JWI Magazine Fall 2018

MARLEE MATLIN author, activist, and Oscar-winning actress

THE POWER OF MENTORS Today's role models are lifting up tomorrow's leaders

GOOD FELLAS Engaging young men to change college culture

UPSTANDING CITIZENS Advocating for women and girls takes center stage

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monday, december 3rd marriott wardman park WASHINGTON, DC SPONSORSHIP & TICKETS:

JWI.ORG/WTW

FALL 2018 EDITOR

Susan Tomchin CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Danielle Cantor

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CHAIR'S MESSAGE

V IVAN G. BASS 3 THE 2018 WOMEN TO WATCH

BY SUSAN TOMCHIN

CEO

Loribeth Weinstein

24 CEO'S YEAR IN REVIEW

COO

Meredith Jacobs Vivian Bass, Chair

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Ellen Stone, Kim Oster-Holstein, Immediate Past Chair Chair-Elect

Tami Ackerman Robyn Altman Susan Feldman Meryl Frank Toby Graff Laura Rebell Gross Erica Keswin Erica Leatham

Amanda Paul Rabbi Susan Shankman Deena Silver Julie Bender Silver Beth Sloan Leslie Speisman Suzi Weiss-Fischmann

A year of progress follows more than a century of Jewish women breaking ground.

BY LORI WEINSTEIN

25 A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF JWI'S YOUNG WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP NETWORK

Twelve months of networking, career-crafting, and community-building in the five cities of the Young Women's Leadership Network.

26 UPSTANDING CITIZENS

Advocating for women and girls takes center stage at JWI.

JWI magazine is published annually in print and year-round on-

line. Inspired by our legacy of progressive women’s leadership and guided by our Jewish values, Jewish Women International works to ensure that all women and girls thrive in healthy relationships, control their financial futures and realize the full potential of their personal strength.

JWI magazine is distributed to donors and supporters of JWI. Postmaster: Please send address changes and inquiries to JWI, 1129 20th Street NW, Suite 801, Washington, DC 20036.

Connect with JWI: jwi.org/magazine JWI JewishWomenIntl 1129 20th Street NW, Suite 801 Washington, DC 20036 800 343 2823 • jwi.org © Contents JWI 2018. The articles and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent the view of JWI or any member thereof.

BY VALERIE BROWN

28 THE POWER OF MENTORING

JWI is making good on its promise to lift up the next generation of Jewish women leaders – with help from the leaders of today.

BY MEREDITH JACOBS

30 GOOD FELLAS

JWI is engaging men to change the culture on college campuses.

BY ARIELLA NECKRITZ

31 A LEGACY OF LEADERSHIP

Planned giving sustains JWI's legacy of leadership for the next generation.

32 NETWORTH

JWI's Young Women's Leadership Network is making an impact on the lives of its members.

BY JACKIE KOSSOFF

JWI Magazine | jwi.org/magazine

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Vivian G. Bass Chair, JWI Board of Trustees

This year marks a milestone for JWI as we celebrate with our 18th annual Women to Watch awards gala. And while our honorees are, as always, truly spectacular, this year is about JWI’s legacy of spotlighting today’s leaders and mentoring tomorrow’s. We’ve recently formalized the connection between our inspiring Women to Watch role models and members of our Young Women’s Leadership Network through our 1-on-1 Mentorship Project. And, we are launching Advisory Councils in each of our Network cities to broaden access to intergenerational mentoring. As we succeed, we must each reach down and pull up the women who will come after. This is something I have practiced throughout my career, and one of the aspects of JWI’s work that most resonates with me.

I was introduced to JWI when I was named the Sondra D. Bender Community Leadership honoree in 2007. There is something exceptional about this particular honor. You feel the pull of something greater – the importance of being not just a leader, but a woman who leads. For generations, the women of JWI fought and marched for rights that are now being threatened. JWI's work is more critical than ever and I am in awe of our advocacy team, who are leading numerous efforts, perhaps most critically for the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Through our partnership with Zeta Beta Tau and Sigma Delta Tau, we are at work on nearly 50 college campuses, helping our young people understand that they should accept nothing less than healthy, loving relationships.

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I am thrilled to have traveled the country to experience JWI’s work first-hand – from opening libraries in domestic violence shelters, to meeting our chapters, to launching new Networks, to watching Deborah Rosenbloom, JWI’s VP of programs and new initiatives, speak at a panel at the UN, and Lori Weinstein, our CEO, interview Parkland survivors about gun violence at JCPA’s Conference. I also had the unique privilege of representing JWI during the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations’ mission to Israel.

It’s hard to believe that this is my final year as chair of the board of JWI. I look forward to working closely with Chair-Elect Ellen Stone as she prepares to become chair next June. We have also welcomed Erica Keswin, Laura Rebell Gross, and Amanda Paul to the board. Both Erica and Laura are former Women to Watch honorees, and Amanda is president of our New York Young Women’s Leadership Network. Sadly, we said goodbye to Miri Cypers, who was the board’s first Network representative and is now the Anti-Defamation League's Pacific Northwest regional director, and Susie Turnbull, a former Woman to Watch and past board chair – currently the Democratic nominee for Lt. Governor of the State of Maryland.

This is exactly what I’m talking about. JWI means women’s leadership. Our work inspires and guides women to lead in their personal, professional, and community lives. And, I couldn’t be prouder to be a part of it.

Now that we've honored 180 amazing leaders over the last 18 years, we're looking forward to 180 more. See you in December!

JWI's 18th annual celebration of outstanding Jewish women role models PROFILES BY SUSAN TOMCHIN

JWI Magazine | jwi.org/magazine

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Jenny Abramson T

wenty years ago, female entrepreneurs received 2.5% of venture capital dollars; in 2015, that percentage had dropped to 1.85%.

These numbers didn’t sit well with Jenny Abramson. So three years ago, she decided to follow a piece of advice that her mother gave her: If you want something done, do it yourself.

Today Abramson is the founder and managing partner of Rethink Impact, the “largest impact-oriented venture capital fund in the country with a gender lens.” Joining her is partner Heidi Patel, a veteran of the world of impact investing. Rethink investors come from 32 states and have a balance of men and women.

“I saw a market opportunity that a gender focus combined with social impact could not only do good for the world but also be better for business,” says Abramson, the former CEO of LiveSafe, a mobile security company focused on preventing school shootings and sexual assaults.

At Rethink, she explains, “We decided to invest in techdriven companies that are solving our world’s greatest challenges in health, education, environmental sustainability, and economic inequality. As a former CEO, I saw firsthand that impact companies can actually perform better, not worse, because of their impact. The data proves that to be true.”

From girlhood onward, Abramson has had a passion for leadership and making a difference. Growing up in Washington, D.C., she attended high school at the innovative Georgetown Day School, where she was involved in everything from athletics to acting to serving as class president. Steeped in her parents’ commitment to tzedakah and giving back coupled with the school's culture of social justice, she embraced the belief 4

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"...it’s not surprising that, in a world where women comprise less than 8% of investment decision makers at venture capital firms, you naturally have fewer dollars going to female entrepreneurs."

“that your role in life is to have an impact and to leave the world in a better place than when you found it.”

She credits her parents for conveying the message that anything is possible, and as a teen pursued an ambitious agenda: She worked on handgun control issues when a schoolmate was shot; volunteered with Head Start on a Native American reservation; and participated in a volunteer program in Nepal.

Her interest in changing the world was complemented by a gift for math and data that (along with the weather) led her first to Stanford, then to London as a Fulbright scholar, and later to Harvard Business School for an MBA. During her career, she has held leadership roles across the tech space in education, personal data, and media.

As a CEO, she was often invited to speak at conferences but found that she “was the only female on a given stage or in a given panel.”

Bringing women into parity in venture capital (VC) investments is an uphill task. Some would call VC a “pattern recognition business,” she explains. “You are often drawn to investing in people in your own image.”

“Given this factor of subconscious bias, it’s not surprising that, in a world where women comprise less than 8% of investment decision makers at venture capital firms, you naturally have fewer dollars going to female entrepreneurs.”

Yet, the data now shows that diversity is good for business. Startups with female founders “almost universally outperform their male-only counterparts,” she notes.

Rethink Impact has invested in 19 companies. One of them, Ellevest, is dedicated to women’s economic security, an area that Abramson is especially attuned to. “By the time women are 75 years old, they are three times more likely than their male peers to live in poverty. This is partly because women live longer than men, but also because the average female investor keeps 71 percent of her investment portfolio in cash,” she says. “Ellevest has created a solution that helps women invest their money to take ownership of their financial future.”

"I try to encourage [my daughters] to have their own unique voices and to be their authentic selves while always advocating for others."

Beyond simply investing in companies, Abramson invests in another way – by providing advice and guidance.

In 2017, when reports about the mistreatment of women in Silicon Valley surfaced, Abramson and Patel offered help to female founders via an open letter on their website. That same month they launched “female founder office hours” across three cities, to give CEOs and social impact entrepreneurs “access to advice from the venture community.” This initiative continues.

Handling her duties as managing partner of Rethink Impact is only one aspect of Abramson’s full life. She and her husband Jake Maas are the parents of three children – two daughters, who attend Georgetown Day School, and a toddler son. She serves as the chair of the Georgetown Day School board, and a member of the boards of Little Folks, the nursery school both she and her daughters attended, D.C. Prep, the highestperforming charter school in the D.C. area, and Super Leaders, a program for inner-city kids. She even coaches the third grade soccer team at her children’s school.

