The White House Project ignites the leadership of women in business and politics. We connect, coach, and educate an ever-expanding alumnae network of 14,000 nationwide. With a focus on women age 21-35, we activate the ambition, creativity, and skills necessary for innovative and effective leadership.
Tiffany Dufu
,
President
Ever since she accepted the Girl of the Year Award in eighth grade, Tiffany Dufu knew that she wanted to make a profound impact. Raised in the Pacific Northwest, the daughter of a homemaker and a minister, Dufu was an early feminist who challenged the perceptions of adults around her who often insisted, “Little girls can’t lead.” She knew that she needed not only to affect change, but also wanted to be public about it – so that other girls could be leaders, too
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As Associate Director of Development at the Seattle Girls’ School, a nonprofit education institution committed to giving all girls the power to be innovative, confident, critical thinkers, Ms. Dufu raised $2 million in just under a year. As Major Gifts Officer at Simmons College, she managed a portfolio of more than 150 donors, and worked in recruitment to create a more diverse student body. While in Boston, Ms. Dufu was featured in a Boston Globe article that, within 24 hours, became the most-forwarded article in BostonGlobe.com history. She leveraged the overwhelming response to encourage a productive dialogue in the city about race relations, and soon became a fellow in LeadBoston and a catalyst for the Commonwealth Compact project, working to make Greater Boston a desired destination for people of color and women.
As Vice President of The White House Project, Ms. Dufu has forged new partnerships, has strengthened the Corporate Council, and has refined the organization’s strategy. Having now raised nearly $20 million toward the cause of women and girls, she has been featured in The Seattle Times, The New York Times and NPR, and is a frequent speaker on nonprofit fundraising and women’s leadership. She currently serves on the board of Harlem 4 Kids, is a member of Delta Sigma Theta, Sorority, Inc., and holds a B.A. and M.A. in English and a Certificate in Fundraising Management from the University of Washington.
Now as President of the White House Project, Ms. Dufu is creating new programs to expand the organization with a focus to appeal to a broader audience while empowering women, not just in the political realm, but in society as a whole. Under her leadership the future of the White House Project looks nothing short of success.
Marie C Wilson
,
Founder and President Emeritus
An advocate of women’s issues for more than 30 years, Marie C. Wilson is founder and President Emeritus of The White House Project, co-creator of Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work ® Day and author of Closing the Leadership Gap: Why Women Can and Must Help Run the World(Viking 2004).
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In 1998, Wilson founded The White House Project in recognition of the need to build a truly representative democracy – one where women lead alongside men in all spheres. Since its inception, The White House Project has been a leading advocate and voice on women’s leadership.
Before she took the helm at The White House Project, Wilson was, for nearly two decades, the President of the Ms. Foundation for Women. She is an honorary “founding mother” of the Ms. Foundation. In honor of her work, the Ms. Foundation has created The Marie C. Wilson Leadership Fund.
Over the last thirty years, Wilson’s accomplishments span becoming the first woman elected to the Des Moines City Council as a member-at-large in 1983, co-authoring the critically acclaimed Mother Daughter Revolution (1993, Bantam Books), and serving as an official government delegate to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, China in 1995.
Wilson has been profiled in The New York Times “Public Lives” column, has appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN, National Public Radio and other national programs and is quoted widely for her expertise. Born and raised in Georgia, Wilson has five children and four grandchildren. She resides in New York City.
Beth Brooke (Board Chair) is Global Vice Chair – Public Policy at Ernst & Young and is a member of the firm’s Global Executive Board. Beth has public policy responsibility for the firm’s operations in 140 countries and interacts frequently with regulators, policymakers, and capital market stakeholders. In addition, she has global responsibility for the firm’s Diversity and Inclusiveness efforts. She has been named four times to the list of Forbes “”World’s 100 Most Powerful Women””, and was named 2009 Woman of the Year by Concern Worldwide.
During the Clinton Administration, she worked for two years in the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where she was responsible for all tax policy matters related to insurance and managed care. She played important roles in the healthcare reform and Superfund reform efforts. Throughout her career, Beth has been actively engaged in numerous civic and business organizations. Most recently Beth was asked to serve on the International Council on Women’s Business Leadership (ICWBL) by Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.
Allie Arends
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Community Manager
Allie Arends is the Community Manager for The White House Project. Allie studied at Iowa State University, earning a Bachelors degree in Political Science and History. During her time at Iowa State, Allie interned for Associate Professor, Gary Taylor, researching land use law, state and local regulation of development process, and intergovernmental cooperation and contracting. Apart from The White House Project, Allie has been a dance instructor for 10 years, and is the Artistic Director for the Irish Dance Program at Robert Thomas School of Dance.
