Betsy and Maggie are the founders of Mulberry Tree Consulting, an organization development practice in North Carolina that specializes in the design and facilitation of strategic planning, leadership coaching and team development for community-focused organizations. They are currently writing The Partnership Solution: Success and Sanity for Entrepreneurial Women, a guide to creating and leading business partnerships based on stories shared by 45 successful women entrepreneurial partners across the country.

Before starting Mulberry Tree Consulting, an organization development practice that works with organizations that are striving to make a positive difference for their employees and their communities, Betsy Polk was a consultant in the Washington, DC area.  She received a B.A. degree from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst and an M.S. in Organization Development from the American University/NTL Graduate Program. She lives in Chapel Hill, NC with her husband Marc and children, Michael and Annie.   

Prior to creating Mulberry Tree Consulting, Maggie Ellis Chotas was a teacher, administrator and consultant to public and independent schools in Philadelphia, New York City, Charlotte and Durham, NC.    She earned a B.A. from Swarthmore College and an M.A. from St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD.   Maggie lives in Durham, NC with her husband Harrell and children, Georgia and Nicholas.

Gitika Ahuja is currently a producer for ABC News, Good Morning America in New York.  Gitika began her career at ABC News in 1999 in the Los Angeles bureau. Since then she has been based in 3 more news bureaus (Atlanta, Boston, New York) and produced stories for all ABC News platforms, including World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Nightline, Good Morning America, ABCNEWS.com, and This Week with George Stephanopoulos. 

Major stories she has covered range from the Florida Election Recount and Enron Scandal, to post-9/11 troop deployment, anthrax cases in South Florida, the execution of Timothy McVeigh,  Shuttle Columbia disaster, capture of Eric Robert Rudolph and more hurricanes and natural disasters than she cares to recall.

In 2003, Gitika went to Kuwait and Iraq to cover the Iraq invasion as a unilateral journalist and in 2004 to Port-au-Prince, Haiti to report on the coup to overthrow then President Jean Betrand Aristide. Then, in 2004, she became the sole producer of the Boston Bureau for ABC News, where she covered the legalization of Gay Marriage and spearheaded the network's local planning of the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston.

Gitika is the winner of an Emmy Award for Outstanding Instant Coverage of a Breaking News Story for World News Tonight Weekend coverage of "Elian Gonzalez" (2001) and an Excellence in Media Silver Angel Award for "Humanitarian Crisis in Haiti" (2005).

Gitika graduated with a B.S. in Broadcast Journalism and a minor in Spanish from Boston University in 1998.  She was born in New Delhi, India, raised in the suburbs of Los Angeles and currently lives in Midtown Manhattan.

Brandi Barber is a partner / owner in the production company Blondie.  Blondie provides art buying, still photography production, and casting services for a variety of fashion, advertising and editorial clients.  Recent projects include 23ku, Aldo, Biolage, Converse / John Varvatos, GQ, Jennifer Lopez Fashions, Liz Claiborne, Macintosh Apple, Naturalizer, New York Times Magazine, Phillips, Sarah Jessica Parker’s Bitten, and Smith Barney. Brandi previously was the Art Buyer and Senior Producer at the advertising agency Kraftworks, and the agency Frierson, Mee + Partners before that. She has had the privilege of working with some of the most renowned photographers shooting today – Annie Leibovitz, David Bailey, Hiro, Jean- Baptiste Mondino, Martin Schoeller, Nathaniel Goldberg, Pamela Hanson and Philip-Lorca diCorcia, among others. Brandi graduated from NYU with majors in Spanish and Psychology.   She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two lovely little girls.

Tara Bonistall is a millennial living and working in Lexington, KY. Tara works for a non-profit as an educator and community advocate.  She recently graduated summa cum laude from the University of Kentucky with degrees in Social Work and Psychology.

Tara aspires to continue to work in the non-profit field, and is especially interested in engaging young women in advocacy, both for their individual passions and rights, and also for the benefit of communities as a whole.  She believes that community engagement should be a crucial part of the life of any twenty-something (or eighty-something, for that matter).

