Forging Opportunity Through Crises: The Marshall Plan for Moms
Choose to Challenge Series
Inspired by this year’s International Women’s Day theme, Choose To Challenge, we’re hosting a series of workshops, panels, and chats, to rally for women’s equality, question stereotypes, callout biases, and encourage others to commit to forging a more inclusive world. Our goal is to seek out and celebrate women’s achievements as well as to educate our membership on ways they can continue to become better advocates for themselves and others.
From challenge comes change, which is why we encourage you to embark on a journey this March and join us as we navigate these challenges to build a more inclusive workplace and world.
About Forging Opportunity Through Crises: The Marshall Plan for Moms
The last year has caused a national crisis for mothers in the workforce, exposing the undue burden we place on mothers. Equity and opportunity for all working women is a priority. As more than double the number of women have left the workforce than men, labor participation of mothers is what it was in the 1980s. The greatest struggle for women is having to navigate a world that has been built by men for men, and women continue to face discrimination. Motherhood is seen as a liability; few legislation and workplace policies exist to help protect women.
Like the Marshall Plan of the 1940s, The Marshall Plan for Moms is a way to finance rebuilding efforts, stopping humanitarian disaster, and help spur long-term economic recovery through the compensation of mothers for the work that they do to keep the economy and country running. In this panel, we will have honest conversations with mothers about the rebuilding efforts companies must make post-pandemic, how women can get the support they need to go back to work, and the progressive policies that will enact lasting change. We must choose to challenge the biases that hold all women back to evolve workplace culture and reach true gender parity.
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Featuring
Hitha Palepu
Founder, #5SmartReads
Hitha Palepu is an entrepreneur, investor, and writer. She is the CEO of Rhoshan Pharmaceuticals, a pharmaceutical company with its lead product entering Phase III trials this summer. Hitha is an active angel investor, focused on funding women-led and women-focused startup companies. She has invested in over 10 companies, and advises them on brand and digital strategy. Her portfolio includes MM.LaFleur , Girls’ Night In , Werk , and Messy.fm .
She is the creator of #5SmartReads, a daily curation of the 5 must-read stories that reaches over 60,000 readers. Her first book, How To Pack: Travel Smart for Any Trip was published by Clarkson Potter in 2017. It has been released worldwide, translated into German and Italian, and is currently in its 3rd printing with 50,000 copies in circulation. Hitha and the book were featured by the New York Times, People, Travel+Leisure, and Elle.
She is working on her second book, which will be published in October 2021. Hitha graduated from the University of Washington with degrees in biochemistry and history. She lives in New York City with her husband and two sons.
Eve Rodsky
New York Times Best Selling Author of Fair Play
Eve Rodsky is working to change society one partnership at a time by coming up with a new 21st century solution to an age-old problem: women shouldering the brunt of childrearing and domestic life responsibilities regardless of whether they work outside the home.
In her New York Times bestselling book FAIR PLAY, she uses her Harvard Law School training and years of organizational management experience to create a life-management system to help couples both rebalance all of the work it takes to run a home and reimagine their relationship, time and purpose.
Eve Rodsky received her B.A. in economics and anthropology from the University of Michigan, and her J.D. from Harvard Law School. After working in foundation management at J.P. Morgan, she founded the Philanthropy Advisory Group to advise high-net worth families and charitable foundations on best practices for harmonious operations, governance and disposition of funds. In her work with hundreds of families over a decade, she realized that her expertise in family mediation, strategy, and organizational management could be applied to a problem closer to home – a system for couples seeking balance, efficiency, and peace in their home. Rodsky was born and raised by a single mom in New York City and now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their three children.
Katya Libin
Co-Founder + CEO of HeyMama
Katya Libin is the CEO and co-founder of HeyMama, a private online community of entrepreneurial and working moms. Building on a background in partnerships and tech, Libin conceived of HeyMama based on the need for support and community she felt in her own life as a working mother. Alongside her ever-expanding HeyMama HQ team, Libin has since grown the business to reach over 3,200 members, located in 11 cities (and counting). As a voice for the experiences, challenges, and needs of working and entrepreneurial moms, Libin has been published in TODAY.com, SheKnows, and Thrive Global, and has been featured in Woman’s Day, Parents, Forbes, Inc., and more. Recently, she was named one of the Center for Women & Wealth’s 20 Most Inspiring Women to Watch Out For and as a Forbes Next 1000 recipient. Her biggest role is that of mom to her daughter, in whom she tries to instill the relentless work ethic and unflappable belief that anything is possible that she got from her own parents.
Shawnda Chapman
Director of Girls Fund Initiative at Ms. Foundation for Women
Shawnda Chapman is a researcher, activist and nonprofit professional who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Over the course of her personal and professional trajectory, her work has attempted to address inequality and injustice broadly with an acute focus on centering the needs and experiences of marginalized people. Her cumulative experience over the course of the last decade, ranges from research associate to now directing a major national philanthropic initiative.
Currently, as Director of the Girls of Color Initiative at the Ms. Foundation for Women, Shawnda leads and shapes efforts to address the multitude of inequity faced by girls of color by providing grantmaking, leadership development and capacity building resources to support their advocacy and movement building. Prior to joining Ms. Shawnda worked on a national initiative to end girls’ incarceration at the Vera Institute of Justice. Shawnda has broad experience developing as well as implementing research, monitoring, and evaluation materials both domestically and internationally. She also serves on the advisory board of Southern New Hampshire University’s Global Education Movement, an initiative that works to increase refugee access to tertiary education. Shawnda earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology and Master of Science degree in Applied Social Research from The City University of New York, Hunter College.
Moderator
Daniella Kahane
Executive Director + CEO, WIN
Daniella Kahane is a Peabody award-winning filmmaker and content creator/producer for companies such as Chevrolet, Honda, and HBO. Her films have played at top film festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, Toronto, Telluride, SXSW, and others.
Passionate about female empowerment since her very first documentary, she went on to found an event consulting and planning group, Sensi6, which emerged out of the desire to create charity events that targeted a younger generation of givers. She has since produced events that have raised over one million dollars for organizations in need.
Daniella graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University and School of the Arts, Columbia University. She is the recipient of the HBO Young Producer’s Award and was first runner up for the prestigious Producers Guild of America Award.
About WIN Together
Founded in 2020, WIN Together is a not-for-profit 501-c(3) that empowers women from under-served communities with negotiation skill training.
We serve needs-based women through scholarships to WIN Summit, WIN Workshops, and community-specific programming for both professional and pre-professional women.