Wonder Woman in Business, Shannon Knuth

Shannon Knuth

SVP, Marketing and Content Management

Shannon Knuth is a designer, communicator, tech enthusiast, brand creator, art director, project manager, and graphic storyteller – a true professional generalist who eats and breathes marketing.

Marketing is a vital service line for many industries, and the demand for visualization and communication in how and where we work is higher than ever. Navigating through today’s ever-changing work experience and environment faces unmatched competition for the awareness bandwidth of our intended audiences.

Always mindful of this, Shannon is continuously on the lookout for strategic ways to infuse best practices both within and outside her organization. Because her experience and passion lie within design, tech, and communications, she is passionate about leading challenging projects that facilitate growth on the industry level. 

Baby wrangling my daughter - the juggle is REAL being a working mom.

Photo of my partial marketing team at a big media event celebrating our sponsorship with the US Sailing Team.

On set (The San Francisco Bay) directing an on- water video shoot of the US Sailing Team for an artistic large format display at 100 First Street.

The loves of my life. My husband, Rick, and my daughter, Charlotte (10 months).

Enjoy the podcast.

Shannon Knuth

CONTACT SHANNON:

SHANNON KNUTH

Senior Vice President, Marketing and Content Management

KILROY REALTY CORPORATION
100 First Street, Suite 250 | San Francisco, CA 94105

415.778.7779   DIRECT
415.866.0922   MOBILE
sknuth@kilroyrealty.com
www.kilroyrealty.com

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CLICK IMAGE BELOW: Kilroy Realty’s on-water video shoot of the US Sailing Team for an artistic large format display at 100 First Street in San Francisco, CA.

About Kilroy Realty Corporation

Kilroy Realty Corporation (KRC), a publicly traded real estate investment trust and member of the S&P MidCap 400 Index, is one of the West Coast’s premier landlords. The company has over 70 years of experience developing, acquiring and managing office and mixed-use real estate assets. 

Kilroy Realty is deeply aware that its organization thrives when the communities it serves also thrive. Their corporate giving program reflects a core belief that strong communities, growing industries, and a healthy planet are critical for a bright future. The corporation also prides itself on its commitment to programs and organizations that promote these ideals, including sustainability initiatives, community wellbeing, education, diversity, and innovation.

Kilroy Realty’s Sustainability Program incorporates environmental, social, and governance aspects of its operations. Its corporate social programs, which span three interacting divisions, include Human Capital Development, with one of those three pillars being diversity. Kilroy’s Human Capital Development goals are focused on enhancing employee growth, satisfaction, and wellness while maintaining a diverse and thriving culture: 57% of Kilroy’s workforce is female, with almost one-third of women in leadership roles; and nearly 40% is non-white.

Wonder Woman in Business, Nassim Abdi

Nassim Abdi

CEO of StoryBolt

Nassim Abdi, Co-Founder and CEO of StoryBolt

Nassim Abdi is an entrepreneur and educator, dedicated to using the medium of documentary film to raise awareness of critical global issues. As the co-founder of StoryBolt, she set out to provide corporate and academic institutions with access to short documentary films from across the world: the platform offers on-demand streaming of over 2,800 short films from 112 countries, tackling subjects including mental health, gender equality, food security, and wartime trauma. Most importantly, StoryBolt connects audiences with the filmmakers themselves, initiating vital conversations through live Q&A sessions.

The key insights which shaped StoryBolt’s business model were drawn from Nassim’s personal experience. Born and raised in Iran, she studied journalism at the University of Tehran and starred in an internationally acclaimed film, Secret Ballot (Sony Pictures, 2001), which won the Special Director's Award and the UNICEF Award at the Venice Film Festival. Shortly after the film’s release, Nassim moved to the US as a graduate student, where she was invited to several Q&A sessions related to the film; at the same time, she was studying educational leadership and went on to do a Ph.D. in International Education Policy at the University of Maryland (UMD). She subsequently pursued a career in higher education, teaching courses on women's studies, alternative education and transnational feminism, at universities including UMD, Purdue University-Fort Wayne and Worcester State University.

Nassim has always been driven by a core belief that education is the most powerful force to change the world. Nonetheless, she realized that she needed to innovate a new method of teaching to help audiences engage with stories outside their experience. As a young teacher, Nassim faced the difficulties of conveying the impact of war to American students. When the class failed to connect with her own experience during the Iran-Iraq war, she tried another tactic: screening a short documentary film and inviting the filmmaker for a Q&A session. The reaction from the students was radically different; from that moment on, Nassim resolved to use film as a tool to foster cultural awareness and empathy.

