The Global Women’s Initiative conference to be held at the Georgia Aquarium on Oct. 4 is to feature an array of women leaders and activists who have been invited to speak as role models for women and girls.
Titled “Creating Effective Leadership for the 21st Century Economy: Popular Culture and Positive Role Models for Women and Girls,” the conference is organized by Womenetics, an Atlanta-based media platform providing women with tools and knowledge necessary to boost business success.
Speakers are to include Edit Schlaffer, who founded the Vienna, Austria-based Women Without Borders in 2002, an international advocacy organization to empower women globally.
Among her recent projects is SAVE, Sisters Against Violent Extremism, which through its chapters in India, Indonesia, Israel and Palestine, Northern Ireland, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and Yemen provide networks of support for women in those countries.
Musimbi Kanyoro, the president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, a publicly supported grantmaking foundation that advances human rights by investing in women-led organizations, is to be the luncheon speaker.
Dr. Kanyoro, who is originally from Kenya, is the first non-white woman to serve as general secretary of the World YWCA, the largest women’s membership organization that operates in more than 120 countries.
She also is a founding member of the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS, a worldwide alliance of civil society groups, networks of women living with HIV, women’s organizations, AIDS service organizations, and the United Nations system, committed to strengthening AIDS programming for women and girls.
Other speakers include Madeline Di Nonno, executive director for the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, the leading nonprofit working to improve media images of girls and women; renowned filmmaker and writer Jean Kilbourne, a pioneer in the critical study of women’s portrayal in advertising; Gabi Zedlmayer, vice president of sustainability and social innovation at Hewlett-Packard Co.; Pola Changnon, vice president of on-air promotions and creative director at Turner Classic Movies.
Pat Mitchell, the first woman to become president and CEO of Public Broadcasting Service and currently president and CEO of The Paley Center for Media, is to be the opening speaker.
To register or for more information, click here or call 404-816-7224.

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