World Pulse

The 13 Indigenous Grandmothers
Thirteen grandmothers from all corners of the earth that have gathered to fulfill a prophecy and chart a course for humanity.

Lisa Ling, USA
Journalist for National Geographic Explorer and "The Oprah Winfrey Show" who reports from some of the most dangerous places on earth.

Mariane Pearl, France/Cuba
Award-winning international journalist, wife of the late Daniel Pearl of the Wall St. Journal.

Paul Hawken, USA
Environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist, and best-selling author of "Natural Capitalism" and “Blessed Unrest”.

Loung Ung, Cambodia
Author, outspoken human rights and anti-landmine activist, and survivor of the Cambodian Killing Fields.

Zainab Salbi, Iraq/USA
Esteemed global advocate for women peacemakers and founder of Women for Women International.

Mahnaz Afkhami, Iran
Exiled former Minister of State for Women's Affairs in Iran.

Hafsat Abiola, Nigeria
Acclaimed global democracy activist.

Riane Eisler, Austria/Cuba/USA
Futurist, international best-selling author, and visionary historian.

Ritu Sharma Fox, India/USA
Founder of Women Thrive Worldwide, the leading non-partisan organization shaping US policy to benefit poor women worldwide.

Winona La Duke, USA
Indigenous rights leader.

Naomi Shihab Nye, Palestine/USA
Award-winning international poet and peacemaker.

Hazel Henderson, USA
World renowned futurist, evolutionary economist, sustainable development expert, and television producer with eight published books and a globally syndicated newspaper column.

Chair: Lin Coughlin, Founder and President, Great Circle Associates
Lin serves as chair of the board of World Pulse. She is President and Founder of Great Circle Associates, offering interim executive and strategic advisory services to for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. A seasoned operating executive, Lin has extensive turnaround, restructuring and start-up experience. Most recently Lin served as Chief Administrative Officer of Cendant Corporation, a $20 billion Fortune 150 company in the travel, hospitality, vehicle rental and real estate services sectors. She serves on the Executive Committee of The Harvard Kennedy School Women’s Leadership Board, the board of The Madison Square Boys and Girls Club of NYC, and the Advisory Board of Grameen America. She is a member of the Women and Foreign Policy Group at The Council on Foreign Relations. Lin has published a book and several articles and has spoken around the world on the role of women leaders as change agents. A graduate of Fordham University, Lin received a B.A. in economics, summa cum laude.

Christine Austin, Founder, Kuan Yin Media Project
Christine Austin was CEO and Group Publisher of New Mass. Media, INC., publishing six progressive weekly papers in MA, CT and NY. Recently Christine founded the Kuan Yin Media Project, an interactive media project to share stories of transformative efforts that engage people in positive action throughout the world and foster dynamic connections among exemplary individuals and communities.

Rangineh Azimzadeh, Monterey Institute of International Studies, Fellow, the Advocacy Project
Ms. Azimzadeh, an Iranian-American leader, graduated cum laude from Portland State University in Communications. She studied International Mediation and Conflict Resolution in Nicosia, Cyprus where she participated in real-time simulations around several of the key conflicts currently taking place in the Middle East with emphasis on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan, City University of New York School of Law
Ms. Bannan has spent more than a decade in the public and non-profit sectors working on issues affecting women, youth, Latinos, and people of color. Most recently she served as Manager of Multicultural Initiatives at the national headquarters for Girl Scouts of the USA in New York. She sits on the board of the Red Tent Women’s Project and is also on the Alumni Relations Committee for the National Hispana Leadership Institute, the nation’s premier leadership program for Latina women of which she was a fellow. She is a certified Empowerment Trainer and facilitates empowerment workshops to women in the New York City area. She is currently a fellow at the Center for Latino and Latina Rights and Equality at CUNY School of Law.

Michelle Horowitz, Thomson Reuters
A highly accomplished international executive, Ms. Horowitz has significant experience transforming traditional news distribution business via M&A, partnerships, licensing and product development. At Thomson Reuters she leads Global Strategy & Business Development and is responsible for defining the global strategy for the Corporate Services Group communication business including evaluating acquisition targets and partnerships. She is Chair of the Op-Ed Project’s Advisory Board.

Zulma Miranda, International law and human rights consultant
Zulma Miranda is a human rights lawyer with expertise in international human rights, international humanitarian law and international criminal law. As Senior Counsel at the Global Justice Center, she serves as legal advisor and speaker in a diversity of settings, particularly in Asia, Latin America and at the United Nations. She provides technical expertise in the form of legal trainings and has developed materials on international advances in gender jurisprudence for nonprofit law organizations, judges, lawyers and parliamentarians. She has written on sexual violence in conflict; ICC law; transitional justice issues and comparative constitutional analyses from a gender perspective. Most notably she participated in the development of gender jurisprudence at the international level through the submission of a legal memo focused on Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820 on Women, Peace and Security and their Application to the CEDAW Committee’s Review of a State’s implementation of the Convention.

Jensine Larsen, Founder and CEO World Pulse Media
As a young journalist in Burma and the Amazon, Jensine discovered that some of the world’s most important stories are rarely mentioned in the mass media. But through her determination and persistence to reach out and connect, she became a new voice in global media. Touring around the world, she appeared on NPR and Air America, presented keynotes at major corporations, universities and world forums, and wrote articles in international publications. A visionary and pioneer, Jensine became the first voice of World Pulse—the first of many.