Together with her co-founders, she gathered a team of dedicated individuals and launched StoryBolt in 2017. As the company enters its next phase of development, Nassim has become a major spokesperson for the use of social documentaries in education: she is an accomplished public speaker, and has presented at conferences and screenings throughout the US. She has been interviewed on public radio (WBEZ), and is a regular speaker at events run by the Comparative and International Education Society. Based in Chicago, she is a key figure in the city’s film and entrepreneurship scene, and she is committed to helping young people to flourish; she serves as a mentor for the city’s Big Brothers Big Sisters initiative, and is a keen supporter of Launch X, Northwestern University’s young entrepreneurs’ program.

StoryBolt started as a resource for academic institutions, but has since expanded to become a powerful tool for corporations to educate and engage their employees. As the CEO of a thriving tech company, Nassim has seen her career take many forms: journalism, acting, teaching, and entrepreneurship. Her vocation, however, remains resolutely the same: to give a voice to underrepresented communities, and to promote radical global change through the power of visual storytelling.

Click below to see film clip:

Enjoy the podcast.

Nassim Abdi

Nassim Abdi

Co-founder, CEO

Pronouns: (she/her/hers) (What's this?)

301-741-6630 | nassim@storybolt.com    

www.storybolt.com
(rebranded from docademia.com)

“There’s only one thing on the planet that is obsessed with growth for growth’s sake — and that is cancer.”~Simon Sinek

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Wonder Woman in Business, Sarah Cheek, R.N.

Sarah Cheek

Sarah Cheek is a certified Lean Leader. Since 2009, she has led multiple organizations in full scale adoptions of Lean Management. Sarah has facilitated hundreds of people in Kaizen (aka rapid improvement) workshops, and she has trained all levels of staff ranging from executives to front line employees in Lean Management. 

Sarah was born with a desire to help and serve. She naturally found herself drawn towards a career in healthcare. After earning her degree in nursing, she jumped into the deep end in the Intensive Care Unit at UCLA Medical Center. What better environment to serve humanity than when patients and families are in their most powerless and vulnerable state? Sarah was honored to be in their service.

During her first year in the Bay Area, Sarah was fortunate enough to be selected to participate in the inaugural Lean activity at the hospital where she worked. Sarah immediately witnessed and experienced the value of this management method. Lean gave the front line staff (the true experts) a voice to advocate for improvements to better serve the patients. She was hooked.

After that first Lean workshop, Sarah served as a Lean Champion in her department and since has held director positions leading entire organizations through Lean Transformations. She has taken the principles and tools and applied them across a variety of venues from corporations to small businesses and now into people’s lives.

Visit website for more: www.leanintoliving.com

The principles of Lean are intuitive and adaptable into any environment looking to improve the quality of an experience by improving efficiency through eliminating waste. The customer or end user wins by having a stellar experience; the employee or service provider wins because they were able to deliver the product of service with ease; and the business or home wins in having happy customers, cost reduction due to increased efficiency, and loyal and fulfilled employees.

As a working mother of two energetic boys, Sarah recognized the need to apply these principles to her home life in hopes to create more quality time with them and less mom guilt. She struggled in juggling; managing a household, making meals, cleaning the house, spending time with her kids, getting homework done, connecting with her husband, getting  a moment of alone time.

Sarah realized that she wasn't the mom or woman she wanted to be. Something had to give! This way of living was not sustainable. There had to be a better way of "doing" life. Turns out there was!

Sarah started applying the Lean tools that she'd been studying and implementing, over the prior 7 years, to her home life and BAM! Life instantly changed! Her perspectives and attitudes shifted to ease and relief in each of the areas as she applied the Lean principles. Sarah found she had more time and less stress. She created systems to support living better. Her first achievement was that she gained back 2 hours a week by just improving her laundry process; no added resources or money spent.

Sarah's desire is to share these adapted tools with the world and give people their time back to engage and live more deliberately. Lean Into Living provides the tools to raise consciousness in every home by bringing more ease and grace to living and experiencing life.

Enjoy the podcast.

Sarah Cheek, R.N.