Renée Chow is the Founder and CEO of Thérapie New York, a high-end department store and pharmacy on the Upper-West side of New York City.  Prior to this, Renée lived in Hong Kong and owned a jewelry company where she designed, manufactured and wholesaled her high-end jewelry to Department stores throughout Asia and Europe.  Prior to her entrepreneurial endeavors, she was General Manager for Hermes, China.  She launched the first Hermes boutique in China (Beijing) and oversaw the flagship store in Hong Kong, earning her a special title as “Ambassador of Hermes”. Leading to her future position in Hermes, Renee was Brand Manager of a popular ready-to-wear fashion brand in Asia whilst also hosting a local prime time television program “Pearl Watch”.  She was also a freelance reporter for another prime time television show, “City Life,” where she helped cover the hip, happening events in the city. Renee holds a BA in History from Mount Holyoke College.

Dr. Debra Condren authored amBITCHous (Broadway Books), a book The New York Times called “…a corrective manifesto urging women to pry apart the bars of common self-imposed traps…and reclaim ambition as a virtue”.  A psychologist, career and business coach, speaker, and founder of the Women’s Business Alliance, Debra has advised thousands of women—from rookies to the most powerful executives. She reminds us: Ambition is not a dirty word. Women owe it to ourselves and the world to make the contribution we were born to make. The world deserves to hear from us. www.AmbitionIsNotADirtyWord.com.

Jen Dalitz is a specialist in the issues that women face in advancing to leadership and is passionate about helping organisations develop, retain and optimize the performance of their women talent.  She coaches and mentors leading women on how to build professional awareness, access personal support networks and form powerful business relationships; and leaders of women on creating work environments that women thrive in.
 
Jen has worked in the corporate environment as an executive, consultant and business manager over the past 15 years with many Australian and international financial services companies.
 
To support her passion, Jen founded www.sphinxx.org  – a web portal dedicated to advancing women in leadership and home of Australia’s only online national networking calendar for women – to provide working women with access to products, services, professional knowledge and other likeminded women and influential leaders.

Naomi Dunford is a micro-business marketing consultant, helping freelancers and businesses with fewer than 5 employees create dynamic marketing campaigns on the cheap.

She grew up in a family of entrepreneurs and got bitten by the be-your-own-boss bug pretty young. Her first idea, at sixteen, was to create a local courier service called Bullet Courier. You know, bullets? Fast? Well, apparently, when most people think of bullets, they think of guns, not well-dressed and friendly young messengers on bicycles. Her first lesson was learned.

After a few more uninspiring ideas and false starts, she realized she might have to actually feed herself and got a real job. She dropped out of high school and drifted around, working for 10 years in marketing and corporate communication for a few Fortune 500 companies.

When the youngest and loudest member of the Dunford household made his appearance, she knew it was time to come back home. Now she blogs at IttyBiz and helps freelancers and itty bitty companies get an itty bit bigger. She works from her laptop in her underwear, surrounded by goldfish crackers and Lego, and she’s never been happier.

Monica Favela George launched the Gigi Favela footwear brand in August 2006, debuting the collection at WSA. She is inspired by American pop sorbet, travel, fashion, amazing materials from the world over, and the challenge of mixing the right elements to create delectable shoes with an edge. A woman designing for women, Favela George takes the wearability factor seriously; her shoes feature extra padding in the ball of the foot and sexy yet manageable heel heights.  Her daughter, 3-year-old Gigi, is her biggest fan.

Regina M. Flaherty is of counsel with Dreier LLP in the Real Estate Department in the Stamford office. Her experience includes all aspects of real estate representation, including acquisitions, dispositions, financings (including securitized lending activities by banks and investment banks), leasing, sale/leasebacks, landlord/tenant matters, condominium matters, foreclosures, workouts, asset management activities and brokerage activities.

