Morning Keynote

CEO, Bare Escentuals
www.bareescentuals.com

When it comes to beauty, Leslie Blodgett started breaking the rules by age 12, sneaking out with makeup on regardless of her mother disapproving. This passion led to a solid foundation of 23 years of education and cosmetic experience, including positions at Neutrogena and Max Factor. In 1994, Leslie joined Bare Escentuals as CEO, setting out on an extraordinary journey to bring the products she loves into the hearts and homes of women everywhere.

An unconventional thinker with incredible intuition in product development and marketing, Leslie launched bareMinerals, a revolutionary line of 100% pure bareMinerals products, in 1995. Committed to her passion of making women feel beautiful inside and out, she introduced Bare Escentuals on QVC in 1997, immediately earning legions of loyal fans that spread the word about bareMinerals. Due to this passionate customer community, in 2001, bareMinerals was recognized as the #1 selling brand on QVC.

As CEO, Leslie is unrelentingly committed to her customers and at the cornerstone of her ever-growing popularity is her approachability. Receiving thousands of letters and emails from her fans weekly, Leslie prides herself on taking time to personally respond to her clients.

When Leslie is not appearing on TV, developing a new product line, or traveling to events, she cherishes her life at home with her family. The tremendous growth of Bare Escentuals, under Leslie’s care and direction, is a compelling testimony of her visionary ideas for the company, the personal relationships with her clients that she cultivates and values so highly, and her unwavering passion and commitment in helping women everywhere discover and embrace their individual beauty.

Midday Keynote

San Francisco District Attorney

In December 2003, Kamala Harris was elected as the first woman District Attorney in San Francisco's history, and as the first African American woman and South Asian American woman in California to hold the office.

Born and raised in the East Bay, Kamala is the daughter of Dr. Shyamala Gopalan, a Tamilian breast cancer specialist who traveled to the United States from Chennai, India to pursue her graduate studies at UC Berkeley. She attended Howard University, America’s oldest historically black university, and then the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

Harris has spent her entire professional life in the trenches as a courtroom prosecutor. After graduating from law school, she took a position in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office, where she specialized in prosecuting child sexual assault cases. As San Francisco DA, Harris has focused intensively on fighting violent crime. She has increased conviction rates for serious and violent offenses, expanded services to victims of crime and their families, created new prosecution divisions focused on child assault, public integrity and environmental crimes, and launched innovative re-entry initiatives to prevent re-offending.

California’s largest legal newspaper, The Daily Journal, designated Harris as one of the top 75 women litigators in California as well as one of the top 100 lawyers in the state. She has been featured in Newsweek as one of “America’s 20 Most Powerful Women” and was selected as one of 24 elected leaders from throughout the country to serve as a Rodel Fellow with the Aspen Institute.

Afternoon Keynote

Executive Vice President & CFO, Hewlett-Packard Company
www.hp.com

Cathie Lesjak is executive vice president and chief financial officer of HP, where she is responsible for the company’s overall financial activities and leads several departments, including business units’ finance, treasury, tax, and controllership.

A 23-year veteran of the company, Lesjak previously was senior vice president and treasurer, responsible for managing the company’s worldwide cash, debt, foreign exchange, capital structure, risk management and benefits plan administration.

Lesjak also managed financial operations for Enterprise Marketing and Solutions and the Software Global Business Unit. Before that she served as controller and credit manager for the Commercial Customer Organization and also managed HP’s global channel credit risk.

Lesjak has a bachelor’s degree in biology from Stanford University and a master of business degree in finance from the University of California, Berkeley.