Speakers
Monday, June 21, 2021
2:00-3:10 pm EDT
Tanya Talaga
Award-Winning Journalist and Author, Seven Fallen Feathers
STEVE RUSSELL/TORONTO STAR
An award-winning journalist and author, and the first Ojibway woman to deliver the CBC Massey Lectures, Tanya Talaga is an acclaimed storyteller. Her book Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City, a national bestseller that introduced us to seven Indigenous high school students who mysteriously died in Thunder Bay, won the 2018 RBC Taylor Prize. In her powerful keynotes, Talaga shares Indigenous stories from across Canada and the world, humanizing the legacy of residential schools and colonization and sharing her hope for a more inclusive and equitable future.
Talaga is of Polish and Indigenous descent. Her great-grandmother was a residential school survivor and her great-grandfather was an Ojibwe trapper and labourer. For the past 20 years, Talaga has worked as a journalist, most recently as a columnist with the Toronto Star, and has been nominated five times for the Michener Award in public service journalism. From 2017-2018, Talaga was the Atkinson Fellow in Public Policy through The Canadian Journalism Foundation.
Talaga is also the bestselling author of two books All Our Relations: Finding The Path Forward and Seven Fallen Feathers. In addition to the RBC Taylor Prize, Seven Fallen Feathers also won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, and the First Nation Communities Read: Young Adult/Adult Award. It was also a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize and the BC National Award for Nonfiction, and was named CBC’s Nonfiction Book of the Year and a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book.
In addition to the CBC Massey Lectures—a renowned lecture series that travels to cities across Canada—Talaga has also spoken to diverse audiences ranging from university students and school children to corporate and non-profit organizations.
Coco M.
Student, Class of 2022 | Sacred Heart School Halifax
Coco is a grade 11 student at Sacred Heart School of Halifax, where she works passionately towards creating safe spaces for BIPOC students, fights for equal female representation, and works closely with her environmental and community outreach committees. When Coco is not at school, she can be found behind a podium, at a protest, or running around the city.
Taylor H.
Student, Class of 2022 | York House School
Taylor is a junior at York House School who is striving for change around DEI within her community. While pursuing a diversity initiative and mentoring younger girls, she aspires to empower young women to be confident and vocal while using their voices to change the world. Taylor is passionate about creating diverse environments for students and establishing an anti-racist culture. In her free time, she enjoys playing volleyball, spending time with friends, and reading.
Monday, June 21, 2021
4:15-5:00 pm EDT – Featured Speakers and Panel
Turning our Students’ Empathy into their Superpower
Dr. Marisa Porges
Author and Head of School | The Baldwin School
Dr. Marisa Porges, author of What Girls Need: How to Raise Bold, Courageous, and Resilient Women (Viking Press 2020), is known for her work on leadership, education, and national security. She is currently the eighth head of The Baldwin School, a 130-year-old all-girls school outside of Philadelphia known renowned for academic excellence and for preparing girls to be leaders and changemakers.
Prior to joining Baldwin in Summer 2016, Marisa served as a leading national security expert in government and academia. Most recently, she worked in the Obama White House as a senior policy advisor and White House Fellow at the National Economic Council, handling cybersecurity and technology policy. She also served as a counterterrorism policy advisor in both the Obama and Bush Administrations, at the Departments of Defense and the Treasury. Marisa’s academic scholarship focuses on radicalization and violent extremism, including during her time as a visiting fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and at the Council on Foreign Relations. This work included extensive fieldwork in Afghanistan and the Middle East, where she interviewed former al Qaeda and Taliban, Syrian rebel fighters, government officials, and local tribal leaders.
Marisa began her career serving on active duty in the U.S Navy as a Naval Flight Officer, where she flew the carrier-based EA-6B Prowler and was one of eight female aviators in an air wing of about two hundred. She earned her bachelor’s degree in geophysics from Harvard, her masters from London School of Economics, and her doctorate from King’s College London. She has served as a commentator for CNN, CSPAN, and other major new outlets and has been published extensively by the New York Times, New Yorker, Foreign Affairs, Philadelphia Inquirer, and more.