Connect with Sarah:

Website: www.leanintoliving.com

Instagram: @leanintoliving

Facebook: Lean Into Living

Email: Sarah@leanintoliving.com

Wonder Woman in Business, Dr. Dena Samuels

Dena Samuels, Ph.D.

Dena Samuels, Ph.D., serves as a mindfulness-based diversity, equity, and inclusion author, speaker, leadership trainer, and consultant. As an award-winning tenured professor, Dr. Samuels taught at the University of Colorado – Colorado Springs for 20 years while consulting nationally and internationally. She now consults full-time on mindful, inclusive leadership development. Her passions include inspiring people to raise their personal and social awareness to live more fulfilling, connected, and meaningful lives; and assisting organizations, campuses, and corporations in building more diverse, equitable, and inclusive cultures.

At heart, I am an educator with a passion for increasing your connection and sense of belonging in the world. I am also a springboard to help you reach your own and your organization’s inspired potential.

Dr. Samuels’ latest book, The Mindfulness Effect: an unexpected path to healing, connection, & social justice (Night River Press, 2018) offers 25 mindfulness practices and activities for health/wellness, self-empowerment, culturally inclusive leadership, social and environmental justice. The book has an accompanying journal/workbook, and she teaches an online course that guides readers through each chapter. Her previous book, The Culturally Inclusive Educator: Preparing for a Multicultural World (Teachers College Press, 2014) provides specific strategies for building cultural inclusion both personally and institutionally.

Enjoy the podcast.

Dena Samuels, Ph.D.

Contact Dr. Samuels:

Dena R Samuels, Ph.D., RYT
Dena Samuels Consulting: http://www.denasamuels.com/
Mindfulness-Based Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging
Author, Speaker, Leadership Trainer & Transformation Coach

Pronouns: she/her/hers
Ph: 719.661.6544
Denver, CO

To make an appointment with Dr. Samuels, please click here

Dena Samuels Consulting and link to www.denasamuels.com

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Wonder Woman in Business, Rebecca Martin

Rebecca Martin

Rebecca Martin created online platform in 2018 for interviews with women in film and personal essays by women in film. Her website can be found on wordpress.com and she posts weekly social media on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Rebecca also manages a media and marketing team, and writing staff. She is the lead event coordinator for the magazine.

Cinema Femme Magazine is a magazine that voices the female film experience through personal essays and interviews, accompanied by illustration and design. The magazine's mission is to support and contribute to an increase in diverse, female representation in film criticism, which will result in bringing female-directed and diverse films to the forefront.

Rebecca Martin’s true passion has always been film. She founded the Chicago Film Lover Exchange in 2011, which now has 6,000+ members. Along with film, Rebecca is passionate about empowering other women to follow their dreams.

Enjoy the podcast.

Rebecca Martin

CONNECT WITH CINEMA FEMME:

Videos:

https://cinemafemme.com/resources/

About Page:

https://cinemafemme.com/about/

Socials:

Facebook: https://facebook.com/cinemafemmemagazine

Instagram: https://instagram.com/cinemafemmemagazine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cinema_femme

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cinema-femme-magazine

Cinema Femme Voices

https://vimeo.com/364399357

Who We Are

https://vimeo.com/364399357

CONTACT REBECCA:

Rebecca Martin

Founder and Editor in Chief

Cinema Femme Magazine

630-340-1009 (Cell)

cinemafemme@cinemafemme.com

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Wonder Women in Business Ally, Dr. Bill Sodeman

Bill Sodeman, Ph.D.

Bill Sodeman is an experienced professor, higher education administrator, and corporate learning executive. He earned a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Georgia, completing his dissertation research on socially responsible investing in 1993. Bill also earned an MBA from Rollins College, and a BA in studio fine art from the College of William and Mary in Virginia.

Dr. Sodeman has published and presented to academic and professional audiences around the world. His work has been published in Business Horizons, the Organization Development Journal, Business & Society, and the New York Times. He has taught at several universities, including Marquette University, Hawaii Pacific University, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Clark University. 

He is Chief Learning Officer for Seven Hills Foundation, a non-profit human services agency operating in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. 

Bill lives in Worcester, Massachusetts with his wife, Jacki Wolf, and their two rescue dogs, Faith and Kelly. He enjoys working out, reading comic books, cooking, and travel.

Enjoy the podcast.

Bill Sodeman, Ph.D.

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