It was a day of intense insights and emotions as the sixth annual Westchester Women’s Summit, the largest Women’s History Month celebration in Westchester County, brought together an unprecedented 650 attendees and 60 speakers for a event focusing on women’s wellness across four key areas – physical and mental health; financial health; career health; and family and community health – in workshops, networking opportunities and interactive experiences.
It was presented by The Event Department in collaboration with the Westchester County Office for Women and NewYork-Presbyterian, with Event Department founder and president, Rose Capa-Rotunno, noting that the summit has also grown in sponsorship. This year’s sponsors were C&A Digital, Corporate Audio Visual Services, Wartburg, Westfair Business Journal, White Plains Hospital, Apple Bank, WestDocs Concierge, Allan M. Block Insurance Agency Inc., Burke Rehabilitation Hospital, Corcoran Legends Realty, Filippatos PLLC, Formé Medical Center, Lawley Insurance, MackTeck Solutions, Sonesta Downtown White Plains hotel, VeeKast and Westchester Medical Center.
The tone for the summit – held Friday, March 13, at the Sonesta White Plains Downtown – was set early by keynote speaker Hoda Kotb, who has returned temporarily to NBC’s “Today” after co-host Savanna Guthrie stepped away to participate in the search for her mother, Nancy, missing from her Tuscon, Arizona, home since Feb. 1. Despite a high-profile investigation into the apparent kidnapping, no suspect has been identified and she has not been found to date.
Savannah Guthrie visited the “Today” show March 5 for an emotional reunion with the staff but has not indicated when she will return to the show.
“I’ve been with Savannah a few times, and all she keeps asking for is prayers,” Kotb told Tara Rosenblum, News12 political and investigative reporter, who emceed the summit and interviewed Kotb onstage. “We do believe in the power of prayer.”
Kotb described her complementary friendship and working relationship with Guthrie, with whom she made history on Jan. 2, 2018, as the first female duo to anchor the morning show following Matt Lauer’s firing late in 2017.
“Savannah is one of the best interviewers I’ve ever seen. She’s steady,” Kotb said, recalling the times she herself would be rifling through papers only to have Guthrie seamlessly slip her the page she needed. “She was more head. I was more heart. We had a vibe going. I knew she’d catch me. I knew if someone had my back, I could make it.”
But credit for that must also go to Kotb, who has throughout her life and career found opportunity in challenging circumstances, including the prejudice she encountered as a woman of Egyptian descent working for ABC and CBS affiliates in the South. She joined NBC News in 1998, serving as a contributing anchor and correspondent for “Dateline” before moving over to “Today” in 2007 to anchor its fourth hour, first with Kathie Lee Gifford and then with Jenna Bush Hager.
“For most of my life, my career got most of the attention,” Kotb said. Ten years ago, as a 51-year-old divorced breast cancer survivor, Kotb “thought motherhood out of reach.” But then she saw a story about actress Sandra Bullock adopting and quickly discovered they were the same age.
“The minute you speak something out loud, the universe answers,” she said of voicing her desire for motherhood, adding, “Blessings come when they’re ready.”
In 2017 and ’19, Kotb adopted Haley and Hope respectively and went about the business of trying to focus on work at “Today” and motherhood at home. However, another NBC News journalist, Maria Shriver, helped her realize that she was spending more time at work than on family and friends. And so the woman who became a mother in her 50s, took another plunge, stepping down from “Today” last year.
“I probably could’ve kept working longer,” Kotb said. “It was scary. You’re full of life, adrenalin. You have to have a plan B.”
For her, that has been “to make people feel better so we can do better. You have one ride around the sun. So what are we doing?”
What Kotb is doing is curating an online wellness community, Joy 101, hosting the podcast “Making Space With Hoda Kotb,” and hanging with her girls locally as newly minted Bronxville residents.
She’s also the author of numerous best sellers, the latest of which, the hot-pink covered “Jump and Find Joy: Embracing Change in Every Season of Life” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2025), had attendees jumping for joy, so to speak, as they queued up for copies and photographs with Kotb as the summit began.
The high energy stylings of the band Sage also got the throng fired up, as did inspirational words from New York state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Westchester County Executive Kenneth W. Jenkins and Deputy County Executive Joan McDonald.
“Westchester is the best Chester,” Jenkins said, “because it’s led by dynamic women.”
The majority of the county’s departments are helmed by women, he noted, and the person overseeing its $2.5 billion budget is McDonald, who spoke of her humble beginnings, the oldest of 10 on a dairy farm in New York state’s Finger Lakes district where her mother made sure the girls as well as the boys were well-educated. That upbringing has led to a career in public management, transportation, economic and community development, public finance and public policy that has shaped, and been shaped by, her confidence.
“I don’t need to prove anything to anyone, and when you realize that, it’s liberating,” she observed. “You can take more risks. You can be creative.”
Stewart-Cousins, who made history as the first African American and first woman to serve as the state’s Majority Leader, encouraged attendees and all women to savor what they’ve accomplished as “people holding up their half of the world.” (“I think it’s more than half,” a woman seated behind us whispered.)
At the same time, she exhorted women not to lose faith with this moment of achievement. Those two messages – take to time indulge and reflect; and go forward – were part of the two afternoon workshops we attended. Bama Kim, regional director of Body & Brain Yoga & Tai Chi Centers, offered a “Sound Meditation and Movement” workshop in which participants chanted and performed simple movements to get in touch with five major organs and their associated emotions (heart/passion; liver/anger; stomach/worry; lungs/grief; kidneys/fear). As we breathed deeply, we felt as if we were on a mini vacation.
It was good preparation for “Stress, Narcissists & Boundaries: Let’s Talk About It!”, a panel of narcissistic abuse survivors and experts moderated by attorney Robi Schlaff, former director of the Westchester County Office for Women.
The panel – composed of Tamaris Princi, LCSW, founder and executive director of The Westchester Institute for Transformative Support; psychotherapist Vanessa Reiser; and Emily Rentas, LMHC-D, a board-certified mental health counselor, offered their personal and professional experience with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), characterized by lack of self-awareness and compassion; an addiction to attention and control, and a tenuous relationship with the truth/everyday reality. Passive-aggressive behavior, triangulation, threats and even violence are some of the ways in which narcissists aim to manipulate co-workers and family members.
The discussion hit home for at least one woman in attendance, who had recently left an abusive husband and started to weep. Others questioned their own judgment in becoming involved with narcissists – something that may be unavoidable if the narcissist is a close relation or a boss.
While NPD can’t be cured, some forms can be managed through talk therapy. The panel discussed setting boundaries and balancing your life so that you’re not always in flight-or-fight mode in your relationship with a narcissist. Sometimes, however, you have to walk away, although that is easier said than done.
“It can take seven tries to get out of it,” Princi said of a narcissistic entanglement.
There are professional organizations that can help, though, such as My Sisters’ Place and the Pace Women’s Justice Center (PWJC) as well as the Westchester County Office for Women.
