Speakers from our 2023 Conference in NYC
Susan Zheng – Senior Director, Barbie Global Brand Marketing
Susan oversees global brand strategy, 360 consumer marketing campaigns and social impact for the Barbie brand. Most recently, Susan led the launch of Barbie The Movie marketing which became a global cultural phenomenon and reached box office success as the #1 movie in the world for 2023.
Susan has 17+ years of experience in brand building and franchise marketing. She has strong expertise in transforming IPs into franchises, creating innovative launch strategies, and delivering high impact integrated marketing campaigns.
Since joining Barbie in 2021, she has led efforts of the Barbie Dream Gap Project to impact 25+ million kids worldwide to date. She has a strong passion for helping girls and kids achieve their full potential.
Sheena Wilde, vice president of corporate philanthropy, Kendra Scott Foundation
As Vice President of Corporate Philanthropy & The Kendra Scott Foundation, a jewelry brand with 134+ namesake stores, Kendra Scott’s mission to create good in the world has been realized through Sheena’s dedication and effort since 2015.
A “do good” architect, Sheena oversees all philanthropic strategy, growth, and implementation for the organization’s local and national programs & partnerships, including the launched Kendra Scott Foundation.
She was a winner of Austin Business Journal's 2022 Women in Business Awards and a recipient of Retail TouchPoints 2021 40 Under 40 award. She is actively engaged within her local community, serving as an advisory board member for Derrick Johnson's Defend the Dream Foundation, board member for Ronald McDonald House of Central Texas, the Kendra Scott Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute, and the JC7 Foundation.
Stacy Igel, Founder and creative director of BOY MEETS GIRL®
STACY IGEL is the founder and creative director of BOY MEETS GIRL®, a global impact brand known for its iconic double-silhouette logo and purposeful, edgy, contemporary athleisure wear. Stacy and BOY MEETS GIRL® seek to promote the message that confidence and courage are trends that never go out of style.
Stacy has had exclusive fashion partnerships with Paris’s colette, Bergdorf Goodman Saks Fifth Avenue, Target, and NBA’s Chicago Bulls and Atlanta Hawks, to name a few. She collaborates with musical artists, athletes, and activists making an impact, as well as organizations including the Young Survival Coalition, BullyBust, Human Rights Watch, Youth Over Guns, and many others.
Stacy and BOY MEETS GIRL® have been featured in Elle, Cosmopolitan, PEOPLE, Teen Vogue, Women’s Wear Daily, The New York Times, and dozens more. She is the co-creator and cohost of the podcast #MOMSGOTTHIS, which was featured on Forbes as a “women-created podcast everyone should be listening to right now.” Stacy is a frequent lecturer and panelist on subjects like social media, philanthropy, branding, and entrepreneurship, and just authored her book- Embracing The Calm In the Chaos: How to Find Success in Business and Life Through Perseverance, Connection, and Collaboration, about her entrepreneurial journey and provides practical tips and takeaways for others to use in life and business. She lives in New York City with her husband Brian and their son Dylan.
Mollye Rhea, Founder of For momentum
Mollye Rhea founded For Momentum in 2003, when very few agencies specialized in cause marketing. Since then, For Momentum has become one of the leading cause marketing firms in the United States.
Through her work in nonprofit development, brand marketing and cause marketing, Mollye has a unique 360-degree perspective of what fosters success in strategic cause partnerships. In her 25+ years in the field, she has developed sponsorship strategies for dozens of nonprofit organizations and hundreds of brands. Mollye has served a broad range of nonprofit organizations including the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, American Cancer Society, March of Dimes, Habitat for Humanity International, Arthritis Foundation, Communities in Schools, Paralyzed Veterans of. America, SeriousFun Children’s Network, US Fund for UNICEF, Covenant House, and National Stroke Association to name a few. Corporate and media partners include large pharmaceutical companies, cable networks, hotel brands and their franchisees and retailers.
Mary Alice Stephenson, Founder GLAM4GOOD
Mary Alice Stephenson is a renowned fashion and beauty expert, humanitarian and the founder and force behind GLAM4GOOD.
The GLAM4GOOD Foundaton’s award-winning free, pop-up shops have provided over 35 million in new clothing and personal care essentials nationwide, GLAM4GOOD has partnered with BOY MEETS GIRL® Kendra Scott Tommy Hilfiger, Michelle Obama, O, The Oprah Magazine, H&M, Ulta Beauty, New York Administration of Child Services,The United States Armed Forces, The United Nations, and the Today Show to name a few.
