Suri Kasirer is a born New Yorker and advocate. She founded Kasirer in 1997 out of a studio apartment on the Upper West Side—and a lifelong commitment to championing people, progress, and policy in the City.

Suri grew her business into the #1 lobbying firm in New York City, assembling and leading a team with decades of experience and an unrivaled fluency in government on local and state levels, in languages (including Spanish and Hebrew), in the inner workings of New York.

She and her team have established an unparalleled record of success in the City on behalf of clients who are leaders in a wide range of industries, corporate and nonprofit, education and culture, real estate to technology, hospitality to media to health care to social service.

Year after year, Suri is recognized by Crain’s New York Business and City & State as one of the most influential leaders in New York City. Among the most meaningful awards bestowed upon her, Citizens Union honored Suri as a 2018 Gotham Great and she was a recipient of the National Organization for Women (NOW) Women of Power & Influence Award. In 2021, Suri was recognized as one of Crain’s New York “Most Powerful Women” and was an honoree on the City & State “Power of Diversity: Women’s 100”, the “New York City Power 100”, and the “Manhattan Power 100.” In 2022, she was featured in City & State’s “Real Estate Power 100” and the “New York City Power 100” for the second year in a row. Suri was also recognized as one of Schneps Media’s 2022 Power Women of Manhattan honorees.

Suri is the Vice President of Citymeals on Wheels, and serves on the board of directors of the New York League of Conservation Voters, the Women’s Leadership Forum and the New York Building Foundation. She is a member of the steering committee for the Association for a Better New York and a member of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, WX New York Women Executives in Real Estate, and the Downtown Lower Manhattan Association.

After graduating from Yeshiva University, Suri worked as an educator—before working on a national presidential race. Inspired by politics, joining the executive staff of then-governor of New York Mario Cuomo as his special assistant.

Dr. Becky Kennedy is a clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and mom of three, named “The Millennial Parenting Whisperer” by TIME Magazine, who’s rethinking the way we raise our children. She specializes in thinking deeply about what’s happening for kids and translating these ideas into simple, actionable strategies for parents to use in their homes. Dr. Becky is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be. She hosts Good Inside with Dr Becky, a chart-topping podcast, has amassed over 1.4M Instagram followers, shares thoughts in her free newsletter, Good Insider, and published a Potty Learning Handbook. She has also launched a game-changing, first-of-its-kind platform; Good Inside Membership is a dynamic parenting hub with Dr. Becky’s complete parenting content collection, a judgment-free, like-valued community, and access to Good Inside-trained experts—all in one place to learn, grow and connect. Dr. Becky received a BA in Psychology and Human Development, Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude, from Duke University and a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University.

Erica Belskyis the co-founder and COO of Good Inside, a breakthrough parenting platformand media company providing millions of parents from around the globe a new way to seeand solve challenges in their home through simple,actionable strategies. Erica executive produced the first seven seasons of Good Inside with Dr Becky, a chart-topping podcast, hasoverseen the growth of Good Inside’s social channels, and launched a game-changing,first-of-its-kind platform; Good Inside Membership. Prior to co-founding Good Inside, the mom of three spent several years working with individuals suffering from substance abuseand related underlying mental health issues. Erica received a BA in Psychology from Cornell University, and a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University. To learn more, visit: goodinside.com.

Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico City and grew up in South Korea, South Africa and India. An acclaimed writer of both fiction and nonfiction, she is the author of Sidewalks, Faces in the Crowd, The Story of My Teeth; Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions and Lost Children Archive. She is the recipient of a 2019 MacArthur Fellowship and the winner of DUBLIN Literary Award, two Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, The Carnegie Medal, an American Book Award, and has been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Kirkus Prize, and the Booker Prize. She has been a National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" honoree and the recipient of a Bearing Witness Fellowship from the Art for Justice Fund. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Granta, and The New Yorker, among other publications, and has been translated into more than twenty languages. She teaches at Bard College and is a visiting professor at Harvard University.

Jerelyn Rodriguez co-founded The Knowledge House, a Bronx-based tech-education nonprofit, in 2014. In 2016, she was honored as one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Education. Previously, she coordinated STEM after-school programs at Braven and was the Bronx Field Director for Reshma Saujani's 2013 campaign for New York City Public Advocate. In 2011, Jerelyn joined Students for Education Reform (SFER) as the National Program Director, organizing and coaching college students in 35 states to advocate for education reform. Prior to SFER, Jerelyn worked in the public school system, teaching and designing programs. She is on the leadership council for South Bronx Rising Together, a founding Datanaut at NASA, a fellow at Camelback Ventures and an Aspen Institute Scholar. She is on the boards of KIPP Foundation and Creo College Prep. Jerelyn has a degree in film studies from Columbia University.