Supporting Our Next Gen Leaders through a Convergence of Crisis
Melissa Kilby
Executive Director | Girl Up
Melissa Kilby is the Executive Director of Girl Up, the global leadership development organization transforming a generation of girls to be a force for gender equality and social change.
Since 2010, Girl Up has developed 85,000 girl leaders in 125 countries and all 50 U.S. states, and has raised more than $27 million for girls’ leadership programs and impact partners at the United Nations. Melissa joined Girl Up in its first year, and during her tenure with her team, has built the organization into force that it is today.
Melissa is a leading expert on girls and women empowerment, next gen leadership and youth activism. Recently named to Fortune Magazine’s 40 Under 40 Class of 2020, Melissa is also currently Chair of the Board of Directors of Girls on the Run, Washington DC. Prior to Girl Up, Melissa served as a National Director for OP3, where she helped raise an average of $45 million each season managing a nine-city, multi-day fundraising walk series benefiting the Avon Foundation for Women. Melissa holds a Bachelor of Journalism in Strategic Communication from University of Missouri – Columbia. In 2014, she was selected to participate in a highly competitive program for non-profit leaders through Harvard University’s Kennedy School. Melissa sits on the U.S. Advisory Group for UN Women’s WE EMPOWER G7 and the Steering Committee for Women in Dev.
Melissa has appeared on MSNBC, written articles for Huffington Post and Harvard International Review, been quoted in many national and international press outlets and speaks regularly as an expert on leadership, activism and Gen Z girls. Recent speaking engagements include TEDxQuincy, Women in Dev, UN Women International Women’s Day events, and various other Girl Up events and at the UN.
Rhea Raman
Student | American University
Rhea Raman is a rising Sophomore at American University in Washington D.C., pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Communications, Legal Institutions, Economics, and Government. Rhea’s hometown is Los Angeles, California, and she is the current US Pacific Coast Social Media Coordinator for the United Nations Foundation, Girl Up campaign. Rhea’s Girl Up passion began in high school, later serving as her school’s President of the organization. Since then, she has been incredibly inspired by the talented, empowering changemakers around her, and continues to exemplify efforts of equality through her work.
In 2019, Rhea had the honor of collaborating with the U.S. State Department and Disney, through Girl Up’s “Hidden No More” campaign. In doing so, she assisted to facilitate a panel discussion alongside 50+ global feminists on the importance of education equity. As a current 2020-2021 Girl Up Leader, Rhea aspires to motivate young generations to acknowledge their power in shaping history by unearthing the existing beauty of intersectional feminism. Currently, she, and the Girl Up Pacific Coast Regional Team, organized a four-part program: “EmpowHER: Fempire Strikes Back!” to help Pacific Coast high school juniors/seniors navigate through their professional and personal lives.
Outside of her work from Girl Up, Rhea is the Director of Conference Operations at the National High School Model UN organization, the largest Model UN conference in the world, and is an active competitive member of her school’s Mock Trial organization.
Michelle S.
Student | Elizabeth Seton High School
Michelle is a youth activist. She previously served as a Girl Up Teen Advisor and as co-President of the Girl Up club at Elizabeth Seton High School, a private, all-girls Roman Catholic high school in Bladensburg, Maryland. Outside of Girl Up, Michelle is a part of March for Our Lives and serves as the Maryland state outreach director. She is also a part of Liberate Your Mind MD, a youth organization which focuses on addressing the school to prison pipeline.
Featured Panel: Perspectives on Inclusivity: How to Champion Women from the Classroom to the Boardroom
Katlyn Grasso (moderator)
Founder and CEO | GenHERation®
Katlyn Grasso is the Founder and CEO of GenHERation®, which is a network where young women and companies connect. In her role as CEO, she has created GenHERation® Discovery Days, hosted the GenHERation® Summer Leadership Series, developed original GenHERation® webisodes, launched The GenHERation® Collection product line, and has grown the GenHERation® community to reach more than 300,000 young women.
