Jonathan Hafen, Sego Leadership board co-chair; Melanie Jones, Sego Leadership CEO; Nate Callister, Zions Bank CEO; and Jessica Collings, senior brand director at Boncom, address media and guests during the Sego Leadership rebrand announcement and press conference Aug. 13. (Rebecca Olds/Salt Lake Business Journal)
After building a pipeline of women leaders across Utah, the Women’s Leadership Institute has officially relaunched as Sego Leadership.
The organization announced the new name Aug. 13 at a press conference and cohort graduation ceremony, marking both a milestone for its current participants and the start of a new public chapter.
The organization was founded 11 years ago by former Zions Bank CEO Scott Anderson and Patricia Jones, and has since graduated more than 1,400 women from its programs.
Jonathan Hafen, co-chair of the Sego Leadership board, said the organization’s mission isn’t changing — only its name. A board-commissioned brand audit found that “Women’s Leadership Institute” undersold what the organization offers and created confusion with other groups.
“While our name may be changing, our mission is not — not one word,” Hafen said. “Utah thrives when women lead.”
CEO Melanie Jones introduced the new name by pointing to Utah’s state flower, the sego lily — a plant that thrives in the state’s harshest desert terrain. Its bulb sustained early settlers through their first winters in Utah, after Indigenous communities already living on the land taught them how to find it. In 1892, Utah women chose the sego lily by popular vote as the flower to represent the territory.
“The women we serve spend their careers navigating rules they didn’t write, in environments built to someone else’s design,” Jones said. “What we do, really, is the oldest thing in this valley: We hand knowledge along, from the women who found a way through to the women right behind them, still looking for the path. That’s why we’re Sego.”
Jones noted the pronunciation follows the Shoshone word for “edible bulb,” honoring the Indigenous communities who first shared that knowledge with settlers.
Jessica Collings, senior brand director at Boncom, the agency that led the rebrand, said research found that people outside the organization were often confused about what it actually did, despite glowing reviews from program alumni. The new brand — including a deep plum and Sego gold color palette signaling authority and warmth — was built around a single positioning line: “Utah thrives when women lead.”
Sego Leadership also works directly with employers through Sego Certified — a rebrand of the former ElevateHer Challenge — helping companies build internal pathways for women’s advancement and measure progress over time.
“What Sego Certified adds is a real pathway for employers to move those women into the rooms where decisions get made, and measurable progress,” Hafen said.
A representative from Zions Bank, a founding partner, said the sign of a great leader is someone who builds an organization that outlasts themselves — a parallel she drew between Sego’s leadership transition and the bank’s own.
Sego Leadership’s new website and social media accounts launched the same day as the announcement. A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the organization’s new office at the Mountain America Business Center is planned for Sept. 1, and the organization will launch its first live cohort in Washington County in 2027.
To date, Sego Leadership has served more than 1,400 women across 100-plus companies in 11 Utah counties. Learn more at segoleadership.org.
