Symposiums on Gender in Media

Global Symposiums 2014 New York Bios

Keynote Speakers & Panelists • New York
September 22, 2014

Geena Davis

Founder

Academy Award winner Geena Davis is one of Hollywood’s most respected actors, appearing in several roles that became cultural landmarks. Earning the 2006 Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an 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 the 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 in Ridley Scott’s Thelma & Louise, in which she co-starred with Susan Sarandon.  Davis went on to receive a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress for her portrayal of baseball phenomenon Dottie Hinson in A League of Their Own.

Davis made her feature film debut starring opposite Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie. She went on to star in such films as The Fly, Beetlejuice, Angie, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Stuart Little.

Few have achieved such remarkable success in as many different fields as Davis has: she is not only an Oscar and Golden Globe winning actor, but a world-class athlete (at one time the nation’s 13th-ranked archer), a member of the genius society Mensa, and is becoming recognized for her tireless advocacy of women and girls nearly as much as for her acting accomplishments. She is the founder of the non-profit Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which engages film and television creators to dramatically increase the percentages of female characters — and reduce gender stereotyping — in media made for children 11 and under.

Davis was appointed Special Envoy for Women and Girls in ICT for the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU).  Davis is also an official partner of UN Women, working toward their goal of promoting gender equality and empowering women worldwide.Davis is the Chair of the California Commission on the Status of Women.

Davis holds honorary degrees from Boston University, Bates College and New England College.

Gary Barker, PhD

Founder and International Director, Promundo

Gary Barker, PhD, is a leading voice on engaging men and boys in achieving gender equality and ending violence against women. He is International Director and founder of Promundo, an international NGO with offices in the United States, Brazil and Portugal and representatives in Rwanda and Burundi, that works to promote gender justice. He is co-chair and co-founder of MenEngage, a global alliance of more than 400 NGOs and UN agencies working to engage men and boys in gender equality, and a member of the UN Secretary General’s Men’s Leaders Network to end violence against women. He has been awarded an Ashoka Fellowship and a fellowship from the Open Society Institute for his work. He is coordinator of the multi-country survey on men, IMAGES (the International Men and Gender Equality Survey), one of the largest ever surveys on men’s attitudes and behaviors related to violence, fatherhood and gender equality. He is also co-founder of MenCare, a global campaign to promote men’s involvement as equitable, non-violent caregivers.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin

Chief of Strategic Planning and Membership Department, ITU

Doreen Bogdan-Martin has been Chief of ITU’s Strategic Planning and Membership Department since the beginning of 2008. She acts as advisor to the ITU Secretary-General, and is responsible for ITU’s corporate communications, external affairs, corporate strategy and membership. She was previously the Head of the ITU’s Regulatory and Market Environment Division in the Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) and is a leading authority on regulatory and policy trends worldwide. Before joining ITU in 1994, Mrs Bogdan-Martin worked as a Telecommunications Policy Specialist in National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA) in the USA. She holds a Masters degree in Communications Policy, and is married with four children.

Nanette Braun

Chief, Communications and Advocacy, UN Women

Nanette Braun is Chief, Communications and Advocacy at UN Women, the organization that serves as a global champion for women and girls and newest member of the UN family. She has worked on women’s rights for the past 12 years. Before joining the UN, she worked as a journalist, mainly for print media in her native Germany and abroad, with a focus on humanitarian and development issues.

Sundaa Bridgett-Jones

Associate Director, The Rockefeller Foundation

Sundaa Bridgett-Jones joined The Rockefeller Foundation in 2012. As Associate Director, International Development, she develops Foundation initiatives that contribute to global discourse on international development trends and multilateral processes concerning resilience, equitable growth, gender equality, and innovation. 

Prior to joining The Rockefeller Foundation, Ms. Bridgett-Jones was Acting Director for Policy Planning and Public Diplomacy with the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Her previous professional experience also includes serving as an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Director of the Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative at Princeton University, and Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs for Asia and the Middle East at the United Nations. She began her career with the U.S. Agency for International Development, where she worked for nearly a decade leading democracy and governance initiatives.

