Mentoring The Next Generation Of Women Leaders

Recently, Soledad O'Brien was formally recognized for her passionate work by the state of New York. At the 2018 PowHERful Summit, Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins presented O’Brien proclaiming July 14 as the annual PowHERful day in New York. PowHERful is O’Brien’s education-focused foundation that works to get girls in and through college.

A large number of the PowHERful scholars are first-generation college-bound students from desperate poverty. But O’Brien points out, “Your family can be middle class and you still not have any money, especially if you have kids you’re trying to put through college. Some girls just really need mentoring.” She relates the story of a young woman whose mother was killed in the Newton School shooting and her father had brain cancer. “He reached out to me and basically said, there are people in our community who will pay for my daughter’s education but I really need her to be mentored. So we made sure she was connected to the right people and opportunities.”

 

The PowHERful Foundation connects with young women at the collegiate and internship stage before their real professional lives begin. Yet the reality is you can provide all the opportunities in the world for people but it doesn’t mean they will succeed in their pursuits, especially if they are not used to understanding how certain systems work. I wondered aloud about this with O’Brien. She says she encourages soft skills, and the central message she gives young women is that success is really up to you as an individual. It doesn’t mean one has to do it by oneself but she teaches the girls that ultimately they are responsible for their success. She believes that today’s generation of young women need a lot of the same skills that previous generations have needed.

SOURCE: Here's How Soledad O'Brien Is Mentoring The Next Generation Of Women Leaders - via Essence

Soledad O'Brien Named to Power of Women New York Impact List

Every year, Variety honors women across all aspects of the entertainment industry who are making an impact. This year, Soledad O'Brien, host of Matter of Fact, was one of the women named to their Power of Women New York Impact List.

“I think the strength in being straight-talking lies in that it’s actually wrapped up in fact. In order to have a future, you can’t wait around for other people to decide what it will be,” says O’Brien. 

This busy Emmy Award-winning journalist and CEO of her production company, Starfish, also hosts Hearst Television’s weekly news show Matter of Fact and Oxygen’s Mysteries & Scandals and led the panel for Fox’s buzzy “OJ Simpson: The Lost Confession?” in March. 

O’Brien also works at her PowHERful Foundation to mentor young girls.

Soledad O'Brien on the #MeToo Movement

The #MeToo movement began in October 2017 by Tarana Burke on Twitter. This hashtag has been shared by many women sharing their stories of sexual harassment. As a leading person in media as n=both a journalist and CEO, Soledad O'Brien has also been involved.

On March 20, Soledad O'Brien spoke at Kean University in New Jersey about the #MeToo movement as part of Kean's Distinguished Lecture Series.

O'Brien's experiences go well beyond the reporting she is best known for by viewers. Besides her work as a journalist, she has become a producer and philanthropist.

Currently, she hosts the political show Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien, the crime series Mysteries & Scandals on the channel Oxygen and the CNN documentary series In America.

She is also the co-founder of the PowHerful foundation, which is dedicated to providing financial assistance, opportunities and mentors to young women attending college.

O'Brien began her TV news career in 1987 before graduating from Harvard at WBZ-TV in Boston. She recounted how she was groped by a drunk man at the bar she was interviewing in, causing her to freeze and fumble through her first TV appearance. When she had talked to her boss about it, he had insinuated that it was her fault for placing herself in close proximity to a drunken man. Since then, she is forced to always consider how she is standing, what she is wearing, how close people are to her and what she may be unintentionally inviting. This is a reality many women are faced with.

O'Brien pondered over the importance of #MeToo in the advancement of women's empowerment and the conversation about sexual harassment. She explained how this movement is almost like a "court civil rights struggle."

O'Brien notes the need for women and men to come together in order to eradicate the problem. Shared dialogue is necessary in order to create what could become the new moral code and cultural customs for everyone in the workplace.

O'Brien then presented advice from Gretchen Carlson, a TV commentator, author and chairwoman of the Miss America Board of Directors on what women could do now about sexual harassment. Carlson shares that women must document their experiences, find out what the tape recording laws of one party consent is in their state, seek out help from an attorney to start the process, tell trusted colleagues to get support and encourage men to help women with their allegations.

O'Brien clarifies that while this was great advice, it is not a solution. O'Brien concluded her lecture, emphasizing the need for this conversation to be continued in order to figure out the complicated issue and asked "What is the thing you can do? Because it's going to come to your door at some point. It just will."

Source: http://www.cougarsbyte.com/article/2018/03/metoo  by Abigail Anne Rafael, 

PowHerful

Soledad O'Brien started her Starfish Media Group as a way to control the kinds of projects she could work on as a journalist.