Katlyn is a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where she received a B.S. in Economics with concentrations in finance and strategic globalization. Grasso speaks internationally about entrepreneurship, technology, leadership, and the advancement of women, and has been a featured speaker at more than 200 events, including the Forbes CMO Excursion, Heads Network Annual Conference, the Sea Crest School’s Innovator’s Symposium, the Youth Entrepreneurship Summit, the United Nations, the North Carolina Association of Independent Schools Women in Leadership Conference, the National Coalition of Girls School Annual Conference, and the Wharton Global Forum in Australia. She is a frequent radio and television contributor and her work has been featured across national media outlets, including CNBC, NBC, Fast Company, Forbes, The Huffington Post, CBS, Yahoo! Finance, Seventeen Magazine, and SiriusXM.
Katlyn is a member of the Penn Fund Executive Board, the Penn Nursing Center for Global Women’s Health Advisory Board, the TCU Neeley Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Board of Directors, and is the Tri-Chair of Momentum 2021: The Power of Penn Women.
Kathy Wu Brady
Chief People Officer & Chief of Staff | Catchafire
Kathy Wu Brady is the Chief People Officer & Chief of Staff of Catchafire, a growing social impact start up dedicated to strengthening nonprofits by connecting them with talented volunteers to bolster their operations. Prior to Catchafire, Kathy held a number of senior leadership roles in technology, media, and ecommerce companies throughout her career at companies such as NBC Universal, hulu, AOL and American Express. She is passionate about diversity, equity & inclusion, social impact work and spending time with her partner and their two children.
Shelley Clifford Brophy
Performance Management Program Manager, General Advisory Functions & Cloud Sales | Google
Shelley Clifford Brophy serves as an internal consultant focused on Performance Management for all Google’s General Advisory Functions and the Google Cloud Sales organization. She previously led a team in the People Operations group who hired Software Engineers for Google’s Ads and YouTube business units and she has been at Google in various HR roles since 2015. She is very involved in all of the diversity and inclusion efforts in the Google Austin office and serves as a Google Ambassador for the Google Austin office.
Shelley also served on the Channels Inclusion Advisory Council for the global Channels team and was a leader of the local chapter the Google Women’s Resource Group. She also is very involved in developing and facilitating new trainings focused on improving peer feedback efforts and making managers more inclusive.
Prior to joining Google, Shelley worked as the Director of Recruitment Center Operations in The University of Texas at Austin Admissions Office and as the Senior Associate Director of MBA Admissions at the McCombs School of Business. She enjoys helping young people figure out their passions and how to achieve their career goals. A Yale College, Yale MBA, and Columbia Law School grad, Shelley grew up in Trinidad and Tobago. She serves on the board of Girls Scouts of Central Texas and is the Committee Chair of the Council Board Development Committee. She considers herself to be a lifelong student.
Shelley loves spending time with her husband and son exploring Central Texas vineyards. She enjoys working out (the Peloton Tread & the Mirror!) and traveling to sunny locations.
Michael S. Cohen
Partner, Employment, Labor, Benefits, and Immigration Practice | Duane Morris
Michael S. Cohen is a partner in Duane Morris’ Employment, Labor, Benefits, and Immigration Practice Group. Michael concentrates his practice in the areas of employment law training and counseling. He has trained and counseled employers throughout the country on subjects including harassment prevention; diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging; implicit bias; discipline and discharge; hiring and recruiting practices; performance evaluations; FMLA, ADA and FLSA compliance; leave of absence policies; performance management; workplace privacy; sexual orientation and gender identity in the workplace; substance abuse testing; workplace violence; records retention; conducting background checks; teens in the workplace and managing attendance problems. Michael also has conducted investigations into claims of harassment and discrimination and has drafted employee handbooks, employment agreements, non-compete agreements and post-termination agreements. Michael has conducted nearly 300 trainings in each of the past two years. He has represented clients throughout the country in EEO and other administrative proceedings.
