Provo summit connects girls with business professionals for career exploration

PROVO — A local summit is helping girls explore career paths they may not encounter every day. The Provo Girls Summit brings girls ages 8 to 12 together with women working in a wide range of fields.

In its eighth year, organizers said more than 220 girls attended the summit held last Thursday at the Provo Library, with over 40 business professionals and dozens of volunteers on hand.

Tanei Henry, founder of the Provo Girls Summit, said the event provides a space for young girls to meet professional women and discover various financially viable career options.

"The idea is a broad scope of jobs that exist, and then also to invite them to think about the jobs that will exist in the future," she told KSL.

The two-hour event afforded young women the chance to meet and connect with women in industries ranging from law, education, business, healthcare, arts and entertainment, first responders and more.

Presenter Florence Hawkinson commended the high-energy feel of the summit.

"I was 8 years old when I decided I wanted to become an architect, and 55 when I became a licensed architect," Hawkinson said in a statement.

Henry hopes the Provo Girls Summit inspires conversations between girls and their parents or caregivers about what possibilities the future holds.

"We want these girls to have adults that they can talk to and say, 'Oh, remember when the architect that we met said this? Let's talk about it some more,'" she said. "And so as they're choosing classes at school, they have somebody that they can talk to about their experiences and who can remind them about their experience that they had at Provo Girls Summit."

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