Conscious of her responsibility as a mother of two daughters, she says: “I try to lead by example as my mom did for me (having run her own VC firm that invested in women more than 20 years ago). I try to encourage them to have their own unique voices and to be their authentic selves while always advocating for others.”

JWI Magazine | jwi.org/magazine

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Mackenzie Barth M

ackenzie Barth is a self-described “bad eater” who didn’t touch a vegetable until she was 21.

But that didn’t stop her from recognizing that college students needed a food resource geared to their lives and interests. That idea became the inspiration for Spoon, a venture she co-founded at Northwestern University in 2012. Spoon has since grown into a global media company with 300 campus-based chapters and more than 11,500 contributors in the United States and elsewhere. Its stock in trade is empowering young people to create articles, photos, videos and events highlighting their food interests and educating their peers. Along the way, students receive training to develop skills to take with them into the job world.

Spoon was acquired by Scripps Networks Interactive, now Discovery, Inc., and the Food Network in 2017 for an eight-figure sum. And this year, at age 26, Barth and her co-founder, Sarah Adler, were named to the 30 under 30, Forbes’ annual list of youthful visionaries.

Barth grew up in Deerfield, Ill., the oldest of three girls.

“What really helped me,” she says, “is that my parents instilled confidence in me that I can do what I put my mind to and if I work hard enough I can make things happen.”

It didn’t hurt that business is part of her family’s DNA. Her grandfather and great-uncles started a demolition company where her father still works. “I watched my grandpa working until he was 80, and having passion for what he did,” she says.

A communications major at Northwestern, Barth also studied psychology, especially how it relates to marketing and business.

At the start of their junior year, Barth and Adler were both living in off-campus apartments and had to cook

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“What really helped me is that my parents instilled confidence in me that I can do what I put my mind to and if I work hard enough I can make things happen.”

for themselves for the first time. “We figured that there had to be a lot of other students in that same situation,” Barth says. She asked Adler, who majored in journalism, how hard it would be “to start a food magazine to help others figure out how to eat. Sarah said that it would be hard, but we could do it.”

The timing couldn’t have been better. The fervor for food was growing. They posted fliers around campus and 50 students showed up for their first meeting.

“People had so many ideas. They wanted to talk about food and what it meant to them growing up,” Barth says. “There was so much untapped potential.”

Barth and Adler formed a leadership team and organized students into groups to handle the responsibilities for putting out what became a quarterly print magazine. A flood of articles were submitted, so they expanded onto the Web. By senior year, students at other schools had heard about Spoon and clamored for information. The leadership team compiled their techniques into a Power Point presentation and shared it.

“We watched these two or three other chapters work with our playbook and flourish, each with its own local flair,” Barth recalls. “This proved that our framework worked and there was interest beyond Northwestern.

Young people wanted to talk and read about food and become entrepreneurial and start and run something.”

Encouraged, Barth and Adler moved to New York City after graduation, incorporated Spoon and began to figure out how to grow the company. “We were working around the clock, trying to do a million things at once,” Barth recalls. They applied to Tech Stars, an accelerator program, and were accepted, receiving vital guidance that prepared them to make presentations to investors. With the influx of capital they obtained, they rented an office, hired staff and continued to build Spoon’s audience.

Early in 2017, when they learned that Scripps Networks Interactive, owner of the Food Network, was interested in acquiring them, they considered it seriously.

“That was a big dream for us,” says Barth. “To get that opportunity felt like something we could not pass up.”

“The main thing is to help people build confidence in their own abilities. That’s a big barrier for people, and prevents them from taking the plunge and doing what they want to do.”

Both Barth and Adler continue to work at Spoon, and the headquarters staff of 30 provides guidance to campus chapters, in addition to curating articles, videos and photographs that appear on Spoon’s global website. “We support chapters to create content,” Barth explains. “Our team helps them tell their best stories so their voices are heard across the Internet.”

While the focus is on food, Spoon has built “a robust online training called Secret Sauce that teaches everything from leadership skills to event planning to social media strategy. It’s real-time information about how to be successful in the digital media space.”

Some 15,000 young people have been through Spoon training.

“The main thing is to help people build confidence in their own abilities,” says Barth. “That’s a big barrier for people, and prevents them from taking the plunge and doing what they want to do.”

As for herself, Barth admits that she eventually would like to start something else. “It’s extremely stressful and you work insane hours but it’s really fun,” she says.

“Now that I’ve done it once, I feel like I could probably do it better the second time.”

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Wendy Feldman Block

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n many weekday mornings, Wendy Feldman Block, 54, can be found out on the road by 6:15 a.m., cycling 20 miles with a group of female friends.

These rides make her feel good and the women in the group have taught her the necessary skills. “I may be the caboose,” she says, “but at least I’m on the train.”

Feldman Block’s attitude toward cycling is in some ways a reflection of her lifelong ability to approach opportunities with persistence, clarity of purpose, and confidence that she’ll surmount obstacles. She has used these skills to build a 31-year career in the commercial real estate realm, completing leasing and sales transactions totaling nearly 12 million square feet – the equivalent of 208 football fields, end zones included. And while building her career in a male-dominated industry, she has also demonstrated an extraordinary passion for community service.

As senior managing director at Savills Studley, a leading commercial real estate firm specializing in tenant representation, she consults with clients to understand their needs and objectives, projected growth, and where their employees reside. Only after understanding the full picture does she go in search of space to meet their needs.

In 2017, Wendy became the first broker in the world to assist a client to achieve LEED and WELL Platinum certification – a new global standard for implementing features within buildings that support and advance human health and wellness.

Feldman Block grew up in Reston, Virginia. Her dad was a lawyer and her mom, a “Renaissance woman,” involved in everything from interior design to counseling juvenile offenders. Feldman Block and her sister, Lisa, attended Hebrew school and had bat mitzvahs in Reston’s small but growing Jewish community.

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“Grandmother Josephine told me that she had to do twice as much work in case she was called on in class because, if you weren’t prepared, it would reflect badly on all women. I was always inspired by that.”

Early on, she had strong role models: her two grandmothers. Anne Feldman ran her family’s furniture store in Herndon, Va., and Josephine Riesner went to Columbia Dental School in the 1920s. “Grandmother Josephine told me that she literally had to do twice as much work in case she was called on in class because, if you weren’t prepared, it would reflect badly on all women. I was always inspired by that, to be prepared and do more than a man might do.”

Feldman Block attended Emory University and, after graduating, thought she would work for a year before going to law school. She came to Studley (the company was acquired by Savills in 2014) to work as a researcher.

She never left.

“I’m kind of a rare bird that I’ve been at my company since 1987. I was afforded the opportunity to work on a strong team doing large, complex transactions throughout the U.S., basically getting the equivalent of an MBA on the job,” she says.

“It was definitely a boys’ club,” she says of her field.

“When we’d travel, it would be many guys and me going to meetings or conferences. I learned how to hold my own. I wanted to be respected and professional, and I learned what’s appropriate and what’s not, in terms of what you say, what you share, and how you dress.”

While men predominated, she did have a female boss, with whom she worked for 25 years. “She always told me that, as a woman, you always have to have your own money, so that you can make your own decisions.” That counsel and her own success enabled Feldman Block to support organizations she’s passionate about.

Indeed, supporting causes she cares about has become a major theme in her life. She is so passionate about helping that she jokes that she’s had to create the “36-Hour Wendy Rule, which means that when I hear about a cause that excites me I can’t just jump in and say, ‘Yes,’ because that’s how you get on too many [volunteer] boards.”

Her first foray into the non-profit realm came when she was just out of college. Missing her grandmother Josephine who had retired to California, Feldman Block volunteered with Iona Senior Services, which helps seniors and their families. Before she knew it, she had

"I take great pride in being available to guide younger people, particularly women, who are thinking about what they want to do professionally in our industry.” become a board member. She subsequently graduated from Leadership Washington, an intensive 10-month program that introduces professionals to regional civic engagement, and found herself in further demand as a volunteer leader.

Among the organizations she is deeply involved in is the Tikkun Olam Women’s Foundation. “We’re funding social change to benefit women and girls which is really important to me. I have met the most amazing women there who have helped to mentor me,” she says.

Mentoring others is one of Feldman Block’s own priorities. Working in a field where women often leave after a few years, she mentors young women. She has been actively engaged as a leader in Commercial Real Estate Women, as well as several other professional organizations. “I take great pride in being available to guide younger people, particularly women, who are thinking about what they want to do professionally in our industry.”

And while she is helping clients, volunteering for organizations and mentoring young people, Feldman Block is a mom, too. Her daughter, Sydney, is a senior at Barnard, and son, Aidan, a freshman at Syracuse. Her husband, Eben, works in telecommunications.

“I hope I’ve inspired my children, by example,” she says, “to see how it is nice to give and do for others, not just financially, but of your time, your energy, and your ideas.”

JWI Magazine | jwi.org/magazine

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Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann

W

hen Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann, then 30, moved back to Chicago in 2011 after being away for more than a decade, she wanted to connect with contemporaries but didn’t see a ready avenue.

She knew that other Jews in their 20s and 30s were in the same situation. A 2010 study by Chicago’s Jewish United Fund, showed roughly 100,000 Jews lived in the city – a quarter of them under 40 – yet only a very slim minority belonged to a synagogue.