Misty Copeland is a Principal Dancer with American Ballet Theatre, the first black woman to be promoted to the position in the company’s 75-year history in 2015. She has performed some of the most iconic classical ballet roles, including Odette/Odile in Swan Lake; Juliet in Romeo & Juliet; Giselle; Manon; Coppelia; Kitri in Don Quixote; and Firebird, to name a few.

Misty has been featured in several publications, including the cover of Time Magazine for the Time 100, as well as the covers of ESSENCE, Self, ELLE South Africa, Oxygen, and Women’s Health. She has also appeared on CBS’ 60 Minutes, CBS Sunday Morning, ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s The Today Show and NBC’s Little Big Shots, celebrating extraordinary young people.

She made her first awards season guest performances in 2019 with Taylor Swift at the American Music Awards and at the 2020 Grammy Awards alongside Camilla Cabella, Common, Ben Platt, and dancers from the Debbie Allen Dance Academy, as well as the televised Prince Grammy Tribute performing with award-winning recording artist H.E.R.. Misty made her Broadway debut in On The Town in 2015 and her major motion picture debut in Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms in 2018.

Misty started her production company, Life In Motion Productions, and is working on her first project, Flower, a silent arts activism film using dance to help raise awareness about homelessness. She is also featured in an episode of MasterClass, the online series.

Misty is an avid philanthropist and is an ambassador of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, of which is also an alum, and MindLeaps, an arts education program based in Rwanda that helps young people get off the streets and into an academic setting to help enhance their lives. Misty is the bestselling author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Life In Motion; an award-winning children's picture book titled Firebird; a New York Times bestselling lifestyle book titled Ballerina Body; and the New York Times bestselling children’s picture book, Bunheads. This year, her newest book, Black Ballerinas: My Journey To Our Legacy, will publish in November.

Elizabeth R. Leber, AIA is the Managing Partner at Beyer Blinder and Belle. Liz is dedicated to advancing mission-based institutions through forward-looking architecture and planning projects. Guided by her astute and inquisitive nature, Liz excels at extracting the core objectives of her clients and their stakeholders and translating the collective needs and mission of institutions into creative architectural solutions. She is skilled at facilitating consensus around a cohesive vision, from internal governing boards to outside agencies. Both within and outside the firm, she is recognized for her ability to approach every challenge with a balance of creativity, pragmatism, and unfailing optimism. Liz applies these same skills and energy to her role as Managing Partner of Beyer Blinder Belle. Her position affirms the firm’s successful transition to a third generation of leadership and ensures BBB’s future-looking strategic vision and sustainability. Liz’s clients include leading universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, as well as not-for-profit institutions including the New York Public Library and the 92nd Street Y. Liz is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (B.A., Art History) and Columbia University (M.Arch.) She is a board member of the Urban Green Council. She is a registered architect in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Rhode Island, and is NCARB certified. Liz has been at BBB since 2001.

Esther Peterseil z"l was a survivor of the Auschwitz/Birkenau Concentration Camp. She came to America with her husband Joseph in 1949 and devoted her life working for the Jewish community including volunteering at the Jewish Museum of New York the New York Legal Assistance Group where using her fluency in Yiddish, German and Polish she helped hundreds of Holocaust survivors receive reparations. Esther assisted the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research translating and organizing their Yiddish documents. Over the last 25 years of her life Esther spoke publicly about her experiences in the Holocaust and traveled to schools and organizations to tell her story to the next generation. She was an influential voice behind the "Never Again Education Act" to teach high school students about anti-Semitism and worked incessantly to make sure that what happened in Germany can't happen here.

Dorothy Tananbaum is former Principal of the Vanderwoude Tananbaum Gallery, New York (1984-2000). She is Chair of the Board of the Israel on Campus Coalition; the Planning Chair of Community Planning and Resources of UJA-Federation of New York; founding member of The Solelim Fund and a Board member of Facing History and Ourselves. She is former Chair of the Board of the Jewish Funders Network; founded, with her husband Andrew Tananbaum, the Center for Public Interest Careers, Harvard College; and former Chair of the Board of the Jewish Education Project, New York. In addition to enjoying Jewish Study and a range of 92Y programs, Dorothy is a proud 92Y Nursery School grandparent.

Zoe Bernstein is a Consultant at Egon Zehnder based in New York City. Before joining Egon Zehnder, Zoe was the Director of Investor Relations for Adi Capital Management, where she was responsible for all fundraising, communications, marketing materials, and investor relations across various investor segments. Prior to Adi, Zoe was a Director of Marketing and Investor Relations for BlueMountain Capital Management. Before joining BlueMountain, Zoe worked in various financial analysis, manager selection and marketing roles at Perry Capital, JP Morgan and Protégé Partners. Zoe has a BA in Social Studies from Harvard College and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. She serves on the New York Advisory Board of Facing History and Ourselves, which helps teachers empower their students to stand up to bigotry and hate. Zoe and her husband Jon live in New York City with their three boys - Gideon (8), Solomon (5) and Ezra (3) - who have all attended 92Y Nursery School.

