programs.
Keynote Speaker
BRAD SMITH, President & Vice Chair, Microsoft
As Microsoft’s president and vice chair, Brad Smith leads a team of more than 1,900 business, legal and corporate affairs professionals located in 52 countries and operating in more than 120 nations. He plays a key role in spearheading the company’s work on critical issues involving the intersection of technology and society, including cybersecurity, privacy, artificial intelligence, environmental sustainability, human rights, immigration and philanthropy. In his recent bestselling book, coauthored with Microsoft’s Carol Ann Browne, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age, Smith urges the tech sector to assume more responsibility and calls for governments to move faster to address the challenges that new technologies are creating. The New York Times has called Smith “a de facto ambassador for the technology industry at large” and The Australian Financial Review has described him as “one of the technology industry’s most respected figures.” He has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress and other governments on these key policy issues.
Distinguished Leadership Awardees
BETTI FUJIKADO, Co-founder, Copacino Fujikado; Co-Founder, Success Cohorts
Betti Fujikado is the co-founder of Copacino Fujikado, a Seattle advertising agency, and Success Cohorts, a coaching and community-building company serving early career, first-generation college graduates. In 2020, she co-developed Seattle Unite’s Democracy Cup that gathered the Seattle Sounders FC, Seattle Kraken, Seattle Seahawks, Seattle Storm, and OL Reign in a grassroots effort to reach communities of color to complete the 2020 Census. In 2021, Betti, along with four other Seattle-based Asian women leaders, created Our Stories Are Your Stories for AANHPI Heritage Month. Betti has been a Trustee at Western Washington University, a Board member at Pike Place Market PDA, and a long-time MBA mentor at University of Washington. She has been a Junior Achievement Washington Hall of Fame Laureate, PSBJ Woman of Influence, AAF WA Silver Medalist, and AABDC 50 Outstanding Asian Americans in Business. As the daughter of Japanese American parents incarcerated during World War II, Betti uses her voice to promote diversity in the Seattle business community.
KEN DENMAN, Sway Ventures
Ken Denman is a General Partner at Sway Ventures, a venture capital firm. He was President and Chief Executive Officer of Emotient, Inc., a developer of software technology to analyze facial expressions, until the company was acquired by Apple in January 2016. Previously, Ken was the Chief Executive Officer of Openwave Systems, Inc. and iPass, Inc. and a Senior Vice President for MediaOne. He was Chief Operating Officer of MediaOne International based in London. He is a member of the boards of directors of VMWare, Inc. and Motorola Solutions, Inc., where he is the lead independent director. Previously he was a director at ShoreTel, Inc. United Online, Inc., Mitek Systems, Inc., and LendingClub Inc. Ken was appointed to the Edward V. Fritzky chair as visiting professor at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business in 2012. He also sits on the boards of the Foster School, the University of Washington Foundation, and the Hospital Board of Trustees of Seattle Children’s.
For questions or to support this event and business education at the UW, please contact:
Eileen Bhatia
Assistant Director of Corporate Relations
206.616.9178
[email protected]
Past distinguished leadership award recipients and speakers
Mary Knell (BA ’82), Annie Young-Scrivner (BA ’91)
Pete Shimer (BA ’84), Nancy Zevenbergen (BA ’81), Firoz Lalji, Martin Selig (BA ’59)
Companies of the Century – Boeing, PACCAR and Nordstrom
Board Member, McDonald’s
Gary Wipfler (UW ’81), Jeffrey Brotman (UW ’64, JD ’67)