“Having grown up in Chicago, I felt a stake in helping the majority of people who weren’t connected to synagogues discover and reimagine Judaism and what it could bring to their lives,” she says.

During the “wilderness period between the end of college and whenever ‘settling down’ happens,” Rabbi Heydemann says, “there is a lot of space where people are searching, looking for a sense of stability, community, people to sing with, have dinner with, share values with, learn with, and fall in love with.”

Like an entrepreneur, she considered her potential audience and created a place that speaks to its needs. She named the place Mishkan, after the “DIY sacred revival tent that the Israelites carried with them through the desert, creating holy space wherever they stopped to gather in it.”

“I wanted to create an environment in which Judaism is invigorated and something without which people don’t want to live, a place where people find connection, joy and purpose,” Rabbi Heydemann says. She wanted this space to be “radically inclusive,” so that “you don’t have to leave part of yourself at the door, because you don’t think that part of you is welcome in a Jewish space.”

Using a tech-world tactic, she focused on the user experience. “I’m concerned about the person who is ambivalent about or has given up on Jewish practice, and who, if they don’t find a parking space, will keep driving and not come in,” she says. “I try to reduce every barrier.”

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“I’m concerned about the person who is ambivalent about or has given up on Jewish practice, and who, if they don’t find a parking space, will keep driving and not come in. I try to reduce every barrier.”

People aren’t inclined to travel far, so Mishkan holds gatherings in spaces across the city. And since many are put off by synagogue dues, Mishkan offers options for levels of support set up as “a monthly donation more like a gym membership.” Once people walk in Mishkan’s door, the experience is robust and intensely meaningful, encompassing prayer, social activism, and community building through informal gatherings outside of services. Rabbi Heydemann consciously doesn’t use “insider” Jewish language since her target audience is “on the outside of the Jewish calendar and Jewish institutions.”

Mishkan also sponsors Maggie’s Place, a holistic wellness center where individuals meet, often over dinner, to discuss issues and learn with social service leaders. Two years ago, Mishkan added the Mensch Academy – “inspired, down-to-earth Judaism for kids and families.”

Twice-a-month Friday night Shabbat services are “rhythmic, ecstatic and joyful, with moments for personal reflection, for silence, and for learning.” Dinner follows “since part of the Shabbat experience is eating together.”

High Holiday services – in 2017 over 1,800 attended – are interactive. While “many people are used to religion being something that is performed for you or at you,” at Mishkan, she notes, “you don’t feel like you are an audience member so much as in a learning and prayer experience in which your voice matters.”

Heydemann discovered her own Jewish voice growing up in Hyde Park, a progressive neighborhood bordering University of Chicago. At the nearby Reform synagogue, she met Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, who became an early mentor. “I did not come from a family in which Jewish practice was a native language or experience,” she says.

“Rabbi Wolf taught me to take myself seriously as a voice within Jewish tradition.” When she came home from college, “the two visits she cared most about making” were to her grandmother and Rabbi Wolf.

Her paternal grandparents had escaped Germany in the late ‘30s and, in school, Heydemann excelled in the study of the German language. She spent four summers with families in Germany, and took German classes at the University of Chicago. Ultimately, she recognized that there was “something deeper inside that transcends the particular country where my grandparents happened to have lived. I understood then that Judaism was at the core of who I am.”

“Many people are used to religion being something that is performed for you...

[At Mishkan] you don’t feel like you are an audience member so much as in a learning and prayer experience in which your voice matters.”

Before attending Stanford, she did a gap-year program in Israel and, as a college freshman, took part in an American Jewish World Service trip on which she encountered two “young, progressive and intellectually rigorous” female rabbis, whom she could “relate to as women and role models.”

After Stanford, Rabbi Heydemann attended The Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, the Conservative seminary in Los Angeles, and apprenticed under former JWI Woman to Watch, Rabbi Sharon Brous, founder of IKAR in Los Angeles. Mishkan, like IKAR, is part of the Jewish Emergent Network, seven entrepreneurial spiritual communities across America.

Over the past seven years, Mishkan has impacted thousands of lives. Seven young adults who became involved decided to go to rabbinical school and people repeatedly tell Rabbi Heydemann that, “for the first time, they are showing up for services regularly as adults.”

She has performed weddings for seven couples who met there and first met Henry, her husband, at Mishkan, though they grew up in the same neighborhood. They now have a one-year-old, Judah Lev. “Mishkan," says Rabbi Heydemann, “became much bigger than even anything I had hoped for or imagined.”

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Dr. Logan Levkoff

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hen I was in 10th grade one day after school I came home to find condoms and bananas on our dinner table,” says Logan Levkoff.

Her parents had become involved with HIV/AIDS fundraising and education. They told her how to use a condom and informed her, “‘Next week you start training to become a peer educator.’ That was my first foray into the sexuality space,” she recalls.

Today Levkoff, 42, is a respected educator dedicated to perpetuating healthy and positive messages about sexuality and relationships. She teaches widely, has written multiple books about both teen and adult sexuality, and is an oft-consulted expert appearing on such TV shows as Nightline, Good Morning America, and The Today Show.

Though now living in Manhattan, Levkoff grew up on the North Shore of Long Island with her parents and younger sister. In school, she excelled at tennis, theater and debate. Her family – her parents as well as her beloved grandparents, Bea and Milton Shapiro – was deeply committed to the Jewish values of education, social justice and using your voice to make a difference.

“I can’t remember a time when that wasn’t part of who we were and what we were taught,” she says. “They are certainly the values that I teach my son and daughter today.”

These values inspired her mom to serve as JCC president but also to help start the first HIV and AIDS awareness program in the area. Looking back, Levkoff is grateful that her parents were forthright about sexuality. Her dad talked to her and her sister “about the importance of sexuality and how he was going to be comfortable with whatever decision we made as long as it was our own decision, not at the behest of someone else, and that we were protected emotionally and physically.”

Her experiences as an undergrad at University of Pennsylvania contributed to her decision to make human

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“I watched my friends make really bad decisions when it came to their sexual and emotional lives... Women felt uncomfortable having a voice and speaking up for what they wanted.”

sexuality her professional direction. “I watched my friends – smart, savvy young women – make really bad decisions when it came to their sexual and emotional lives. And it wasn’t about using condoms and practicing safer sex. It was that there wasn’t reciprocation in relationships. Women felt uncomfortable having a voice and speaking up for what they wanted, and their needs.”

Realizing she had “a talent for talking about sex” she began writing a sex advice column on campus, before this practice became commonplace in the blogosphere.

Though she initially considered becoming a therapist, a course with sexuality educator – and future mentor – Dr. Konnie McCaffree inspired her to shift her focus to becoming an educator. She earned a Ph.D. in Human Sexuality, Marriage, and Family Life Education from NYU. One of the best parts of her work, Levkoff says, is the relief she sees on the faces of young people when she tells them that “their bodies work the way they are supposed to work; that their feelings and desires and identities are justified and valued.”

She is intensely aware that girls face societal barriers making it hard for them to acknowledge that they have a right to express their needs and desires, without fear of condemnation. “Every day I work to deconstruct the traditional double standard,” Levkoff declares, “the idea that when it comes to sexuality, bodies and relationships, two people of two different sexes or genders can do the exactly same thing and one’s social stature will be elevated and the other will get a hideous name attached to her.”

photo by ClaudineWilliams

“When we are told as women that we’re not entitled [to express our sexuality] it shuts down our voice, and it becomes really hard to consent, because we are rarely told to even think about what we want, let alone voice it.”

In any given week, Levkoff may teach young people from age 7 to 18 in three to five different schools. Many of them, she finds, still receive unhealthy messages about their sexuality or are not told essential information. She has even seen “girls whose bodies are developed who have never been told about menstruation.”

Between her teaching, speaking engagements and media interviews, Levkoff makes sure that she takes her

“When we are told as women that we’re not entitled [to express our sexuality]... it becomes really hard to consent, because we are rarely told to even think about what we want, let alone voice it.” daughter to and from school at least four days a week and attends her son’s ice hockey games.

Her son celebrated his bar mitzvah this past spring at Temple Israel in Manhattan, the synagogue her late grandparents attended and where her own family, her parents, and her sister still belong.

“For my husband, Louis, and I there was nothing better than hearing our child read from the Torah and speak so beautifully and passionately about meaningful issues,” she says.

Her grandfather, a past president of Jewish National Fund (JNF) and Zionist Organization of America, was one of her role models. In his and her grandmother’s memory, she and her family help fund Caravan for Democracy, a JNF program that takes 80 non-Jewish student leaders on an annual mission to Israel.

Levkoff continues to live by the values that her grandparents and parents taught her as a child.

“So much of what I have chosen to do with my life is about having a voice and trying to make the world better,” Levkoff says. “It may not have been the typical path, but it came about because there was this need for better education and equity so people could lead their best, healthiest lives. I have tried to fill that void.”

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Marlee Matlin A

nyone who saw Children of a Lesser God when it came out in 1986 (or have watched it on Netflix or DVD in the years since) can’t forget Marlee Matlin’s Academy Award-winning performance.

But where do you go after winning the industry’s top award at age 21 for your first role? Quite a long way.

Indeed, Matlin has built a body of work – and a life – that reflects her versatility, her skill, her generosity, and her willingness to take risks. She has compelled us to see her not for her disability, but for her talent and humanity, and along the way has helped to normalize the inclusion of all deaf individuals.

