Francine Parham

Francine Parham is a career expert and practitioner focused on female leadership and the advancement of women and women of color into positions of leadership and authority in the workplace. She has lived and experienced all the work that she and her organization do, which has positioned her as a human capital expert and practitioner.

Having spent two decades in the corporate sector advancing to the position of a global vice-president in two Fortune 500 companies (General Electric and Johnson and Johnson), Francine understands the importance of having the right skills (explicit and implicit) for career success. She understands the actions needed within an organization to achieve professional success as a woman and woman of color herself. Francine’s experiences and being one of few Black women at her level resulted in her becoming the Founder and CEO of her business, FrancineParham & Co.

Francine is the creator of the Sharpen Your Skills Professional™, a customized leadership development program, which focuses on the implicit skills women and women of color need for their professional advancement. Her company also works with organizations to provide quantitative and qualitative assessments with recommended approaches and solutions to advance professional women and women of color at work. She is also the creator of a newly launched media channel, “Advancing Women in the Workplace” focused on democratizing career development and advancement for all professional women and women of color.

As a keynote, public speaker and panelist, her topics range from workplace navigation to speaking with audiences about their leadership accountability in helping women and women of color advance professionally. Her voice has translated into her most recent book titled, “Please Sit Over There: How to Manage Power, Overcome Exclusion and Succeed as a Black Woman at Work” (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, August, 2022), focused on the concept of power and successful workplace navigation. She is also the co-author of “The Ultimate Career Pocket Guide” and a contributing author to The Memory Project, a book of collective coursework at the Columbia Journalism School. Francine has also written for various online outlets. She has been cited or recognized as a career expert by the Women’s Media Center, in various published books as well as, shared her career advice in interviews for publications. She is also serves as a Senior Fellow and Council Program Director for The Conference Board, a member-driven global think tank.

Francine holds two master’s degrees. She graduated from Columbia University with her Masters of Science degree in Journalism as a Stabile Investigative Fellow. Her second degree is from the University of Illinois where she obtained her Masters of Arts degree in Labor and Industrial Relations.

Her undergraduate degree is from Purdue University where she double-majored in Business Communications and Psychology. She is the proud mother of a son who supports and partners with her in all that she does to advance women and women of color in the workplace.