Board of Directors

2013 Board of Directors and Officers

The New Agenda 501(c)(4)

Board Members

The New Agenda Foundation 501(c)(3)

Board Members

Officers

President– Amy Siskind
Vice President– Karen Gerringer
Secretary– Deb Kemper
Treasurer– Jennifer Kruschwitz

Advisory Council

See who’s on our Advisory Council ›

Young Women Leadership Council

Meet our young women leaders ›

 

Amy Siskind

Amy Siskind

Amy Siskind is a national spokesperson, writer and expert on helping women and girls advance and succeed. A highly successful Wall Street executive, she’s Co-founder and President of The New Agenda, a national organization working on issues including economic independence and advancement, gender representation and bias, sexual assault and domestic violence. Some of her television and radio appearances include: CNN, Fox News, CNBC, PBS, TheStreet.com, NPR, Marketplace Radio and American Morning News Radio. A frequent source for national press, Siskind has been quoted in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, POLITICO, U.S. News & World Report, RealClearPolitics, the Boston Globe and The Hill.

She’s a regular featured contributor at The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast. Amy speaks on college campuses and to young women about economic empowerment, and delivers inspiration keynotes and speeches to professional women on how to succeed. She serves on Cornell University’s highly prestigious President’s Council of Cornell Women (PCCW).

A pioneer in the distressed debt trading market, she has a lifetime of experience with failure and remarkable success and knows what it takes to win. She became the first female Managing Director at Wasserstein Perella at the age of 31, and later ran trading departments at Morgan Stanley and Imperial Capital, where she was also a partner. She received a BA in Economics from Cornell University and an MBA in Finance from The NYU Stern School of Business.

Amy is currently working on her first book about her adventures as a woman on Wall Street.

 

Karen Gerringer

Karen Gerringer

Karen Gerringer is a founding member of The New Agenda, with a particular interest in the “safety” and “leadership” aspects of the organization. She is an Executive Director in Risk Management at Morgan Stanley, where she has worked for 16 years variously in technology, investment banking, firm management, and fixed income. Karen has a BS in Marketing and Management from Wharton/UPenn and an MBA in Finance and Technology from Stern/NYU.

 

Jennifer Kruschwitz

Jennifer Kruschwitz

Encouraging and inspiring women to enter the physical sciences has been a crusade for Jennifer Kruschwitz for over 20 years. Jennifer has her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Optics from the University of Rochester and is currently studying for her PhD in Color Science at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY. She has been an active independent consultant in the field of optical interference coatings and is the only woman in the United States who consults in this field. She is a Senior Member of the Optical Society of America (OSA) and a member of the International Society of Optical Engineers (SPIE). Jennifer has published more than 15 journal articles in the field of optical coatings and holds two patents with two patents pending in the areas of laser cinema display and color. She is currently an adjunct assistant professor to the University of Rochester and the University of Arizona. Jennifer also is a certified 3rd Dan (black belt) in Taekwondo with Kukkiwon, the World Taekwondo Federation in South Korea.

 

Sarah Boerner

Sarah Berner

Sarah has extensive sales and marketing experience in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, spanning a broad range of industries including media and finance. Sarah is currently based in Manhattan and works in the asset management field, serving as Director of Marketing for Aristeia Capital. Her work in the for-profit world allows her to leverage her contact base to assist with philanthropic endeavors and organizations aimed at providing supportive networks, particularly to women, children and young professionals. Prior to working with hedge funds based in New York, Geneva and Hong Kong, Sarah worked in sales, business development, investor and media relations in Western Europe and the Middle East. Sarah graduated from McGill University where she completed an Honors B.A. degree in Political Science. She studied journalism and American foreign policy at Harvard University and French in Paris at the Alliance Française.

 

Lara Brown

Lara Brown

Engaging college-age women in not only the study, but also the practice of American politics is part of what Lara enjoys about being a political science professor at Villanova University. With research interests in presidential aspirants, congressional incumbents, and scandals, her aim is educate students on the institutions and rules that structure American political parties and national elections and demystify the politics that operate in our nation’s capital. Lara’s latest book, Jockeying for the American Presidency: The Political Opportunism of Aspirants (Cambria Press, 2010) traces the paths of aspirants from 1796-2008 on their way to the presidency. Prior to completing her Ph.D. at UCLA, Lara served in President William J. Clinton’s administration at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C.