“That I am Deaf is just a footnote,” she writes in her best-selling autobiography, I’ll Scream Later (Gallery Books, 2010). “It is a part of who I am, but far from all of who I am.”

Matlin’s path hasn’t been an easy one. She overcame a drug problem that took her to The Betty Ford Center at age 20 and has been clean ever since. She also experienced two abusive incidents in childhood: One at age 11, with a female babysitter; and a second, at age 14, with a high school teacher. She writes that when her acting coach for Children of a Lesser God asked her to dig deep to summon the rage and vulnerability necessary for a scene, she tapped into these memories. She also relates that her two-year relationship with Children of a Lesser God co-star William Hurt included violent encounters.

Keeping a career going over decades, “you have to have an aggressiveness in you, a desire to get yourself out there even when it’s tough,” she once told a struggling actor at a Q&A session.

One of the realities of being an actor, she writes, is that you “keep yourself working, keep yourself in the game, put everything you can into every project, and walk away from it having learned something new.”

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"Every day brings new challenges, creative juices that keep churning inside me, characters whose lives and whose stories I want to tell, new chapters to write."

Most recently, she has appeared in the SyFy series The Magicians, and was a regular on the ABC thriller Quantico. She was a cast member on The West Wing, and received award nominations for her work as a courtroom litigator in the series Reasonable Doubts. Her appearances on such iconic shows as The Practice, Law and Order: SVU, Picket Fences and Seinfeld (she played Jerry’s love interest) garnered Emmy Award nominations. She also was cast member of the Peabody Award-winning series Switched at Birth, which, according to ABC Family, was "the first mainstream television series to have multiple deaf and hard-of-hearing series regulars and scenes shot entirely in American Sign Language (ASL)."

In addition to appearing in multiple movies, she made her Broadway debut in 2015 in the Tony-nominated revival of Spring Awakening, which was performed simultaneously in English and ASL. Her appearance on Dancing with the Stars in 2008 was a remarkable testament to her fearlessness since, unable to hear, she had to use the music’s vibrations to perform. She told People magazine that viewers had sent her “hundreds of letters each week about how much they appreciate that I’ve opened the eyes of hearing people that deaf people can do anything except hear.”

In 2011, she appeared The Apprentice, coming in second, but raised $1 million for her charity, The Starkey Hearing Foundation. (She raised $986,000 and Donald Trump donated $14,000 to make it an even $1 million.)

Matlin was born in the Chicago suburb of Morton Grove, Ill. The youngest of three children, she lost most of her hearing shen she was 18 months old. Her parents wanted her to grow up at home and attend mainstream schools with deaf education programs.

She fell in love with acting at the International Center on Deafness and the Arts (ICODA) in Chicago where her starring role as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, at age eight, demonstrated her gifts. When she was 12, actor Henry Winkler saw her perform at an ICODA event, and was impressed with her talent. He later became her mentor, offering advice and support at important junctures.

Matlin’s parents were determined that she would have a bat mitzvah, like other Jewish girls, and she writes that

“That I am Deaf is just a footnote. It is a part of who I am, but far from all of who I am.”

the chance to study the Torah and learn her people’s history helped her connect to her faith. Over the years, she has helped many Jewish organizations by speaking and working on fund raisers. She took part in the first national television advertising campaign encouraging gifts to Jewish Federations.

She has also advocated for the deaf community and was instrumental in getting federal legislation passed in support of closed captioning both on television and online. Through the years, she has acted as the ACLU’s ambassador for disability rights and was appointed to the Gallaudet University Board of Trustees in 2007, in addition to receiving an honorary degree in 1987.

Matlin’s involvement has extended to many other causes. She currently serves as national celebrity spokesperson for The American Red Cross and in September appeared on Stand Up To Cancer's sixth telethon. She was chair of National Volunteer Week, and has helped the Children Affected by AIDS Foundation and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

While acting has certainly been a driving force in her life, her family remains the most important element: Her husband, Kevin Grandalski, and their four children.

She never stops growing and taking on new roles. As she writes in her book: “Every day brings new challenges, creative juices that keep churning inside me, characters whose lives and whose stories I want to tell, new chapters to write.”

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Dr. Jill Saxon

J

ill Saxon never does anything halfway.

As her husband said when she was leaving her optometry practice to take her job at vision-care giant Bausch + Lomb: “I’ve known you for almost 30 years.

You’ve never walked away from a challenge. In fact, you crush the challenge in front of you and look for the next one.”

Indeed, throughout Saxon’s life, from the time she played on the number-one high school soccer team in the U.S., to her years as a Navy Lieutenant and optometrist serving our nation’s heroes during Operation Iraqi Freedom, to her current work as senior director, professional strategy at the global headquarters of Bausch + Lomb in Bridgewater, N.J., she has strived to excel, while fulfilling her goal to help people.

Saxon, 39, grew up in Randolph, N.J., surrounded by extended family. From girlhood, she knew she wanted a career in medicine, ultimately deciding to become an optometrist, a profession she shares with her father, two uncles, and a brother.

Graduating from Muhlenberg College, she went on to graduate from the SUNY College of Optometry. While in school, she applied for and received a Health Professions Scholarship from the Navy Medical Services Corps.

“There was certainly a financial benefit to joining the military, but, more importantly, there was the opportunity to do things I wouldn’t otherwise have the ability to do as a doctor. As an officer I grew more as a person and a professional than I ever could have imagined.”

During her last year of optometry school, Saxon took part in an externship program at the National Naval Medical Center (now Walter Reed National Military Medical Center) in Bethesda, Md., and soon recognized that was where she wanted to be assigned. A slot was not available but she proactively asked colleagues to

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“I want to be part of the support network that gives professional women the confidence to grow in their careers.”

advocate on her behalf; the Navy created a new position for her at the hospital.

“I involved myself in every opportunity I could get my hands on,” she says of her posting. She ran the hospital’s optometry extern program and annually 20 to 25 participants trained under her supervision. Since she served shortly after 9/11 when the U.S. mounted a global war on terror and invaded Iraq, she took care of servicemembers (sailors, soldiers, airmen and Marines) who arrived on medevacs from the battlefield via Germany. She also treated their families, as well as “our nation’s leaders.”

One of those whom Saxon cared for was a 19-year-old Marine who was critically wounded in combat and had lost his arms and legs. He wasn’t able to put on glasses, so she fit him with contacts that could be left in place for a month. She trained his wife, then eight months pregnant, in how to put them in and remove them.

Though a small victory, that young Marine was able to see the birth of his first child.

“At that moment I realized the opportunity I had to change the lives around me,” Dr. Saxon says.

After leaving the Navy, she and her family moved back to her hometown and she worked in private practice.

When the job at Bausch + Lomb came up in 2014, she was initially reluctant to leave her practice, but quickly recognized that instead of caring individually for patients, she could “help the 40,000 optometrists in the U.S. help all of their patients every day.”

Today, Saxon focuses on professional outreach and developing and launching new products. The goal of her team, she says, is to “recognize what is important today and what is needed for tomorrow, so doctors are prepared to help more patients.” She speaks at conferences for optometrists, visits their offices, and reaches out to them online.

Mentoring women at the company is one of Saxon’s priorities and prompted her to be part of launching the Women’s Leadership Network to support the growth

“[In] joining the military... there was the opportunity to do things I wouldn’t otherwise have the ability to do as a doctor.

As an officer I grew more as a person and a professional than I ever could have imagined.” and development of female professionals. “I want to be part of the support network that gives professional women the confidence to grow in their careers,” she explains.

When it comes to herself, Saxon is vocal about who had the most to do with the person she is today. She is grateful for her supportive and caring family: Her husband, Greg, an intelligence officer and Naval Academy graduate, who is now a procurement professional; her parents; and her siblings. But the people who had the biggest impact on shaping her values from childhood, she says without hesitation, were her grandparents.

Her grandfather, a pharmacist for more than 50 years, hired young people with special needs, “helping them to become functional members of society.” Her grandmother created a welcoming Jewish home. Family members from as far away as Israel gathered there on holidays. “Their home was the center of our family,” she says.

Before their deaths, Dr. Saxon’s grandparents handed the holiday responsibilities off to her. “So everybody now comes to us. My husband and I share with our daughter and two sons the traditions I grew up enjoying just as my grandparents shared them with me.”

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Beth Chartoff Spector

B

eth Chartoff Spector has been known to start her day with a 7:30 a.m. conference call with investors in Beijing and end it with a 9:00 p.m. call with business associates in Tokyo.

As the senior managing director and head of investor relations and business development for GSO Capital, a division of Wall Street investment powerhouse Blackstone, Chartoff Spector, 49, is used to “conducting business in different jurisdictions, where there are not only language divides but cultural divides as well.”

A 25-year Wall Street veteran, she often has been the sole woman in rooms where mergers, corporate debt refinancing packages, and institutional investment decisions are hammered out. Working “to address what is a pretty big gender divide in women coming into this field” has been one of her aims.

Chartoff Spector grew up in a close-knit family in Potomac, Md. Ballet was a girlhood passion and she believes that the discipline and performance skills she developed have helped her professionally. A career in business or finance “was on my radar pretty early,” she says, influenced by the example of her father, who left corporate law to start a business in finance. She majored in economics at Cornell, reckoning that the degree would provide a good career foundation.