Catherine Gray
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Director of Training
Catherine Gray was eight years old, giving a rambling account of her day, when her mother lovingly suggested she “sum it all up in three good sentences”. Catherine marks that moment as the beginning of her education as a communications trainer and public speaking coach. Today, working with groups and individuals, Gray blends her experience as an entrepreneur, a filmmaker and a corporate trainer to offer trainings that are crafted to inspire self-confidence and authenticity in speaking.
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Based in Minnesota as the Interim VP, Political Leadership Programs, she travels nationwide to train and develop women in the leadership pipeline. Catherine attended Scripps College and earned a Bachelor in Fine Arts from Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Katie Groke Ellis
Katie Groke Ellis is the Program Manager for The White House Project. Katie is the current Chair of the Colorado Women’s Lobby Board of Directors. She has a background in running ballot initiative campaigns and grassroots organizing. A graduate of the University of Wyoming where she played on a soccer scholarship, Katie has worked with the NCAA, Choice USA, Springboard Enterprises and Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains developing and most recently implementing successful field programs to defeat anti-choice ballot initiatives and help elect pro-choice candidates to office. Katie also has a Masters degree in Public Administration from the University of Colorado.
Kona Goulet
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Vice President External Affairs
Kona Goulet has fifteen years of international experience across nonprofit and private sectors. She has been successful in the design and leadership of turnaround efforts, driving business growth and forging strategic alliances. This includes leading fundraising campaigns, designing communication strategies and developing corporate relations for nonprofit organizations. Her international experience includes full-time work in the UK, USA, Europe, Australia, and India working for corporate law firms, global publishing firms, and international and national nonprofits. Currently she is the Vice President, External Affairs for The White House Project.
Liz Johnson
Liz Johnson  has coordinated The White House Project leadership training programs within the Midwest region since 2004. A leader in the design and implementation of rural women’s leadership programs, Liz has worked and trained women from over 250 cities and towns across the Midwest and even more women from across the country.
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She is a seasoned organizer with over 20 years of community organizing experience who has dedicated her life to building and advancing women leaders in community and politics. Her work is characterized by her asset based approach to training and the number and diversity of women that participate. Since graduating from Grinnell College with a degree in Political Science, she has also served as a Program Officer for the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, and as a Legislative Consultant and staff for several non profit organizations.  Johnson is the recipient of the Minnesota Housing Partnership Right to Housing Award and The Minnesota Women’s Press Changemaker Award for her work to advance women leaders in Minnesota.  Liz is also one of the key leaders in an award winning collaboration with the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service and the Women, Food and Agriculture Network called Plate to Politics.  This collaboration seeks to inspire, inform and equip more women leaders from the healthy food and farming movement to advance their leadership. Liz lives in Duluth, Minnesota situated on largest freshwater lake in the world.
Nevada Littlewolf
Nevada Littlewolf is The White House Project’s Rural Leadership Field Organizer. Nevada joined WHP after attending a Debate Boot Camp in 2007. She continued her involvement by helping plan and implement the truly historic rural training that adapted the Go Run political leadership training model to the needs of a rural community. Nevada is a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and was the first Native American and only woman currently elected to the Virginia, MN City Council. Nevada’s life experience provides insightful knowledge of rural communities along with a unique cultural perspective that bolsters the work of the Minnesota team. She is an artist and mother of two.
Stephanie Rogan
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Leadership Adviser
Stephanie I. Rogen, VP of Corporate Leadership Programs designs and delivers TWHP’s leadership development programs alongside experienced trainers/facilitators from TWHP staff.  Stephanie is a consultant, facilitator and executive coach with more than twenty five years of experience in the business and not for profit sectors. Stephanie has consulted and coached executive and board leadership in a variety of Fortune 500, educational and not for profit organizations. She has developed, facilitated and led hundreds of workshops, leadership retreats and training seminars.
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Earlier in her career, Ms. Rogen was Vice President, Strategic Planning and senior advisor to the CEO of IBJ Whitehall Financial Group (NY). In this capacity, she worked with the CEO and his executive team through a period of financial crisis and organizational restructuring. Ms. Rogen managed major bank wide consulting projects and investment banking relationships. In addition, Ms. Rogen was responsible for developing a CEO succession plan and transition process, which she managed to completion.
Ms. Rogen also worked as a senior consultant with Corporate Performance Systems in Boston where she developed consulting solutions, led workshops and delivered training curriculum on high performance sales, trading and relationship management capabilities in major commercial and investment banks. Prior to that, Ms. Rogen also held positions as a commercial lender and as an institutional foreign exchange dealer at the First National Bank of Boston.
Stephanie earned her BA in Economics and Organizational Behavior from Brown University and her Ed.M. from Harvard University, where she specialized in Adult Learning and Leadership. She received her executive and organizational coaching training at Columbia University in New York.