Drew Train, ceo of oberland
Drew (he/him) has been OBERLAND’s CEO and the driving force behind our approach to purpose driven work for clients and our internal operations since the agency opened 9 years ago. Before launching OBERLAND, Drew started the social-good practice at J. Walter Thompson, called JWT Ethos. Drew learned his craft through extensive work on global, corporate brands like HSBC, Verizon, UPS, Puma, Lufthansa, and Tiffany & Co. in the U.S. and Shanghai. Drew served on the Board of Directors for Summer Infant, Inc. as head of the Product Committee and a member of the Nom/Gov Committee - overseeing all product development, marketing and ESG initiatives. Drew also serves on the Board of Directors for the National Alliance on Mental Illness of New York City.
Megan Anhalt, Chief Strategy Officer and COO of Whole Whale
Megan is the Chief Strategy Officer and COO of Whole Whale. She has over 15 years of experience leading purpose-driven projects to help nonprofits, foundations, and companies create social impact. Megan has presented and led discussions for forums like the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference, Nonprofit Technology Conference, and Social Media Week. She's also an adjunct lecturer at the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs on mobilizing digital communications at Baruch College CUNY.
Scarlett Lewis, Founder of the Choose Love Movement
Scarlett Lewis founded the nonprofit Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement in honor of her son, Jesse, who was murdered during the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy in December 2012. Shortly after his death, Scarlett decided to be part of the solution to the issues that we’re seeing in our society — that also caused the tragedy — and turned it into an opportunity to build a culture of love, resilience, forgiveness, and connection in our communities at a time when it is needed the most…
Kathryn Goetzke, Chief Hope Officer of The Shine Hope Company
Kathryn Goetzke is Chief Hope Officer of The Shine Hope Company, the Author of ‘The Biggest Little Book About Hope‘, podcast host of The Hope Matrix, Creator of award winning Hopeful Minds, Hopeful Cities, and Hopeful Mindsets, Social Entrepreneur, Chief Mood Officer, and Business Strategist. In 2004, launched Mood-lites™, a brand that achieved over 35 million dollars in retail sales and ran the first cause marketing campaign for mental health. She was recently appointed to represent the World Federation for Mental Health at the United Nations, representing the almost 1 billion people around the world with mental health disorders.
SoVonna Day-Goins, CEO of Women X Meta
SoVonna Day-Goins, CEO of Women X Meta, seamlessly blends tech innovation with social impact, advocating for women and POC in the Web3 era. Her legacy includes leading roles at financial giants and pioneering Wall Street's first Global Head of Social Sustainability position. A fervent advocate for cause marketing, she serves on several non-profit boards, including chair of Comprehensive Youth Development and she co-founded impactful events like The Blockchain For Social Good Conference. Experience her mission-centric approach on on LinkedIn or her website.
Hope Freedman
Hope is a consumer brand marketer and passionate Purpose practitioner, who guides organizations to discover, strengthen and activate their social and sustainability initiatives that positively impact business, consumers, stakeholders, and communities. She is committed to leveraging ‘brand purpose’ as a strategy to build brand equity for both societal and bottom-line impact.
With extensive experience in CPG marketing roles on iconic brands at Fortune 500 companies including Unilever, L'Oréal, Dannon and Reckitt, Hope followed her passion to build brands as “social change agents” and steered her career to Cause Branding, Brand Purpose, and CSR. She honed her Brand Purpose expertise at Edelman in its prestigious global Business + Social Purpose practice, working on CPG clients including Quaker, Edgewell, and Unilever among others. She developed a best practice guide for a proprietary social mission process and trained staff at all levels.
Hope now brings “big brand product management and strategic planning” know-how to companies to help them with purpose-driven and sustainability initiatives. She also brings value to nonprofit organizations by helping enhance their appeal to potential partners for delivery of their missions. Hope served on the board of a collegiate foundation as a longtime trustee and has consulted for a number of nonprofit organizations.
As adjunct faculty, Hope brings her passion for and knowledge of Brand Purpose and CSR to higher education. She creates and teaches curriculum in Cause Branding, CSR, and other Marketing topics -- with past and present affiliations at NYU School of Professional Studies, Fordham Business School, Baruch College, and LIM College. She has been a guest lecturer at Columbia University, Savannah College of Arts & Design, New York University and Fordham University. Hope also imparts her expertise about the intersection of brands, marketing and social good as a writer, editor, and award judge.