Hired out of college by investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, Chartoff Spector discovered that women were a “rare breed” in her office. Though she made close friends among colleagues, a locker-room atmosphere often prevailed. Once, she recalls, when she wore a pantsuit to work, a senior staff member told her “pantsuits didn’t look professional and that I should go back to skirts.”

The work was challenging and the hours long, but she liked it. After two years, to enhance her skills, she went back for an MBA. Her graduating class at Wharton, she

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“Every day I am managing my global team of 25 and handling a very busy schedule, and all the while thinking that my son’s tutor is running late, or that someone needs to get to baseball practice."

notes, was about 20% women at a time when medical and law school classes were at a 50-50 ratio.

Returning to the world of investment banking, first as an associate and later as a director, Chartoff Spector worked on corporate transactions in the retail, consumer products and media sectors involving such companies as Mrs. Field’s, Ann Taylor, and Sony. In 2005, a long-time colleague invited her to join him at GSO Capital, the firm he was founding. In the past 13 years, she has spearheaded the growth of GSO’s assets under management from $2 billion to over $100 billion.

GSO was acquired by Blackstone in 2008 and, four years ago, the company’s president asked Chartoff Spector to head its women’s initiative. She readily accepted and launched programs aimed at transforming recruitment, retention, and advancement of women at Blackstone. One such program, the Blackstone Future Women Leaders Program, annually reaches out to 50 promising college sophomores at universities in the U.S. and Europe. The program offers early exposure to finance through informational and skills-building seminars, networking, mentorship, and visits to Blackstone. Her efforts are working: The annual incoming class of analysts has gone from below 20% to nearly 50% women. To encourage retention, Chartoff has developed mentorship/sponsorship opportunities, pairing mid-career women at the firm with senior staff.

As the wife of a plastic surgeon and the mother of two teenage boys, the younger of whom just celebrated his bar mitzvah, Chartoff Spector knows that juggling career and family responsibilities is tough. “Every day I am managing my global team of 25 and handling a very busy schedule, and all the while thinking that my son’s tutor is running late, or that someone needs to get to baseball practice. And I’ve had plenty of ‘working mom’ moments, like when I sent my son to camp two days before camp started! It’s definitely challenging.”

Yet, it’s doable, Chartoff Spector emphasizes. Having a long-time nanny has been a big help. Also, she recognizes, “The important thing is to be really thoughtful…

To say, ‘I want to be there for my kids’ most important

“Careers are long. Don’t think about 20 years from now. Your objective today is to land in a place where you can get exposure, experience and skills that are portable to many different opportunities.” moments, that’s my first priority, so I’m going to work around my work schedule to make that happen.’” And, of course, having a partner who is supportive and also prioritizes family is critical. “My husband’s days consist of very long hours in the OR, and yet when something at home needs attention, he finds a way to be there.”

Having reached a point where she is able to make time for her own interests, Chartoff Spector serves on the board of American Ballet Theater, co-chairing its development committee. She also serves on the President’s Council for Cornell Women, traveling to campus to speak to students, hosting groups for breakfast at Blackstone, and mentoring young women.

“Starting a career in finance opens so many avenues,” she advises young women. “Careers are long. Don’t think about 20 years from now. Your objective today is to land in a place where you can get exposure, experience, and skills that are portable to many different opportunities. If you invest in your career early and learn a lot, that will afford you degrees of flexibility down the road when you really need it.”

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19

Laurie Strongin F

rom the age of ten, Laurie Strongin showed a knack for leadership.

She served as class president at her elementary school in Chevy Chase, Md; captained her high school field hockey team; coordinated an international bicycle race in Hawaii shortly after graduating from the University of Michigan; advocated for women’s issues in Washington; and worked diligently at Fannie Mae Foundation to increase availability of affordable housing for low-income citizens.

But the full scope of Laurie’s strength and ability to lead emerged when her son Henry Strongin Goldberg was diagnosed at age two weeks with a rare genetic disease, Fanconi anemia.

“Anyone who hasn’t had a chronically sick child likely has a hard time imagining what it’s like to have a child who is sick for months and years as opposed to hours or days,” says Strongin. “I approached life with Henry filled with hope and determination and optimism which ultimately had an extremely positive effect on the quality of his days and of his life.”

She and her family endured Henry’s eventual death at age 7, but used what their experience taught them to create an organization that has helped more than 35,000 sick children and their families. The Hope for Henry Foundation, which Strongin and husband Allen Goldberg founded in 2003, is reinventing how hospitals care for seriously ill children. She serves as the foundation’s CEO. When Laurie and Allen married in the mid-1990s, TaySachs was the only Jewish genetic disease for which there was a test, so they didn’t know they carried the gene for Fanconi anemia, a disease that leads to bone marrow failure.

When Henry was diagnosed, “I was only 30,” says Strongin, now 53. “Henry was my first child. My life up to that point had, quite frankly, been easy. Without even thinking about it, I went into overdrive and became dedicated to doing things that would save Henry, but also other kids.

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“People making policy are affecting real peoples’ lives. If you have a personal experience that adds insight and contributes to positive change, you need to share it.”

“Imagine being a five-year-old stuck in a hospital for 40 days straight. That is what Henry faced time and again,” she says.

“Allen and I believed that we could improve Henry’s days and contribute to his recovery if we could deliver as many of the joys of childhood as possible.”

They celebrated birthdays and holidays with fanfare and arranged such special treats for Henry as seeing a Harry Potter movie on the day it reached theaters.

Strongin also raised research funds and organized bone marrow drives potentially to help Henry and others. She lobbied members of Congress on stem cell research, then highly controversial.

“People making policy are affecting real peoples’ lives. If you have a personal experience that adds insight and contributes to positive change, you need to share it,” she says.

Strongin enrolled in a medical research trial and was the first to undergo Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD), a screening technique that enables doctors to identify genetic defects and HLA typing in embryos created through in vitro fertilization.

“We pursued this technology nine times, but it never worked,” Strongin relates. “When you are the first in the world to try something novel, you are rarely the beneficiary of it,” she reflected. On her last attempt, she told a woman whose son was also suffering from Fanconi anemia about the procedure. That woman subsequently had a daughter whose cord blood saved her brother’s life.

When Henry died, Strongin knew that she couldn’t allow herself to become immobilized by grief. By that time, she had two other sons, fortunately born healthy.

“I was their only mom and I wanted them to have a good life,” she says.

“I’m an emotionally healthy person, which is something I’ve worked hard for. If one thing I tried [to feel better] didn’t work, I tried another and another. I was very determined.”

Writing about her experiences helped her deal with her grief. That ultimately led to a book, Saving Henry, published in 2010 by Hyperion.

And then there’s her work with Hope for Henry, which serves patients in four hospitals – Cleveland Clinic Children’s, MedStar Georgetown, Children’s National Medical Center, and Sinai Hospital in Baltimore. All year long, the organiza-

“Institutions are very uncomfortable with change, so you have to be incredibly persistent and disruptive, but likeable. I’ve had to work really hard to change the system.” tion provides an innovative patient incentive program and activities like movie days, visits from professional athletes, super hero parties, and more. The organization embeds an on-site child-life specialist to oversee its work and further its mission: to entertain and reduce stress while empowering children to be active participants in their own care.

Now, a half-million dollar grant will enable Hope for Henry to introduce Super Path to Super Duper Better™, a new endeavor that will debut in five hospitals in 2018 and another 10 in 2019. Children will receive gift incentives to help them cope with surgery, tests, chemotherapy, radiation, and other painful but necessary procedures.

Due to her unique work and perspective, Strongin is often asked to serve on panels and speak about the pediatric patient experience. In May 2018, she spoke before 1500 attending the Association of Child Life Professionals conference in Washington, D.C. “Hospitals are rated on patient experience,” she says. “What does that really mean? How quickly you are seen? Ease of parking? Or, is it really about your child’s quality of life and being seen as a person, not just a patient?”

“Institutions are very uncomfortable with change, so you have to be incredibly persistent and disruptive, but likeable,” Strongin says. “Change is not easy. I’ve had to work really hard to change the system.”

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21

Linda Youngentob

SONDRA D. BENDER COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP HONOREE

I

f someone tells you they want to change the world, you might think them a bit idealistic. But that’s not what you think when you talk to Linda Youngentob, JWI’s 2018 Sondra D. Bender Community Leader. Intent on spurring real change, she goes about it deliberately and comprehensively, using wisdom and skills from a career in business and a lifetime of volunteer work.

Through her philanthropic and hands-on involvement in multiple educational organizations throughout Montgomery County, Md., she works to impact the lives of first-generation college students, many from immigrant families, by helping them apply for and succeed in college.

With their success and growing financial independence, they can in turn assist their families.

Youngentob is especially proud of a promising Ethiopian student whom she mentored from high school until his recent college graduation. “He now has a lucrative technology consulting career and is able to help his family and community,” she says.

Growing up in Swampscott, Mass., her father ran a paper distribution business, founded by her immigrant grandfather. “I grew up poring over Dad’s Fortune and Forbes magazines and fell in love with business,” she says.

At the same time, a passion for community service was taking root. “A friend’s mom made her daughter undertake a community service project every semester. She would include me to keep her daughter company. I probably liked it more than my friend,” says Youngentob.

Later on, in college, grad school, and working at a consulting firm, she always volunteered. “That grounded me and reminded me about the needs of our community and how important it is to give back,” she says.

Her interest in business, she explains, was never about making money, but about having an impact, “by creating jobs that are needed to make the world better.”