JoBeth Abecassis works as a Venture Partner based in NYC for the California based Venture Capital firm Western Technology Investments. Before joining WTI she was a part of the founding team of Assembled Brands, an asset based lending and fintech business with a focus on consumer products in the direct to consumer space, backed by Oaktree Capital. Prior to that she worked at White Oak Commercial Finance (fka Capital Business Credit) a factoring and asset based lending business in New York City with her father, Andrew Tananbaum. JoBeth is passionate about Jewish causes and the state of Israel and currently sits on the junior board for the Youth Renewal Fund or YRF and is active within UJA. JoBeth is married to her wonderful husband William Abecassis and has two children, Noah and Ellie.

Mikayla Danielle Barnett currently serves as the Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Financial Officer of It’s a She Thing, Inc. Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Mikayla showed an early interest in entrepreneurship and community work - devoting her time between starting any and every business she could think of, to serving as an advocate and student leader throughout middle and high school. Mikayla’s passions ultimately led her to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied Entrepreneurship and Innovation along with Marketing. While at Penn, Mikayla fostered her love for community and public service by serving as a student leader of the Black Wharton Undergraduate Association and dedicated member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Mikayla held various roles at American Express and Facebook following college, and currently works as a Product Manager at Goldman Sachs.

As CFO and CMO of It’s a She Thing, Mikayla works alongside her mother, Veronica Loomis, to provide many forms of support for members of their community. As a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, It’s a She Thing has reached hundreds of women and girls in New York and beyond through monthly She Talks, community outreach, and its annual Empowerment Camp for Girls. Both the organization’s SheMatters Resource Fund and COVID-19 Relief Fund have helped countless families overcome financial hurdles, and their Willie Mae Loomis Scholarship has celebrated the academic excellence of high school and college graduates in the It’s a She Thing community. Most recently, the organization has kicked off the organization’s monthly grocery plan, where they’ve packed and personally delivered thousands of dollars worth of groceries to families in the five boroughs of New York since June 2021. Forward looking, the organization is in the process of completing the construction of the Willie Mae Loomis Transitional Home in New York, which will house women and their children during their most critical times of need. Mikayla has taken great pride in the growth of It’s a She Thing, as the organization is dedicated to strengthening the lives of women and girls in the community by providing countless resources and taking an inclusive, thoughtful approach to advocacy.

Veronica Loomis was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. She began her career in the Criminal Defense Division at The Legal Aid Society. During her tenure, she became engaged in the rights of all people and assisted those in need of legal assistance. She has held several administrative positions at various companies, including Clausen Miller, PC, Goldman Sachs, Newsweek Magazine and currently serves as Senior Manager of Culture Programming at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Veronica takes pride in being a founding contributor of the New York City Department of Education and Lincoln Center’s Middle School Arts Audition Boot Camp, an intensive two-week program that prepares Middle School students who are interested in auditioning for the New York City Arts High Schools. In 2009, she received a proclamation from the Brooklyn Borough President’s Office in recognition of her implementation of a women’s health symposium entitled A New Day, A New You. In 2015, she was the recipient of Lincoln Center’s President’s Award for Excellence. Veronica reflected on adversities she faced in her life and in 2019 she and her daughter, Mikayla founded It’s a She Thing, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that serves women and girls who have encountered traumatic experiences, including but not limited to domestic violence, sexual assault, bullying and homelessness. She is also the Assistant Director of Leapz 2 Success Childcare Center, Inc. in Brooklyn, NY. Veronica serves as a member of Greenwood Baptist Church of Brooklyn’s Board of Trustees. She graduated from York College and holds a bachelor’s degree in Community Health Education. She currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.

Dr. Georgette Bennett is an award-winning sociologist, widely published author, popular lecturer, and former broadcast journalist. An innovative and entrepreneurial leader, she is an active philanthropist focusing on conflict resolution and intergroup relations. In 2013, Bennett founded the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees (MFA) and has since worked to raise awareness and mobilize more than $150 million of humanitarian aid on behalf of Syrian war victims. In 1992, she founded the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding. She is also a co-founder of the Global Covenant of Religions/Global Covenant Partners, which focuses on delegitimizing the use of religion to justify violence and extremism. Bennett served in the U.S. State Department Religion and Foreign Policy initiative’s working group on conflict mitigation, tasked with developing recommendations for the U.S. Secretary of State on countering religion-based violence. She served as Chair of the Jewish Funders Network and serves on the Advisory Boards of the International Rescue Committee. In addition, she is an Advisory Board member for the Milstein Center on Interreligious Dialogue at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Last November, Bennett was awarded the AARP Purpose Prize for her work with MFA.