Harriet Sedgwick
Harriet Sedgwick is the Executive Coordinator for The White House Project. Harriet graduated from Bard College in 2010 with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Global and International Studies. During her time at Bard, Harriet had the opportunity to intern at the Global Justice Center, a women’s rights legal non-profit organization, through the school’s Globalization and International Affairs Program. Outside her time at The White House Project, Harriet is also an amateur photographer. She has travelled extensively around the world and has been playing the violin for over a decade.
Freyan Billimoria
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Director of Development
Freyan Billimoria, The White House Projects’s Director of Development, oversees donor relations and brings a diverse background in organizational development to the WHP. Prior to The White House Project, Freyan managed the development of new sites on Teach For America’s growth strategy team. Raising start up funding, managing operations, and supporting legislative outreach, she founded TFA’s recent expansion efforts in South Carolina and Ohio.
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Freyan got her start in the nonprofit world serving on TFA’s development team in the San Francisco Bay Area, helping grow the branch to a $10MM
organization through partnerships with foundations and the corporate sector. In a previous life, Freyan was a marketing professional and a producer of large scale concerts and events. She is a proud graduate of the University of California – Berkeley where she received a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies. No one has yet successfully guessed what that means.
Marcos Salazar
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Vice President of Programs
Marcos Salazar, Vice President of Programs at The White House Project, oversees the delivery of our Go Lead and Go Connect leadership development experiences that support the ambition, creativity, and skills necessary for innovative and effective leadership. Before joining The White House Project, Marcos worked as a Leadership Researcher and Technology Strategist for Girl Scouts of the USA. There he developed innovative strategies for measuring the new Girl Scout Leadership Experience in addition to leading a team of IT strategists and Girl Scout CEOs on helping develop a technology strategy for the Girl Scouts movement.
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Marcos is the author of The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide: Figuring Out Who You Are, What You Want, and Where You’re Going After College and a expert speaker on the psychology of life after college, Gen Y, and Millennial topics. As a noted expert on Millennials, workforce trends, and professional development, he has been featured in local and national media outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Forbes, MSNBC, The Examiner, Boston.com and Filla.ca. He is also the co-founder of Be Social Change.com and Be Social Change New York Meetup, a community of change makers, social entrepreneurs, start-ups, techies, non-profits, educators students, and overall do and want-to-do gooders collectively building a network that fosters the spreading of new and innovative ideas, supports building an infrastructure for social entrepreneurship, and provides opportunities for members to make the world a better place. Lastly, Marcos is the founder of SocialChange.is, a story-sharing platform for social entrepreneurs to communicate insightful news from the field, share new and innovative ideas, and chronicle lessons learned from their journeys of social change.
Jean Avebe
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Vice President Finance & Administration
Jean Avebe is a finance professional with ten years of experience in projects and grants accounting and finance administration. As VP of Finance and Administration, he oversees the organization’s financial sustainability and human resources. Prior to his role at The White House Project, Jean was the Capital Budget Manager at the Wildlife Conservation Society where he managed the financial activity of over $200 million involving 200 capital projects spread across the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo, Queens Zoo and New York City Aquarium. Previous experience also includes positions as Projects Controller at The Cianbro Corporation and the Capital Controls Coordinator at the American Museum of Natural History.
Dr. Lapovsky has almost 30 years of experience in Higher Education Finance. Prior to Mercy College, she served as Vice President for Finance at Goucher College and before that, she worked as Special Assistant to the President of the University of Maryland at College Park, as Director of Finance and Facilities for the Maryland Higher Education Commission, and as a Fiscal Planner for the Maryland State Department of Budget and Fiscal Planning. Â In 1999, she was named one of the 100 top women in Maryland. Dr. Lapovsky serves on a number of boards and advisory committees including the American Public University System, American Council on Education, Â Advisory Committee to the Center on Policy Analysis, Â and the Boards of Western New England College, the National Council for Research on Women, and the New York Women’s Forum Education Fund.
Michael Balaoing was recently the Senior Vice President of the Entertainment Industry Foundation; he has harnessed the unique collective resources of the entertainment industry to inspire the public and private sector to give effectively to causes around the world. Philanthropic clients include celebrated artists (George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Charlize Theron, Black Eyed Peas), major televised campaigns (Stand Up To Cancer, American Idol, Hope for Haiti Now) and global media companies (Time/Warner, Newscorp/Fox, GE/NBC Universal, Viacom/MTV Networks, Sony, Walt Disney). Mr. Balaoing is an Adjunct Associate, NYU Wagner School of Public Service.
Ginny Corsi is president of her own consulting firm, where she works with CEOs and senior executives in management consulting and team-building. An experienced large group facilitator, she also has led many company, association, foundation and family retreats. She also conducts corporate workshops on identifying and retaining sales professionals.In addition to her corporate work, Ginny specializes in working with boards and members of family businesses, as well as Young Presidents Organizations, and executive women’s groups. A Manhattan transplant, she travels extensively for national clients from her consulting offices in Boulder, CO.