 

Deb Kemper

Deb Kemper is an experienced consultant and non-profit board member with cross-cultural leadership experience; she has lived and worked on three continents. Deb is current working with JUCCCE, a China-based NGO, where she is developing initiatives on sustainability and leadership development. Prior to her work with JUCCCE, Deb was a consultant with McKinsey & Company. In addition to her cross-functional and cross-sector consulting experience, she has served on non-profit Boards of Directors in the United States, Peru and China. Deb earned her MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College where she was named an Edward Tuck Scholar. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from Cornell University where she graduated With Distinction and was a member of the Varsity Women’s Crew. She currently lives in Shanghai, China with her husband and two children.

 

Nairoby Otero

Nairoby Otero

Nairoby Otero is proud to be the youngest board member of The New Agenda. An actress, writer, and executive producer, she is a proud first-generation American; both parents were immigrants from Cuba. As a direct result of the sexism directed towards Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential campaign, Nairoby began giving talks to young girls about the lack of respect and solidarity among women and the effects that it will have on all women if it is not corrected. In addition to bringing awareness to her generation about the importance of sisterhood, she has become a tireless crusader for a cure and understanding of autism due to having three cousins with this disorder. A graduate from Marymount Manhattan College, Nairoby continues to perform and write throughout New York City. Nairoby is currently working on her next two writing projects, A Middle Class Home, and Magdelene. Nairoby is the founder of YOLO! Productions, a theatrical producing company that produces published and original works of theatre that not only enhance women on stage, but also showcases subject matters that too often go unrepresented. This June marks YOLO!’s inaugural production of Sunday on the Rocks by Theresa Rebeck. Nairoby Otero is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild, Actors Equity Association, and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

 

Victoria Pynchon

Victoria Pynchon

Victoria Pynchon is the co-founder of She Negotiates’ Training and Consulting and of the She Negotiates Blog at ForbesWoman. After a 25-year commercial litigation career, Victoria earned her legal masters degree in dispute resolution. She arbitrates commercial disputes for the American Arbitration Association and mediates litigated business cases for ADR Services, Inc. in Century City. Victoria graduated with a J.D., Order of the Coif, from U.C. Davis in 1980. Victoria is the author of The Grownups’ ABCs of Conflict Resolution (Reason Press, 2010) and Success as a Mediator for Dummies (Wiley, 2012) and is a frequent keynote speaker at professional and business women’s conferences.

 

Janet Salazar

Janet Salazar

Janet C. Salazar is the Founder and CEO of IMPACT Leadership 21, and CEO and Co-Founder of Maverick Vision International Advisors (MVI Advisors), a New York–based global firm of experts providing highly specialized consulting, coaching, training and advisory on multicultural leadership development. As a Certified Executive Coach, Janet’s expertise is assisting leaders in creating authentic, profound, long lasting impact in their organizations and personal lives. As a Certified Master Coach Trainer, she trains senior executives maximize their abilities to coach and unleash the potential of emerging leaders. Janet also serves as the Permanent Representative to the United Nations at Foundation for the Support of the United Nations (FSUN), an international NGO in General Consultative Status at the United Nations. Janet also serves as Treasurer and Public Relations Director of the Executive Committee of NGOs Associated with UN Department of Public Information, representing more than 1,300 global NGOs to the United Nations. Her passion for women’s education and leadership inspired her to serve on the International Steering Committee of the Asian Women’s Leadership University Project (AWLU), whose goal is to establish a world class liberal arts university for future women leaders in the Pan-Asia region based on the Seven Sisters model in the United States. Get to know Janet better and join her and the global community of women creating IMPACT and inspiring the next generation of women leaders at janetcsalazar.com and impactleadership21.com

Whitney Zahnd

Whitney Zahnd was raised on a corn and soybean farm in Champaign, Illinois and currently works as a researcher for the Center for Clinical Research at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield, Illinois. She has a B.S. in microbiology and a M.S. in community health specializing in epidemiology both from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She credits Governor Palin’s VP run in 2008 for instilling in her a passion for politics and for supporting female empowerment and leadership in politics, science, business, and beyond. She has written for websites such as Conservatives4Palin, Palin4America, and BigGovernment. Whitney currently serves as the Illinois state coordinator for Organize4Palin and administrative coordinator for the Central Illinois 9/12 project. She has been blessed with the opportunity to volunteer as the adviser to the Medical Explorers Post 998, working with high school students interested in the medical field, as a mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Illinois Capital Region. She is also active with her church in Springfield.