Roxane Gay’s writing appears in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, Harper’s Bazaar, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many others. She is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. She is the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, the New York Times bestselling Bad Feminist, the nationally bestselling Difficult Women and New York Times bestselling Hunger: A Memoir of My Body. She is also the author of World of Wakanda for Marvel and the editor of Best American Short Stories 2018. She is currently at work on film and television projects, a book of writing advice, an essay collection about television and culture, and a YA novel entitled The Year I Learned Everything.

Annette Insdorf is Professor of Film at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, and Moderator of the popular Reel Pieces series at Manhattan’s 92Y, where she has interviewed over 250 film celebrities. The daughter of Holocaust survivors, she is the author of the landmark study, Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust (with a foreword by Elie Wiesel); Double Lives, Second Chances: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski; Francois Truffaut, a study of the French director’s work; Philip Kaufman, and Intimations: The Cinema of Wojciech Has. Her latest book is Cinematic Overtures: How to Read Opening Scenes, currently in its fourth printing.

Lisa Lewin is a strategist and operating executive with 25 years of experience leading and advising private, public, and nonprofit sector organizations. She is CEO of General Assembly, a pioneer in education and career transformation offering dynamic courses in data, design, business, technology and other high-demand skills. Lewin leads GA’s growth, creating sustainable talent pipelines for businesses and building transparent career pathways to the most transformational work.

In June, Lewin and the Leadership Now project launched the Business for Racial Equity pledge, bringing together a coalition of leading executives to mobilize businesses to take concrete action to ‘dismantle three of the biggest levers of racist power in this country: biased policing, electoral disenfranchisement, and economic exclusion.’ Since then, the pledge has been signed by over 1,000 executives of businesses and organizations across sectors.

Prior to General Assembly, Ms. Lewin served as President of Pearson’s teacher education group, and Managing Director of the publisher’s global learning technology group; Vice President of McGraw-Hill’s professional education group; management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group; and senior research project director with The NPD Group. She also co-founded Ethical Ventures, a New York City-based management consulting firm, where she advised some of the world’s most ambitious social enterprises and mission-driven companies.

Lisa serves on the boards of the Wikimedia Foundation, Bank Street College of Education, and the Leadership Now Project. She received a BS from Washington University in St. Louis and an MBA with honors from Harvard Business School.

Originally from southern Illinois, Lisa lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.

Dr. Tamara Moise is an advocate for ensuring access to high quality healthcare in underserved communities. A native New Yorker, Dr. Moise obtained her medical degree from the UMDNJ - School of Osteopathic Medicine and completed her Emergency Medicine residency in 2009 at St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center in Paterson, New Jersey. In 2018, she co-founded Big Apple with the vision of providing medical services tailored to the diversity of New York City. In addition, she has provided medical services in Guatemala and Haiti to extend her passion for health equity on a global scale.

Dr. Moise has received community and national honors for her contributions. Most recently, she has been an honoree of Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams’ 2020 Seventh Annual Black History Month Celebration Award, featured as a part of Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s 2020 #beygood “This is Black History” campaign, and was a 2019 recipient of the Brooklyn Salutes Award.

In media, has appeared on MSNBC, SiriusXM, NBC 4 News NY, Fox 5 News NY, News 12 Brooklyn and others to raise awareness about healthcare inequities and other critical healthcare issues.

Ann Rubenstein Tisch is the Founder and President of The Student Leadership Network (formerly known as Young Women’s Leadership Network), a groundbreaking network of all-girls public schools. There are currently five TYWLS schools in New York City, plus 15 affiliates across America. The Young Women's Leadership School of East Harlem was created in 1996, and was the first single-sex public school to open in more than 35 years in the US. It ignited the movement to establish single-sex public schools around the country, and now there are hundreds of them. Mrs. Tisch also created the CollegeBound Initiative (CBI) a college access program, which places full-time college guidance counselors in 30 NYC public schools. Mrs. Rubenstein Tisch had a 19 year career in broadcast journalism at WIBW-TV- WCCO TV, and NBC Network News as a National Correspondent. She was tapped as a substitute anchor on the “Today Show” and “NBC at Sunrise. Tisch serves as a trustee on the Board of Washington University in St. Louis, the Sesame Workshop, and Animal Medical Center in New York City, she is also a member of the Dean’s Council of The NYU Tisch School for the Arts. Ann lives in NYC with her husband Andrew Tisch and they have two daughters.

Lisa Blau has spent the last decade as an active angel investor focused on consumer businesses, often in the health, wellness and active lifestyle space with a particular interest in supporting women-led entrepreneurial ventures. Together with Amanda Eilian, she is the founding partner of _able, an investment fund focused on funding early-stage startups in the healthy living and lifestyle space, with a focus on female founders. Some of their investments include Juice Beauty, Daily Harvest, The Wing, Primary Kids, Moon Juice, Goop and Chief. Previously, Lisa cofounded VitalJuice.com, a daily email newsletter on healthy living tips and trends that was acquired by Tasting Table. She also helped build and launch Portero, an online luxury goods auction platform sold to Richemont. She has experience building businesses from the ground up with partners such as AOL, Amazon, Kleiner Perkins and The Pilot Group. Lisa started her career as a producer at CNN. She is a Board Member of The New York Public Library, KIPP New York, and The Mount Sinai Parenting Center. Lisa also chairs the Investment Committee of the Leadership Now Project, a membership organization of business professionals committed to renewing democracy. She has a B.A. from Duke University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Lisa lives in New York City with her husband and three children.