She was inspired by an Evangelical story:

Countless starfish have washed ashore on a beach and are dying off. A little boy is picking them up and tossing them back into the ocean in the hope they’ll survive. A man walks by and asks him why he’s doing something so futile.
“There are hundreds,” he points out. “What difference will it make?”
The boy picks up another starfish, throws it into the sea and says: “It will make a difference to that one.”

And so she created the Soledad O'Brien and Brad Raymond Starfish Foundation with her husband in 2011 in order to provide funds and resources for student scholars with the idea that helping one young woman can cause a ripple effect throughout her family, friends, and community - transform lives, one girl at a time.

Then, her PowHERful Foundation Summit Series began in 2012 in New York City as an annual, free daylong conference for high school- and college-aged young women focusing on educational, professional, and personal development.

In 2017, the Starfish Foundation became the PowHERful Foundation to better reflect the empowerment message they want to provide young women all across the country opportunities.

Soledad O’Brien Hosts Empowerment Conference for Young Women

When Soledad O’Brien was in college, she had a mentor who helped guide her toward success , and also influenced her subsequent decision to provide similar support for other young women.

“I had one phenomenal mentor while I was in college who taught me the tools of my trade, inspired me to want to be a journalist and most importantly gave me the confidence to navigate a tough profession,” O’Brien said. “It transformed me and leads me to believe that this kind of support for young women is vital in helping them achieve their goals.”

O’Brien and her husband, Brad Raymond, founded in 2011 what is now called the PowHERful Foundation with a primary mission to get young minority women from low-income families to and through college by providing financial assistance, mentorship and other support.

The foundation holds PowHERful Enrichment Conferences across the country, the most recent being in Jacksonville, Florida “to create an opportunity for girls across the country who have limited means to get all the resources they need to get through college and into the workforce... all the things that parents and professionals might offer a young woman of greater means.”

The Jacksonville event is is one of seven announced for 2017. The next one is May 13 in Atlanta.

To donate, apply for a scholarship or get more information about the PowHERful Foundation, contact the foundation at 134 W. 26th St., Suite 1150, New York, NY 10001 or go to powherful.org.

Starfish Scholar Program: Transforming Lives — One Girl at a Time

In 2017, Soledad O'Brien and her foundation, the Starfish Scholar Program, continues its philanthropic venture.

Focusing on disadvantaged young women and with a goal of helping a group of them complete their college education and begin careers, the foundation’s motto is “Transforming Lives — One Girl at a Time.”

O'Brien's day might well start at 5:30 a.m. and into a hair and make-up chair before appearing on television.

The day can include foundation business, conducting interviews, being interviewed and working on documentaries for her Starfish Media group.

Plus, Soledad is a wife and mother of four. Her evening might be devoted to family, public events, or dinner with her young scholars at her New York apartment.

“Our Scholars are young,” says O’Brien. “They haven’t been through the experience where the thing that was bad actually turned out to be a blessing, and the thing that was great turned out to be not so great. That’s what time gives us.”

Panel on 'Hidden Figures' Hosted by Soledad O'Brien

(From left to right: Elizabeth Gabler, President Fox 2000 Pictures, 20th Century Fox; Rashid Ferrod Davis, Founding Principal, P-TECH; Kristen Summers, Technical Delivery Lead, Watson Public Sector, IBM; Soledad O’Brien, journalist and panel moderator. Image: Black Enterprise)

Coinciding with the official nationwide launch of Hidden Figures, the biopic about three black women mathematicians who worked in the earliest days of the American space program, Soledad O'Brien hosted a panel on the movie and a discussion of women in science and tech.

Those mathematicians (Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson, and Mary Jackson) did work that helped John Glenn orbit the Earth in the 1960s.

The panel at CES, the world’s largest technology show, included the film's director, Theodore Melfi, and one of its stars, Octavia Spencer as well as leaders in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and focused on the incredible achievements of the three mathematicians as depicted in the film and the ongoing push for women to succeed in STEM.



Soledad O’Brien said that the movie was an emotional experience for her because it not only recognizes the power of these women using math and science, but also what they accomplished socially. She was struck by how the women affected great change. “These are some tough, amazing women who really got the job done that needed to be done,” she said.

During the movie, Octavia Spencer’s character learns to program the IBM 7090 DPS—a vacuum-tube mainframe computer. IBM is one of the oldest tech companies in the world, forming in the 19th century. Its technology was used in World War II and for space exploration.