Ms. Flaherty’s practice includes the representation of owners, managers, lenders, borrowers, participants, investors, originators and warehouse lenders, real estate developers, REITs, institutional investors and lenders in the acquisition, financing, leasing, development, refinancing, management and disposition (including Section 1031 like-kind exchanges) of single-asset and portfolios of multi-family, retail, industrial, office, condominium and hotel properties. She routinely assists partners in the structuring and negotiation of sophisticated partnership, joint venture and limited liability company operating agreements. Her practice also includes the representation of landlords and tenants in commercial space and ground lease transactions.

Ms. Flaherty received her law degree from St. John’s University School of Law in 1988 and her Bachelor's degree from Niagara University, magna cum laude, in 1983. She is admitted to the Bars of the State of New York and the State of Connecticut.

Ilka is a wealth advisor in New York and provides investment management and advisory services to affluent individuals, family and foundations.  She earned her MBA from the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University. Ilka also has a Bachelor of Business Administration from Baylor University.  She previously worked in management consulting advising clients around the world.  Ilka is also involved in many of New York's philanthropic endeavors and will be returning to the Central African Republic this summer to continue her efforts around micro-enterprise development.

Ruth Haag is the President and CEO of Haag Environmental Company, a hazardous waste consulting firm.  Ruth is also a business management consultant.  She and her partner Bob Haag host the weekly radio show “Manage Living,” which can also be heard on-demand at www.manageliving.com.  Ruth has authored a four-book series for supervisors.  She offers business management courses through Ohio colleges, and she also provides private contract training.  She is the publisher of Ohio’s monthly newspaper for thinking people, A Sandusky Bay Journal.

Kate Hutchinson is a freelance development professional located in Boston, MA.  She has been working in Higher Education for the past five years, in both administration and fundraising.  Outside of work, Kate spends her time writing, in journal, blog, and creative formats. She enjoys biking, practicing yoga, meditating, and is constantly reading.  Her favorite topics are feminism, medical mysteries, sociology, anthropology, mythology, and history.  

She graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut in 2002 with honors in History.  Her thesis, "Physicians, Clerics, and Healing in the Middle Ages", won the Ferguson Prize in History.  During her undergraduate years, she worked as a reference librarian and both wrote for and edited the college paper, the Trinity Tripod, for which she helped found the online edition.  Kate graduated from Suffolk University with a Master of Education degree in 2005, with a specialization in Administration of Higher Education.  

Kate currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts, with her husband and two beloved cats.

Susan Johnston works as a copywriter and project manager by day and freelance writer by night. She graduated summa cum laude from Boston University's College of Communication in 2005 and has since worked in communication for nonprofits and startup companies. In her current role at Smart Destinations, a travel technology company based in Boston, MA, she manages a team of designers and writes their web copy, in addition to developing a new e-commerce site to simplify travel planning.
 
As a freelance writer, she has written about career and women's issues for numerous print and online publications including Young Money, Experience.com, Employee Evolution, and Works by Nicole Williams. Learn more at www.susan-johnston.com.

Harleen Kahlon is the CEO and Founder of Damsels In Success. She is a former lawyer and executive recruiter, and is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley and Yale Law School. Harleen is a firm believer in the idea that we create our own opportunities, and her vision for Damsels is that it should be a place where professional women are inspired to create theirs.

Lynn Kemmerling is an economist/entrepreneur who started her economic consulting firm at the age of 26.  Her firm works with financial services companies and has won several awards for young and women owned businesses.  Lynn attended college on an athletic scholarship where she was team captain and earned a double major in international studies and economics.  She earned a Masters degree of economics in her "spare time" and has traveled extensively throughout Latin America.  Lynn is the proud single, successful mother of a little boy.

A graduate student at Columbia University, Jennifer Kohler writes on issues pertaining to social class, gender, psychology and mental health, and work.  She conducts research, while also consulting to corporations on women’s and diversity issues.  Jennifer has experience in counseling, conflict resolution, and mediation, and worked for a leading Wall Street firm, where she first developed her interests in women’s leadership and organizational behavior.  

