Women, Equity, and Global Development Symposium 2018
At the 2018 symposium, speakers discuss the theme "Are We There Yet? Broken Barriers or Broken Records".
Are We There Yet? Broken Barriers or Broken Records
Since the landmark Women’s March in 2017, seismic shifts have been underway, affecting everything from women’s political participation to their financial autonomy. Women can now drive in Saudi Arabia, US legislators can now bring newborns to the Senate floor, and companies in the United Kingdom are being mandated to address the gender wage gap. The eruption of movements like #MeToo has sent shockwaves across industries, setting new standards for accountability and regulation. But have we reached a tipping point? Can this watershed moment go beyond words to drive meaningful action?
About the Event Series
The Women, Equity, and Global Development Symposium (previously known as the Global Health and Development Symposium) is the flagship event of the Council’s Women, Equity, and Global Development Forum since 2013. Each year, this event series engages and convenes diverse global perspectives and advocates for inclusive, sustainable, and equitable global development practices, in order to empower all people to contribute actively to a more equitable world.
About the Speakers
Ravi Baichwal
News Anchor-Reporter, ABC 7
Ravi Baichwal has been a coanchor on Chicago’s ABC 7 Weekend News at 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. as well as a reporter for ABC 7’s newscasts since 2006. In 2008, he won the Emmy award for best anchor in the Chicago/Midwest region of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
CEO and Founder, Promundo
Gary Barker is a leading global voice in engaging men and boys in advancing gender equality. He is the CEO and founder of Promundo, which has worked for 20 years in more than 40 countries. In 2017 he was named by Apolitical as one of the 20 most influential people in gender policy around the world.
Distinguished Fellow, Global Food and Agriculture
Prior to joining the Council, Ertharin Cousin served as executive director of the UN World Food Programme where she led the world’s largest humanitarian organization from 2012 to 2017. She also previously served as US ambassador to the UN Agencies for Food and Agriculture in Rome. Cousin is founder and CEO of Food Systems for the Future.
United States Senator, Illinois
Tammy Duckworth is an Iraq War Veteran, Purple Heart recipient, and former Assistant Secretary of the US Department of Veterans Affairs who was among the first handful of Army women to fly combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom. She was elected to the US Senate in 2016 after representing Illinois’ Eighth Congressional District in the US House of Representatives for two terms.
Leah Fessler
Reporter, Quartz
Leah Fessler is a journalist at Quartz, the global business news site, where she covers gender, work, and relationships, all through a feminist lens. She has broken a number of industry-shaping stories on how sexism manifests in technology and management. She's also the creator and lead journalist behind How We’ll Win, Quartz’s most ambitious special project to date.
Katherine Fritz
Director, ICRW Advisors, ICRW
Katherine Fritz serves as a trusted advisor to donor agencies, governments, NGOs, and leading corporations on issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment. She leads research that helps build the business case for how private sector investments in gender equality can positively impact women’s wellbeing while making businesses more successful and sustainable.
Kristalina Georgieva
CEO, The World Bank
Kristalina Georgieva is the CEO for the World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association). Georgieva’s role is to build support across the international community to mobilize resources for poor and middle-income countries and to help create better opportunities for the world’s most vulnerable people.
Leslie Goldman
Writer, Women's Health, and Body Image Expert
Leslie Goldman is a Chicago-based health writer who regularly contributes feature stories and essays to magazines such as O: The Oprah Magazine, Women’s Health, Woman's Day, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents, and more. She is the author of Locker Room Diaries: The Naked Truth About Women, Body Image, and Re-Imagining the “Perfect” Body, which was featured on the Today Show, where she is a frequent guest.
Anna Fälth
Manager, WE EMPOWER, UN Women
Anna Fälth manages the European Union-funded program WE EMPOWER. As such, she heads the Secretariat of the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), EmpowerWomen.org, that promotes online collaboration, learning, and innovation to advance women’s economic empowerment as well as WeLearn, a virtual school that tackles the skills-gaps faced by women and girls for the jobs of the future.