Kathy LeMay, Founder, President, and CEO Raising Change
Kathy LeMay is the founder, president and CEO of Raising Change, which helps organizations raise capital to advance social change agendas and philanthropic individuals with social action planning worldwide. Kathy, who began her global activism in war-torn Yugoslavia where she worked with women survivors of the siege and rape-genocide camps, has been a social change fundraiser for fifteen years, raising millions of dollars in the fields of women’s human rights, hunger and poverty relief, HIV/AIDS, and movement-building. Kathy has provided social-change fundraising and generosity trainings to hundreds of organizations throughout the world—including top-level executives at, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, and CitiFinancial—as well as being a prolific public speaker on strategies that advance the movement for justice and empower women to come into their own voices. She has appeared on numerous tv and radio shows including Oxygen TV and the Oprah Winfrey Show.

Gillian Parrillo, Founder, SacWomen
Gillian Parrillo was in the first wave of women who broke the corporate ‘glass ceiling’. As Group President for Sterling Software, Inc., she was responsible for a $200M+ worldwide organization. During her 14-year tenure, Gillian held positions in Washington, D.C., London, U.K., Sacramento, CA., Paris, France, and Dallas, Texas.

Gillian has served on numerous non-profit boards including: the Sacramento Angels, the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance, and the Sacramento Entrepreneurship Academy. A passionate supporter of entrepreneurs, Gillian is an angel investor in several startup companies and provides advice and guidance, formally and informally, to many more. In 2006, Gillian founded SacWomen with a goal of amplifying the voices of women in Sacramento.

Gillian is an active member of Dallas Social Venture Partners, an organization of business and technology professionals who invest their time, money and expertise (engaged philanthropy) in local nonprofits. Gillian has recently joined the Board of Dallas Afterschool Network, an organization focused on expanding the quality and quantity of afterschool programs.

During the past two years, Gillian has been very involved in the political process, serving as a National Delegate, and continues to work hard to ensure the voice of grassroots activists are heard in Washington.

Caroline Rook, CFO, TUI University
Ms. Rook is a senior-level professional with over 25 years of international strategic financial and operational experience with public, venture capital and private equity backed companies including leading an IPO and a secondary offering on NASDAQ, business operations, company turnaround, driving revenues and profitability. Caroline has worked in England, Hong Kong, Los Angeles CA and Little Rock, AR. She is a Fellow of The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales. Apart from Caroline’s latest position above, she has held positions in Deloittes, Ernst & Whinney, Grant Thornton, Barclays Bank, Sterling Software, Inc. Acxiom Corporation and PeopleSupport, Inc.

Ellen Wingard, Leadership Consultant, Institute for Women’s Leadership
For over 25 years, Ms. Wingard has coached CEOs, executive teams and emerging leaders to achieve business results while enhancing their social responsibility and personal resilience. A partial list of clients include Baystate Health Systems, Diageo, Harvard Business School, Harvard Medical School, MIT, Morgan Stanley, The New York Times, Novartis, Partners Healthcare, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Pfizer, Inc., Sanofi-Aventis, Wells Fargo Bank. Ellen is co-editor of Enlightened Power: How Women Are Transforming the Practice of Leadership, Jossey-Bass, 2005. She is a member of the Harvard Kennedy School Women's Leadership Board and a senior consultant to Barbara Annis & Associates, global leaders in gender and cultural intelligence.

Darcy Winslow, Founder, DSW Collective, LLC, Designs for a Sustainable World
Darcy Winslow has been a pioneer and active practitioner of sustainability frameworks and principles, exploring and experimenting with the application of these to all aspects of business. Darcy worked at Nike, Inc. for over 20 years and held several senior management positions within the business. She most recently served as General Manager for Nike’s Global Women’s Fitness Business and as Senior Advisor to the Nike Foundation, which seeks to empower disadvantaged girls ages 10 to 19 years, through poverty alleviation and creating economic livelihood opportunities.

Founding Board Emeritus:

Nanci Luna Jiménez
Kathy Murphy
Sharon Marer
Jeannette Fruen
Kathy Long Holland
Shafia Monroe
Wendy Cutler

Andrea Learned, Chair of Marketing Council, President of Learned on Women
Andrea Learned is a leading women’s market authority, writer, speaker, consultant and co-author of "Don't Think Pink: What Really Makes Women Buy and How To Increase Your Share of this Crucial Market."

Janet Champ, Copy Writer
Award-winning writer for Nike, Microsoft, Time Warner and CNN, Champ has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Adweek, Advertising Age, The Wallstreet Journal, Allure, Vogue, Sports Illustrated, Mirabella, and Lear's.

Sarah B. Murphy, VP Communications, American Express
As Vice President of American Express, Murphy is responsible for direct marketing communications for 22 international markets. Previously, she ran the Charge Card business in the UK with responsibility for developing new Charge Card products.

Rodney Rascona, Photographer and Image Maker
With over two decades of serving the design and advertising industry, Rodney has produced captivating images in 40 countries around the world and across the USA.

Gisela Gier, Market Researcher, Skype
Gisela’s specialty is changing the culture within business through intelligence gathering and insight generation to the brand and strategic teams who need to have a clear understanding of consumer and market trends in order to drive brand positioning and communications strategies.

Myrna Yoo, CEO, Blueline Publishing
Founder of a national independent book and magazine publishing with a specialty in socially responsible projects relating to climate change, energy and the environment.

Janet Johnson, VP Online Marketing, Marqui
Ms. Johnson is a skilled online marketing executive and a pioneer in corporate blogging with outstanding success in start-up, mid-size and Fortune 50 technology companies.