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The Oxford Dictionary defines glass ceilings as “an unofficially acknowledged barrier to advancement in a profession, especially affecting women and members of minorities.”
In the United States, women hold only 33% of executive- and senior-level official and manager positions, 20% of board seats, and 6% of executive-level management positions (CEO). The promotion gap is larger for women of color and women of the LGBTQ+ community. As of 2020, women held only 21% (110) seats in the U.S. Congress and only 25% (40) seats in the Florida legislature.
Progress to close the gap has been too slow, but 2021 will be a year of “firsts” for women in your Miami-Dade community!
Join us on February 4th to meet some of Miami’s top female leaders who are smashing glass ceilings in their fields and a few girls who have questions for them on how to do it.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Leigh-Ann A. Buchanan, Esq. is a strategist, writer, facilitator, and frequent speaker on strategies for bridging systemic opportunity, access, inclusion and racial equity gaps in technology, innovation. entrepreneurial and leadership ecosystems. She has supported leaders at Fortune 500 companies including Google, Facebook, Delta, P&G Ventures, AirBnB, HSBC and UBS.
As a founder, she has launched ventures from concept to scale, raised seven figure philanthropic investments and designed partnerships and platforms to connect innovators, young leaders and communities with the capital and opportunities necessary to take their impact to the next level.
Inc. Magazine, NPR, NBC, South Florida Times, Miami Herald, Al Jezeera, American Psychological Association, and the ABA Law Journal have featured her thoughts and contributions. She also co-hosts the Innovation City podcast and produces visual storytelling projects.
As the founding Executive Director of Venture Café Miami. She led the organization to exponential growth and impact to connect 50,000 innovators and establish 1000+ content partnerships with national and global organizations over a 5 year period.
Leigh-Ann is also the founder of the Nyah Project, which provides transformative leadership fellowships abroad and tech enabled college access coaching for disadvantaged youth of colour. Under her leadership, 100 % of Nyah Fellows attend college and over 90% win scholarships — accumulating over $10 million in scholarships since 2014.
She is a board member of Palm Beach Tech and an advisory board member of MBS Urban Initiatives CDE as well as the SXSW and Inventures Canada pitch competitions. She is currently serving out American Bar Association Presidential appointments as a member of the Taskforce on Engendering Public Trust in the Justice System and the Standing Committee on Public Education.
SPEAKERS
Breaking through barriers and making history, Madeline Pumariega is the first female president to lead Miami Dade College (MDC), the institution she attended decades earlier as a student-athlete. Her passion for innovation in higher education was born out of her own experiences, first as student and then as a longtime administrator at MDC.
President Pumariega prioritizes working with business partners to identify the skills needed in key industries and tailoring higher education programs to match those needs. Her transformative approach accelerates the ability of graduates to enter the workforce immediately upon the completion of their coursework.
Prior to becoming MDC’s President, Pumariega was appointed the first female and Hispanic chancellor of the Florida College System (FCS). In that role, she designed and implemented strategies to keep college accessible and affordable for Floridians especially in high-demand job fields. During President Pumariega’s tenure, several of the FCS’s 28 colleges––which serve 800,000 students––rose in the rankings of US News & World Report as well as other national measures. Florida was also named number one in higher education by US News Report.
In 2019, she became the executive vice president and provost of Tallahassee Community College, where her innovative approaches advanced the College’s three core divisions: academic affairs, student affairs and workforce development. President Pumariega helped lead the school during the unprecedented response to the COVID-19 pandemic and pivoted the college’s infrastructure to support virtual classroom instruction and student-teacher interaction. She also serves as Affiliate Professor of Leadership at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
She also previously served as president of Take Stock in Children, a statewide non-profit focused on breaking the cycle of poverty by helping students complete their high school education and advance into post-secondary education and careers. President Pumariega has a passion for ensuring that students have a path toward upward economic mobility through educational opportunities.
