Ambassador Alice Dear, Board Chair, Africanist, businesswoman and former banker, is President of A.M. Dear and Associates, a consulting boutique promoting private sector investment and public-private partnerships in Africa. She also lends her voice and talents to advocate on behalf of women’s empowerment and gender equity as critical components to economic development.
President William Clinton appointed Ms. Dear, with unanimous Senate confirmation and ambassador-level rank, as U.S. Executive Director of the African Development Bank, Africa’s premier financial institution. From 1994-2000 she represented the U.S. Government on the Board of Directors at Bank headquarters in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. The life member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. represents the Non-Governmental Organization affiliate at the United Nations. Ambassador Dear is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the International Planning Committee of Global Summit of Women. She is a graduate of Pace University (MBA) and Howard University (BA).
Kimberly Seals Allers is an award-winning journalist and author of The Big Let Down—How Medicine, Big Business and Feminism Undermine Breastfeeding (St. Martin’s Press). Kimberly writes frequently on the socio-cultural and racial complexities of birth, breastfeeding and motherhood. She is the director of the Maternal and Child Health Communication Collective, a national consortium of over 80 organizations working collectively to shift the narrative of maternal and infant health issues, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Learn more at www.KimberlySealsAllers.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @iamKSealsAllers.
Stacey Tisdale is an award-winning on-air financial journalist who has reported on business and financial issues for more than 20 years. She has contributed to some of the largest and most prestigious news organizations in the world including CNN, CBS, NBC’s Today Show, PBS, ABC’s Good Morning America, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Black Enterprise, and Al Jazeera America. Stacey is also president and CEO of financial media and education content provider Mind Money Media Inc., and authored a book titled,’ The True Cost of Happiness: The Real Story Behind Managing Your Money.‘ (Publisher: John Wiley & Sons).
Xian Horn is a joyful half-Asian woman with Cerebral Palsy, who serves as a teacher, speaker, beauty advocate, and blogger for the AT&T NYU Connect Ability Challenge toward the creation of Assistive Technology. Her ‘Give Beauty Wings’ Self-Esteem programs originated and continue at NYU’s Initiative for Women with Disabilities, the Jewish Community Center Manhattan, and M.S. 131. Xian was recently invited to the Cooper Hewitt’s Accessibility Advisory Committee, has served on the NY Women’s Foundation Committee for the Future, and mentored at the White House for Lights! Camera! Access! 2.0. She has also served on the State Department’s International Visitors Leadership Program’s European delegation, and has been featured in The White House Blog’s Women Working To Do Good series, NPR, Forbes, Fortune, Fast Company, Bloomberg, NBC News, Fox 5 and NY1, among others. She is also a blogger for Positively Positive – a community of over 2.5 million.