Marc Choueiti

Program Administrator, Media, Diversity, and Social Change Initiative, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California

Marc Choueiti received his M.A. and B.A. in Communication from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. His research interests include the role of gender and racial and ethnic diversity in media content as well as behind the camera in production. Mr. Choueiti has published numerous research reports with Dr. Stacy Smith on the topic of female representation in media. With Dr. Smith, his work has been featured in popular press outlets including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and Slate

Alongside his research work, Mr. Choueiti has served as the Project Administrator for the Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative, handling day-to-day administration and project development. He has worked with over 400 undergraduate research assistants as a teacher and trainer. Apart from research on gender, Mr. Choueiti is also interested in the role of video games and other media in the socialization of youth.

Moira Forbes

President and Publisher ForbesWoman

Moira Forbes is the President and Publisher of ForbesWoman, a multi-media platform serving successful women in business and leadership.  Launched by Forbes Media in 2008, this includes a robust website, a digital community and a variety of content-rich forums and events. ForbesWomanexamines the unique experiences of professionally successful women, affirms their ambitions and achievements, and sets the agenda for discourse on the topics that matter most to them.

Moira joined Forbes in 2001 in its London office, and came to the New York office in 2003. In February of 2004, she was named Associate Publisher of Forbes’ dedicated lifestyle magazine, ForbesLife, and Vice President and Publisher, ForbesWoman, in 2008. In 2010, Moira founded the Forbes Executive Women’s Board, an organization dedicated to harnessing the collective power of women in business to drive sustainable change.  In 2013, Moira hosted the inaugural Forbes Women’s Summit in New York City. The annual Summit brought together 250 top female leaders to discuss and solves the world’s most intractable issues.

Moira graduated cum laude with a BA in Art History from Princeton University, and is a graduate of the Harvard Business School program for Leadership Development.  She is married to an orthopedic surgeon and lives in New York City.

Elizabeth Frank

Chief Content & Programming Officer, AMC Theatres

Elizabeth Frank has worked in the media and entertainment industry for over 20 years, with Time Warner, McKinsey & Company, Viacom, and Vestron. She joined AMC Theatres in 2010 to lead corporate development and strategic planning, including the transition from private equity ownership to publicly-traded (NYSE)/majority-controlled (Beijing-based Wanda Group). She currently serves as AMC’s Chief Content & Programming Officer, responsible for the sourcing, scheduling, buying, and promotion of films, as well as maximizing AMC’s industry relationships strategically. Frank serves on the Board of Directors for Open Road Films (independent film distributor), Fathom Events (alternative content distributor), Digital Content Delivery Coalition (satellite delivery service provider), and AmeriCares (global health non-profit).

Frank and her husband live with their three children in Kansas City, Missouri.

Angela Guy

Senior Vice President, Diversity and Inclusion, L’Oreal

Angela Guy is the Senior Vice President, Diversity and Inclusion for L’Oréal USA, the largest subsidiary of the L’Oréal Group, the world’s leading beauty company.  Ms. Guy is responsible for shaping the diversity efforts for L’Oréal USA as a business imperative that highlights the value of all forms of beauty while respecting and reflecting the differences of our rapidly changing marketplace.  She is a member of the L’Oréal USA Executive Committee and collaborates to align L’Oréal’s global diversity efforts. Ms. Guy reports directly to Frédéric Rozé, President and CEO, L’Oréal USA. Prior to this appointment, Ms. Guy was Senior Vice President, General Manager of SoftSheenCarson, the #1 ethnic haircare brand in the world, and a Consumer Division of L’Oréal USA. In this role, Ms. Guy oversaw all aspects of the SoftSheenCarson brand in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean. Ms. Guy also worked 19 years at Johnson & Johnson in Sales leadership positions throughout the USA and Canada; 3 years in Sales with Levi Strauss & Company, Accessories Division and 3 years in Retail Management with Hills Department Stores. She is a Board Member for Harvest of Hope Family Services Network, Inc. and the American Conference on Diversity; Advisory Board and member of the Coalition of 100 Black Women, NYC; and member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.; Executive Leadership Council; and the Asia Society Business Council.

