Keynote: Maxine Clark & Sharon Price John

After stepping down as CEO in 2013, she focused her entrepreneurial energy on improving K–12 public education and investing in and mentoring women and minority entrepreneurs, including launching the free family resource app Blueprint4.com and developing the Delmar DivINe™ mixed-income community hub. 

Today, Ms. Clark serves on the Build-A-Bear Board and also serves as a managing partner of Prosper Women’s Capital and holds or has held numerous board and advisory roles across business, healthcare, education, and civic organizations. Her career has been recognized with many honors, including induction into the Junior Achievement National Business Hall of Fame, multiple retail industry awards, and a lasting legacy as the author of The Bear Necessities of Business: Building a Company with Heart.

Before Build-A-Bear, Sharon held senior roles at Hasbro, Mattel, and Wolverine World Wide, with extensive experience in marketing, product development, and operations. She was President of Stride Rite Children’s Group and led major brands such as Playskool, Play-Doh, NERF, Transformers, and My Little Pony.

Her career began in advertising with top agencies in New York. Sharon holds an MBA from Columbia University and a MS in Communications from the University of Tennessee. She has been recognized for her leadership and serves on the Board of Jack in the Box. She lives in St. Louis with her husband and three children.

She is a co-chair of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit, where she’s interviewed everyone from Fortune 500 CEOs and U.S. politicians to Hollywood stars, and previously co-chaired Fortune’s MPW Next Gen Summit and the Fortune/U.S. Department of State Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership. Her work, which includes magazine features with subjects ranging from Meta and CVS Health to Canva and the WNBA, has been honored by the Silurians Press Club, the Deadline Club, and the New York Newswomen's Club's Front Page Awards. Before joining Fortune, she worked as a reporter for Mashable and the Houston Chronicle. She is a graduate of Georgetown University and lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.