Jaci Hirschfeld, Senior Director of Marketing, Communications and Relationships for the 14th Street Y
Jaci, a third-generation Brooklynite, is a passionate marketing and communications professional with nearly 20 years experience in the nonprofit and social impact sector.
She fully understands the unique challenges nonprofits face to effectively communicate their missions and reach those that need them most. During Jaci’s tenure as Program Director of FY Eye, a nonprofit advertising agency, she worked with hundreds of organizations looking to market on shoestring budgets.
Jaci has the results-driven mind of a savvy multifaceted marketer and can craft campaigns that shape change. As the Director of Client Services at DCF Advertising, she’s worked closely with organizations, including the NYC Department of Mental Health and Hygiene, Human Resources Administration and Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers, on many acclaimed public service initiatives. Campaigns included NYC Childcare Connect, “Stay Close. Sleep Apart.”, NYC Water, and NYC Condom–the first municipally branded condom in the United States.
Jaci also managed smoking cessation initiatives for the Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention & Tobacco Control, helping to launch the award winning “Cigarettes Are Eating You Alive”, “Marie’s Story”, and a campaign featuring Dr. Mary Bassett, the Health Commissioner of NYC.
Shifting gears, she joined the communications team at Young Survival Coalition, the premier organization serving young women facing breast cancer. As the Senior Communications Manager, Jaci planned and implemented a multidimensional national media program targeting a complex and growing constituency.
In addition to her full-time work, Jaci also consulted with a multitude of organizations on cost effective content marketing strategies. Most recently, she worked at Women’s Refugee Commission, the leading advocacy organization focused on the rights and protection of women, children, and youth fleeing violence and persecution, where she stepped up to the challenge of fulfilling all of their marketing and communications needs.
Jaci earned her B.A. and M.A. in Cultural Anthropology, with a focus on vulnerable and ethnic populations. She still lives in Brooklyn, of course, with her Italian husband and fuzzy son, Icarus the cat. When she’s not busy keeping up with new media trends, she’s busy cooking, discovering new local restaurants, and traveling the globe.
Jennifer Richey, Founder of the Cause marketing Summit
Jenn has over 12 years of experience working in both the public and private sectors. She has worked for brands like Comedy Central, the Partnership for a Healthier New York City and Public Health Solutions. Most recently, she served as the Associate Director of Corporate Partnerships for the Young Survival Coalition. There she managed over 20 corporate partnerships and campaigns to drive revenue and awareness. Jenn strives to connect and share ways to inform the public around pertinent issues via effective communications and outreach strategies. Her passion is in forging relationships between for-profit businesses and cause-minded nonprofit organizations to shape real change and raise money. When she's not working on the Summit or with clients, she is busy being a mom to identical twins, Ethan and Graham.
Pam Yang, Co-Founder Agency DEI
Pam's mission is to create more work-life joy so we can help solve our world's greatest problems. She's a strategist and marketer turned Executive Coach and Equity Advocate. Her coaching and speaking help people be their fearless selves so they can be the brave leaders of their lives, careers, and communities. She co-founded Agency DEI to track progress in workforce equity and is a Board Member for Welcome To Chinatown. In a past life, she dreamt of being NBA Commissioner, which led to 16 years in brand strategy and marketing at the NBA, ESPN, Nike, and R/GA. She no longer wants to be Commish and is now focused on leveraging curiosity, compassion, and care to save our world.
Keni ThackeR, Founder/Chief Creative Officer, 100 Roses from Concrete
There are five types of thinkers: creative thinkers, analytical thinkers, intuitive thinkers, logical thinkers, and visionary thinkers. Keni Thacker is a change pioneer committed to expanding diversity efforts, and his impact on future leaders does not go unnoticed. A true exemplar of leadership, Keni is an award-winning influencer and diversity advocate devoted to outreach programs and mentorship. In 2019, he founded 100 Roses From Concrete, a nonprofit organization that develops professionals of color in advertising and marketing. Thacker is also a tenured diversity, equity, cultural, and inclusion change catalyst and one of Business Insiders' top DEI consultants who helps companies big and small show up with purpose where art and commerce meet and humanity often falls short.