The Impact of Global Women’s Leadership for the 4th IR

Watch and listen to this important conversation HERE.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution will bring many challenges and opportunities. But without a future that includes gender equity, the world will not leverage our full capacity to tackle problems, nor will the benefits be realized for all. Join us for a discussion on how women’s leadership in all sectors will be critical to achieving global prosperity in this exciting new age.

This was a collaborative between Thunderbird School of Global Management and Global Chamber®.

Moderator:

Dr. Sanjeev Khagram, Director General & Dean, Thunderbird School of Global Management

Panel Group:

• Rebeca Hwang, Senior Director, Thunderbird Center for Global Entrepreneurship and Family Business
• Erin Carr-Jordan, Head of Social Impact and Head/Co-PI of the NSF ADVANCE Program, EdPlus, ASU
• Antoinette Farmer-Thompson, Deputy Vice President, Educational Outreach & Student Services, ASU
• Monica Kerretts-Makau, Academic Director, Thunderbird Center for Excellence for Africa
• Ksenija Frelih, Consultant, META Smart Factory and Founder, AnimoCore (Slovenia)

Biographies:

Dr. Sanjeev Khagram, Director General and Dean, Thunderbird School of Global Management

Dr. Khagram is the Director General and Dean of the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University and the Foundation Professor of Global Leadership and Global Political Economy. He is a world-renowned scholar and practitioner in the areas of globalization, transnationalism, leadership, strategic management, entrepreneurship, social enterprise, cross-sector innovation, public-private partnerships, inter-organizational networks, good governance, transparency, the global political economy, sustainable development, human security, and the data revolution. He holds a bachelor’s in development studies and engineering, a master’s degree and doctoral degree minor in economics and doctorate in political economy, all from Stanford University.

Rebeca Hwang, Senior Director, Thunderbird Center for Global Entrepreneurship and Family Business

Rebeca Hwang is a venture capital investor who has collected experiences as innovator and inventor, founder and entrepreneur, social entrepreneur, educator and ecosystem builder. Most recently, Rebeca co-founded Kalei Ventures, which invests in early stage technology startups from Latin America. Prior to Kalei, Rebeca was co-founder and Managing Director at Rivet Ventures, which focuses in companies targeting women-led markets where female usage, decision-making, and purchasing are crucial to company growth. Rebeca is also co-founder of the San Francisco-based startup YouNoodle, which helps companies and governments engage with communities of entrepreneurs for open innovation and co-creation of products and services.

Rebeca co-founded Cleantech Open, Startup Malaysia and Startup Nations Summit. She also serves on the Global Board of Kauffman's GEN, Imagine H2O, TEDx Rio de la Plata Accelerator (the largest TEDx event in the world), and was a member of the WEF's Global Council on the Future of Migrations, as well as co-lead the Access to Capital committee of the Mexico-U.S. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Council. Rebeca has worked closely several national startup programs, including initiatives in Malaysia, South Korea, Spain, Iceland, Chile, Peru and Mexico.

Rebeca was born in Seoul, raised in Argentina and educated at MIT and Stanford, and has been recognized as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and as one of the top 35 under 35 Global Innovators by MIT Tech Review and was a TED speaker in Vancouver, in TED en Español in in NYC, as well as TEDx Cordoba in 2018.

Ms. Hwang teaches Technology Entrepreneurship at Stanford University, has lectured at Técnologico de Monterrey. She is an inventor holding 12 patents, with 9 more pending.

Dr. Erin Carr-Jordan, Head of Social Impact and Head/Co-PI of the NSF ADVANCE Program, EdPlus, ASU

Erin Carr-Jordan, Ph.D. is the Head of Social Impact and Head and Co-PI of the NSF ADVANCE program at Arizona State University. Prior to joining ASU in 2017, she served as an Associate Dean, National Director of Academic Partnerships, and Graduate Psychology department chair at Kaplan University (2010-2017). While at Kaplan Dr. Carr-Jordan concurrently served as the Chief Executive Officer of KPS, a public health and environmental research firm, where she co-authored legislation and worked on public policy. In her capacity as Head of Social Impact she architects and leads large-scale, multi-sector, multi-national initiatives focused on access to education, catalyzing emerging technology, as well as Future of Work, and diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

Her research interests include global gender equality, ecosystem building, human rights, under-served and under-represented populations, human development, and public health. She sits on the Board of Arizona Special Olympics, Jarbly, and SeaTrust Institute. She is the co-lead of ASU’s SDG5 task force, is the Gender Expert for ASU’s NASA/USAID SERVIR Advancing Women’s Prosperity program, leads the education strategy for NSF NEON, is a member of UN Women and is an executive signatory of the United Nations Global Compact. In 2020, she was appointed by Governor Doug Ducey to the Arizona Developmental Disabilities Advisory Council.