Ms. Guy has been recognized as: Savoy Magazine’s “100 Most Influential Blacks in Corporate America” and “Top Influential Women in Corporate America”; a Black Enterprise “Power Player,” and “75 Most Powerful Women in Business”; one of “The 25 Influential Black Women in Business" by The Network Journal; 2010 Beacon Award Recipient by the Coalition of 100 Black Women; and Community Service Award Recipient of the Central Jersey Community Development Corporation. Ms. Guy has been acknowledged as a recipient of the Pearl Award by the Women’s Academy of Excellence, Trailblazer Awards by Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, NYC, and Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement (HCCI), Legacy Award by Penn State Black Alumni Association and Community Service Award by Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., NYC. Ms. Guy has a B.A. in Psychology from Pennsylvania State University.  She has attended Executive Leadership Programs at the University of California Los Angeles, Northwestern University and The Center for Creative Leadership.

Amelia Hanibelsz

Founder Tell2C Productions, Advisory Council FilmAid International

Amelia is a two-time Primetime Emmy-nominated, Genesis Award-winning, producer-director. Her career began in Sri Lanka, aged seventeen, with a UN supported Norwegian media NGO, producing and presenting over fifty segments on sustainable development, the environment, and human rights. Over a six year period in Singapore she worked for FremantleMedia, Discovery Channel, and TV/E – Television Trust for the Environment. Based in New York since 2005, Amelia has developed, pitched, produced and directed content for National Geographic, Animal Planet, the History Channel, A&E, and OWN – The Oprah Winfrey Network. She has extensive production experience in China, Australia, Hong Kong, India, Sri Lanka, Africa , Indonesia, Singapore, Uganda, the UK, Canada and the US.

Currently she is working with FilmAid International and their talented refugee filmmakers in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Northern Kenya to celebrate "World Refugee Day”, as well as working as a consultant for Creative and Content with FilmAid Kenya. Most recently she just returned from Nigeria, after producing short films on education and girls for ActionAid UK. Close to two decades of international documentary experience has shown Amelia that media can do more than entertain. It has the ability to educate, inspire, empower and bring about change. With this belief, Amelia founded Tell2C Productions.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, PhD

United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women. She was sworn into office on 19 August 2013 and brings a wealth of experience and expertise to this position, having devoted her career to issues of human rights, equality and social justice. Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka has worked in government and civil society, and with the private sector, and was actively involved in the struggle to end apartheid in her home country of South Africa.

From 2005 to 2008, she served as Deputy President of South Africa, overseeing programmes to combat poverty and bring the advantages of a growing economy to the poor, with a particular focus on women. Prior to this, she served as Minister of Minerals and Energy from 1999 to 2005 and Deputy Minister in the Department of Trade and Industry from 1996 to 1999. She was a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 1996 as part of South Africa’s first democratic government.

Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka began her career as a teacher and gained international experience as a coordinator at the World YWCA in Geneva, where she established a global programme for young women. She is the founder of the Umlambo Foundation, which supports leadership and education. A longtime champion of women’s rights, she is affiliated with several organizations devoted to education, women’s empowerment and gender equality.She has completed her PhD on education and technology at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom.

Dete Meserve

President, Wind Dancer Films

Dete Meserve is president of Wind Dancer Films, a film development, finance and production company based in Los Angeles.  The company has created such television hits as Roseanne and Home Improvement along with George Lopez’ latest series, Saint George on FX. In feature film, Wind Dancer has developed and produced successful titles such as What Women Want, the award-winning comedy Bernie starring Jack Black and Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey and the soon-to-be-released feature film The Keeping Room starring Sam Worthington (Avatar) and Academy Award nominee Hailee Steinfeld, among others. In animation, Wind Dancer Films is in production on a series for PBS with Craig Bartlett (Hey Arnold!) and a feature film with Brown Bag Films.

