Supporters

Lisa Borders serves as President of the Atlanta City Council, having been elected in a citywide special election on August 10, 2004.  She was re-elected by an overwhelming margin in 2005’s normal citywide election cycle. Her duties include presiding over Council meetings, appointing committee chairs and participants for Council and maintaining relationships with the Executive branch of government. Her community initiatives include increasing the availability of affordable housing, uncovering transportation solutions to address our region’s traffic challenges and promoting neighborhood safety and preservation.

Barbara Bridges is a businesswoman, educator, and philanthropist.  A former elementary school teacher, Barbara was the co-founder of Advance Geophysical Corporation, a highly successful company that pioneered the development of innovative software for oil and gas exploration.  She then played a leading role in forming Quest International Management Co. Inc, a worldwide investment firm focusing on socially responsible companies.  Barbara currently is starting a new, Denver-based motion picture company, I-ON Films, with its first film scheduled to begin production summer of 2005. 

Beth Brooke is Global Vice Chair of Strategy, Communications and Regulatory Affairs of Ernst & Young, a leading global professional services organization providing audit, tax, transaction and risk advisory services.  Beth is also a member of the firm’s Global Management Committee and its Americas Executive Board. Beth’s policy expertise has enabled her to make strong contributions to the government sector, as well.  During the Clinton Administration, she worked in the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where she was responsible for all tax policy matters related to insurance and managed care.  She played important roles in the healthcare reform and Superfund reform efforts. She has been recognized by Accounting Today as one of the “Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting.,” 

Academy Award-winner Geena Davis continues to be one of Hollywood’s most sought-after actors.  Having received the 2006 Golden Globe Awards for Best Performance by Actress in a Television Series – Drama, Davis broke ground in her portrayal of the first female President of the United States in ABC’s hit show “Commander in Chief.”  In 1989, Davis received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the offbeat dog trainer Muriel Pritchett in Lawrence Kasdan’s “The Accidental Tourist.”  She was again nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe for her performance as Thelma in Ridley Scott’s “Thelma and Louise,” in which she co-starred with Susan Sarandon. Davis received Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress for her portrayals of a political speech writer in “Speechless,” a film which she also co-produced, and as a baseball phenomenon in “A League of Their Own.” Davis made her feature film debut starring opposite Dustin Hoffman in “Tootsie.”  She then went on to star in such films as “The Fly,” “Beetlejuice,” “Earth Girls are Easy,” “Angie,” “The Long Kiss Goodnight,” and “Stuart Little.” Davis, a member of the genius society Mensa, is also a trustee of the Women’s Sports Foundation, and supports Title IX and girls’ participation in sports through her own website, GeenaTakesAim.com. Although she took up the sport in 1997, Davis was one of only 32 women to qualify to compete in the 2000 Olympic Trials for archery.  She attained the rank of thirteenth in the nation the next year. A long-time advocate for women and girls, Davis founded the See Jane program. See Jane is dedicated to advocating balance in gender representation and to increasing the percentages of female characters and reduce stereotyping in media made for children ages 0-11.

Stephanie Davis serves as the Mayor of Atlanta’s Policy Advisor on Women’s Issues and is charged with helping to end child prostitution, empowering women through financial literacy, and institutionalizing the living wage. As the first director of the Atlanta Women’s Foundation where she served for 11 years, Davis was responsible for raising several million dollars, establishing an endowment and positioning the Foundation to be the fastest growing women’s fund in the country. Women’s issues and social justice have always been an integral part of Stephanie’s life and work. She was the first coordinator of Vote Choice and the founder of the Women’s Policy Group, which develops a “woman’s agenda” to more effectively lobby the legislature.  She directed two branches of the YWCA of Atlanta, was the training coordinator for legal services programs throughout the Southeast, and was the associate director of the Fund for Southern Communities.

Abigail E. Disney is Founder and President, Daphne Foundation and former Chair, New York
Women's Foundation.  Ms. Disney is a philanthropist and speaker active in supporting women’s initiatives who serves on the boards of a variety of organizations that work to improve the lives of low-income women and families. She is Vice Chair of the board of Shamrock Holdings, Inc., an investment firm based in California.

A visionary business entrepreneur and motivator, Julie Gilbert has spent her career building industry changing businesses and creating financial growth from ideation to scale. She is best known for the creation of WOLF Means Business, her progressive company transformation process to reinvent companies to serve the female and ethnic minority consumers which she successfully scaled at Best Buy while a Senior Vice President. She is now launching WOLF Means Business to help companies in all industries achieve sizeable revenue growth with women, the largest financial growth arena for companies today. While a Senior Vice President at Best Buy, she utilized WOLF processes to reinvented Best Buy, the $40 billion dollar consumer electronics company to increase its female revenue by more than $4.4 billion dollars in less than 5 years along with many other financial wins. WOLF Means Business is an innovative approach directly engaging employees and consumers in innovation to land companies as THE place for women to work and shop. She has offices in New York City and Minneapolis and has consulted with many Fortune 100 companies in the area of innovation, employee engagement, strategic new business growth, leadership, network creation, and female leadership as well as other topics.

Donna P. Hall, MPH, MBA, President & CEO, Women Donors Network (WDN) has devoted nearly 20 years to such national organizations as The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation. Donna's dedication to economic justice, reproductive rights, education, woman's rights in the workplace, international development, and progressive philanthropy has allowed her career to crisscross the public and private sectors. Donna joined WDN in 2002 for the opportunity to "further strengthen and empower the progressive movement for change through my work with individual members, as well as through representation of the collective body that is WDN."

