Welcome to WECAN’s Speakers & Special Guests page! Read up on workshops, biographies, and find more information about the women we’re honoring and elevating to empower the rest of the community!
Tanya Pinto
Baal Dan Charities
Founder
In 2005, Tanya decided to take a sabbatical from her fast-paced job in advertising in Dallas, TX and work in an orphanage in Calcutta, India. The experience was life-changing.
She started Baal Dan Charities (Baal means Child, Dan means Donation in Hindi) – providing feeding programs, supplies and education to orphans and impoverished children in India.
Baal Dan has grown in leaps and bounds through Tanya’s commitment to finding and investing in effective grassroots projects providing air to over 3,000 children.
Tanya was awarded the Sri-Sri Ravi Shankar Award for Uplifting Human Values, and has been a speaker at TEDxSMU and on NBC Dallas.
To learn more about Tanya’s work, please visit baaldan.com or email tanya@baaldan.com or read the following recently published article called Saving India One Step At A Time.
Read Baal Dan’s latest newsletter here!
Keynote Title: What Can Change Everything? How One Woman, who dreamed of feeding 1 child, is now feeding 1,000 everyday sponsored by Novedea Systems Inc.
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Dr. Myra White
Behavior Scientific
CEO, Founder
Dr. White teaches students at Harvard how to succeed in the workplace and is a columnist for Management-Issues.com. She is founder and CEO of Behavior Scientific which helps companies identify and select people for top level positons who can deliver the results they need and take their businesses to ever greater heights. A graduate of Harvard Law School with a Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard, Dr. White has consulted to businesses for over 15 years. As a former competitive athlete, Dr. White believes that we can all be winners if we know the right steps to take and how to apply the strategies and techniques that superstars use in our own lives. White also played on Harvard Women’s Ice Hockey Team.
Myra White is also the author of Follow the Yellow Brick Road: A Harvard Psychologist’s Guide to Becoming a Superstar.
Keynote Title: A Harvard Psychologist’s Guide to Becoming A Female Superstar Like Oprah and More
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Lacey Wilson
Miss Massachusetts USA
TV Host
Lacey Wilson is the current Miss Massachusetts USA 2010 and is going on to compete at the Miss USA pageant LIVE on NBC on May 16th. The 26-year-old graduated with honors from the University of Southern California, earning a Bachelors degree in Communications and a minor in News Media & Society. Lacey is currently a TV host for StyleBoston, a weekly lifestyle, fashion and entertainment show on NECN. Lacey also works as a professional model and recently walked the runways in New York Fashion Week. Throughout her year as Miss Massachusetts USA 2010, Lacey will continue her philanthropic work with breast and ovarian cancer organizations as the official cause of Miss USA. She is especially passionate about her work with the Susan G. Komen Foundation, Best Buddies Organization and the Muscular Dystrophy Association. She is looking forward to an exciting year of community outreach, special events, and is thrilled about being selected to represent the amazing state of Massachusetts at the Miss USA Pageant this spring on NBC!
Read her blog here.
Workshop Title: Interviewing & Working with a Queen’s Ethic
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Jennifer Donahue
Political Analyst
CNN, Huffington Post
Since 1989, Jennifer Donahue has worked in the media, from production assistant and producer, to press secretary and political analyst. Her body of work includes ABC World News Tonight, Nightline, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, MSNBC’s Hardball, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, NPR, and many, many more. She covered the 2000 presidential race for a NH television station, MSNBC, Newsweek, and past races for CNN and C-SPAN.
Jennifer Donahue was a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government’s Institute of Politics in 2008. She can be heard on news and radio stations throughout the New England area, as well as nationally, and writes for Huffington Post regularly.
Workshop Title: The Evolution of Women in the Media & Politics
Description: Throughout her career, Donahue has reported without contract or syndication to any single major media network. She aims to speak truth to power and elevate the voice of the independent voter. Come learn about a career in media – both broadcast and print – before and after the “glass ceiling” and discuss politics from someone who has covered it for over two decades from both Washington, D.C. and the New England area.
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Marci Anderson
Marci RD Nutrition Consulting
RD, Nutritionist, Personal Trainer
Marci empowers individuals to find a healthy balance with food and exercise. Through one-on-one consulting, public speaking, and culinary consulting Marci’s clients become their own nutrition experts, developing the confidence and skills necessary for making satisfying and nourishing food choices. By ditching the endless cycle of fads, dieting, and bad habit cycles, Marci helps her clients find lifestyle solutions that are manageable today and forever.
By integrating nutrition therapy and culinary know-how she teaches a spectrum of clients how to trust themselves with food and how to make nourishing food choices.
Workshop Title: “YOU” Can Become Your Own Nutrition Expert & Love Food Too!
Description: Have you ever marveled at the multitude of successess in your life, yet continue to feel frustrated with eating right and feeding your body well? Do you have a love/hate relationship with food? If you answered yes, you are not alone! My life’s work is committed to empowering individuals to gain the skills and confidence they need to make nourishing food choices without the guilt, the stress, or the deprivation. I’ll share with each of you my three top tips so that “YOU” can too.
