SM Chamber’s ‘OWL’ to honor trailblazing women

The Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with the Santa Monica Commission on the Status of Women, presents the International Women’s Day Breakfast kicking off Women’s History Month. The OWL International Women’s Day Breakfast will be held Friday, March 10 from 7 to 9:30 a.m. at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, 1700 Ocean Ave., Santa Monica.

The event is sponsored by Water Garden, Santa Monica Place, and Kaiser Permanente, and tickets are $55 for chamber members and $70 for non-members.

The annual breakfast gathers professionals from throughout the community to network and celebrate women leaders in Santa Monica.  This year “OWLIE” honorees are Elaine Polachek and Amy Ziering.

“The Chamber holds this event annually with a dual focus: to highlight outstanding women leaders in the city and surrounding county, and to unite women in business in all levels of the community,” states Laurel Rosen, President and CEO of the Santa Monica Chamber.

Elaine Polachek is the Assistant City Manager for the City of Santa Monica, where she supervises 11 city departments and leads the City’s economic development efforts.

In this role, she focuses on developing, enhancing, and sustaining relations with residents and key business partners, such as the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, Convention and Visitors Bureau, Downtown Santa Monica, Inc., and the Pier Corporation. in several key positions with the City.

Amy Ziering is an Academy award nominated and two-time Emmy award winning documentary filmmaker. Her most recent film, “The Hunting Ground”— a piercing, monumental exposé of rape culture on college campuses— premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, is the 2016 recipient of the Producer’s Guild of America’s Stanley Kramer Award, shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song as well as the 2016 Emmy for Exceptional Merit – Documentary Filmmaking, and won the Emmy for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics.

For more information, please visit www.smchamber.com/owl.