Anita Abaisa

Professional Upgrader of Socio-economic Positions

Founder of Black Ladies Talk which is the largest black women community in Europe, IBias VR and Co-Founder of Gladiator Academy where she bridges the gap between education and the job market. Mission: Upgrade socio-economic positions of underrepresented groups. She is a Professional Upgrader and challenges the status quo to upgrade with her. She has a background in Sales, Positive Psychology and Learning & Development.

IBias VR focuses on making the VR technology available and affordable for large group of companies and entrepreneurs in the DEI field to create real and lasting impact.

Isabel Awad Cherit, Ph.D

Erasmus University, Department of Media & Communication

Isabel is theme lead (on Diversity and Inclusion) within the Vital Cities and Citizens Erasmus Initiative. She obtained her PhD in Communication from Stanford University (USA) in 2007. The underlying concern of her teaching and research is an understanding of the conditions for democratic communication and social justice against a backdrop of social inequality. Much of her work focuses on how the (news) media contribute to the inclusion/exclusion of marginalized social groups and on the efforts of specific actors (journalists, activists, ordinary citizens) to navigate creatively within hegemonic media environments.

Laura-anne Grimbergen

Founder, DANSVOER

I guess I’ll describe myself as a kitesurfer, photographer, and entrepreneur. I’ve earned degrees in Art, Psychology, and Neuroscience. After graduation, I got offered an amazing Ph.D. position in the Erasmus Medical Center, which I gladly took on but decided to walk away from after about 1,5 years. Many adventures have crossed my path since. I’ve traveled, fallen in love with the ocean, met some amazing people, organized countless sold-out events hosting over 25.000 people. I’ve built my company from scratch and I’ve seen it all fall apart in front of my eyes when COVID hit. It’s been 7 years since I registered as an entrepreneur.

Lara Manqui

Empowering Women in Tech Through Balanced Growth

Lara Manqui is an empowerment coach, entrepreneur, professional speaker, and an electronics engineer with a masters in IT. After 10 years of building a career in the world of technology, she gave up corporate life to start her own business supporting women in this industry to create satisfaction and success in their professional lives. During the pandemic she became a slightly obsessed crypto enthusiast and spends much of her time learning about the wonders of the Web3 space. During her spare time, she makes homemade soaps, cycles across the Holland farmlands and creates great adventures with her 8-year-old whirlwind of a daughter.

Mariah Mansvelt Beck

Founder, Yoni

It was never my intention to start a period care company, but everything changed when I had a cervical cancer scare a while ago. I started looking into what we put into, and close to our bodies every month, and found plastic, synthetics and more.

With the goal to make period care as honest and sustainable as possible, I started Yoni in 2015 – and now can’t imagine it having gone any other way.  I hope that by opening up to new ideas about menstruation and female-sex wellbeing we can make periods a little kinder for everyone who has them, and the planet we live on.

Rick Rendon

Founder, Empower Peace

Mr. Rendon is the founder of Empower Peace and Senior Partner of The Rendon Group, a Boston-based communications firm that specializes in public affairs campaigns. Empower Peace was founded on the premise that young people, through communication and the promotion of cultural understanding, could help pave the way for peace. Mr. Rendon holds strong to the beliefthat our future generation has the ability to create change and that they hold the key to breaking down the cultural barriers that threaten to divide the Western, Muslim and Arab worlds.

Throughout his career, Mr. Rendon has taken great pride in creating and developing innovative community-based initiatives and social campaigns. Working with community leaders and activists, Mr. Rendon helped create and organize the world’s largest school-based racial harmony campaign. For seven years “TEAM HARMONY” brought together over 15,000 middle and high school students from throughout New England to discuss the issues of hatred and prejudice and to develop programs to promote diversity and harmony in schools and communities region wide. Team Harmony’s keynote speakers have included former United States President Bill Clinton, United States Senator and former First Lady, Hillary Clinton, former United States Attorney General Janet Reno, and the Reverend Bernice King (daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.).

Mr. Rendon was also the creator and co-founder of the school-based program, “UNITED WE STAND FOR AMERICA”. This program was developed post 9/11 to provide youth with an opportunity to express their emotions and feelings in the wake of the terrorist attacks. Students throughout Massachusetts were recruited to create individual messages of peace, hope, and patriotism on six-inch tiles of red, white and blue fabric. This fabric was then assembled to create a giant quilt of an American flag (nearly half the size of a football field). Over 700 schools and 50,000 students participated in this program.

Mr. Rendon, working with the Islamic Society of Boston, the Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General, and the Governor’s Task Force on Hate Crimes, developed the “OUTNUMBER THE HATE” campaign. This Massachusetts school-based campaign encouraged students to rally against hate, prejudice and intolerance experienced by Muslim and Arabs in the United States post-9/11. In response to the 1,700 hate crimes reported against Muslims and Arabs living in America, Massachusetts’ students responded by creating OVER 1,700 messages of respect, diversity and tolerance. In addition to over thirty years of experience as a senior communications consultant, Mr. Rendon served previously as a Public Information Officer for the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and as a member of United States President Jimmy Carter’s national political staff.

Keri Thompson

Senior Lecturer, Emerson College;
Chair, Cohasset Select Board

Keri Thompson is a Senior Lecturer at Emerson College and specializes in public speaking, politics and social media. She has extensive public speaking experience and has taught, coached and lectured on the subject at various schools and organizations across the country. She specializes in coaching and training political candidates. Her research specialties include nonverbal communication and image, political communication, social media, rhetoric and language. Specifically, her interests are in social media and politics, presidential rhetoric and campaign communication. She has been busy pioneering ways to use Snapchat in both the classroom and the political arena.