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“I made it my mission in my classes to speak out for the underdog, the employee, the woman, and the working mother.”

That philosophy was not the norm when she went to Harvard for an MBA, after attending Brown University.

It was the 1980s and profit at any cost was the prevailing attitude. “I cried myself to sleep and wanted to quit,” she recalls. “However, I decided that if every person who wanted to make the world better left, it would perpetuate the greed. I made it my mission in my classes to speak out for the underdog, the employee, the woman, and the working mother.”

After graduation, she went on to a successful career in telecommunications. A serious bike accident ended up being a wake-up call. She realized she had been under “incredible pressure and expectation that I was supposed to have it all.” She realized she could find meaning in other ways and that she could choose to have it all “over a lifetime, just not at the same time.”

Youngentob decided to live her life in chunks, completely embracing whatever chunk she was in. She quit her job, and immersed herself in parenting and community involvement. She started Mitzvah Day at Washington Hebrew Congregation, a project that spread to other congregations. She was also in the 1995 class of Leadership Montgomery.

The next chunk (and the one she’s currently in) is about “changing the world, one person at a time.” Her primary area of interest is equity and opportunity in education.

photo by Michael B. Kress

Her involvement in the field is deep and multi-layered.

“I go from giving money to offering strategic direction to serving on boards to working as a volunteer to getting involved and building strong personal relationships with the clients,” she says. “And then I network across many organizations for more impact.”

Inspired by the late Randi Waxman, who left a career in law to teach underserved students, Youngentob decided to teach at Montgomery College, a community college with a diverse population. She works as an adjunct professor for the Macklin Business Institute, the college’s honors business program, but also is deeply committed to getting to know students and mentoring them long after they graduate.

She serves on the Montgomery College Foundation board and heads its capital campaign, taking on these leadership roles for access, not for accolades. “When something doesn’t seem equitable for my students, people

“You’re doing it for other people but, in the end, you have so much more understanding of humanity.

Nothing is like reading students’ college essays, where they’re telling their stories. So intimate, human, and incredible.” in the administration are more open to listen to me,” she says. Her long-term hope is to “create cultural change to improve the college.”

In addition, she has been involved in many related organizations. She is currently a board member of Identity, the county's largest organization serving Latino immigrants, and formerly served on the board of CollegeTracks, which helps disadvantaged youth apply for college. Each board she joins gives her a clearer picture of the issues and builds connections that increase her ability to have an impact.

A board member of the Community Foundation of Montgomery County and the Tikkun Olam Foundation, Youngentob is a founding member of WE Capital and a limited partner in the venture capital fund Rethink Impact.

She and her husband, Bob, whom she met at Harvard, have three grown daughters. “We’ve been a team and equals,” she states.

“Just one person at a time, you know?” she says of her work. “You’re doing it for other people but, in the end, you have so much meaning and so much more understanding of humanity. Nothing is like reading students’ college essays, where they’re telling their stories. So intimate, human, and incredible.”

JWI Magazine | jwi.org/magazine

23

W

ith the Jewish holidays upon us, I am reminded of just how quickly the year has gone by and just how much JWI has accomplished. For me the holidays are always a reminder of the circle of life; that rings especially true at JWI this year. For more than 100 years JWI has encouraged and cultivated women’s leadership. Whether being a leading voice for women's reproductive rights and the passage of the ERA, or creating a National Training Institute more than 50 years ago to encourage B’nai B’rith Women members to become leaders in their communities, the theme of empowerment and cultivating leadership is embedded in the historical fabric of our organization.

Our year is bookmarked by Women to Watch – and this year our honorees are, once again, an extraordinary group of women. Our 2018 celebration marks the (magical) 18th year of honoring the remarkable achievements of what now totals 180 women. These accomplished and outstanding role models are the cornerstone of JWI’s legacy of leadership – our commitment to honor and celebrate those who have reached the summit of their careers, and foster connections with the next generation to give a hand up and a foothold to women who are climbing behind them.

Cultivating future leadership is what our Young Women’s Leadership Network is all about. With thriving Networks in D.C., New York, Denver, Los Angeles, and now Chicago, thousands of young women are connecting to build their personal and professional networks as well as engage more deeply in their communities, learn from seasoned leaders, and build their personal platform of civic engagement around JWI’s core issues: Ending violence against women and girls, promoting 24

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economic security and financial literacy, and spotlighting leadership.

JWI’s Network is the sole womenonly organization for Jewish women in their 20s and 30s. This vibrant voice for progressive engagement and leadership is anchored by more than 60 events a year, as well as opportunities to participate in national programming. JWI’s annual Advocacy Day brings more than 100 young women to Capitol Hill, and well over 200 young women attend our Young Women’s Leadership Conference. Both are unforgettable leadership experiences.

Our 2018 portfolio of programs is inspiring: We have led more than two dozen programs on college campuses across the country on healthy relationships and dating violence prevention, as well as financial literacy and economic security. Webinars presented by our National Alliance to End Domestic and Sexual Violence offer more than a dozen education and training opportunities each year for thousands of Alliance members and professionals working in the domestic violence field. Every individual we train, through our webinars and our in-person workshops, is empowered with the tools to lead on issues that are foundational to safety and security of women and girls.

While we are proud to provide the skills to build personal and professional leadership, as an organization, JWI maintains a leadership role in multiple arenas. We are the leading Jewish organization working on

the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. And, as the convener of the Interfaith Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence, we bring together more than three dozen faith organizations to work with each other and Congress.

In a world of #MeToo, we understand all too well the need to change the workplace culture – and so I am proud that we are among a handful of organizations working both in the Jewish community and with our larger Jewish community to end sexual harassment in the workplace and build an affirmative culture that values and promotes gender parity at all levels.

Leadership moves us forward, lifts us higher, and creates a world of unforetold possibilities. That is the enduring impact of JWI.

Lori Weinstein, CEO

A Year in the Life of JWI's

Young Women's Leadership Network

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

The Denver Network's first birthday party

D.C.'s 5K fundraiser for JWI's National Library Initiative

L.A.'s professional networking workshop at Twitter

DECEMBER

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

National Young Women's Leadership Conference

D.C.'s breakfast briefing with Congresswoman Jacky Rosen

N.Y.'s evening with Broadway producer Amanda Lipitz

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

Denver's State Advocacy Day

Young Women's Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill

The Chicago Network launch (sold out with 200+ guests!)

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

N.Y.'s professional branding workshop

L.A.'s financial planning workshop

D.C.'s homebuying and mortgage workshop

5 cities... 12 months... 60+ events... 2,500 young professional women CHICAGO

•

D.C.

•

DENVER

•

NEW YORK

Supported by the Bender Foundation, Inc.

•

LOS ANGELES

25

Upstanding Citizens Advocating for women and girls takes center stage at JWI.

BY VALERIE BROWN

JWI’s advocacy work is the foundation of our legacy. Over the last 120 years, we’ve been a part of so many advances for women – the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote, Roe v. Wade, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), and much more. This year has been an epic year for women: The #MeToo movement has empowered women to speak out as never before about the sexual abuse and harassment they have endured; and an unprecedented number of women decided to run for office in the 2018 midterm election. In the JWI family, that includes former Board Chair Susan W. Turnbull, running for lieutenant governor of Maryland; Kathy Manning, a former Women to Watch honoree, running for Congress in North Carolina; and Dafna Michaelson Jenet, a Women to Watch Colorado honoree, running for re-election to the Colorado State House.

The latest reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act was introduced on July 26th. This bill builds on VAWA’s previous successes and adds modest enhancements to ensure the safety of survivors of violence. A member of the steering committee of the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, JWI led initiatives to add important provisions to the bill and develop strategy for its introduction.

Nearly 52 million women, one-third of them living in the United States, have been victims of physical violence by an intimate partner. In 2016 alone, there were 1.1 million domestic violence victimizations, more than half of which involved domestic partners. The reauthorization of VAWA is essential because it responds to the urgent issues survivors face every day. The proposed act will support programming to engage men and boys as allies in preventing gender-based violence; close loopholes to allow Tribal courts to prosecute non-native sexual assault offenders; increase efforts to keep guns out of the hands of abusers; strengthen housing protections for survivors; and expand the ability of providers to respond to sexual harassment.

As the convener of the Interfaith Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence and the Clergy Task Force to End Domestic Abuse in the Jewish Community, JWI is playing a key role in mobilizing the faith community to work for the bill’s passage.

Achieving VAWA reauthorization is especially difficult this year because of the partisan divisions in Congress. “It’s going to be a long, hard road,” said Deborah Rosenbloom, As issues for women take center stage, and policies threaten JWI’s vice president of programs and hard-won rights, our efforts as the Members of JWI's Young Women's new initiatives. “Without VAWA we leading Jewish organization working Leadership Network at the would take so many steps backward.” to end gender-based violence become second annual Young Women's more critical. These issues include Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill WOMEN’S HEALTH JWI's focus areas: Violence against in April 2018 women; women's health, gun vioHaving access to comprehensive lence, economic security, and sexual reproductive health services, from harassment. birth control to family planning to safe terminations of pregnancies, is VIOLENCE AGAINST essential for the health of women.

WOMEN The current administration has proposed a rule that allows service proThe Violence Against Women Act viders to refuse care based on moral (VAWA) is our nation’s single most or religious objections. “Moral coneffective tool in responding to the viction,” a term that is undefined devastating crimes of domestic vioand dangerously broad, can now be lence, dating violence, sexual assault, used as the basis for refusing care. and stalking. Over the past 24 years, A receptionist or other non-medical VAWA has dramatically enhanced staff can deny services or informaand improved our nation’s response tion; and an individual can be denied to violence against women, and it is health care based on gender identity, the anchor for JWI’s work. even if emergency care is needed.

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In addition, the Department of work with Congress to pass policies that provide women an opportunity Health and Human Services (HHS), for financial equity, such as inclusive has proposed a rule that goes directly paid leave and sick and safe days. against Title X, a federal grant proUniversal paid leave is an integral gram that provides family planning component in the fight for gender assistance and quality healthcare to equality, and JWI continues to adwomen irrespective of their sociovocate on Capitol Hill and through economic status. HHS’s proposed social media to bring national attenrule would ban this money from betion to the needs of workers and their ing used in clinics that provide aborfamilies. tions, refer for abortions, or even provide detailed and complete inforSEXUAL HARASSMENT mation about pregnant women’s opStudents from Stoneman Douglas tions. Across the country, hundreds Sexual harassment has historically High School with JWI CEO of clinics that receive Title X fundbeen part of the fabric of American Lori Weinstein (second from ing will have to make an impossible business culture, systemically victimright) in April 2018. choice between providing patients izing women who, fearful of losing with complete and accurate informatheir jobs, have endured inapproprition on their reproductive choices, and continuing to offer ate and demeaning treatment in the workplace. This year's the cancer screenings and other healthcare services that their #MeToo explosion – from high-profile scandals to personal communities rely on. revelations – has inspired JWI to double down on our efforts to make the workplace safe and equitable for all. In JWI has submitted comments to HHS, and we hosted a weMay, CEO Lori Weinstein moderated a panel conversation – binar to help others participate in this important part of the "Revealing #MeToo as #WeToo in Jewish Communal Life," political process. sponsored by the Tikkun Olam Women's Foundation – at D.C.'s historic Sixth and I Synagogue. We’re continuing this GUN VIOLENCE work by leading conversations in Jewish communities to develop open communication and clear condemnation of these Gun violence and domestic violence are inextricably linked. acts, in order to protect women in the workplace.

Domestic violence, stalking, and assault are often part of a pattern that can culminate in a mass shooting. The perpetra“Many of us in the Jewish community have been working to tors of many of these tragedies, including those at the Capidetermine the best response to #MeToo – asking ourselves tol Gazette, Pulse nightclub, and Marjory Stoneman Doughow we can use this movement to take an honest look withlas High School, were individuals with a history of intimate in, recognize the deep-seated and longstanding inequalities partner violence. and take the necessary steps to initiate change,” Weinstein said. “What we need in the Jewish community is a seismic To combat gun violence, JWI’s Young Women’s Leadership cultural shift, a comprehensive, holistic approach that is Network and our board of trustees met with representatives multi-generational and prevention-focused, catalyzed by edon Capitol Hill to advocate for the closure of a loophole that ucation, training and constant conversation, and grounded allows convicted abusers to purchase guns, and to increase in prevention. research on gun violence in order to understand and respond to the serious threats to our communities. We raised aware“Sexual harassment, dating violence, sexual assault, rape, ness as a partner in March for Our Lives, the nationwide domestic violence – they are all connected, all part of a conpush for tighter gun control laws in response to the tragedy tinuum of violence against women. And now is the time to at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and the create real change.” gun violence that plagues our communities. In April, students from Parkland spoke about this issue with JWI CEO STAY INFORMED Lori Weinstein on a panel at the Jewish Council for Public Be prepared to act – and stay up to date on all of JWI’s work Affairs (JCPA).

– by signing up to receive our weekly 3-2-1 emails on imECONOMIC SECURITY portant issues as well as our advocacy alerts. Visit jwi.org to learn more!

The United States is the only country in the developed world that does not offer paid parental leave. JWI continues to Valerie Brown is JWI's marketing and communications manager.

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The Power of

MENTORING always say, a woman alone has power; collectively, we have impact.

– Shelley Zalis With these words, Shelley Zalis, founder of the Girls’ Lounge – an “experiential pop-up” where corporate women attending industry conferences gather to connect, collaborate and activate change together – began her “Pearl of Wisdom” speech at JWI’s 2017 Women to Watch gala last December. Zalis understands something men in business have known for generations: No one does it alone. There will be times you need others to guide you and times you need others to lift you. And, whether at the golf course, locker room, or hotel lobby bar, men find their space to network.

Shelley Zalis (right) and Rabbi Sherre Hirsch (left) speak to JWI's L.A. Young Women's Leadership Network at a June 2018 event.

In 2013, Zalis went to the Consumer Electronics Show, the biggest tech show in the world, because as a researcher in the tech realm, she knew she needed to get to know people in the business. There weren’t many women in tech at the time, but she invited some girlfriends in the industry to hang out in her hotel room and told them to invite their friends.

“More than 50 women showed up,” she recalled in her Pearl. “I called 28

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BY MEREDITH JACOBS

my hairdresser, and all these women were getting their hair done while talking about business and doing deals. The next day, 50 women ended up walking the floor together at CES.” Two remarkable things happened: The men noticed and wondered what was happening; and Zalis felt “an internal feeling of confidence. It felt so powerful to have this group of smart women surrounding me.”

“At that moment, I understood the power of the pack,” she told the Women to Watch audience. “This insight would come to have a profound influence on my career and my personal sense of purpose for creating diversity and defining a new ‘pack’ in business.”

Giving women a “pack” was the impetus behind JWI’s Young Women’s Leadership Network. But, whether you call them “mentor,” “sponsor,” or even “rabbi,” women also need individuals who will guide and champion their advancement. Attuned to this need, JWI launched the “1-on-1 Mentorship Project” in 2017, with a cohort of six mentoring teams. The young women selected, all members of the Network, were each partnered with a former Women to Watch honoree. With an initial promise to meet once a month for six months, the pairs have continued their relationship more than a year later. The success of that pilot has inspired another round in 2018, with eight pairs of mentors and mentees.

The women were partnered thoughtfully: The deciding factors in the pairings were the mentees’

challenges and aspirations, rather than professions or even geographic locations. This meant that when Stephanie Rosner of the D.C. Network was debating a career switch, she was teamed with 2017 Woman to Watch Pam Sherman of Rochester, N.Y., who had left her career as an attorney to successfully pursue dreams of acting and writing.

“I learned from Pam’s experiences in her different careers,” says Rosner, “and appreciated her advice to be easier on myself. I saw that she was able to see that things would be okay.”

Sherman, who agreed to become a mentor because she loves the idea of spending “a dedicated amount of time investing in our future women leaders,” also gained from working with her mentee. “Honestly, it reminded me of how exciting possibilities are when you are first starting out in your career,” she said. “How brave you have to be to live in a place far from home and develop relationships and community, all while growing in your career path!”

What surprised Sherman the most about the experience was that, even though their working relationship was completely virtual and by phone, she came to care deeply about her mentee as a person. “It was less about her career than who she is – which is exactly how it should be.”

Pam Sherman (right) and JWI COO Meredith Jacobs (left) talk with young professional women at JWI's 2017 Young Women's Leadership Conference.

2018 1-on-1 mentees (left to right) Naomi Rich, Stephanie Rosner, and Alyssa Weiner

Toby Graff (WTW, 2007) agreed to be a mentor as a way to pay it forward for all the women and men who have been, and continue to be, her own mentors. But Graff, who had recently left her position as senior vice president of public affairs for the USA Network in order to build a consulting practice, was worried. “I usually pictured a mentor as someone who has it all together, knows the secrets of success, and has big and continuous achievements,” she said.

When she started working with Naomi Rich (L.A. Network), she says that she was “at an inflection point” in her own career and was concerned whether she had “lots of good advice to offer. I wanted to make sure it would be valuable for Naomi.”

But hearing that is exactly what inspired Rich the most. “Through talking with Toby, I have learned that the path I am on is okay. The twists can still take me to an end I am proud of, and the people along the way are extremely important.”

She is grateful to the mentoring program for introducing her to Graff, whom she would not have known otherwise. “Her life journey has been incredible. Her hard work and commitment has been great to

learn from, but Toby has also been a strong example of continuing to strive to do good for the world and make your own path. The journey never ends, but it doesn’t have to.”

And, it’s not just the mentees who learn from the mentors. As Graff explains, “I have been inspired by Naomi’s willingness to put herself out there and her desire to learn.

It’s something that’s needed at every stage because the world moves and changes quickly. She recognizes that and reminds me too.”

While each pair receives a monthly worksheet with suggested topics and questions for them to work through, the real value of the mentors often emerged at those unscheduled moments when the mentees just needed advice. Alyssa Weiner, assistant director of international Jewish affairs at AJC (and immediate past president of the D.C. Network), sought advice about applying for a prestigious fellowship program in Germany from her mentor, Laurie Moskowitz (WTW, 2017), senior director for U.S. campaigns for The ONE Campaign.

Weiner was concerned that the fellowship occurred just after she would be returning from six weeks of intensive international work travel and that she wouldn’t be in the right place physically or mentally.

After weighing the pros and cons with Moskowitz, she decided to apply and was accepted. She is thrilled

with her decision to take a chance on the fellowship and now believes it will be critical for her professional and spiritual growth.

“It was a perfect reminder of why I decided to do the 1-on-1 Mentoring Program in the first place,” she explains. “To be challenged to be my best self, to be guided along my professional journey, and to remember that I have a support system that knows no bounds.”