“Big Blue” also has an extensive history of diversity. “We’re so privileged to have had the IBM forefathers who hired the first black employee,” said Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, IBM’s chief diversity officer. That employee was Richard MacGregor hired in 1899 by IBM’s precursor company, the Computing Scale Company. In 1953, IBM hired its first black engineer and continues on a trajectory of diverse hiring today.

You can watch the IBM and Hidden Figures panel in its entirety at facebook.com/IBM/videos/1226504650773148/





Source: http://www.blackenterprise.com/technology/ibm-hidden-figures-celebrate-jeannette-epps-foremothers/

A PowHERful Summit with Soledad O'Brien

Interview with Emmy-winning journalist Soledad O'Brien.
Her Starfish Foundation brought one of its "PowHERful Summit"
gatherings for young women to St. Paul's St. Catherine University in 2016.

Soledad O'Brien Moderates Panel on 'Women’s Rights and Gender Equality' Today

Award-winning broadcast anchor and executive Soledad O’Brien will be a keynote presenter and moderator at the “National Conversation on Rights and Justice: Women’s Rights and Gender Equality,” Friday, Oct. 21, at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York.

Register to attend in-person or to watch via live stream at archivesfoundation.org/amendingamerica/conversations/women



National Museum of the American Indian

National Conversation on Rights and Justice: Women’s Rights and Gender Equality with Soledad O'Brien

Award-winning broadcast anchor and executive Soledad O’Brien will be a keynote presenter and moderator at the “National Conversation on Rights and Justice: Women’s Rights and Gender Equality,” Friday, Oct. 21, at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York.

Register to attend in-person or to watch via live stream at https://www.archivesfoundation.org/amendingamerica/conversations/women


National Museum of the American Indian

O'Brien Keynotes Women's History Month Celebration in NJ

Six New Jersey women were honored this month on the campus of Montclair State University as part of U.S. Senator Robert Menendez's sixth annual Women's History Month celebration.

Soledad O'Brien was the keynote speaker for the event.

O'Brien spoke of the influence her mother had on her life as she delivered an inspiring and sometimes comedic message to the honorees and audience. She said, "She made clear that people will be willing to tell you all that you can't do, should do or never be able to do, but actually, it's up to you. She was right."

O'Brien said that her mother taught her to have courage and to be brave. O'Brien said that she and her five siblings were all raised to be successful. "If she taught me anything, it was to be a fighter, especially for opportunities for others."

This ceremony honored six women who have made significant contributions to the Garden State and our country in law, health care, education, community and environmental advocacy. The awardees are:

Paulette Brown; President, American Bar Association
Kyung Hee Choi; VP Asian Health Services, Holy Name Medical Center
Chelsea Collins; NJEA Teacher of the Year, Woodstown Middle School
Michellene Davis; Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Barnabas Health
Siomara Sanchez; President, National Association of Cuban-American Women
Cindy Zipf; Executive Director, Clean Ocean Action

Soledad O'Brien and #GirlsCan Movement with CoverGirl

COVERGIRL is celebrating the second year of its #GirlsCan program, a movement with a mission to empower young women to overcome barriers, break boundaries and be the next generation to rock the world. At a time when girls are preparing to go back to school and they, along with their mothers and fathers, are thinking about the future, COVERGIRL aims to inspire more women and girls to strive to make strides in areas where women are currently underrepresented, from technology and engineering, to media and sports, to entrepreneurship and beyond. To kick off the second year of the movement, COVERGIRL – which committed $5MM over five years to the cause – is sharing first-year results and also launching a video content series produced by journalist and documentarian Soledad O'Brien.

The content series features powerful stories of four women who have faced challenges, forged ahead and defied the odds to achieve their dreams, setting an example for many other women to follow. The pioneering women featured in the series include:

• COVERGIRL Becky G, an inspiring young Latina rap star, who has broken through on the charts in a male-dominated industry
• Geena Rocero, a transgender woman who has not only graced the cover of top magazines and ads for fashion brands, but is also an entrepreneur with her own production company
• Tina Garnanez, a former female military veteran coping with PTSD, who fought for years in the military, where women make up just 15% of the population
• Rochelle Ballantyne, college student, and currently the closest female in the United States to achieving the chess title of “Master” —there are only 50 female masters out of 846 in the US!

The series is available to view on the COVERGIRL YouTube channel at covergirl.com/GirlsCan.

“Women today are out there breaking barriers and setting records in all sectors of their lives but are still facing challenges that many people wouldn’t expect in the new millennium,” said Soledad O’ Brien. “We are so excited to work with COVERGIRL and share our series on how these courageous women are changing society. Their struggles are all real and relatable while their stories are inspiring.”