Amanda Eilian is a General Partner and co-founder of __able Partners, a venture capital firm focused on early stage companies in the positive living space. With over 40 companies in the portfolio, and more than 75% with female founders, __able’s investments include Goop, The Wing, Daily Harvest, and Bulletproof. Amanda was also the co-founder of Videolicious, an enterprise software video creation platform backed by Amazon, and served as its President from 2007 to 2019 when it was acquired by a multinational strategic buyer. Amanda was instrumental in the launch and growth of Videolicious to over 5 million users in 103 countries, including Fortune 500 companies such as IBM, Walmart, SAP, Verizon and GE. Prior to forming Videolicious, Amanda was a founding partner of Capitol Acquisition Corporation, a special purpose acquisition vehicle (SPAC) that completed a $265 million initial public offering and became Two Harbors Investment Corp., a $3 billion REIT (NYSE: TWO). Amanda began her career in private equity and mergers and acquisitions.

Amanda is a Truman Scholar and received her MBA from Harvard Business School where she was a Baker Scholar, and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service with Honors in Economics. Amanda serves on the Board of Directors of Juice Beauty, the largest organic skincare brand in North America, and on the Board of Directors of the Melanoma Research Alliance, the largest private funder of melanoma research. She is also a member of the Tech:NYC Leadership Council. Amanda resides in New York City with her husband and four children.

Shantell Martin’s work is marked by her trademark black-and-white, spontaneous freestyle compositions that break down walls between community and creator and immerse viewers in the creative process. As 92Y’s first multimedia artist in residence, and a leader in making art accessible, Shantell embodies the qualities and values that we at 92Y strive to celebrate, and she is committed to being part of the conversation and solution toward empowering women and fostering change. We are proud to have mounted Shantell’s groundbreaking exhibition, Why Now, and featured her in several talks and performances on our stage, including in conversation with Ilana Glazer. Her commitment to changing how the art world is seen and experienced, particularly at 92Y, has been an inspiration, and her impact as an extraordinary artist, role model and woman deserve to be recognized.

Below the surface of Shantell Martin’s signature black and white drawings is an artists’ inquiry into the role of artist and viewer, where a work of art is more than an object of admiration disconnected from its inception. With a meditative process defined by an uninhibited flow, her compositions embody her internal state and the impermanence of the world around her. Exploring themes such as intersectionality, identity and play, Martin is a cultural facilitator, forging new connections between fine art, education, design, philosophy and technology.

Judy Glickman Lauder is an internationally recognized photographer, humanitarian, and philanthropist. Her work is held in private collections and public institutions around the world, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the United States Holocaust Museum, Washington, DC. She is represented by the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York City.

A number of her photographs were recently published by the Aperture Foundation in a book titled Beyond the Shadows: The Holocaust and the Danish Exception (2018). These photographs are also the subject of two traveling exhibitions, Holocaust: The Presence of the Past and Resistance and Rescue: Denmark’s Response to the Holocaust, which have been shown at more than two hundred institutions around the world. Other books include Upon Reflection: Photographs by Judy Ellis Glickman (2012) and Both Sides of the Camera: Photographs from the Collection of Judith Ellis Glickman (2007), as well as a book on the work of her father, For the Love of It: the Photography of Irving Bennett Ellis (2008).

Ms. Glickman Lauder serves on the Board of Trustees of the Portland Museum of Art and is a member of both the Getty Museum Photographic Council and the Photographic Visiting Committee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In addition, she is a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain.

Dre Thomas, 30, was raised in Los Angeles by a hardworking, service-minded single mom. Thomas works full time in the marketing department of WeWork, but she has become known for singlehandedly conceiving and launching Smile On Me, an organization that seeks to change the trajectory of girls’ lives through the basic tools of self care and the self esteem that comes with them.

Growing up in a “family of hand-me-downs,” sharing things like clothes and hygiene products with her mom and sisters, Thomas understood how important it is for young girls to have their own stuff. She also knew that 30 percent of New York City girls live in poverty. The cost of feminine hygiene products can be as high as $100 annually and can compete with other basic necessities like toilet paper, food, and lodging. Often times, lower income girls do not feel adequately prepared for puberty. By not educating girls about this transition, we are neglecting an opportunity to build a healthy foundation for sexual and reproductive health.