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Michele Blanc
Harvard Alumni Association
Sr. Associate Director
Michele Blanc is the Senior Associate Director for the Classes and Reunions Department of the Harvard Alumni Association and has oversight for all Harvard College Reunions. Additionally she plans and executes the 25th , 30th and 35th reunions for Harvard College. She is an elected director for the Harvard Extension School Alumni Association. She received a Certificate of Management from the Extension School in June, 07 and was recently honored as a Harvard Hero. Come learn about event planning, preparation and management for one of the oldest, most prestigious Universities in the United States – and how to keep the Alumni coming back!
Workshop Title: Planning and Hosting the Ultimate Special Event
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Swapna Bolleboina
Boston Public Schools
International Special Needs Educator
Swapna Bolleboina has about nine years of experience teaching individuals with Special Needs, both in the US and in India. Some of her work includes, working with individuals with varied types of disabilities such as multiple disabilities, autism, mental retardation, behavior disorders and learning disabilities. She has had the opportunity of conducting workshops at the grass root level in India to update the knowledge of community workers, administrators and teachers in the field. Currently she works with Boston Public Schools as a Special Educator. When not working, she likes to spend time with her lovely husband Ramdhan and her daughter Tanmayi.
Workshop Title: Empowering the “differently abled”: An account of a Special Educator’s journey and her work with individulas with disabilities
Description: Swapna Bolleboina will be sharing her journey through the years as a Special Educator, her insight in the field of Special Education, some tips for the mothers and educators as to how best they can help the individuals who are “differently abled”.
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Natascha Saunders, MBA, MS
The Youth Career Coach, Inc.
CEO, Founder
Natascha is a certified career coach and speaker. She provides coaching within the areas of Professional Development. Natascha is an Assistant Director of Career Services at Boston University School of Management, Adjunct Faculty for the University of Rhode Island Women’s Studies Department and Founder of The Youth Career Coach Incorporated. Natascha has spoken at Brown University, Providence College, Simmons College, PriceWaterHouseCoopers and TJX. Natascha has also been featured in Working Mother Magazine and is a Contributing Writer for Color Magazine. Natascha’s motto is: “BE WHAT IT IS YOU WANT TO ATTRACT!” (Please contact: Natascha at www.nataschasaunders.com)
Workshop Title: The Art of Networking
Description: Quality networking should be mastered in order to be effective. Discuss & practice key components: understanding what it is and what it is not, social networks, personal branding and the elevator pitch. In the words of Jeffrey Gitomer, “It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you!”
Workshop Title: Resume Your 1st Marketing Tool
Description: Every resume (also spelled résumé) is a one-of-a-kind form of marketing communication! It’s time to market the most important product – YOU. It’s crucial to your career that you are able to truly understand your accomplishments and how to deliver that message on paper. (Attendees’ can bring resumes)
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Margie Conboy
Boston Maum Center Organization
Director
Maum Meditation was founded in 1996. The first Meditation Center opened to teach people a method to find their true purpose in life. It is a 7- step process of cleansing the mind of all the blockages, hindrances, and afflictions that prevent us from discovering our true purpose and that inhibit us from living a meaningful life. The method is designed for everyone, and there are now over 250 centers located around the world. Those who have completed the steps have eliminated that which blocks the harmonious flow of energy and wisdom and have discovered their life’s purpose.
Workshop title: 7-Steps to Awaken to Your Life’s Purpose
Description: Finding the real purpose of life depends on the clarity of the mind. You will discover the way to find your real purpose by a process of clearing your mind. Living a life without knowing your true purpose can cause fear, stress, and illness, yet with a clear mind you will know the meaning of life and live a purposeful life without fears, stress and lack.
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Olivia Izzi
Paul Mitchell Design School, Rhode Island
Paul Mitchell The School How We Give Back
For over 20 years, the staffs at Paul Mitchell Schools have built strong
working relationships with salons around the world. The Paul Mitchell network in the United States and Canada is over 70,000 salons strong, and we’re in 44 countries worldwide. Paul Mitchell-trained hair designers work in virtually every corner of the world, and every professional hairdresser knows the Paul Mitchell name. In the past five years, Paul Mitchell Schools have donated their time and more than $2.5 million in support of many charitable causes. In
conjunction with our own nonprofit organization, the Andrew Gomez Dream Foundation, we’ve built two homes through Habitat for Humanity; fed thousands of African orphans; provided resources for caregivers through the Leeza Gibbons Memory Foundation; provided hair care services for the poor and homeless; helped beauty industry professionals in the wake of natural disasters; and supported the victims of AIDS, breast cancer, homelessness, domestic abuse, and hundreds of other causes, to name just a few.
“Service is the rent you pay for room on this earth.” – Shirley Chisho