President Pumariega’s love for academics and service excellence began as a student at Miami Dade College. This led into her 20 years of service at the College in positions of ascending responsibility, culminating in her role as Wolfson Campus President. She views her new role as MDC’s president as the opportunity of a lifetime, because it presents her with the greatest ability to serve students who were just like her –– looking for a chance to realize their dreams and succeed in the community they love and call home, Miami.
Monica R. Richardson is the Executive Editor of the Miami Herald and the el Nuevo Herald, and Regional Florida Editor for McClatchy Newspapers, which includes the Bradenton Herald. In this role, Richardson leads the talented team of journalists focusing on audience and digital subscription growth and continuing the brand’s tradition in strong journalism serving an ever-growing and increasingly diverse audience of readers, viewers, and listeners in South Florida.
Richardson brings nearly three decades of journalism experience in the journalism and local news industry, most recently serving as Senior Managing Editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, part of Cox Enterprises Inc. She has held various leadership roles at the AJC in the last 15 years and was promoted to the Senior ME role in February 2018. Before that she served as the AJC’s Digital Managing Editor, helping to shape and lead digital strategy in a newsroom that has produced award-winning journalism.
She brings with her to Miami a successful record as a thoughtful and collaborative leader with a passion for journalism and its mission. She played a key role in Atlanta’s digital strategy and growth across platforms, and before joining the AJC worked as a journalist and leader at newspapers in Lexington, Ky.; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Virginia.
In addition she has served on local nonprofit boards and as a community advocate and volunteer for various organizations. She has a passion for mentoring young journalists and young leaders across industries. She is also a passionate advocate for diversity, inclusion and equity initiatives that empower and inspire across generations.
Richardson, 50, grew up in the DC/VA area and is the single mother of a busy eight-year-old girl who she adopted from the foster care system at age 2.
Lieutenant Junior Grade Harris was born in New York and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. She graduated from the Coast Guard Academy with a Bachelor of Science degree in Government and was commissioned in May 2018.
Lieutenant Junior Grade Harris’s first assignment was as a Deck Watch Officer aboard CGC VALIANT (WMEC 621) in Jacksonville, FL where she served as Communications Officer and First Lieutenant. She is currently the Commanding Officer of USCGC IBIS (WPB 87338), in Fort Pierce, Florida, where she leads a crew of eleven in the execution of Coast Guard missions.
Lieutenant Junior Grade Harris has four sisters and two brothers. Her hobbies include playing rugby, surfing, and reading.
Lieutenant Junior Grade Harris’s military decorations include the Coast Guard Achievement Medal, Commandant’s Letter of Commendation, Armed Forces Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, as well as various other unit and theater awards.
Valerie Lopez is the co-founder and CEO of Shoot My Travel, a global photographer marketplace launched in 2017 that connects travelers with local professional photographers worldwide.
Exploring the art of photography at an early age, she quickly grew her passion into a serious profession with a substantial client base. Taking it a step further, she went on to build a platform that is the easiest way to book a photographer anywhere in the world and helps her clients capture memories forever.
Inspired by her father who passed away before her birth and who always used to book a professional photographer for his young family when they were on vacation, Valerie courageously harnessed her entrepreneurial spirit, took the spark of an idea, and with Shoot My Travel became the first marketplace for photographers.
Shoot My Travel has captured more than two million photos and generated more than 10,000 photography jobs, consistently delivering professional photographic experiences and tailored customer service for every client’s need. The signature turquoise logo of Shoot My Travel has become synonymous with stylish, vibrant professional photographs worldwide and has been featured organically in press such as the Telegraph, Hello Magazine, CNN, Telemundo, CBS and National Geographic.
The Shoot My Travel photographer marketplace spans 500 cities in over 105 countries with more growth on the horizon! The team recently launched their first photo-walk in collaboration with Apple, while Valerie was a guest on “BBC World News: Talking Business with Aaron Heslehurst” and named one of Avianca’s 100 most influential latinos.
Valerie has been named the first woman entrepreneur ambassador for her home country of Colombia. Her mission is to continue leading her talented team in meeting all her clients’ photographic needs while fostering a unique online community for her worldwide photographers.