A Summa Cum Laude graduate of Cornell University and native of New Jersey, she enjoys advocating for social change, running, spinning, healthy cooking, and spending time with friends and family.

A sought-after career coach and motivational speaker, Dee Marshall is the founder of Raise The Bar, LLC (RTB), a coaching, training and development practice dedicated to helping women achieve their goals and realize their full potential. As a certified coach, she works with women in corporate America and new entrepreneurs who want to move to the next level in their careers and businesses.

Marshall’s clients and friends know her to be a motivator and die-hard cheerleader. She cheers loudest for moving beyond the status quo and achieving meaningful living. A proponent of social learning, Dee established Raise The Bar, LLC to help facilitate life skills learning. Using this platform, her mission is to provide personal and professional development to help women improve their quality of life.

Prior to Raise The Bar, Marshall spent more than ten years toiling in corporate America. She began her career in the financial services industry, climbing the corporate ladder at Merrill Lynch and establishing a career in training and development. She realized her passion as she traveled around the country implementing sales training and professional development programs.
 
Marshall resides in Franklin Park, New Jersey where she is currently working on her first book entitled, A Practical Guide for Raising The Bar.  For more information, visit www.GoRaiseTheBar.com or contact Dee Marshall at 732-940-4335.

Amber is a head designer at the Natori Company, designing for Natori loungewear, the Men’s Collection and the Josie Natori Collection. Previously, Amber designed and marketed her own line, Lanya, selling to top boutiques nationally and to celebrity customers such as Kirsten Dunst and Vanessa Manillo.  Amber has also worked for Tommy Hilfiger, Catherine Malandrino and Jill Stuart. She is from Monrovia, California, a small suburb of Los Angeles, and is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley and the fashion program at L.A. Trade Tech.

Lisa Nuss is an attorney and writer living in San Francisco.  Her opinions have been published in major newspapers including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as on the London Guardian and Women's eNews' websites.  She has worked in politics at the state and national levels, and currently pays off her grad school loans by consulting for banks on corporate governance issues.  She blogs at www.howdareshe.com.

As Chief Marketing Officer of SelectMinds, Diane Pardee manages the SelectMinds brand, image, go-to-market strategy, communications and product marketing globally. Diane works closely with SelectMinds clients to ensure that the measurable benefits they gain from online corporate social networking are recognized both within our client companies and externally with all of their constituencies.

Diane has more than 20 years of experience in marketing and communication, primarily in the technology sector. Before joining SelectMinds, Diane was Chief Marketing Officer of Midi, a software service provider (SSP) serving the ethics and compliance solution needs of Global 1000 companies. Prior to that, she was Senior Vice President of Corporate Marketing with Taleo Corp (NASDAQ:TLEO). Diane has also been Vice President of Communication with Journal Register Company (NYSE:JRC), a leading publishing company, where she was instrumental in the company’s IPO and subsequent investor relations and communication strategies.

Diane has also served as vice president of the NYC-based investor relations and marketing communications firm Adam Friedman Associates, and as Editor-in-chief of Unique Homes Magazine.

Alexis Pollock is an associate at Dreier LLP in the labor and employment practice known as The Employment Law Group of Block Bernstein & Lagasse.

Alexis is experienced in defending clients against claims of discrimination and harassment in both federal and state court, and in administrative proceedings before federal, state and local agencies. She is also experienced in conducting internal investigations.

With the goal of preventing litigation, Alexis frequently counsels employers in all facets of employment-related matters. She prepares and conducts training seminars on issues such as sexual harassment, discrimination, union avoidance, workplace violence and current labor and employment law cases and legislation.

Alexis graduated with a B.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University in 1999 and received her J.D., cum laude, from Brooklyn Law School in 2002, where she was Associate Managing Editor of of the Brooklyn Journal of International Law.

Heather Rickenbrode works as a labor and employment attorney in Honolulu, Hawaii, where she advises and trains clients on various compliance matters, and represents companies in litigation and alternative dispute resolution of discrimination, harassment, disability, whistleblower and other claims.  She also works as a volunteer mediator for a community nonprofit mediation center.  Before law school, Heather spent several years working through Teach for America as an elementary school teacher in rural Louisiana.  In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, reading and planning her next trip to a far-flung destination.