Michael has been cited as a national authority on employment issues by The New York Times, The Associated Press, USA Today, MSNBC.com, HR Magazine, SHRM On-Line, Employment Law 360, Inside Counsel Magazine, as well as many other publications. Michael serves as a Board Member of The Independence Business Alliance and Serve, Inc. Michael is a 1997 magna cum laude graduate of Temple University Beasley School of Law and a cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
Amy Thompson
Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer | Mattel
Amy Thompson is Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer of Mattel. Amy is responsible for driving cultural transformation at the Company, working with the leadership team to champion Mattel’s mission and values and to ensure optimal collaboration across the global organization operating in 35 countries. As Chief People Officer, Amy oversees all global human resources functions including compensation and benefits, diversity and inclusion, employee culture and engagement, leadership development, organizational design and development, and talent management.
Amy is a purpose-driven leader with a proven track record of building talent capability and influencing positive cultural change. Prior to joining Mattel, she served as Chief People Officer for TOMS Shoes. In that role, she successfully developed and implemented plans to increase employee engagement and create a high-performance culture through improved organizational design and accountability. During her time at TOMS, she founded TOMS Leading Ladies, an organization dedicated to empowering and inspiring women leaders as they grow their careers.
Previously, Amy held several global HR leadership roles at Starbucks Coffee Company. During her tenure there, she was a vital strategic partner to multiple business units, including Consumer Packaged Goods, Global Brand and Category Management, International and Retail Operations. While in the position as Vice President, Partner Resources, where she oversaw the Asia Pacific region and accounted for 45,000 employees, she worked directly with executive leaders to strengthen operational capability to meet the fast-growing needs of the business. Earlier in her career, Amy led HR teams and departments at Ticketmaster Corporation and Citysearch.com.
Amy received a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Chaminade University and holds a master’s degree in Organizational Development from Azusa Pacific University. Passionate about helping women and children excel in professional and academic settings, Amy serves on the Board of Directors for Women in Toys, Licensing & Entertainment and The Mattel Children’s Foundation.
Tuesday, June 22, 2021
3:55-5:10 pm EDT
Amanda Nguyen
CEO and Founder | Rise
Amanda Nguyen is the CEO and founder of Rise, a social movement accelerator. She is a 2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee. She penned her own civil rights into existence and unanimously passed the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights, after having to navigate the broken criminal justice system after her own rape. 27 bills protecting more than 72 million sexual violence survivors have been created modeled off of her federal law. The federal law was the 21st bill in modern US history to pass unanimously on the record. Amanda has been named a Forbes 30 Under 30, a Top 100 Leading Global Thinker by Foreign Policy, a Young Woman of the Year by Marie Claire, and The Tempest’s #1 Woman of Color Trailblazer. Previously, Amanda was appointed by President Barack Obama to the United States Department of State as his Deputy White House Liaison and served at NASA. Amanda graduated from Harvard University.
Janelle Bradshaw
CEO | Public Prep Network
Janelle is a Bronx native committed to education reform in her community. As a tenured educational leader for over 20 years, her mission is to ensure ALL students are on a predictable path to and through college. Her passion for people and purpose drives the strategic direction of the organization and continues to drive strong student achievement results. She is committed to transforming the lives of black and brown children in the community where she grew up.
Janelle has served as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, district administrator, school reviewer, and leadership coach. Prior to CEO, Janelle served as the Founding Superintendent of Public Prep. Under her leadership, the academic program has been strengthened by implementing aligned curriculum and assessments and investing in robust adult development to ensure there are strong teachers and leaders in every classroom and school. Results have improved more than twenty percentage points on NYS Exams, leading to all three Public Prep Academies being named as NYS Recognition Schools for high growth and high achievement.