Meserve has been with Wind Dancer since the fifth season of Home Improvement when she was brought in to oversee its growth from a television company to a television, film and theatre production company.  Prior to joining Wind Dancer Films, Meserve was vice president of USC Radio, the University of Southern California’s radio network, and was instrumental in USC Radio’s acquisition of the national daily business series, Marketplace.  Meserve began her career as the General Manager of an NPR station and Assistant Manager of a PBS affiliate in Indiana.

Meserve is also the author of the award-winning novel Good Sam which Melrose Hill Publishing released in June 2014.

Katherine Pieper, PhD

Research Scientist, Media, Diversity, and Social Change Initiative, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California

Dr. Katherine Pieper received her Ph.D. and M.A. in Communication from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Her research interests include employment patterns in film and television, with a particular focus on diversity in key production roles.  She has worked with Dr. Stacy Smith and Marc Choueiti at the Media, Diversity, and Social Change Initiative at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism since 2012. In addition to research on diversity, Dr. Pieper has assisted with several content and effects studies related to frightening and prosocial media portrayals.

Dr. Pieper graduated with a B.A. in Communication from Michigan State University (2003).  Dr. Pieper’s dissertation focused on the role of social support in a three-year maternal and child health intervention in Cambodia.  Between 2007 and 2011, she worked in communication and resource development, including proposal writing, reporting, and design of monitoring and evaluation activities for a non-governmental organization based in Phnom Penh.

Gini Reticker

Executive Producer and Director, The Trials of Spring

Gini Reticker is an Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker who joined forces with Producer Abigail Disney in 2006 to direct the renowned Pray the Devil Back to Hell. The success of Pray the Devil Back to Hell led to the creation of a five-part series for PBS, Women, War & Peace with Reticker as an Executive Producer. Throughout her career as a documentary filmmaker, the primary focus of Reticker’s work has been on individuals, particularly women, engaged in struggles for social justice and human rights.

In 2004, Reticker received an Academy Award nomination for producing the documentary short Asylum, which portrayed the story of a Ghanaian woman who fled female genital mutilation to seek political asylum in the U.S.  In 2005, she earned an Emmy Award for producing and directing Ladies First, highlighting the role women played in rebuilding post-genocide Rwanda. It aired as part of the PBS series Wide Angle.

Stacy L. Smith, PhD

Associate Professor, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

Stacy L. Smith (Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1999) joined the USC Annenberg faculty in the fall of 2003.  Her research focuses on 1) content patterns pertaining to gender and race on screen in film and TV; 2) employment patterns behind-the-camera in entertainment; 3) barriers and opportunities facing women on screen and behind-the-camera in studio and independent films; and 4) children’s responses to mass media portrayals (television, film, video games) of violence, gender and hypersexuality.

Dr. Smith has written more than 75 journal articles, book chapters, and reports on content patterns and effects of the media.  She has received multiple "top paper" awards for her research from the Instructional Developmental Division of the International Communication Association.  In terms of the popular press, Dr. Smith’s research has been written about in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, Newsweek, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Slate.com, Salon.com, The Boston Globe, and USA Today to name a few.  She also has a co-edited essay in Maria Shriver’s book, A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything (2009).

Since 2005, Dr. Smith has been working with a team of undergraduate and graduate students to assess portrayals of males and females in popular media.  Over two-dozen projects have been completed, assessing gender in films (e.g., 500+ top-grossing movies from 1990 to 2009, 180 Academy Award® Best Picture nominations from 1977 to 2010), TV shows (e.g., 1,034 children’s programs, two weeks of prime time shows), video games (e.g., 60 best selling), and point-of-purchase advertising (e.g., jacket covers of DVDs, video games).

Examining 5,839 characters, a recent study of 129 top grossing G, PG, and PG-13 films theatrically released between 2006 and 2011 showed that less than 30% of all on screen speaking characters are girls or women.  The ratio of males to females on the silver screen is 2.53 to 1.  Other findings revealed that females are still more likely than males to be depicted in a stereotypical (i.e., caregivers, romantically involved, lacking employment) and hypersexualized (i.e., sexy attire, nudity, thinness) light.  Further, females are far less likely to be shown in films as holding clout and powerful positions in political (e.g., Senators, Representatives), financial (e.g., CEO, CFO, COO, GM), or legal (Supreme Count Justices) arenas.