Since its 2017 launch, Thomas and Smile On Me have collected more than 5,000 feminine hygiene products, facilitated workshops and an annual summit focused on personal hygiene, leadership, and self-esteem, and distributed bags filled with hygiene products to hundreds of girls in low-income communities throughout New York City.

Philanthropist

Sharon Hite is a philanthropist whose areas of focus range from supporting opera and classical music to protecting endangered wildlife and empowering vulnerable children to live their dreams.
 
She is a board member of The Hite Foundation, which was established by her husband Lawrence D. Hite in 1987 with the mission of assisting various cultural and humanitarian causes. Sharon’s involvement in charitable organizations frequently goes far beyond financial contributions from The Hite Foundation. She is a board member of The New York Philharmonic, board member of the Aspen Brain Lab, is the president of the board for the Little Orchestra Society, and is on the education committees of the 92nd Street Y and The New York Philharmonic. She is also actively involved with the Aspen Institute, the Aspen Music Festival, and the African Parks Foundation. In 2017, Sharon co-produced “Perfectly Normal for Me” a documentary film about an innovative performing arts program for children with cerebral palsy that will be screened in Aspen on July 8, 2018 and has been invited to be screened at the ReelAbilities Film Festival.
 
Sharon was born and raised in Brooklyn, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brooklyn College. After working as a special education teacher in the New York City public school system, she built a very successful 30-year career as a real estate broker. Since retiring from real estate, Sharon has devoted the majority of her time to philanthropic pursuits with The Hite Foundation alongside her husband.

Co-Founder and CEO, Rent the Runway

Jennifer Hyman is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Rent the Runway, a company that is disrupting the $2.4 trillion fashion industry by introducing clothing rental as a utility in women’s everyday lives. In her role, she sets the strategic priorities and leads the company in growing all areas of the business. She co-founded Rent the Runway in 2009 and has since raised over $210 million in venture capital, growing the business to over 9 million members, 1,200 employees and 500+ designer brands. As the CEO, Jennifer has built Rent the Runway from an idea into a profitable, high-growth company and one of the most beloved brands in the U.S.
Prior to Rent the Runway, Jennifer was the Director of Business Development at IMG, a sales leader at WeddingChannel.com and an intrapreneur at Starwood Hotels. She recognized the “experience economy” early and created the country’s first honeymoon registry, which was recognized on the Oprah Winfrey Show for its innovation.  
 
In 2015, Jennifer Co-Founded the Rent the Runway Foundation to help female entrepreneurs throughout the U.S. build scalable, high-growth companies. She is an investor in and advisor to a diverse group of startups throughout the U.S. and is passionate about diversifying entrepreneurship.
 
Ms. Hyman serves on the Board of Directors of The Estée Lauder Companies. She received her BA from Harvard University cum laude and MBA from Harvard Business School, and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.

Community and Political Activist

Susan Stern has been unflinchingly dedicated to Jewish communities across the globe for much of her life. Her work has taken her to countries such as Ethiopia, Cuba, Argentina, Turkey, Russia, Poland, Uzbekistan, and Bulgaria.

In 2011, President Barack Obama nominated Susan to chair his Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships; her primary issue on the council was human trafficking. In 2013 she was named one of New York’s “New Abolitionists.”

She served as chair for the Board of Directors of UJA – Federation of New York and is the founding chair of the Time for Good initiative promoting service and volunteerism in the Jewish Community. Previously she served as General Campaign chair. She also serves on the Advisory Committee of Repair the World.

Susan is the immediate past Vice Chair of Jewish Federations of North America JFNA) and National Campaign Chair. She served as national chair and president of National Women’s Philanthropy of United Jewish Communities and was the creator of the International Lion of Judah Conference. As chair of the National Young Leadership Cabinet, she was asked to serve as an eyewitness to Operation Solomon, the Israeli rescue of 14,000 Ethiopian Jews in 23 hours. She was named a Wexner Heritage Fellow in 1993. She is the immediate past chair of the New York State Commission on the National and Community Service serving under two Governors. For the past two years she chaired Global Programs for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and is a member of the President’s Cabinet. She also serves on the President’s Advisory for Union of Reform Judaism.

Feminist Plumber/Tradeswoman Activist

A plumber for more than 20 years, Judaline Cassidy is a proud member of Plumbers Local Union No. 1 of New York City. She was born in the beautiful twin island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. Her career in plumbing started when she was one of the first three women selected to learn plumbing at the John S. Donaldson Technical Institute in Trinidad (now the University of Trinidad and Tobago).
 
Being a qualified plumber dramatically changed her life—and that of her family—for the better, financially and otherwise. Throughout her career, Judaline has overcome many obstacles that come with working in a male-dominated industry. She was one of the very first women accepted into Plumbers Local Union No. 371 in Staten Island, and was the first woman elected to the examining board of Plumbers Local Union No. 1. She serves on the advisory board for The Women’s Building, NYC.
 