Keri was born in Boston and grew up in the suburbs of Acton. After attending Acton-Boxborough public schools, she graduated with a BS in Speech Communication from Bradley University in Peoria, IL. While there she met an obscure State Senator named Barack Obama who convinced her to ditch her Republican roots and become a political activist. She continued her graduate education at Pepperdine University and the University of Texas at Austin, finishing with MAs in Strategic Communication & Rhetoric and Political Communication respectively. Keri lives on the South Shore (in Cohasset) and can often be found near the ocean wearing a Red Sox hat and a "Free Brady Again" hoodie.

Course: Battling the Imposter Syndrome!

Maria van der Sluijs-Plantz

Councilor for the Kingdom on behalf of Sint Maarten at Raad van State

Maria has had a successful career as executive managing director in various corporate groups and at various levels.

This included being CEO of a fast-growing financial services company where she worked for 19,5 years: TMF Group. When she became CEO of TMF Group in 2003, the group was present in 19 countries, had about 800 employees, a revenue of EUR 53 mio and EBITDA of 20,5 mio. At the end of 2011, the last year she served as CEO before handing over to her successor, the group had grown to a presence of over 100 offices in over 75 countries, had about 5,000 employees a revenue of EUR 371,4 mio and EBITDA of EUR 107,1 mio. She continued as non-executive director of TMF Group until 2017.

Since leaving TMF Group as executive director in 2013, Maria is active in non-executive or supervisory roles of companies and NGO’s where her knowledge, know-how and experience adds value. Next to that she coaches young women, supports management teams in M&A transactions and continues with entrepreneurial endeavors as (informal) investor.

True to the mantra: “First learn, then earn, to return…..” she has taken up advisory roles for her home country of Sint Maarten in The Caribbean. She served on the first Corporate Governance Council advising the Sint Maarten Government on governance of their state-owned-enterprised. Subsequently she was appointed by royal decree as member of the Commission for Financial Supervision for Curaçao and Sint Maarten  (CFT College Financieel Toezicht).

Currently she is the member of the Kingdom Council of State (Raad van State van het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden) nominated by Sint Maarten, appointed by royal decree.

Her purpose in life is to create lasting value, to build and connect and to have fun at everything she does. 

Marja Verloop

Chargé d’Affaires, U.S. Mission in the Netherlands.

A career member of the U.S. Department of State’s Senior Foreign Service, Marja Verloop arrived in the Netherlands in June 2019 serving as Deputy Chief of Mission. As of January 17, 2021, she assumed responsibility as Chargé d’Affaires for the U.S. Mission in the Netherlands.

Since joining the Department of State in 1998, Marja has pursued a diverse career in numerous assignments in Washington D.C. and at Embassies overseas. Prior to this assignment, Marja served as Deputy Executive Director for the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Bureau, with administrative responsibility and oversight for 45 overseas posts and 12 domestic offices. Marja’s overseas tours have included positions in New Delhi, India, Ottawa, Canada, Windhoek, Namibia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Warsaw, Poland. Domestically she has served as the State Department’s Director for Innovation, as a desk officer to the European Union, a negotiator in the Office of Global Change, and as a Congressional Fellow.

Throughout her career, Marja has also served as a member of the Department’s Leadership Roundtable, mentors incoming officers, and is the recipient of numerous Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards. Born in the Netherlands, Marja was raised and educated in the United States. She earned her B.A. from the University of Southern California, her M.A. from the University of Washington, and completed post-graduate coursework at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington D.C. Marja is married and has two children.

Mason West

Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,
Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School

Mason West III earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Theology at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama. He later earned his Masters degree in Urban and Regional Planning and Community Development from Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University. Currently he is pursuing his Doctoral Degree in Educational Leadership at the University of Tennessee. For fifteen years Mr. West served as an instructor and administrator. He has educated youth in Georgia, Alabama and Bermuda as an exceptional Religion and Social Studies instructor. Mr. West also served as an associate pastor at the West End Church in Atlanta Georgia and the Madison Mission Church in Madison, Alabama. Currently, Mr. West serves others in several capacities. He is the Director of Community Learning at the Randolph School in Huntsville, Alabama. He is the Director of Ministry for the Buckhead Community Fellowship Ministry in Atlanta, Georgia. He is the founder and CEO of the Mason West Group (MWG), a youth leadership consulting company. His company specializes in the creation of youth leadership programs. In 2003, Mr. West started his Talented Tenth Leadership Program to teach youth how to influence their peers, their government and their economy. Mr. West is also the co-founder and Chief Operations Officer for Engage Youth Empowerment Services, a youth advocacy company based in Wolverhampton, England.

Course: The Leader in You

Iris de With

Co-President, Let’s Break the Shame

Iris is the other Co-President of Let's Break The Shame and is on a mission to show people there is more than meets the eye when suffering from depression, PTSD, anxiety, or an eating disorder. As Iris has personally experienced these issues, she wants to use her story to help others mentally climb out of a dark place. She is a firm believer in the fact that nobody can dictate how you should live your life or tell you how you should feel in a specific situation. She is passionate about using her personal experiences to help others define what they stand for and reclaim their space.