Janelle gives back to her community by serving on the Board of Trustees for Partnership for Afterschool Education (PASE), a child-focused organization that promotes and supports quality afterschool programs, particularly those serving young people from underserved communities in NYC. She oversees the strategic planning, programs, and finance committees. Additionally, she is serving as Co-President of her Alumnae Class of her alma mater, Smith College. In efforts to strengthen the school community, Janelle is leading innovation in programming opportunities, and overseeing alumnae fundraising and development. Janelle is an active member of Jack and Jill of America, serving on the executive board of the Westchester Chapter. Janelle is also a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated.
Janelle holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Smith College and a Masters Degree and a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in Educational Leadership from Simmons College.
Wednesday, June 23, 2021
Lovelyn Nwadeyi
Founder and Director | L & N Advisors
Lovelyn Nwadeyi, Founder and Director of L & N Advisors, is an established socio-economic and political voice in South Africa and a well-known facilitator for dialogues regarding social justice. She was named among The Independent’s Mzansi 100 Influencers in 2017 and lauded by Elle Magazine as one of the foremost Women to Watch in 2016. She is also an alumna of the prestigious US State Department International Visitors Leadership Programme (IVLP) for premier emerging foreign leaders.
Lovelyn is a 2019/2020 Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Fellowship for Racial Equity, coordinated by Columbia University in New York and the Nelson Mandela Foundation in South Africa.
Her academic qualifications include a BA International Studies degree from Stellenbosch University, an MSc in Peace and Conflict Resolution from Uppsala University in Sweden, and a professional certification in Telecommunications Policy and Regulation Management (TPRM) from Wits University.
Lovelyn has played a strategic role in facilitating interventions and hosting critical conversations with stakeholders across the mining, financial services, media, education, healthcare, and telecommunications sectors. The interventions have taken the form of organisational and talent management, sales and research activity as well as targeted workplace inclusion and racial literacy initiatives. Most recently, Lovelyn worked in the regulatory and public policy space for MTN Group supporting several strategic and crisis interventions in markets across Africa and the Middle East.
She has been involved in multiple roles related to student and worker activism during the first wave (2015) of the movements of #FeesMustFall and #EndOutsourcing in South Africa. Lovelyn has worked as a volunteer in diverse capacities primarily engaging with young people in leadership development, public speaking and debating skills training.
Complementing her professional efforts, Lovelyn is guided by a strong sense of social justice especially as it pertains to the realms of business, religion, and education. She is often afforded international and local platforms on which to engage about such issues. Lovelyn regularly speaks on matters related to education, socio-economic justice, and gender justice.
Olithemba D.
Grade 11 Student | Eunice High School for Girls
Olithemba is a Grade 11 student at Eunice High School for Girls, which is in the Free State Province of South Africa, i.e. central South Africa. She is a member of the Representative Council of Learners (RCL) at Eunice as well as a member of the Diversity, Parity and Inclusion Committee (DPI) that focuses on diversity and creating equal opportunities for students, teachers, and support staff within the school environment. In addition to being an avid hockey player, Olithemba enjoys learning about politics, the economy, and the history of South Africa, and partaking in public speaking and debating. In her free time, she enjoys listening to music and spending time with her friends. Olithemba strongly believes that school is the best place for young people to discuss the social ills that affect their communities, so that when the opportunity arises to tackle these problems, they will not waste time discussing and brainstorming possible solutions but rather will be able to implement and put thought solutions into action. Her hope for the future is to see more women included in respected leadership roles.
Nokukhanya L.
Grade 12 Student | St Stithians Girls College
Nokukhanya is a grade 12 student at St Stithians Girls College. She is the deputy chair of the school’s student transformation committee which deals with social issues such as racism and sexism. She has a passion for activism and has a great interest in social issues. She loves public speaking, drama, and traveling and learning about the world.