Gara LaMarche is President and CEO of The Atlantic Philanthropies. His articles on human rights and social justice issues have appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Newsday, The Nation, The American Prospect, The Texas Observer, and The Wharton Magazine, and he is the editor of Speech and Equality: Do We Really Have to Choose? LaMarche has taught at New School University and The John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He also serves on the boards of Article 19 Institute, the international free expression organization, PEN American Center and The Nation; as a member of the Sundance Documentary Fund Selection Committee; on the U.S. Advisory Committee for Index on Censorship, the London-based human rights magazine; and on the Advisory Committees for the Human Rights Watch Women's Rights Division and U.S. Programs.

Dr. Lucie Lapovsky (Treasurer) Former President, Mercy College. Dr. Lapovsky has almost 30 years of experience in Higher Education Finance. Prior to Mercy College, she served as Vice President for Finance at Goucher College and before that, she worked as Special Assistant to the President of the University of Maryland at College Park, as Director of Finance and Facilities for the Maryland Higher Education Commission, and as a Fiscal Planner for the Maryland State Department of Budget and Fiscal Planning.  In 1999, she was named one of the 100 top women in Maryland. Dr. Lapovsky serves on a number of boards and advisory committees including the American Public University System, American Council on Education,  Advisory Committee to the Center on Policy Analysis,  and the Boards of Western New England College, the National Council for Research on Women, and the New York Women's Forum Education Fund.

Geraldine B. Laybourne is the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Oxygen Media. Founded in 1998 and currently available in over 50 million cable homes, Oxygen puts a fresh spin on television for women, airing more original programming than any other woman’s network. Prior to starting Oxygen, Gerry spent 16 years at Nickelodeon – taking over management of the network in 1984. Under her leadership, Nickelodeon became the top-rated 24-hour cable network and won several notable awards including Emmys, Peabodys, Cable Ace, and Parent’s Choice awards.

From 1996-1998, Gerry was president of Disney/ABC Cable Networks where she was responsible for overseeing current cable programming for the Walt Disney Company and its ABC subsidiary. Gerry earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History from Vassar College and a Master of Science degree in Elementary Education from the University of Pennsylvania. She and her husband Kit, a producer, author and animator, have two children and one grandchild.

Sudha Shetty, JD is the Director of the International Fellowship Program and a graduate faculty at the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. She speaks and writes extensively on domestic violence issues facing immigrant women and women of color. She has been a consultant to the law firm of Dorsey & Whitney, L.L.P. on diversity issues and in her former role as Director of the Seattle University Law School’s Access to Justice Institute she developed a variety of legal access projects focused on battered women. She was recently honored by the Washington Women Lawyers Foundation for her work with underserved communities. She has been the recipient of several awards – 2005 King County Washington Women Lawyers – Special Contributions to the Judiciary Award; 2005 NALP (National Association of Law School Placements – Award of Distinction in Pro Bono and Public Service; 2003 Asian Bar Association of Washington - Community Service Award; 2003 PSLawNet - the Pro Bono Publico Award; 2004 AALS (American Association of Law Schools) - Father Drinan Award for forwarding the ethic of pro bono and public service in law schools through personal service, program design and management. She was the 2005 Section Chair of The American Associations of Law Schools Pro Bono Public and Public Interest Section. She was a founding member and chair of Chaya, a grass-roots South Asian domestic violence prevention group and chair of the Washington South Asian Council. She was chosen to be a 1999 fellow of the Asian Pacific Women’s Leadership Institute. Ms. Shetty received a Bachelors Degree in Sociology and Psychology from Sophia College in Bombay, India, and a Juris Doctor from the University of Bombay, India.

Susan L. Taylor is synonymous with Essence magazine, the brand she built—as its fashion and beauty editor, as editor-in-chief and editorial director. For 27 years she authored of one of the magazine’s most popular columns, In the Spirit. For nearly three decades, as the driving force behind one of the most celebrated Black-owned businesses of our time, Susan Taylor is a legend in the magazine publishing world. She was the first and only African American Woman to be recognized by the Magazine Publishers of America with the Henry Johnson Fisher Award—the industry's highest honor—and the first to be inducted into the American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame. She is the recipient of the NAACP President's Award for visionary leadership and has honorary degrees from more than a dozen colleges and universities.

A fourth-generation entrepreneur, Susan grew up in Harlem working with her father in his women’s clothing store. She founded her own cosmetics company, a first for Black women, which led to the beauty editor’s position at Essence. She is the author of four books: In the Spirit: The Inspirational Writings of Susan L. Taylor; Lessons in Living; Confirmation: The Spiritual Wisdom That Has Shaped Our Lives, which she coauthored with her husband, Khephra Burns; and her most recent, All About Love, Favorite Selections from In the Spirit on Living Fearlessly. She is a much sought-after speaker, inspiring hope and encouraging us to reclaim our lives and create sustainable communities.

She is an avid supporter of a host of organizations dedicated to moving the Black community forward, but her passion and focus today is the National Cares Mentoring Movement, a call to action, which she founded in 2006 as Essence Cares. The Cares mentoring movement is a massive campaign to recruit one million able adults to help secure our children who are in peril and losing ground. “Not on our watch!” she says. “Our children are the mothers and fathers of our tomorrows, and their future is in our hands.” The goals of the Cares movement are to increase high school graduation rates among African American students, end the violence in Black communities and the over-incarceration of our young. “Creating safe, top-tier schools in every underserved community in this nation is the mandate—and it’s doable,” Taylor says.

Susan is a cofounder of Future PAC, the first national political action committee devoted to providing a network of support and sources of funding for progressive African American women seeking federal and state-level political offices. She is cochair with Danny Glover of Shared Interest, a capital campaign to raise money to build housing in the rural areas of South Africa, and serves on the boards of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. She has worked passionately to help restore the lives of people in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region who were devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.