Ruth Mortimer

Ruth Mortimer is global president of Advertising Week, the leading platform for the creative industry, which operates across the world, with events and content in the US, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa. She also co-chairs the Future is Female awards and community, a network of women who are defining the future and their allies.

She was previously managing director, global education and development at Advertising Week, developing the brand’s thought leadership agenda and elearning business.

She has held a large number of roles managing content businesses and overseeing both live and digital product development. She was managing partner at award-winning digital marketing training business Econsultancy, which provided training for brands such as General Mills, UPS and IKEA, where she oversaw product development and thought leadership.

She was previously director of the award-wining Festival of Marketing in the UK. She was also formerly content director for Centaur Marketing, which comprises 10 media brands with several million users including Marketing Week, Econsultancy, Festival of Marketing, Creative Review, Design Week, Influencer Intelligence, Fashion/Beauty Monitor, Year Ahead and Foresight News.

She was editor of Marketing Week magazine and an award-winning editorial columnist, writing five books about marketing. In her freelance career, she has worked with brands such as TV station Channel 4 on identifying new talent. She also held a role early in her career as an archaeologist, working mainly in the Middle East.

Tonya Pittman

Laura Diorio

Laura Diorio is Head of NYSE Social, managing the New York Stock Exchange’s social media channels such as LinkedIn, X, Instagram, YouTube, and more. Her role combines content strategy, creation, and execution for public companies, media collaborators and the larger NYSE community. Laura harnesses her expertise in media communications and film production to amplify the human authenticity of social moments. She is on a mission to reflect NYSE’s status as the preeminent stock exchange at the intersection of culture and capital.

Rupa Dash

Rupa Dash is a media entrepreneur and futurist committed to solving global challenges through innovation, education, and creativity. As Partner at Dash Global Media, she helps startups in Asia and Central Africa prepare for a rapidly evolving future.

As Co-Founder and CEO of the World Woman Foundation, Dash is leading a global initiative to invest one million women by 2050. She recently launched World Woman Hour, the largest digital micro-storytelling platform, in collaboration with WPP and Facebook Watch. With a reach of 42.7 million digital footprints, the platform was showcased at the NYSE Opening Bell Ceremony and featured by UN Women.

Dash holds the distinction of being the first Indian American Managing Director of the world’s largest women’s entrepreneurship network, recognized by the White House. She has collaborated with Prime Minister Narendra Modi for India’s flagship investor event, the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, and worked with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the UK’s Department for International Development to uplift India’s most underserved states.

Dash was also the first woman to receive the UN International Telecom Union Award for her groundbreaking work in delivering mobile entertainment content to farmers across 40,000 Indian villages.

A recipient of the Women Making a Difference Award from the Los Angeles Business Journal in 2018, Dash is a recognized advocate for gender equality in film and entertainment.

Dash is also a Clinton Global Initiative Fellow, mentoring emerging social entrepreneurs through programs like IBM’s Call for Code. Currently pursuing her doctorate in education at the University of Pittsburgh, she serves on the boards of the International Indian Film Market, the Arkansas Cinema Society, and the Russian Women’s Federation.

Sally A. Nuamah, Ph.D

Sally A. Nuamah, Ph.D., is an award-winning scholar, author, advocate, founder, and filmmaker. She is an associate professor with tenure at Northwestern University and has previously held prestigious appointments at Duke University, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and Princeton University.

Her research explores the intersections of race, gender, education, and political behavior. Her latest book, Closed for Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2022/23), examines how public-school closures undermine the citizenship of Black Americans. The book has received three 2023 Best Book awards from the American Political Science Association (APSA), was selected for the W.E.B. Du Bois Distinguished Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists (NCOBPS) in March 2024, and was named a finalist for the PROSE Award in Politics. Research from this work has been published in the American Political Science Review and Perspectives on Politics.

Nuamah’s forthcoming book, tentatively titled Mules: The Punishment and Political Labor of Black Women, builds on her extensive scholarship on race and gender. An article based on this research has already been recognized with the APSA’s “Best Paper on Intersectionality” award and the Rodney Higgins “Best Faculty Paper” award from NCOBPS.

Her first book, How Girls Achieve (2019), highlights how the biased educational experiences of Black girls in the U.S. and Africa hinder their ability to achieve democratic equity. The book received the 2020 PROSE Award in Education Practice and Social Science from the American Publishers Association, the 2020 Critics’ Choice Book Award from the American Educational Studies Association, and the 2021 Jackie Kirk Outstanding Book Award from the Comparative International Education Society.

Beyond academia, Nuamah is a dedicated advocate for Black girls. She founded HerStory: The TWII Foundation Girls Scholarship and directed an award-winning documentary, HerStory, based on this work. She has been honored with over thirty awards, including Forbes Magazine’s “30 Under 30” in Education, the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship—commonly referred to as “the Brainy Award”—and the Marilyn Gittell Award for Scholarship and Activism.

Eden Brukman

Pati Robb

Kelly Hogan

Mai Nguyen

Charice Tellez

Sarah Hassaine

Annie Chaiyakul

Lourdes Ibañez