Leading Through Adversity

Speaker(s):

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  Pat Mitchell

  Founder and President, Pat Mitchell Media

  Pat Mitchell is a lifelong advocate for women and girls. At every step of her career, Mitchell has broken new ground for women, leveraging the power of media as a journalist, an Emmy award-winning and Oscar-nominated producer to tell women’s stories and increase the representation of women onscreen and off. Transitioning to an executive role, she became the president of CNN Productions, and the first woman president and CEO of PBS and the Paley Center for Media. Today, her commitment to connect and strengthen a global community of women leaders continues as a conference curator, advisor and mentor. In partnership with TED, Mitchell launched TEDWomen in 2010 and is its editorial director, curator and host. She is also a speaker and curator for the annual Women Working for the World forum in Bogota, Colombia, the Her Village conference in Beijing, and co-chairs the US board of Women of the World (WOW). She partners with the Rockefeller Foundation to curate, convene and host Connected Women Leaders (CWL) forums, focused on collective problem solving among women leaders in government and civil society. In 2014, the Women’s Media Center honored Mitchell with its first-annual Lifetime Achievement Award, now named in her honor to commend other women whose media careers advance the representation of women. Recognized by Hollywood Reporter as one of the most powerful women in media, Fast Company’s “League of Extraordinary Women” and Huffington Post’s list of “Powerful Women Over 50,” Mitchell also received the Sandra Day O'Connor Award for Leadership. She was a contributor to Enlightened Power: How Women Are Transforming the Practice of Leadership, and wrote the introduction to the book and museum exhibition, 130 Women of Impact in 30 Countries. In 2016, she received a Congressional appointment to The American Museum of Women’s History Advisory Council, and in 2019 was named to the Gender Equality Top 100 list of women leaders by Apolitical. Mitchell is active with many nonprofit organizations, serving as the chair of the boards of the Sundance Institute and the Women’s Media Center. She is a founding member of the VDAY movement and on the boards of the Skoll Foundation and the Acumen Fund. She is also an advisor to Participant Media and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mitchell is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia and holds a master's degree in English literature and several honorary doctorate degrees. She is the author of Becoming a Dangerous Woman: Embracing Risk to Change the World. She and her husband, Scott Seydel, live in Atlanta and have six children and 13 grandchildren.

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  Halla Tomasdottir

  Change Catalyst, Sisters Capital

  Halla is a Change Catalyst on a quest to inspire and empower leaders to release the value of principle-based and gender balanced leadership. She has passionately pursued this purpose as a business leader in Corporate America with M&M and Pepsi Cola, as the first female CEO of Iceland’s Chamber of commerce and as an executive and non-executive director for diverse businesses. An entrepreneur at heart, she joined the founding team of Reykjavik University where she founded the Executive Education department and led a successful initiative focused on empowering women and girls as entrepreneurs, leaders and investors. In 2007 she co-founded an investment firm with the vision to incorporate feminine values into finance. The company made international headlines when it successfully survived Iceland’s infamous economic meltdown. In 2016, Halla ran for President in Iceland. She was an independent candidate with no prior political experience and surprised everyone as she emerged from an initial 1% in the polls to becoming the runner-up with 28% of the vote. Halla holds an international MBA from Thunderbird and has lived and worked in the US, the UK and across the Nordics. Her work led her to the TED stage twice and she has delivered keynotes and participated in dialogues about leadership and gender for companies and conferences around the world. In 2011, Newsweek named her to a list of 150 women who shake the world and after following Iceland’s Presidential Elections in 2016, the New Yorker called her A Living Emoji of Sincerity.

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  Reverend Mpho Tutu

  , Reverend Canon

  The Reverend Mpho A. Tutu an ordained Episcopal Priest and founding Director of the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation For five years, Rev. Tutu was Director of the Bishop Desmond Tutu Southern African Refugee Scholarship Fund of the Phelps Stokes Fund. That program provided full four-year scholarships to refugees from South Africa and Namibia. Ms. Tutu has worked as a volunteer teaching in and English as a second language (ESL) ministry in Alexandria, VA. Rev. Tutu holds a Master of Divinity Degree form Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA. She was awarded a Women Living Religion Fellowship by the MacMillan Center at Yale University in New Haven. The Rev. Mpho Tutu is a trustee of Angola University. Rev. Mpho Tutu is the Executive Director of Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, an organization founded by her father Desmond and mother Leah. Rev. Tutu co-authored Made for Goodness with her father and Tutu: The authorized Portrait with Award winning journalist Allister Sparks. They also wrote the foreword to National Geographic’s book, Geography of Religion. She also authored the foreword of Footprints in the Sand: Caregivers of South Africa and. Recently she co-authored The Book of Forgiving together with her father.

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  Alaa Murabit

  Founding President, The Voice of Libyan Women

  At the young age of 15 Alaa Murabit completed high school and moved from Saskatoon, Canada to Zawia, Libya. It was there that she enrolled in medical school and driven by her desire to create inclusive processes and institutions founded The Voice of Libyan Women (VLW) in 2011 at the age of 21. With a strong focus on challenging societal and cultural norms and utilizing traditional and historical role models Murabit champions women’s participation in peace processes and conflict mediation. Her programs, such as the groundbreaking “Noor Campaign” are replicated internationally. Nicknamed “The Libyan Doogie Howser” by Jon Stewart and applauded by Oprah for her innovative approach to security, Murabit acts as advisor to numerous international security boards, think tanks and organizations. Most recently she was nominated to the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (women, peace and security) Global Advisory Board, UN Women Global Advisory Board and Harvard University’s “Everywoman, Everywhere” initiative. The first Ashoka Fellow elected from Libya, Murabit is the youngest recipient of the Marisa Bellisario International Humanitarian Award by the Italian Government, was named the “International Trust Women Hero 2014” by The New York Times and "One of 25 women under 25 to watch" by Newsweek. Most recently she was selected as a "100 Top Woman" by the BBC and the SAFE Global Hero. In March 2015 Murabit was selected as the inaugural civil society speaker at the official Commission on the Status of Women opening session. Murabit’s TED Talk, released in July 2015, “ What my religions really says about women” was selected as the TED Talk of the Day and one of four moving TED Talks you should watch right now by The New York Times. In October 2015 Murabit addressed the United Nations Security Council during the 15th Anniversary Open Debate on Resolution 1325. In December 2015 Murabit was selected as a Keeping Children Safe Trustee.

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  Mary Robinson

  Chair of The Elders, The Elders

  Mary Robinson was elected Irish President in 1990 and served for seven years as a principled and transformative leader who fought for equality and women’s rights throughout her time in office. A firm believer in dialogue and reconciliation, she broke taboos by being the first Irish head of state to make official visits to Britain, as well as regularly visiting Northern Ireland. As UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-2002), Mary Robinson became renowned as an outspoken voice dedicated to investigating and exposing human rights abuses across the world. Mary Robinson has been a member of The Elders since the group was founded in 2007 and was appointed Chair of The Elders in November 2018. She has travelled to the Middle East several times with The Elders to encourage peace efforts and support Israelis and Palestinans working for peaceful coexistence; visited the Korean Peninsula to help ease tensions between North and South Korea and learn more about North Korea’s chronic food crisis; joined an Elders' delegation to Côte d'Ivoire to emphasise the importance of reconciliation following widespread civil conflict. Mary Robinson also founded The Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice. Its work from 2010-2019 meant climate justice went from being effectively a taboo topic to being an approach to climate decision-making and action that is people-centered, rights-informed and fair.

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