Take The Lead's Gloria Feldt Sounds Alarm: Women Can’t Sit Still in 2026

Heather Florio, Take The Lead board member, leading Power Up Conference 2026 sponsor and CEO, Desert Harvest, speaking at Power Up Conference 2025.

Take The Lead was founded in 2013 and launched in 2014 on a simple mission and the proven effective leadership program to back it up: women will not wait generations for leadership parity.  

The organization delivers practical, research-based training, coaching, and community building that helps women claim and use power with intention. Founder Gloria Feldt is a visionary strategic consultant, Forbes 50 Over 50 honoree, former president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and author of five books, including Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good. 

As we recognize Women’s History Month this March, we are faced with this reality: After years of progress and ceiling-breaking, American women are experiencing an unprecedented rollback of their fundamental rights and opportunities.  It is essential to not just to hold ground, but to keep momentum, and lead through this moment to a more equitable future—to make our own history.

At the same time, childcare pressures, rollbacks in reproductive rights, government cuts that disproportionally affect women and especially women of color, and DEI pullbacks to name a few, make opportunity and advancement more elusive. 

That is the backdrop for Take The Lead’s annual Women’s Equality Day Power Up Concert and Conference in Washington, D.C. on August 25 and 26. This year’s theme is “Audacity: Leadership in Action.”

Margaret Atwood will be the keynote speaker. Her novel The Handmaid’s Tale, written in 1984, has become a cultural reference point for today’s women’s rights movement as it points out the dystopian future prophesied in the book is no longer fiction. That’s why Handmaid outfits are now often worn as a symbol in protests and a warning about what can happen when rights and progress are eliminated. 

Learn more about the Power Up Concert & Conference here

Feldt says Take The Lead’s journey and why the mission matters in this moment is explored at this year’s event, and the theme, speakers, and topics were chosen in response to the current landscape. 

Heather Florio, CEO of Desert Harvest, a leading conference sponsor and Take The Lead board member, says Take The Lead’s mission and this year’s conference align with her work. Florio is a women’s health advocate who works closely with leading clinicians and researchers worldwide. Desert Harvest supports patients and providers in 50+ countries and funds women’s health education in underserved communities internationally.

Register for Women’s Equality Day Power Up Concert and Conference 2026 in Washington, D.C. 8/25-26.