Co-creator of the GrassROOTS Community Foundation (GCF), a health advocacy organization that develops, scales, and funds community health initiatives for impoverished women and girls, Dr. Johnson Dias is dedicated to devising research-informed, innovative solutions to the challenges facing the urban poor.
Leadership/Teamwork
Tom Clynes
Acclaimed journalist, photographer and author of The Boy Who Played With Fusion, Tom Clynes, longtime Contributing Editor at National Geographic Adventure brings audiences along on assignment to the ends of the Earth, telling the stories of individuals who managed to shape once-ordinary lives into extraordinary, world-changing adventures, and how each of us can do the same.
Jeff Stibel
In his New York Times Bestseller, Breakpoint: Why the Web will Implode, Search will be Obsolete, and Everything Else you Need to Know about Technology is in Your Brain, Stibel, a brain scientist, entrepreneur and Chairman and CEO of Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp, explores how the intersection of the brain, biology and technology can help businesses better leverage the world’s collective consciousness.
Joan Garry
Former Executive Director of GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), Garry is widely recognized as one of the most vocal, passionate and effective civil rights leaders in America. She is a featured blogger at The Huffington Post, and frequently contributes commentary to major news publications and TV networks.
Joe Drape
Award-winning New York Times journalist and author of the bestseller Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen, Drape paints an inspiring portrait of a small town in Kansas that actually believes it takes a village to raise a child, and how its long-undefeated football team (79 games in a row) has embodied this ideal.
William C. Rhoden
Award-winning New York Times columnist, bestselling author of Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of the Black Athlete, and frequent guest on ESPN’s “The Sports Reporters,” Rhoden uses the metaphors of sports to address crucial issues and conflicts in contemporary American society.
Brandon Friedman
Author of the acclaimed memoir, The War I Always Wanted, Friedman is the former Director of New Media at the Department of Veterans Affairs. He served from ’07-’09 as Vice Chairman of VoteVets.org and as editor of the blog VetVoice, and has worked extensively across all media platforms to communicate progressive defense and foreign policy strategies.