In 2017, Judaline established Tools & Tiaras, a nonprofit whose mission is to expose, inspire and mentor girls and women about the highly lucrative occupations available in the construction industry. She was one of the featured speakers at the 2017 Makers Conference. She was named to City & State’s Responsible 100 list in 2017, and was named one of 2018’s Oustanding Women by the Women Builders Council.
 
Judaline’s dedication to equality extends beyond her own industry; she brings her powerful voice and passion to social and political issues that affect low-income and marginalized people across all communities. She works assiduously to promote a positive representation of women in construction, so that the many obstacles
 

Filmmaker, Writer and Social Activist

Ms. Ibrahim believes in the power of artists to reflect the times and to utilize storytelling to build bridges, and to heal, unite and educate. She is an award-winning filmmaker based in New York and working worldwide. Currently a producer at Redfitz Films, Ms. Ibrahim previously worked on and produced film projects that went on to screen at the top international film festivals such as the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Toronto International Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival, Cinéma du Réel in Paris and Sundance Film Festival, among others. Ms. Ibrahim produced and directed the four-part 'Behind the Scenes' documentary Fishing Without Nets for VICE, filmed in Kenya based on the feature film of the same name, which won the best directing award in the US Dramatic Category at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. A graduate of UC Berkeley, Ms. Ibrahim’s work has taken her around the world and throughout Africa. She was most recently in Senegal, where she directed and produced the short film Sega, starring Alassane Sy (Restless City, Mediterranea), which examines the issue of migration and repatriation. She is passionate about human rights, humanitarian issues and global education. Ms. Ibrahim is actively engaged in domestic and international community service, including filmmaking workshops and volunteer efforts focusing on education initiatives and leadership. Ms. Ibrahim is proud of the organizations in which she has been able to combine filmmaking and advocacy such as Cell-ED, Kickstart International, Gobee Group, and the International Rescue Committee, as well as past participation with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for World Refugee Day in Kakuma Refugee Camp, where she participated in a film workshop for refugee youth. Outside of her film work and travel, she is currently developing filmmaking workshops for girls, which will be held at the Bronx Documentary Center.

Special Advisor to the Children's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch

Lois Whitman is the founder and former director (1994-2012) of the Human Rights Watch Children’s Rights Division. Human Rights Watch’s Children’s Rights Division investigates and works to end human rights abuses of children around the world, including the use of children as soldiers; objectionable forms of child labor; torture of children; attacks on students, teachers, and schools; children incarcerated with adults or subjected to extreme sentences; police violence against street children; and migrant children. Ms. Whitman has been associated with Human Rights Watch since 1987 and is currently Senior Advisor to the Children’s Rights Division. She has conducted human rights investigations and written reports on abuses in many countries around the world, including Turkey, Greece, Northern Ireland, Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Liberia, Jamaica, Cuba, and Sri Lanka and has testified before the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and United States Congressional committees. Earlier, as General Counsel to the NYC Commission on Human Rights, she drafted the gay rights bill that was passed by the NYC Council in 1986. Ms. Whitman has taught Women and the Law at Hunter College, Law and Social Work at Stony Brook School of Social Work, and Human Rights of Children at the Columbia School for International and Public Affairs. A lawyer and a social worker, Ms. Whitman received a BA from Smith College, a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Columbia University, and a law degree from Rutgers University. She received the Smith College Medal in 2002, the Dean’s Medal from CUNY Law School in 2009, and an honorary degree from Le Moyne College in 2015. She is currently on the board of Physicians for Human Rights and the Board of Visitors of CUNY Law School.

Psychologist, Disability Rights Advocate, Model

Dr. Sheypuk has combined her psychologist’s expertise with her bedrock sense of social justice to advocate on behalf of the mainstreaming of Americans with disabilities, in the context of their professional, consumer, social and sexual lives. Her tireless promotion of her own story as an active urban professional woman living with a disability has earned her the tagline "Carrie Bradshaw on Wheels," and has brought hope and inspiration to hundreds of thousands of disabled women around the world.

Earning the title of Ms. Wheelchair New York in 2012, and becoming the first fashion model in a wheelchair to "walk" the runway at New York Fashion Week in 2014, Dr. Sheypuk has used her expanding global media profile to advocate for greater commercial attention to women with disabilities as a major consumer market. Dr. Sheypuk has written passionately about this "unseen giant" of the demographic, constituting more than $200 billion in consumer purchasing power. Her emphasis on the glamour and sexuality of the disabled female has encouraged countless disabled women in their quest to explore and express their own inherent beauty and desirability.

Professionally, Dr. Sheypuk has focused on issues of dating, intimacy and sexual fulfillment among people with disabilities. Her private practice, employing Skype-therapy methods to treat disabled patients, is a model for reaching out to those who might not otherwise seek help from the psychological profession. People with disabilities seek her out as a psychologist who has experienced and overcome obstacles similar to theirs.

