Join us on Wednesday, March 15, for our 7th annual Power of Voice Celebration to benefit Girls Leadership. Celebrate the impact of our honorees and make sure every girl knows her power.
Wednesday, March 15, 2023
6:30–9:30 PM
Tribeca 360°
10 Desbrosses St., New York City
Dress Code: Cocktail attire with your own flair
If you’d like to become a sponsor, please complete this form or email dillan@girlsleadership.org.
MC
Alicia Menendez, MSNBC Anchor and Author
HONOREES
Qian Julie Wang, Author, Beautiful Country
Sheila Adams James, Partner, Davis Polk
Rachel Simmons, Executive Coach, Author, Girls Leadership Co-Founder
Scroll down to learn more about our honorees!
AUCTIONEER
Ron Tyler
SPONSORS
Benefactor
Leigh Fisher Savar & Avi Savar
Gold
Pinar & Kursad Ilgar
Silver
Ken Brooks & Family Charitable Fund
Coni Frezzo & Ed Sannini
Michael & Jenny Glassman
Renae Griffin
Sarah Wendt
BENEFIT COMMITTEE
Renae Griffin, chair
Krystal Folk
Coni Frezzo
Myiah McCullough
Kristi Rowe
If you can’t join us, please consider donating here.
If you’d like to become a sponsor, please find more information here or email dillan@girlsleadership.org.
See the power of voice in action! Click here to see our Girl Advisory Board members speak about what voice means to them.
MEET OUR HONOREES
Qian Julie Wang
Qian Julie was born in Shijiazhuang, China. At age 7, she moved to Brooklyn, New York, with her parents. For five years thereafter, the three lived in the shadows of undocumented life in New York City. Qian Julie’s first book is a poignant literary memoir that follows the family through those years, as they held onto hope and joy while confronting poverty, manual labor, and the perpetual threat of deportation.
A graduate of Yale Law School and Swarthmore College—where she juggled classes and extracurriculars with four part-time jobs—Qian Julie is now a litigator. She wrote Beautiful Country on her iPhone, during her subway commute to and from work at a national law firm, where she was elected to partnership within two years of joining the firm. She is now managing partner of Gottlieb & Wang LLP, a firm dedicated to advocating for education and civil rights. Qian Julie believes in eroding systemic barriers by giving the underprivileged the type of legal representation typically reserved for the wealthy, and in effecting social change by shifting the lens of the stories we tell, in our courtrooms and across our nation.
Qian Julie’s writing has appeared in major publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, and The Cut. She regularly speaks on issues such as immigration, education, discrimination, and the power of literacy in the media and at conferences, universities, corporations, community centers, and houses of worship.
Qian Julie lives in Brooklyn with her husband Marc and their two rescue dogs, Salty and Peppers.
Sheila Adams James
Sheila is a partner in the Antitrust & Competition Group and Litigation Department of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP in New York. Sheila represents clients in a variety of civil litigation and government investigations, and her practice focuses on antitrust investigations and litigation. Her clients have included firms in the media and entertainment, technology, pharmaceutical, financial services and manufacturing industries, as well as individual corporate directors. She has also devoted substantial time to representing individuals on a pro bono basis, including several military Veterans seeking disability benefits and a client who was granted clemency by President Barack Obama in January 2017. In 2017, she was recognized for her pro bono work with the Brooklyn Bar Association’s Champion of Justice Award and Davis Polk’s Pro Bono Award. In 2019, Sheila received a National Bar Association “40 Under 40 Nation’s Best Advocates” award, as well as one of the association’s five individual “40 Under 40” awards for Excellence in Leadership. She is a Co-Chair of the Spring Meeting of the ABA Antitrust Law Section and a member of the Board of Directors of the Columbia Law School Association.
Rachel Simmons
Rachel Simmons is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Odd Girl Out, The Curse of the Good Girl, and Enough As She Is.
A master facilitator and executive coach, she works for the world’s most innovative companies to design and deliver programs for women’s leadership development and gender equity. She is renowned for translating social science research into accessible strategies with authenticity and humor, while creating a safe space to explore uncomfortable topics.
Rachel serves on the faculty of the Google School for Leaders and is an associate with the firm Cultivating Leadership. After co-founding the national nonprofit Girls Leadership, she led the Phoebe Lewis Leadership Program at Smith College. Her writing has appeared in the The New York Times and Harvard Business Review, among many other publications.
MEET OUR MC
Alicia Menendez
Alicia Menendez anchors MSNBC’s “American Voices with Alicia Menendez” Saturday and Sunday nights from 6 to 8 p.m. ET. She is also the author of “The Likeability Trap” and host of the “Latina to Latina” podcast. Menendez joined MSNBC in October 2019. Prior to joining the network, Menendez served as a correspondent on “Amanpour & Company” on PBS and formerly hosted a nightly news and pop culture show on Fusion called “Alicia Menendez Tonight.” Her reporting and interviews have appeared on ABC News, Bustle, FusionTV, PBS and Vice News. Born and raised in New Jersey, Menendez has been called “Ms. Millennial” by The Washington Post, “journalism’s new gladiator” by Elle, and a “content queen” by Marie Claire. Menendez is on Twitter at @AliciaMenendez.
MEET OUR AUCTIONEER
Ron Tyler
Ron Tyler is a Professor of Law and Director of the Criminal Defense Clinic at Stanford Law School. Professor Tyler’s scholarly agenda focuses on self-care skills for lawyers and criminal practice and procedure. His most recent publication in 2021 is “Criminal Practice, A Handbook for New Advocates,” 1st Edition, (Foundation Press) (co-authored with SLS Prof. George Fisher and UCLA Prof. Ingrid Eagly). In 2020, his blog post for the SLS Legal Aggregate, “Police Use of Force, Training, and a Way Forward After the Death of George Floyd” (co-authored with Criminal Defense Clinic Associate Director Suzanne Luban) yielded national and international media exposure.
Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty, Professor Tyler was an Assistant Federal Public Defender for 22 years in the Northern District of California. He is active in several nonprofits, serving as General Counsel and on the Executive Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union, Chair of the Board of Regents of the National Criminal Defense College, and Secretary of the Board of Directors of the GRIP Training Institute, a California nonprofit dedicated to personal and systemic change for incarcerated persons.
Professor Tyler received his B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981 and had a brief career in high tech before changing his focus to law and public interest advocacy. He began law school as a Tony Patiño Fellow at Hastings College of the Law and earned his JD from UC Berkeley School of Law in 1989, where he served as Notes and Comments Editor on the Ecology Law Quarterly. After law school, he clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel.