While on screen portrayals are skewed, the percentage of females working behind-the-scenes is even more abysmal.  Across 1,100 top-grossing films between 2002 and 2012, only 4.4% of directors are female.  This investigation also examined the total number of unique directors after removing individuals that helmed more than one film.  In comparison to the 625 unique male directors, only 41 unique females emerged across the 11-year sample.  This translates into a gender ratio of 15.24 males to every 1 female director!

Smith et al.’s (2013) recent research reveals that the independent sphere is more female friendly.  Commissioned by the Sundance Institute/Women in Film in Summer of 2012, Smith are her research team assessed female involvement as content creators at the Sundance Film Festival between 2002 and 2012.  Across 11 years, 16.9% of all directors, 20.6% of all writers, and 29.4% of all producers of U.S. narratives are females.  These percentages are all substantially higher than those found in some of Smith’s earlier work on top grossing studio films or Academy Award® Best Picture Nominated Films.  The Sundance study also qualitatively explored barriers facing female directors and producers in the independent space, with gendered financial impediments, a male dominated environment, and work family conflict the three most frequently mentioned obstacles by the 51 content creators and industry thought leaders interviewed.

Given these and other similar statistics from her lab, Smith’s recent research (with Rene Weber & Marc Choueiti) has focused on the economic success at the box office of feature films with women on screen and behind-the-scenes as well as interviewing over 110 content creators (i.e., directors, writers, producers, executives, etc.) about the reasons for the under representation and hypersexualization of girls and women in popular movies.  Funding for Dr. Smith’s research has come from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Sundance Institute, and See Jane.

Currently, Dr. Smith is the director of a research-driven initiative at USC Annenberg on Media, Diversity, and Social Change.  The initiative produces cutting-edge, timely, and theory-driven empirical research on different entertainment-based minority groups.  Roughly 20-30 undergraduate and graduate students are conducting research on gender and race in her lab each year.  Educators, advocates, and activists can access and use the research to create sustainable industry change on screen and behind-the-camera.

In addition to research, Dr. Smith is passionate about teaching. She currently teaches the undergraduate COMM 203 – Introduction to Mass Communication course at USC Annenberg. Dr. Smith has been recognized for her outstanding teaching, receiving multiple awards from different constituencies on campus.  She has received the Outstanding Professor Award from the Annenberg Students Communication Association three times, the Greek Professor of the Semester Award, the Golden Apple Award from Kappa Alpha Theta twice, the Professor of the Year Award from Gamma Alpha Sigma, and was recognized as an Honorary Member of Lambda Pi Eta.  In 2009, Dr. Smith received the Outstanding Teacher and Mentor Award from the Parents’ Council at USC.  Mortar Board at USC has also tapped her.  In 2012, Dr. Smith received the Trojan League of Southern California 2012 Outstanding Service Award and the LA Woman recognition by Los Angeles Magazine.

Angie Wang

Executive Director, Peace is Loud

Angie Wang is the executive director of Peace is Loud, an organization that inspires social action through media that spotlights women peacebuilders. Angie has 15 years of experience managing and developing nonprofit and grantmaking programs focused on women’s rights, community building and social justice. She has held senior leadership positions at The New York Women’s Foundation, The September 11th Fund and Safe Horizon, and prior to Peace is Loud she led the global outreach campaign for Women War & Peace, the groundbreaking five-part documentary series that challenges the conventional wisdom that war and peace are men’s domain. Angie is a steering member of the Asian Women Giving Circle, the first and largest giving circle in the nation led by Asian American women. She also is a long-time board member of the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families and a founding board member of People’s Production House. She is a graduate of the University of California, Davis and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two sons.

IF SHE CAN SEE IT, SHE CAN BE IT®