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2023 SPEAKERS
The 2023 Keynote Speakers and Breakout Leaders for the Indiana Conference for Women
WONIYA THIBEAULT
Never Alone
MORNING KEYNOTE
Woniya Dawn Thibeault has always been drawn to wild places and the skills our ancestors used to thrive there. While she never considered herself a survivalist, her master’s degree in Environmental Science and decades spent honing land-based living skills taught her how to live long-term in the wilderness. Her business, Buckskin Revolution, is dedicated to sharing wilderness skills and inspiration to help us all live wilder, more bountiful and connected lives.
Woniya’s love of adventure and deep yearning to test herself led to the solo challenge chronicled in Never Alone, seen on Season 6 of the Alone series on THE HISTORY CHANNEL. Three years after that challenge, she was invited to compete in a spin-off series, Alone: Frozen, which brought six of the strongest participants from previous seasons to the rugged coastline of Labrador, Canada, to face the most extreme conditions in the series. With her second Alone journey, Woniya made history in two ways: across her two stints in the wild, she set a new record for cumulative days on an Alone wilderness survival challenge, and she became the first woman to win one.
Woniya has lived in Oregon, Vermont, New York State, and Ontario, and considers Grass Valley, California, her hometown.
MINKA KELLY
LUNCHEON KEYNOTE
Landing on New York Times Best-Sellers List, Minka's recently released book is earning rave reviews, including the Associated Press calling it a “stunning new memoir,” Tell Me Everything is as powerful as it is page-turning. Gabrielle Union calls it, “A timely, urgent portrait of working-class American women.”
As a respected actor, Minka won the hearts of audiences as ‘Lyla Garrity’ on the NBC hit show, “Friday Night Lights.” Her success continued with a role as a behavioral therapist on another NBC hit show, “Parenthood.” Most recently, Minka can be seen in the second season of HBO and Sam Levinson’s critically acclaimed series, “Euphoria.”
After a trip to Ethiopia in 2009, Minka was inspired to help the countless women she met who are unable to provide for themselves and their families. She is a partner with ABLE, an organization that invests in, trains, and educates women to create employment opportunities through the production and sales of clothing and accessories so they can earn a living, break the cycle of poverty and thrive. Minka is also a global ambassador for the International Fund for Animal Wildlife.
NICOLE LYNN
"Agent You: Show Up, Do the Work, and Succeed on Your Own Terms.”
CLOSING KEYNOTE
Like her clients, Nicole Lynn is a force to be reckoned with.
Major sports agent, advisor to elite athletes, top 10% law school graduate, successful author, and new mom. All those titles describe 36 year old Nicole Lynn. In 2019, Nicole became the first Black woman to represent a Top 3 NFL draft pick (and only the second woman in history to solo represent an NFL first-rounder). Each year tops the one before … and just a few months ago, she orchestrated the most lucrative deal in NFL history. Her client, Jalen Hurts, QB for the Philadelphia Eagles became the highest contracted player in NFL history signing a $255 million dollar contract.
Nicole loves to remind individuals that they have the power to uniquely create their future while remaining true to themselves . In her book, Agent You: Show Up, Do the Work and Succeed on Your Own Terms, she challenges audiences to chase their dreams and says, “it always seems impossible until it's done.” Nicole teaches individuals that it is okay to be the first and it is okay to be the one and only. But most importantly, losing is okay because winners lose before, during, and after their win. Nicole became a first-time mom in July of this year.
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JOANNE LIPMAN
BREAKOUT LEADER
Powerhouse journalist Joanne Lipman has transformed newsrooms across the country – and now she’s turned her keen eye to transforming work and life in the post-pandemic era. In her blockbuster new book, Next!: The Power of Reinvention in Life and Work, she offers a deeply reported, delightfully readable look at how to change your life, your workplace, or your career -– and how to inspire innovation in others. It follows her No. 1 bestseller That’s What She Said, about achieving gender equity at work and at home, inspiring men as well as women to join together to promote diversity, innovation and excellence.
Lipman began her career at The Wall Street Journal. There, she rose from reporter to become the highest-ranking woman in the paper’s history, created Weekend Journal and Personal Journal, and supervised coverage that won three Pulitzer Prizes. Drawing on her own experience rising to the top of a male-dominated industry, plus extensive research for her bestselling book That’s What She Said, Lipman has become one of the country’s top experts on women’s leadership, and on strategies for engaging men to help close the gender gap. As she puts it, solving inequality “isn’t a ‘female’ issue. It’s a humanitarian issue.”
NEHA SANGWAN, MD.
"Powered By Me: From Burnout to Fully Charged at Work and in Life”
BREAKOUT LEADER
Neha Sangwan, MD, CEO and founder of Intuitive Intelligence, is an internal medicine physician, international speaker and corporate communication expert. Her private practice and corporate consulting focuses on empowering individuals, organizational leaders, and their teams with the tools for clear, effective communication. She addresses the root causes of stress, miscommunication, and interpersonal conflict, often healing chronic conditions such as headaches, insomnia, anxiety, depression, and burnout. She consults with organizations such as the American Heart Association, American Express, Kaiser Permanente, and Google, and has shared her journey on the many stages of TEDx..
We are experiencing a Burnout Pandemic. Burnout is not merely a case of working too hard or feeling physically exhausted for an extended period of time, and it isn’t a personal failure. According to Dr. Neha Sangwan, burnout is due to prolonged stress and an ongoing net drain of energy on one or more of five levels: physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual. When you are burned out, your productivity suffers, your health declines, and you are more reactive in your relationships. Your capacity to navigate challenging emotions, address conflict and draw healthy boundaries diminishes.
Combining scientific data, clinical examples, and personal stories, Dr. Neha provides practical tools to restore physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual energy
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SUSAN MAGSAMEN
BREAKOUT LEADER
Your Brain on Art brings to life the neurobiology of the arts and artistic pursuits and how they make a positive impact on our day-to-day life.
Your Brain on Art is a mind-altering journey through the science of neuroaesthetics that offers proof of how our brains and bodies are transformed when we participate in the arts, and how this knowledge can improve our physical and mental health, help us flourish, and build stronger communities.
Many of us think of the arts as entertainment or an escape. … a luxury of some kind. This book will show you that the arts are so much more. We now have scientific proof that the arts are essential to our well-being, even our survival. For example, working on an art project for forty-five minutes reduces stress by 25 percent.. Dance and movement effectively relieve symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Multi-sensory virtual reality provides cutting-edge pain therapy.
Susan is a Fellow at the Royal Society of the Arts, and a strategic advisor fostering leadership, curiosity and innovation with global organizations and initiatives. She is also a member of numerous prestigious national and international groups that foster the benefits of the arts in our lives