Join us on Wednesday, March 10, for our 5th annual Power of Voice Celebration to benefit Girls Leadership. We will come together to honor five incredible women who are using the power of their voice to change our world. Each of these honorees is thanking the person who helped them step into their power. You won’t want your kids to miss this — it’s a celebration for all ages!
Wednesday, March 10
4 PM PT/7 PM ET
HONOREES
Billie Jean King, Founder, Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative
Marley Dias, Founder of #1000BlackGirlBooks, Author, Activist & Executive Producer
Meena Harris, Founder and CEO, Phenomenal
Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Executive Editor, Teen Vogue
Suni Harford, President, UBS Asset Management
Scroll down to learn more about our honorees!
With musical performance by
J-Rey Soul
MC
Alicia Menendez
SPONSORS
Champion
Gold
Silver
Bronze
U.S. Bank
With additional support from
Nomura Securities
Beneficial State Bank
If you’d like to become a sponsor, please complete this form or email anne@girlsleadership.org.
BENEFIT COMMITTEE
Devon McAllister Rothwell, chair
Coni Frezzo
Gina Hubbell
Maria Wu Kiskis
Regina Manzana-Sawhney
Renae Griffin
Victoria Fan Azalde
While our event is open to the public free of charge, we hope you’ll consider purchasing a VIP ticket, if possible. Your ticket will sponsor a teacher to attend our professional development training, impacting the lives of 250 girls.
If you can’t join us, please consider donating here.
MEET OUR HONOREES
Named one of the “100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century” by Life magazine and a 2009 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Billie Jean King is the founder of the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative, founder of the Women’s Tennis Association and the Women’s Sports Foundation, and part of the ownership group of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Sparks, and Angel City FC. In September 2020, King became the first woman to have an annual global team sports event named in her honor when Fed Cup, the women’s world cup of tennis, was rebranded as the Billie Jean King Cup. The National Tennis Center, home of the US Open, was renamed the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in 2006 in honor of her accomplishments on and off the court. In 2017, Fox Searchlight released the critically acclaimed film, Battle of the Sexes, which depicts the cultural and social impact of the groundbreaking match. In 2018 King received a Lifetime Achievement Award as part of the prestigious BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards; in 2019 King’s deep Southern California roots were recognized with the opening of the Billie Jean King Main Library in her hometown of Long Beach, California, and in 2020 King was honored with the release of the Billie Jean King Barbie doll, part of Mattel’s Inspiring Women Series. King serves on the board of the Women’s Sports Foundation, is an Adidas Global Ambassador, and is a past member of the board of the Elton John AIDS Foundation and a past member of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition.
Marley Dias is the witty and purpose-driven 16-year-old founder of #1000BlackGirlBooks and author of Marley Dias Gets It Done: And So Can You! whose successful campaign has garnered over 10 billion media impressions. #1000BlackGirlBooks is an international movement to collect and donate children’s books that feature Black girls as the lead character. Marley launched the #1000BlackGirlBooks drive in November 2015 with the help of GrassROOTS Community Foundation, leveraging the power of social media to reach a larger audience. The goal was to collect 1,000 books featuring Black women or girl protagonists by February 2016. The story went viral and was picked up by media outlets around the world as well as bloggers, schools, youth-focused organizations, and millions of individuals who wanted to participate in the project. Marley has collected over 13,000 books to date. Marley is also the Executive Producer of Netflix’s Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices which is currently nominated for an NAACP Image Award in the Outstanding Children’s Programs category.
Marley has spoken at the White House’s United State of Women alongside Michelle Obama and Oprah, The Forbes Women’s Summit, United Nation’s Girl Up, Inbound, CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion, the Social Innovation Summit and several others. She was honored with the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award, also known as the “the Golden Globes of Intellect,” in the Youth Category in 2017, for her transformative work in 2016 around representation in literature. Dias was also recognized by TIME, as one of the 25 most influential teens in 2018 and was identified as the youngest member of the Forbes 30 under 30 list to date.