Hannah Seligson is an author and freelance journalist based in New York City. Her work has appeared in the New York Post, the Boston Globe, the Daily News, the Village Voice, and the Huffington Post. Hannah’s first book, New Girl on the Job: Advice from the Trenches, a career guide for young women, is scheduled for publication in the spring of 2007 by Citadel Press. Her second book, A Little Bit Married, an exploration of modern relationships, is scheduled for publication in 2008. She graduated with a B.A. in Political Science from Brown University in 2004. To learn more about "New Girl on the Job," please visit Hannah's web site at: www.hannahseligson.com. 

Ami Spencer is a technical and freelance writer living in Baltimore, MD. After a very circuitous career route, she's currently working part-time to build her freelance writing career while working full-time as a technical writer to pay the bills. Ami has a B.S. in psychology and worked with children with developmental disabilities and severe behavior disorders at a nationally renowned hospital in Baltimore for 5 years. After earning her M.S. in writing, Ami transitioned to the corporate world where she currently spends her days writing manuals, documentation, and training materials for a small information security company. Her nights and weekends, on the other hand, are filled with publication market research, article pitches and work on her first novel.

Ami is passionate about a lot of things, but topping her list are: writing, learning, building a business, health and fitness, and practicing yoga.

Ami has published articles in several local, regional and online publications and is currently a contributing blogger for Radiant Magazine Online and Feed the Soul, Inc. Ami's personal blog is Writing: My Life. Visit her website to view a partial portfolio and learn more about her.

Nancy Strauss spends her mornings writing fiction, and then makes a living as a new media consultant, advising corporations on online communities, online communication, and website user experience.  She learned about the Internet while working for Ciao, a German-based online media and research company with Europe's largest consumer community and proprietary survey panels in twenty-four countries.  There, she headed the community management team, and subsequently built and managed the company's translation and quality assurance teams.  In her "free moments," she is laying the groundwork for her own Internet startup, a translation agency that will use proprietary technology to connect a team of translators, editors, and quality managers all over the world.

A Cincinnati native, Strauss graduated from Oberlin College and received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where she studied on a Colby Fellowship.  Since then, she lived briefly in the Czech Republic and has been living for the last nine years in Spain.

Terra Terwilliger has over 15 years of experience in software, services and wireless marketing. Her career started when she took a job at a software start-up right out of college, as a stop-gap before law school. She never became a lawyer.

Instead, she built a career in helping high-tech companies understand and reach out to their customers. From that first start-up experience, she went on to spend three years as a consultant in McKinsey & Company's Silicon Valley office, followed by senior marketing roles at AT&T Wireless and LinkedIn. Most recently, she was a Director at Microsoft, launching the company's new Office Live service in four countries and running worldwide customer acquisition.

Terra is currently returning to her start-up roots by advising and investing in small companies in the mobile, social network, and small business spaces.

Terra holds a BA from Stanford and an MBA from Berkeley. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle.

Lisa Trank is the owner of One Purpose PR, a sustainable message and media relations consulting firm out of Boulder, Colorado. Since moving to Colorado in 1995, Lisa has developed and led integrated and holistic public relations and grassroots marketing campaigns for such projects as the Spirituality in Education Conference with His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Naropa University, "What The Bleep Do We Know?," "The 11th Hour," "Peaceful Warrior," "The Real Dirt on Farmer John," "Illusion," "Side Effect," as well as for the Boulder Jewish Community Center, the Kabbalah Centre and Tees for Change. She is a member of Ladies Who Launch. Lisa's writings have been published in Salon.com, and she is the author of Fabric and Light (Ten Hands Press), Boobies and Other Bodily Functions (Ten Hands Press), This is the Locust March (Dristill Press), as well as the co-author of two scr eenplays, Delta Dawn and The Gathering Place.

