The UpHer Room Collaborates with Truist Foundation and Watson Institute to Advance Women's Leadership

INDIANAPOLIS, IN — The UpHer Room Inc. is collaborating with Truist Foundation and Watson Institute to develop a research-driven leadership experience designed to strengthen how women build, lead, collaborate, and create sustainable economic impact.

The collaboration is part of The UpHer Room's broader work to advance the economic state of women through research, education, and practical access. Through this effort, The UpHer Room is designing an experience that challenges women leaders, founders, entrepreneurs, and visionaries to think beyond isolated success and examine what it means to be built for more.

The initiative will support the development of a two-day leadership experience in Indianapolis focused on collaboration, strategy, ecosystem building, and economic opportunity. Rather than operating as a traditional conference, the experience is being designed as a working room where women can engage in real dialogue, identify shared barriers, explore strategic partnerships, and contribute to solutions that strengthen the broader ecosystem for women.

"This collaboration allows us to do what The UpHer Room was created to do: bring women into rooms where insight becomes strategy and strategy becomes movement," said Dr. Benedicta Ajah, Founder and Executive Director. "We are not simply gathering women to be inspired. We are creating a space where women can examine what they are building, how they are building, and what becomes possible when collaboration is structured with intention."

The experience will also support The UpHer Room's research and learning efforts by gathering insight from women across different stages of leadership, business, and community-building — helping inform future programming, partnership models, and tools designed to strengthen women's access to leadership development and economic mobility.

"At the heart of this work is the belief that many women are not lacking vision," Dr. Ajah said. "They are often lacking the infrastructure, access, and aligned collaboration needed to sustain that vision. This collaboration helps us create a space where those deeper conversations can happen."