In light of the campaign’s huge success, Marley has appeared on Ellen, CBS This Morning, The Today Show, The View, and several others. In her Editor in Residency at ELLE, Marley has interviewed Ava DuVernay, Misty Copeland and Hillary Clinton for Elle.com. Marley has been featured in a Microsoft Commercial, a Disney World Resorts digital campaign and a Walmart Black History Month campaign. Marley’s campaign would not be possible without GrassROOTS Community Foundation (GCF), a public health and social action organization, that has given her the training for success. GCF’s funds, supports, develops and scales community health and wellness programs for women and girls. They also advocate for policies and practices that reduce disparities and foster equity. Marley resides in West Orange, NJ with her mother and father. Marley’s #1000blackgirlbooks resource guide can be found here.
Meena Harris is one of the most powerful and dynamic young leaders in America. As the founder of the groundbreaking Phenomenal brand, she is a respected entrepreneur and is recognized as an influential voice for women’s equality. Meena also is an attorney with extensive experience in consumer protection, data privacy, and cybersecurity. On January 19, 2021, Meena released her second children’s book titled Ambitious Girl. Meena has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Harper’s Bazaar, AdWeek, and more. She is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, and currently resides in San Francisco with her partner and two daughters.
Samhita Mukhopadhyay is Executive Editor of Teen Vogue. An award-winning writer, editor, and lecturer, Samhita formerly served as Senior Editorial Director at Mic and is the former Executive Editor of Feministing.com. She is the co-editor of Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance and Revolution in Trump’s America the author of Outdated: Why Dating is Ruining Your Love Life. Her work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Allure, Jezebel, New York, Vogue India, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, and The Nation.
Suni Harford is President of Asset Management and a member of the UBS Group Executive Board for UBS, one of the largest asset managers globally with USD 1.1 trillion in invested assets. Suni joined in 2017 as UBS AM’s Head of Investments.
Prior to UBS, Suni worked at Citigroup for almost 25 years, most recently as Regional Head of Markets for North America. Suni was also a member of Citi’s Pension Plan Investment Committee and a Director on the Board of Citibank Canada.
Suni is a co-chair of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Investing. She is a founding sponsor of Veterans on Wall Street and serves on the Bob Woodruff Foundation’s Board of Directors. She has served on the Board of Directors of The Forte Foundation, a US non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the number of women leaders in business. Suni has held seats on the board of several industry associations, including the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation and SIFMA. She was named Investment Week’s ‘2020 International Investment Woman of the Year’ and has been named one of American Banker’s Top 25 Women in Finance multiple years.
Suni holds an MBA from Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and a bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics from Denison University.
MEET OUR GIRL SPEAKER
Naysa Harraway is a 12th grader attending The Young Women’s Leadership School of Queens (TYWLS). It was in elementary school when Naysa joined the debate team, winning her first championship at the age of nine and birthing her deep passion for law and debate. She takes part in the debate club to help shape her into an aspiring criminal defense attorney. Growing into her teenage years, Naysa developed a love for sports: mainly basketball and track and field. Naysa is an active part of her school leadership, taking part in Student Government, and serves as a Student Ambassador. Naysa has found her voice through the art of poetry and debate. In addition, she is active in her community of Southeast Queens and across New York City, giving her service to different nonprofit organizations and becoming a youth activist to use her platform of poetry to advocate for those facing injustices in Black and Brown communities. Lastly, Naysa has recently become a young author of her own poetry book and is hoping to have her own criminal justice firm to make a change into the future of our justice system, after obtaining her bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
MEET OUR PERFORMER
J-Rey Soul (Jessica Reynoso) has been making a name for herself in the music industry. She began her career as a child, where she was a contestant on the show Popstar Kids in the Philippines, her native country. She then became a contestant in the inaugural season of The Voice: Philippines, where she met Apl.de.Ap of the Black Eyed Peas. She emigrated to Los Angeles shortly thereafter. For the past three years, she has been the female vocalist for Black Eyed Peas. The song Mamacita, which she is featured on, reached no. 1 in four countries and was nominated for a VMA. She is currently working on her solo album.
MEET OUR MC
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 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
Cindy Solomon is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and leadership provocateur with a passion for helping women achieve both their personal and professional goals. After nearly two decades of research into Courageous Leadership and over 300,000 attendees of her signature Courageous Leadership programs, Cindy and her global team of facilitators work with a cross section of leaders, employees, companies, and nonprofits to build their courage. Learn more about Cindy and the programs at CreatingCourage.com and follow her @CindySolomon.
You won’t want your kids to miss this — it’s a celebration for all ages!
Wednesday, March 10
4 PM PT/7 PM ET