Alexia Vernon is an ICF Certified Coach and the Owner of Catalyst for Action, a coaching and training company that empowers leaders to align their values with their strengths to build and sustain successful and balanced careers and organizations. In addition to coaching individual established and emerging leaders, she designs a variety of interactive, participant-centered coaching and training programs for corporations, small businesses, nonprofits, and educational institutions in such areas as leadership (executive, female, and Gen-Y), teambuilding, strategic planning, negotiation, conflict resolution, workplace diversity, innovation, public speaking, facilitation, goal setting, time management, career transition, work-life balance, gender issues, theatre for social change, and youth and community development. 

She teaches Speech, Theatre, Women's Studies, and Interdisciplinary Studies at CUNY/John Jay College and New Jersey City University. Alexia has contributed a variety of articles to magazines, journals, and blogs and is featured in Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism (FSG, 2005) for her work on global feminism, war, and theatre. Her chapter, "Troubling Performance," is published in We Don't Need Another Wave (Seal Press, 2006). Alexia holds an MA in Interdisciplinary Studies with an emphasis in Women's Studies, Theatre for Social Change, and Physical Theatre from New York University and a BA in Women's Studies with a minor in Theatre from the University of Nevada Las Vegas. When not empowering her individual and group clients to the next level of success, she performs with the critically acclaimed The Stolen Chair Theatre Company. Visit her online at www.alexiavernon.com.

Lisa Watts is the Operations Manager and Technical Advisor to the Vice President of the Digital Office Division at Intel Corporation where she has worked for nearly 14 years. In her role, she travels extensively and has had the opportunity to meet some of the most influential people working in technology today. She believes strongly that women need to take responsibility and own their own careers and provides coaching and mentoring to other women who are making their way up the corporate ladder.
 
In addition to being a technologist, Lisa is also a passionate entrepreneur and an artist. She is a partner in several local Sacramento businesses, including Restaurant 55 Degrees and W Gallery & Studios. She also designs a line of artisan jewelry under the brand L. Michele Designs and tries to squeeze in time to create the occasional painting.
 
Lisa lives in Folsom, CA with her husband, their two small children and a very supportive extended family.

The only Malaysian Rhodes Scholar to enter Rhodes Class of 2001 after taking a First Class Honours degree in English from the University of London, Regina Yau is a member of the growing group of female careerists who move globally to cultivate their careers and lives.

Having grown up in Malaysia and spent the first decade of her adult life in England, she considers herself Malaysian in nationality, Chinese in spirit and British at heart with a shot of American chutzpah that comes from an exchange year at Sweet Briar College, Virginia.

Eschewing the traditional Rhodie post-Oxford routes of management consultancy, law or academia, Regina chose to enter Public Relations when she graduated from Oxford in 2003 with Masters of Studies degrees in Women’s Studies and Oriental Studies.

Her career was launched when she became First Runners-Up (Highly Commended) in PR Week UK’s James Maxwell Award 2004. Since then, Regina has worked both consultancy-side and in-house for globally-known companies and clients in industries including publishing, property and tech. Following her James Maxwell honours, she worked for a year and a half in and around London before returning to Asia Pacific.

Currently, Regina is the Associate Director of a fast-growing Integrated Communications Consultancy based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with a presence in 6 other countries including China, India and Australia. Her specialties and interests include Corporate Social Responsibility, New and Social Media, Creative Networking, Writing, designing memorable events and Current Affairs.

Throughout her life, Regina has pursed a range of interests outside work/school with passion:

She founded, launched and sang soprano in one of the first contemporary collegiate a cappella groups in the UK, Absolute Harmony. She was also the editor-in-chief of the Rhodes Centenary Charity Cookbook while at Oxford - she remains an evangelical foodie who loves organising dinner parties, baking up a storm and making people feel hungry.

More recently, Regina was inducted into Soroptimist International and she is in the midst of launching the UK Women’s Alumni Network (UKWAN). Other pro bono projects include spearheading a Charity Bachelor Auction to benefit breast cancer and erratically updating and editing the Gender Issues Digest blog.