In a more popular context, Dr. Sheypuk has initiated a regular expert-in-residence column for the women’s magazine SheKnows, and she is also an editorial board member and writer for Women’s eNews.

Ph.D., Clinical Associate Professor, Programs in Early Childhood Special Education at NYU

Barbara Schwartz is a leading faculty member with the programs in Early Childhood and Early Childhood Special Education where she is engaged in teaching, field supervision, professional development, program administration, as well as development and field-based research. Prior to joining the NYU faculty in 2003, she was Director of the Head Start Disabilities Services Quality Improvement Center for federal region II (New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands), where for 20 years she supported the implementation of services to support children with disabilities in Early Head Start and Head Start. She has been a Mayoral appointee to the NYC Early Intervention Coordinating Council (1994 - 2013), an adviser to the New York State Education Department and the New York State Early Intervention Program under the Department of Health, a Board Member of New York Zero to Three, and an active member of the NYS Association for Early Childhood Teacher Education, engaging in activities related to the NYS Regents review of Early Childhood Special Education Certification. She is on the editorial review board of the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education.
 
Barbara has been actively engaged in providing training and presentations at international, national, regional, and local events for over 30 years and has co-authored chapters on Head Start and early childhood special education. Over recent years she has been engaged with an intensive consultation process with the NYS Early Childhood Direction Center in Manhattan to support training to NYC Early Learn programs on effective inclusion of children with disabilities. Barbara has been a presenter at the renown 92Y Wonderplay Early Childhood Learning Conference for many years, most recently leading an interactive workshop called, Looking Beyond Labels: Feelings & Perceptions about Working with Children with Developmental Delays and/or Disabilities.

Student, Social activist and 92Y Teen Center

Leila Foulon is a 16-year-old high school junior; she is a social activist, budding scientist, photographer and a committed volunteer at the 92nd Street Y Teen Center.

Leila considers her work to promote women’s education in Bhutan as one of her greatest accomplishments. When she discovered (at age 7) that girls in some parts of the world did not have access to education, she and her father researched different parts of the world where education for girls is not a given, and eventually settled on the all-boys Choki Traditional Art School (CTAS) in Bhutan. The school agreed to accept girls if funding could be found to build a girls dormitory. Leila got to work, raising $7,780 through bake sales at school and other fundraising projects; she raised the rest by extending her fundraising efforts to the grown-ups in her life. CTAS built the dormitory, and Leila attended the opening (with her family) in Bhutan when she was 9. She returned in 2015 to celebrate the first graduating class, and seeing how her actions had profoundly affected the lives of the young women in Bhutan -- who were all able to get jobs because of their education -- inspires her to continue giving back.

Leila is also committed to the scientific field, with particular interests in biology, bioengineering and bioethics. She attended the Engineering Academy at the University of Pennsylvania, where she developed a detailed research proposal on preventing cancer cell growth in tumors by over-exaggerating the presence of an essential protein. After a brief introduction to the world of in-vitro fertilization (shadowing a doctor in that field), she went on to explore bioethics through an internship at the NYU Center for Bioethics, where she is writing a teaching resource module for high school teachers who want to include ethical issues around gender selection and “designer babies” in their lessons or curricula.

Leila’s favorite hobby is photography, inspired in part by the beauty of Bhutan. She had a photo published in Photographer’s Forum Best of Photography 2015, and received eight medals from the National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, including a Golden Key award for her photo of the Tiger’s Nest monastery in Bhutan, “Isolation.”  That award led to her photograph being exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of a student art exhibit. 

She also volunteers regularly at 92Y’s Teen Center, working with children as a homework helper, reading to Kindergartners and helping out in an after-school science and art program.

Founder and President of Rise

Amanda Nguyen is the Founder and President of Rise, a non-profit dedicated to protecting the rights of sexual assault survivors. Amanda is the architect of the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights, federal legislation that was signed into law by President Obama in October 2016. Amanda was motivated to pursue justice after battling the legal system to keep her own rape kit from being destroyed in Massachusetts. In addition the federal legislation, Rise is pushing similar measures in Statehouses across the country. 

Amanda began her start in public service at NASA headquarters where she worked on the last space shuttle launch, public-private partnerships and the Asteroid Redirect Grand Challenge Mission. She previously worked at the White House in the Office of Public Engagement and the Chief of Staff’s office, at Morgan Stanley in public finance investment banking, and at the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysics Center as an Origins of Life fellow analyzing the Kepler exoplanet mission. Most recently, Amanda was the Deputy White House Liaison at the Department of State. Before this role, she served in the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons as a speechwriter. Amanda is also a 2016 TED fellow.
Amanda graduated from Harvard College, where she created the first student-written course on modern slavery. While in college, Amanda co-founded Wema Children, an orphanage in Kenya.