Dr. Antoinette (Toni) Farmer-Thompson, Deputy Vice President, Educational Outreach & Student Services, ASU

Dr. Antoinette Farmer-Thompson is a definitively different executive leader with unique capabilities and proven outcomes resulting from seventeen (17) years in corporate America followed by twelve (12) years of progressive experience in higher education as Senior Vice President of Institutional Effectiveness, Honors College Dean, and Diversity Officer at Grand Canyon University. She is now serving as Deputy Vice President of Educational Outreach & Student Services, leading finance/budgeting, marketing, technology, career services, and at Arizona State University.

Core functional areas include organizational and cross-functional strategic planning, academic affairs, expansion and evaluation of the online learning practice/platform, process improvement, program design and evaluation, institutional-wide assessment, curriculum development, analytics and evidence-based decision making, programmatic and regional and accreditation leadership, large real estate portfolio/building projects, corporate relationship/career services management, building and expansion of academic support/tutoring serving thousands of ground and online students monthly, K-12 partnership and pathway development.

Dr. Monica Kerretts-Makau, Academic Director, Thunderbird Center for Excellence for Africa

Dr. Kerretts–Makau is a global Kenyan whose passion is to apply innovative and visionary ideas as a leader in the continent of Africa around the area of Leadership (with specific reference to Governance, Strategy and Change Management), ICT4D and Transformative Education. She received her PhD in Regulation and Governance from the University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia, School of Social Science & Policy and MSc in Business with Information Technology from Salford University-Greater Manchester, United Kingdom. She received her BA in Communications with a minor in Business from Daystar University–Kenya.

Dr. Kerretts–Makau has many certifications, which include: Certified Prosci International Change Management Practitioner; Certified International Finance Corporation (iFC) and Capital Markets Authority Kenya (CMA); Board Governance Trainer; Certified faculty in the “The Effective Directors Program” for Africa run by Strathmore Business School and other Board and Change Management workshops within the Executive Programs.

Dr. Kerretts–Makau has consulted for the IDLO/DANIDA/USAID, UNCTAD –Geneva Office, World Bank (ICT Regulation), the Governments of Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Botswana, Uganda, and Rwanda, and she has authored a number of book or book chapters including Youth Unemployment in Kenya: A Ticking Time Bomb (2016), New Perspectives on Management Education, Kenyan MBA programs at a Crossroads in New Perspectives on Management Education and others. A member of Thunderbird’s Educator Network, Dr. Kerretts–Makau has been a Senior Faculty Member and Advisor to the Dean for Strathmore Business School for the past 10 years, teaching in the Executive MBA program and in Executive Education.

Ksenija Frelih, Consultant, META Smart Factory and Founder, AnimoCore (Slovenia)

Ksenija Frelih is a founder of AnimoCore and entrepreneur, educator and business systems builder. She is a part of a multidisciplinary team of field experts for all in one AI and IoT solution implementation with Meta Smart Factory. Contributing expertise in quality management, automotive standardisation and business systematisation. She has worked in top Slovenian automotive companies, which supply automotive components for top OEM's and has seen the implementation of Industry 4.0 principles first hand.

Her core functional areas include quality management, continuous improvement, process optimisation, lean manufacturing, systematisation and standardisation of the organisations and change management. All this expertise will help her upcoming candidacy for PhD study, starting in 2021/22.

She is also a strong advocate of woman empowerment and entrepreneurship. She is an ambassador at the Slovenian chapter of the South African movement Future Females. A debut of a campaign to inspire more female entrepreneurs and better support their success. They provide a platform digitally, physically, and emotionally where women can connect, inspire, and collaborate to access the resources they need to succeed.

She is also the recipient of the Talent's Fund Award from the Managers' Association of Slovenia as a prominent future leader.

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