Claudia Chan is a recognized author, leadership and culture change expert, and entrepreneur dedicated to activating individuals and organizations to accelerate diversity, inclusion and social impact in the workplace and world. She is the founder of S.H.E. Summit, a platform that equips organizations with powerful learning and development opportunities that keep your talent inspired, engaged and growing all year. Through transformational course trainings, conferences, content and community, they empower talent in the global workplace to rise to their highest leadership potential. Claudia is the founder of their award-winning leadership conference S.H.E. Summit that has made advancing women, diversity, inclusion both accessible and actionable since 2012. Cross industry companies from Deloitte, EY, Samsung, Bacardi, Home Depot, Target to Morgan Stanley send rising talent for leadership transformation and to connect with private and public sector influencers. Claudia is also the author of the leadership book THIS IS HOW WE RISE: Reach Your Highest Potential, Empower Women, Lead Change in the World which was named by CNBC as a “top career book of 2018” and also featured in The New York Times. Claudia was also recently named 1 of 8 UN Women Champions for Innovation. She has been referred to as “the change-agent maker” and Fast Company has called her the “Richard Branson of women’s empowerment.” Prior to launching S.H.E. Summit, Claudia was President & Co-Owner of the popular women’s entertainment company, Shecky’s, for 10 years. Claudia is a lifelong New Yorker, proud alumnae of Smith College, mom of two and an equal partner with her husband, John.
Maureen Cunningham
Maureen has a background in community-based natural resource policy and management, having worked on grassroots watershed protection and biodiversity conservation projects at the local and state level in New York as well as in several countries abroad. Maureen currently serves as Senior Director for Clean Water at Environmental Advocates of New York, where she is charged with monitoring state government, evaluating and proposing new legislation, and helping to champion policies and initiatives that position the state as a leader in ensuring clean, abundant and affordable water for all New Yorkers. In 2019, she helped secure $500 million in state funding for clean water projects, created new partnerships with dozens of local municipalities and grassroots groups, and successfully lobbied state government on new laws to protect New York’s freshwater resources. Maureen previously served as Executive Director of the Hudson River Watershed Alliance, leading the organization in strengthening the capacity of dozens of citizens, grassroots groups and municipalities to protect their water resources and build their climate resiliency, and in setting a vision and framework for organizational growth, greater accountability and sustainability. Maureen also worked for Rare in Washington, DC, where she managed social marketing, public use planning and community-based ecotourism programs in several countries. Maureen’s academic training includes a Master of Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from The American University School of International Service. She is a trained community facilitator, who also speaks Spanish and French. Based in Upstate New York with her husband and two sons, Maureen is also serving her first term as a Town Board Member in Bethlehem, which is an elected position in a municipality with 35,000 residents outside of Albany. She has also been an active volunteer most of her life with various political, social justice, and youth activities. She currently serves as a Board Member for SEE Turtles, a globally-focused organization to protect endangered sea turtles through ecotourism, and a founding Board Member of El Triunfo Conservation Foundation, an NGO supporting biodiversity conservation in El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve in Chiapas, Mexico.
Rachel Chanel Clarke
Rachel Chanel Clarke (previously Rachel Chanel Adams) is an American entrepreneur and human rights activist. She was first exposed to the value of community and advocacy while earning her Bachelors of Science in Consumer Science. Rachel began her career in academia in a tier-one university and after six years with her final position as the head a student retention program, she fully transitioned into a career in entertainment. Currently, as an executive at Complex Entertainment, Rachel uses her position to help and motivate other women aspiring careers at the executive level. She has led her company to work on some of the biggest projects in concerts and festivals including SXSW and the MTV EMAs and has clients in over 35 countries including Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Africa. Navigating the business world has also shown her there is a need to redefine the perception of women in the business sector, one where females can have the flexibility to hone their inherent skills, receive equal respect of their male colleagues, and develop into the gatekeepers of their respective industries. She speaks around the world promoting gender equality including conferences in Durban and at Georgetown University in DC. Rachel began her commitment to human rights with the Center for American Progress and with President Obama’s initiative Organizing for Action. She is also the Senior Advisor for the Asociación Sol y Luna in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, Peru, which provides assistance for people in rural Peru and a school providing holistic services, including serving as the only school in the province to accept children with disabilities. She worked with the local government to ensure a strategic alignment that allows access for all students, develops systems for preparedness, and sets goals for protection and promotion of solutions to social and economic problems. As a result of her efforts, 2015 was the first year that children and young people with disabilities were allowed to participate in a 176-year-old city-wide celebration with other students. Since, her philanthropic outreach has expanded; she established the Rachel Chanel Clarke (RCC) Globalization Program (previously the Rachel Chanel Adams (RCA) Globalization Program), which teaches students in developing nations entrepreneurship skills with a focus on sustainability, global consciousness and responsibility, and inclusion. The location of the program in December 2018 is in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, enrolling the students of Bisou Bisou Haiti. The program has gained tremendous support from major companies, NGOs, global business leaders, and other individuals, including the technology company Skyroam, the authors of the best-selling book The Secret, BRANA, Digicel, Tearfund, and more. Rachel has positioned her executive career as a means to travel the world promoting peace and cultivating ways to connect local governments and multinational business authorities with under-served populations of children and young people, women, and those with disabilities.