Abigail E. Disney is Founder and President, Daphne Foundation and former Chair, New York Women’s Foundation. Ms. Disney is a philanthropist and speaker active in supporting women’s initiatives who serves on the boards of a variety of organizations that work to improve the lives of low-income women and families. She is Vice Chair of the board of Shamrock Holdings, Inc., an investment firm based in California.
Danielle Hootnick is Director of Alternatives Marketing at London-based BlueBay Asset Management, with nearly $40 billion in capital investments. She joined BlueBay in 2012, and leads the firm’s marketing efforts in the Direct Lending space. Previously, Danielle was the Director of Marketing and Investor Relations at FirstMark Capital, a New York City-based venture capital fund. There, she led the spinoff and rebranding of the Pequot Ventures business from Pequot Capital in 2007, and completed the successful fundraise of FirstMark V, a $225 million seed and early-stage venture fund, in 2011. Prior to FirstMark, Danielle was a senior marketing professional at American Express in a variety of roles including product development in OPEN, the company’s small business division; business development and strategy in the Travel and Entertainment Industry Development Group, and relationship management in the International Consumer Card Group, where she focused on premium global benefits for Platinum and Centurion Cardmembers. Danielle graduated from Harvard College with a BA in Psychology and earned an MBA from The Harvard Business School.  She sits on the Board of Directors of the White House Project and is a four-time marathoner, an avid skier and a Syracuse Orangemen fan.
Cheryle Jackson is Vice President of Government Affairs and Corporate Development for AAR CORP., a leading provider of products and services to the commercial aerospace and defense industries. She is also Illinois chair of the White House Project, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization working to advance women in business, politics, and media. Prior to joining AAR, Ms. Jackson served as the first female president and CEO of the Chicago Urban League, a 100-year-old civil rights organization. In 2009, she ran for U.S. Senate of the State of Illinois, formerly held by President Barack Obama. She was also communications director for the Governor of Illinois, the first woman and African American to hold that position. Ms. Jackson has held senior- leadership positions with Amtrak and National Public Radio. Ms Jackson currently serves on the boards of Northwestern University and The Field Museum. Cheryle’s prestigious career reflects her passion for economic empowerment, a commitment to public service and a record as a trailblazer.
Lisa-Marie Monsanto is a Partner at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP. Lisa-Marie Monsanto focuses her practice on representing financial institutions, hedge funds, issuers and other parties in the structuring, negotiation and documentation of a broad range of financing transactions. Ms. Monsanto has extensive experience in secured and unsecured single bank, club and syndicated credit facilities, first lien/second lien financing, mezzanine financing, cross border transactions, project finance, securitization and equipment finance. She also has a background in a wide range of specialized capital markets products. Ms. Monsanto is a member of the Board of Directors and the Corporate Counsel of The White House Project, member of the Board of Directors of the Rotary Club of Washington, DC and co-chair of its World Community Services Committee, member of the Leadership Circle of Women’s Foreign Policy Group, and a LEADer with Women’s World Banking. In addition, she serves as an originator for The Overseas Private Investment Corporation’s (OPIC) Enterprise Development Network (EDN), a new alliance with the private sector designed to support small and medium-sized enterprises expanding into emerging markets overseas.
Mahsa Pelosky Born in Tehran, Iran, Mahsa moved to the United States in 1987, attended Fordham University and was a fundraiser for Rudy Giuliani’s ’93 race and George Pataki’s ’94 race. She joined the Giuliani Administration at the Department of Housing Preservation & Development and then at the Commission for the United Nations & Consular Corps. Mahsa went on to the Estee Lauder Companies (Corp. Div. marketing) in 1997 until 2003. Since 2003 Mahsa has led her family’s philanthropic endeavors, such as the Jay and Mahsa Pelosky International Student Internship Fund at the Sanford School at Duke University, the capital campaign for the City & Country School, the IMPACT Fund for the White House Project, and others. Mahsa is an active member of the Women Donors Network, a national network of women philanthropists committed to building the progressive movement through the power of philanthropy, women’s leadership, and collective and individual action.
Sudha Shetty, JD is the Director of the International Fellowship Program and a graduate faculty at the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. She speaks and writes extensively on domestic violence issues facing immigrant women and women of color. She has been a consultant to the law firm of Dorsey & Whitney, L.L.P. on diversity issues and in her former role as Director of the Seattle University Law School’s Access to Justice Institute she developed a variety of legal access projects focused on battered women. She was recently honored by the Washington Women Lawyers Foundation for her work with underserved communities, and receive several awards for law and public service. Ms. Shetty received a Bachelors Degree in Sociology and Psychology from Sophia College in Bombay, India, and a Juris Doctor from the University of Bombay, India.