Sara Guillermo
Chief Program Officer, IGNITE
Sara Guillermo has extensive experience in youth leadership, curriculum development, and program management, having developed and led youth empowerment and community service programs at BuildOn and Aspire Public Schools for a decade prior to joining IGNITE. Guillermo started with IGNITE managing their high school programs and was quickly recruited to administer statewide and national programming.
Kimothy Joy
Artist, Social Activist, and Creative Consultant
Kimothy Joy is a Denver-based women’s empowerment activist, freelance artist, and author of That’s What She Said. Joy focuses on creating illustrations of heroines to spark social change and offer a hopeful message to women and girls. In her most recent book, she blends watercolor and short biographies to show the contributions of influential female leaders to society and the world.
Munira Khalif
Cofounder, Lighting the Way
Munira Khalif, the 2017-2018 US Youth Observer to the United Nations, is a dedicated advocate for universal access to education and women’s and girls’ rights. Khalif's organization, Lighting the Way, is a youth-run non-profit that works to make education more accessible and equitable for girls in East Africa by providing scholarships, building libraries, and sponsoring teachers.
Gillian Kingston
Deputy Director, Research, Insight, and Evaluation, M&C Saatchi World Services
Gillian Kingston holds over 10 years’ experience of designing and implementing research and evaluation programs on social and behavior change, gender, and health. Previously, she worked as a senior research manager of analysis with BBC Media Action and as a research associate with the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
Esther Ruth Mbabazi
Photographer
Esther Ruth Mbabazi is a Ugandan photographer whose work focuses on the social, physical, and emotional aspects of daily life, especially in rural areas and amongst minority groups with an interest in public health. Mbabazi is a VII Photo Agency Mentee. In 2017, she was a Magnum Foundation Photography and Social Justice Fellow.
Clare O'Connor
Editorial Director, Bumble
Clare O'Connor is Bumble's editorial director, working on building a new media division at the social networking company. Prior to joining Bumble, she was a staff writer at Forbes, most recently covering women entrepreneurs and workplace equality. She also spent time on the retail and e-commerce beat, and started her career there reporting on the Forbes 400 and World's Billionaires lists.
Ramille N. Shah
Head, Shah Tissue Engineering and Additive Manufacturing (TEAM) Laboratory, University of Illinois at Chicago
Professor Ramille N. Shah's research involves the development, characterization, and translation of new functional 3D-inks that are compatible with extrusion-based 3D printing for both biomedical (e.g. complex tissue and organ engineering) and non-biomedical (e.g. energy and advanced structural) applications. She is also a cofounder and chief scientific officer of Dimension Inx, LLC.
Sona Shah
Founder and CEO, Neopenda
Sona Shah is cofounder and CEO of Neopenda, a medical device startup innovating solutions for emerging markets. Shah’s path to global health entrepreneurship began when she earned a BS in chemical engineering from Georgia Tech (2011) and subsequently worked as an engineer in bioprocess research and development at Eli Lilly and Company.
President and CEO, TIME’S UP
At TIME’S UP Now and the TIME’S UP Foundation, Tina oversees the organizations’ strategic plans to change culture, companies, and laws in order to make work safe, fair, and dignified for women of all kinds. A former assistant to President Obama, executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, and chief of staff to First Lady Michelle Obama, Tina has worked to advance gender equality, particularly for working women.
Roger Thurow
Former Senior Fellow, Global Food and Agriculture
Roger Thurow spent three decades at The Wall Street Journal as a foreign correspondent based in Europe and Africa prior to joining the Council in 2010. His coverage spanned the fall of the Berlin Wall, the release of Nelson Mandela, the end of apartheid, and humanitarian crises. He is the author of three books.
Nicole Torres
Associate Editor, Harvard Business Review
Nicole Torres is an associate editor at Harvard Business Review, where she co-hosts the Women at Work podcast and covers new research related to gender, psychology, and health care. She has written for The Boston Globe, Salon, and other publications.
Lead Sponsor
Patron Sponsors
The Frankel Family Foundation
Ashley F.T. McCall & Avery McCall
Susan and Bob Morrison
Partners