COVERGIRL® Celebrates Second Year of #GirlsCan Movement - MarketWatch

#BlogHer15 Announces Keynote Speakers Will Include Starfish Foundation Founder Soledad O’Brien

SheKnows Media, a women’s lifestyle digital media company, announced that #BlogHer15: Experts Among Us, taking place in New York, July 16-18, 2015. The opening general session will focus on next generation online content creators, activists and leaders.

Taking the main stage to present will be Anna Maria Chávez, CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA, Soledad O’Brien, Founder and CEO of the Starfish Foundation, and Samantha Skey, Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer at SheKnowsMedia, along with girls and young women whose lives have been positively impacted by each organization’s respective initiatives, and who represent the next generation of “Experts Among Us”.

O'Brien is an Emmy Award-winning reporter and critically acclaimed author, speaker and philanthropist. She reports for HBO Real Sports, National Geographic, Al Jazeera and other media organizations. O’Brien and her husband, Brad Raymond, created the Soledad O’Brien & Brad Raymond Starfish Foundation to help disadvantaged young women get to and through college. O’Brien will be joined onstage by top Starfish scholars with diverse interests, talents and educational paths. Together, they will share their experiences, the opportunities afforded by their education, and goals for the future.

"I'm thrilled to be taking part in #BlogHer15: Experts Among Us,” O’Brien said. “I'm excited for the opportunity to share the Starfish Foundation's mission of empowering and educating girls, alongside Girl Scouts of the USA and SheKnows Media. Empowering young women is the top focus of my organization, from the 25 core scholars within our daily program to the hundreds of high school- and college-aged girls we reach through our PowHERful Summit. I'm excited to be bringing along a few of our fabulous scholars to the conference to highlight firsthand what our Foundation does."

SOURCE: www.businesswire.com

Soledad O'Brien: Keynote Speaker At Women’s Leadership Conference

Soledad O’Brien was the keynote speaker at the 2014 Women’s Leadership Conference, a non-profit event held at MGM Grand Hotel Casino in Las Vegas August 6 and 7.

The theme of the 2014 conference is “Women Inspiring Women.” The two-day conference will offer a wide range of learning opportunities, career guidance and personal growth tools.

A winner of multiple Emmy and Peabody awards, Ms. O’Brien is well-known for several critically acclaimed and successful documentary series on CNN, including “Black in America” and its follow-up, “Latino in America.” She will continue to produce those documentaries and other content through Starfish Media Group, a multi-platform media production and distribution company she launched in June 2013.

Starfish Media is dedicated to presenting empowering personal stories that explore the often divisive issues of race, class, wealth, poverty and opportunity. Ms. O’Brien has also won numerous journalism awards for her documentaries “Latino in America 2,” the story of a Latina boxer who dreams of Olympic glory; “Gay in America: Gary and Tony have a baby,” and “Unwelcome, the Muslims Next Door.”


Named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists and one of Newsweek Magazine’s “10 People who Make America Great,” Ms. O’Brien recently entered into a multifaceted partnership with HBO. As part of the Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel team, she will have the opportunity to bring her distinctive style of storytelling to the world of sports. In addition to appearing on the award-winning program, the deal with HBO encompasses a first-look opportunity for scripted projects and long-form programming concepts with Ms. O’Brien’s Starfish Media Group.

In 2013, Ms. O’Brien joined Harvard University as a Distinguished Fellow and was appointed to the Board of Directors of the foundation for The National Archives.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Ms. O’Brien and her husband, Brad, created The Starfish Foundation to help disadvantaged young women get to and through college. This year they will provide funding and support to 25 deserving young women.

The Women’s Leadership Conference is open to women of all ethnicities, professions and social backgrounds, locally and nationally, and the men who support them. The MGM Resorts Foundation is the conference’s presenting sponsor. Proceeds of the conference after costs will be donated to one or more local nonprofit agencies devoted to the welfare and development of women and girls.

Source: http://businesstraveldestinations.com

Dr. Maya Angelou and Soledad O'Brien to Keynote

The Women's Foodservice Forum (WFF) announced that Dr. Maya Angelou and Soledad O'Brien will headline an all-star bill at their 2014 Annual Leadership Development Conference, which will be held March 23-26, 2014 in Dallas, Texas.

As a conference known for presenting some of the greatest thought leaders and industry trailblazers, the Annual Leadership Development Conference will have Dr. Angelou and Soledad O'Brien, as keynote speakers who will be sharing personal stories of triumph over adversity to inspire attendees.

"Through Soledad's new company, Starfish Media Group, an organization dedicated to telling stories, and Dr. Angelou's endorsement of Buck: A Memoir, MK Asante's new book on equality, these influential women continue to seek out new voices and provide platforms for new and established thought leaders alike," said Anna Mason, vice president of operations and general manager of WFF.