Toby Graff (right) with JWI CEO Lori Weinstein (middle) and 2017 1-on-1 mentor Kim Oster Holstein (left) at JWI's 2017 Young Women's Leadership Conference.

Perhaps Stephanie Rosner summed it up best when she said: “Mentoring gives us positive role models who can help us make decisions in the present and look at past or future experiences and opportunities in a way that we might not be able to see ourselves. I believe it’s especially important for young women to have women mentors because they can specifically understand the challenges women may face, and can offer thoughtful advice.”

Meredith Jacobs is the chief operating officer of JWI.

Applications for the 2019 1-on-1 Mentoring Project cohort will open at JWI's Young Women’s Leadership Conference on December 2nd. JWI is also expanding mentoring opportunities with the launch of Advisory Councils based in each city with a Young Women’s Leadership Network. If you are interested in mentoring a young woman, and live in Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, or Washington, D.C., sign up now at jwi.org/advisory-councils to join an Advisory Council.

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JWI is engaging men to change the culture on college campuses

BY ARIELLA NECKRITZ en receive messages from their families, friends, school, faith, and the media on what they should and shouldn’t be. They are socialized to act, look, talk, think, and be a certain way. These norms and pressures constrain men's potential to build supportive communities, achieve excellence, inspire others, and create change.

This past year, JWI surveyed university students on what it means to be a man.

Students responded with the term ‘respectful,’ but also with ‘aggressive;’ a ‘compassionate and kind brother,’ on the one hand, and a man who is ‘tough and shows no emotion,’ on the other. The responses indicated that guys are admired for their integrity and leadership, but also praised for being partiers and players.

These words reflect the tension of societal messaging on what it means to be a man.

These conflicting messages can play out in the way men treat women and each other, resulting in a culture not only of disrespect, but of harm. When coupled with misogyny, these messages are weaponized into a culture of violence against women.

JWI believes engaging men and boys and elevating positive norms and attitudes about masculinity are essential in order to end gender-based violence. Since the early 2000s, through our Good Guys workshops, JWI has worked with teen boys helping them understand what it means to be in a healthy relationship. Our award-winning Boy to Mentsch initiative brought healthy masculinity programs to the men and boys of Baltimore’s ultra30

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Orthodox Jewish community. And our innovative partnership with Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT) national fraternity (as well as SDT national sorority) brought the first peer-led, coed, healthy relationship and consent workshops to campus Greek life.

At the 2017 Women to Watch awards gala, Ariella Neckritz, JWI's manager of prevention programs, speaks about JWI's work on college campuses.

Thanks to a grant from the Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women, JWI is creating programmatic opportunities for fraternity men to talk to one another about mentorship, leadership, masculinity, socialization, and community. The intent of this work is to encourage men to rethink their definition of masculinity, by asking them to explore, “Who do you want to be?” rather than, “Who does society tell you to be?”

JWI is in the process of developing the first healthy masculinity curriculum for Greek life, with pilots scheduled for the ZBT chapters at the University of Maryland and Towson University. Additionally, to create conversations around Jewish masculinity, JWI is working with Maryland Hillel and Towson Hillel.

This project has the potential to spur cultural change to prevent sexual assault and dating abuse on campus. And men want to be a part of the solution.

“The topic of sexual assault on college campuses is extremely prevalent. Whether it’s prevalent in your inner circle or not, it certainly goes on,” said Drew Hein, a ZBT brother and junior at the University of Maryland.

“After getting involved with this cause, I specifically noticed the lack of male representation,” he continued. “This led me to become even more invested, and dedicated to making a difference in this community.

Sexual assault is not only a women’s issue, and needs to be portrayed as such. Therefore, it has really been important to me to get more male representatives involved on University of Maryland’s campus.”

Men like Drew can become mentors and role models to other men, as well as advocates for positive masculinity and a culture built upon respect and consent.

“After spending years deeply engaged in this work, I’ve learned that everyone has a role to play in changing the culture,” said Lori Weinstein, JWI’s CEO. “It gives me hope to see fraternity men and men of faith stepping up to create safer campuses. I believe in the power and potential of college students and I can’t wait to see where this new initiative will lead.”

Ariella Neckritz is JWI's manager of prevention programs.

A LEGACY OF LEADERSHIP

Your planned gift sustains JWI's legacy of leadership for the next generation hundred and twenty years is a long time in the history of an organization. Many organizations, unable to adapt, founder. But JWI has had a remarkable ability to hold fast to its core values while making the changes necessary to stay current and relevant.

“I really feel we stand on the shoulders of the women who came before us,” says Vivian Bass, chair of JWI’s board of trustees. “I think of the women who took the lead in the Jewish community and marched for Roe v. Wade and the Equal Rights Amendment; the women who walked into schools, carrying suitcases filled with Dolls for Democracy, so they could inspire children by telling stories about Jackie Robinson, Eleanor Roosevelt and other heroes who fought for tolerance; the women who dreamed that at-risk Israeli children, given the right therapeutic environment, could recover from emotional illness and become functioning members of their society; the women who were so heartbroken when one of their own was killed by her estranged husband, that they vowed to break the silence about domestic abuse that had prevailed far too long in Jewish life.”

Today, JWI continues this work. It may take different forms, but, at its core, it remains consistent with what came before. JWI’s Young Women’s Leadership Network is just one example of this. In five cities, JWI has become the avenue through which young professional women get together to network, expand their professional skills, hear from outstanding Jewish women and learn about our issues. These women in their twenties and thirties love getting together to make new friends, just like earlier generations of women in BBW and JWI did. The impulse to connect, build leadership skills and take a stand on women’s issues remains unchanged.

The potential for this network is huge.

We’re already laying the groundwork for other cities. You can help ensure that JWI is here in a meaningful way for the next generation of amazing Jewish women by creating a Legacy gift.

Emily Weinger, a former board member, has made this commitment.

"From age 14 to my current age of 77, I have been a proud member of JWI,” she says. “I was on the national board, so I know what it takes to run JWI and I would like to keep giving once I’m gone. I set up my life insurance policy as an endowment fund that family members can continue to contribute to after I’m gone. It will be the gift that keeps on giving – every year, like I do now.”

An endowment is only one option to consider.

If you’d like to learn more about setting up a planned gift benefiting JWI, please contact CEO Lori Weinstein at (202) 857-1300 or LoriWeinstein@jwi.org.

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NETWORTH

BY JACKIE KOSSOFF I encountered the JWI Young Women’s Leadership Network at the end of last summer, almost by accident. I was attending a Jewish Federation event and ran into an old friend from high school. We hadn’t spoken in years, but quickly discovered that we both valued our continued connection to the local Jewish community. She told me that just a few months before she had helped establish the Network here in L.A. Right away, she added me to the Network’s Facebook group and invited me to the next event.

I didn’t know what to expect. I’ve tried out several different young adult groups since graduating college with mixed results. Making new friends in the real world is a bit more complicated than striking up a conversation with the girl next to you in English class. From the moment I walked into the room, the women I met were friendly and welcoming – which you can’t always count on when you come into a new group. I liked that there was a good mix of recent transplants and women who grew up here in L.A. In fact, I ran into a few other women whom I had known in high school but lost touch with and it was great to see them again.

At my third or fourth JWI event earlier this year, the friend who had introduced me to JWI mentioned that she was looking for a new place to live. Her timing was perfect since I was looking for a third roommate. She moved in a few weeks later. How great is that – to have someone move in whom I already knew I enjoyed hanging with!

But the personal connections I’ve made through JWI are only part of the picture. The Network has also brought me some amazing professional opportunities and contacts. Less than a year ago, I started my own marketing and social media agency. The very

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week that I decided to quit my 9-to5 job and focus full-time on building my business, JWI held a private event at Twitter’s headquarters in Santa Monica. Making connections with representatives of one of the major social media networks helped me build my credibility in the online space. Just being able to say that I was invited there for a private event added to my cachet.

Meeting these women made me realize that I needed a community, a place to offer and receive support through the ups and the downs of entrepreneurship.

Another JWI event in particular stands out for its impact on my personal entrepreneurship journey. In April 2018, the L.A. Network hosted "Passion & Fashion," an event with special guest Esther Brozin Feder, founder and CEO of the fashion company A World Curated. When I walked through the door, I had no idea I would be entering a room with at least five other entrepreneurs around my age. It was the first time I had been surrounded by so many like-minded women, and we shared an inspiring night together.

Jackie Kossoff (right) with L.A. Network board member Alexandra Altschuler at JWI's "Passion & Fashion" event in April 2018.

Meeting these women made me realize that I needed a community, a place to offer and receive support through the ups and the downs of entrepreneurship. Finding support and advice on Facebook is wonderful, but in-person support is 10 times better!

I felt called upon to create and lead a new group of women. Two months later, the Young Women’s Entrepreneur Mastermind Support Group was formed. We just met for our second monthly meeting, and all seven members told me how grateful they are that we can get together.

If I had to describe the impact of the Network in one word, I would say “Community.” JWI has connected me with a community of women whom I now turn to for social and professional development. We have been able to support each other in ways I never could have predicted, but for which I am so grateful. To me, JWI proves the notion that when women come together, amazing things are bound to happen!

Jackie Kossoff is a Los Angeles-based social media consultant and digital designer who creates social media strategies for entrepreneurs and small businesses.

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