Soledad O'Brien interviews rapper and actress Eve for The XX Project,

From left: XX Project founder Michelle Edgar, Eve and Soledad O'Brien

Soledad O'Brien interviewed rapper/actress Eve as part of a monthly series hosted by The XX Project, an invitation-only group of professional women in various media industries. Soledad facilitated the discussion with rapper, songwriter and actress, Eve, who discussed her accomplishments in a male-dominated industry.

The XX Project was founded by Michelle Edgar, founder and executive director of Music Unites, an organization providing music educational opportunities to underprivileged, inner-city school students. Michelle is also the VP of business development for New Era Media & Marketing.

O'Brien is herself a role model and CEO of production company Starfish Media Group and a supporter of women's success in areas where they're otherwise underrepresented.

Soledad O'Brien Delivers Commencement Address in Georgia

Soledad O’Brien, Emmy-winning journalist and CNN special correspondent, delivered remarks at Agnes Scott College in Georgia at the 124th Commencement on May 11. O’Brien was also awarded an honorary degree for her distinguished career as a broadcast journalist, trailblazing documentaries about race, ethnicity and American identity and personal philanthropic commitment to the education and empowerment of young women.

The small women's college had 187 graduates, ranging in age from 20 to 52 years and hailing from 34 states and 12 countries.

“As you leave here, over the next few years, you’ll be told all the things you cannot do, cannot achieve and those things you absolutely, positively will fail in. Please do not listen … if you listen to those naysayers, then you’re the bigger idiot,” O’Brien said.

She recounted the tale of how her Cuban black mother and Australian white father had met in Baltimore, fallen in love, and married in 1958 despite a law against interracial marriage and despite the disapproval of society at the time.

She told the graduates, “You have an opportunity to be a role model to those who look like you and those who look nothing like you.”

Women Influencers as Change Agents

BlogHer, Inc., the premium cross-platform media network and publisher for women, announced today that Soledad O'Brien, Christy Turlington Burns and Malaak Compton-Rock will discuss "Women Influencers as Change Agents" at the 2012 BlogHer Annual Conference on Saturday, August 4, 2012 in New York City. The panel will highlight the activism and charitable work of O'Brien, Turlington Burns and Compton-Rock to BlogHer's audience of influential online women.

Soledad O'Brien is an award-winning anchor and special correspondent for CNN. Soledad and husband, Brad Raymond, are founders of The Soledad O'Brien & Brad Raymond Foundation, providing young women a bridge between obstacles and opportunity, giving them the experiences, education and resources to overcome unexpected barriers to success.

Christy Turlington Burns is a global maternal health advocate and founder of Every Mother Counts, an advocacy and mobilization campaign to increase education and support for maternal mortality reduction globally.

Malaak Compton-Rock has leveraged her career in public relations to develop philanthropic cause-related campaigns and programs focused on education and poverty disparities in the U.S. and in Africa.

"Soledad O'Brien, Christy Turlington Burns and Malaak Compton-Rock are inspiring examples of women who have used their influence to make tangible change in the world," said Elisa Camahort Page, Jory Des Jardins and Lisa Stone, BlogHer co-founders. "The women of the BlogHer community, individually and collectively, have a tremendous amount of power. We hope to galvanize every BlogHer in the room to share how they are using social media to change the world and to explore and expand how they use their power."

Soledad at the Girls Who Rule The World Mentoring Weekend

CNN Anchorwoman Soledad O'Brien attended the Girls Who Rule The World Mentoring Weekend and The Steve & Marjorie Harvey Foundation - Day 1 at Evergreen Marriott Conference Resort on October 28, 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia.

(L-R) Marjorie Harvey, CNN anchorwomen Fredricka Whitfield and Soledad O'Brien

Photos by Moses Robinson/Getty Images North America via zimbio.com/photos/

O'Brien Headlines Women's Business Conference in Las Vegas

Soledad O'Brien will headline the Women's Business Enterprise National Council's (WBENC) 12th Annual National Conference and Business Fair – The Opportunity Connection – in Las Vegas, NV, on June 21-23, 2011.

The three-day event – the largest of its kind in the nation – is expected to convene over 3,000 corporations and women business owners seeking to acquire cutting-edge knowledge about business trends and marketplace demands that affect their industries and their companies.

CNN's Soledad O'Brien to Headline Women's Business Enterprise National Council 12th Annual National Conference & Business Fair in Las Vegas June 21-23 - Press Release - Digital Journal: