In celebration of Women's History Month, the Zahn Center is hosting an exciting panel of entrepreneurs who are "Breaking Ground and Making History." We'll hear from changemakers Shabnam Rezaei, Kerry Brodie, Caeley Looney, and Cynthia Pong as they discuss how they're each making history NOW and changing the course of history through their work and activism. The conversation will be moderated by Jennifer Jones, Founder, Award-Winning Social Entrepreneur, Chief Hype Woman. Here's a little about each panelist, but their full bios can be found below:

Shabnam Rezaei - Co-Founder of Big Bad Boo Studios, a premier animation company, and Oznoz, an educational platform featuring cartoons in 10 languages with no ads; Champion of producing inclusive content for kids, including The Bravest Knight, one of the first shows in children’s TV to feature an openly gay main character

Kerry Brodie - Founder/Executive Director, Emma’s Torch, a nonprofit social enterprise that empowers refugees, asylees and survivors of human trafficking through culinary education, training and job placement


Caeley Looney - Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Reinvented Magazine, the nation’s first ever print magazine for women in STEM by women in STEM; Full-Time Rocket Scientist (specifically, a Space Mission Analyst who plays an integral role in the modeling and simulation of Small Satellites)

Cynthia Pong, JD - Founder of Embrace Change and Author; Public Defender turned career coach on a mission to close the gaps in pay, power, and respect for women of color

This event will be held on Tuesday, March 23rd via Zoom from 5:30-6:30pm, with a 30 minute networking session to follow. Sign up here and a Zoom link will be sent to you a day before the event.

Shabnam is the co-founder of Big Bad Boo Studios, a New York and Vancouver-based company that produces and distributes educational kids’ content such as TV shows, digital games, comic books and curriculum materials. Shows include 16 Hudson, The Bravest Knight, ABC with Kenny G, Mixed Nutz, Lili & Lola, and 1001 Nights, which air in over 80 countries. The company also has an SVOD channel, Oznoz, that offers cartoons in 10+ languages.

With a BS in Computer Science, a BA in German Literature from UPenn, and an MBA from NYU, Shabnam has spent over 10 years on Wall Street and held managerial positions at EXIS, Misys and Deloitte & Touche. She was born in Iran, grew up in Austria and is raising her girls trilingual.

For more, please visit www.bigbadboo.ca or www.oznoz.com

Kerry founded Emma’s Torch in 2016 but dreamed of it long before that. Cooking has always been her passion: at the age of five, she started training under the watchful eyes of her grandmother, a former caterer and event planner.

Working in media -- as the Global Press Secretary for the Human Rights Campaign and the Director of Communications at the Israeli Embassy -- the daily headlines about the refugee crisis screamed in her face.

The time to act is now, she decided. After all, as Anne Frank once said, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Isn’t it though?

Kerry is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education, where she won the Wusthof Award for Leadership and was named ACCSC Graduate of the Year. She holds a Masters in Government from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelors in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. She was named one of City & State’s 40 Under 40 in 2018.

Cynthia Pong, JD, is an award-winning career strategist, speaker, and author of Don't Stay in Your Lane: The Career Change Guide for Women of Color. An NYU-trained lawyer turned feminist career coach, she's on a mission to get women of color the money, power, and respect that they deserve. Her career advice has been featured in HuffPost, CNBC, Fast Company, Refinery29, NPR, and more, and she is a LinkedIn Top Voice for Job Search and Career.

Cynthia specializes in strategizing with mid-career women of color professionals who are pursuing unconventional paths. Her coaching focuses on emboldening her clients, sharpening their negotiation skills, and building their business acumen. She is frequently sought out to provide highly relevant, super applicable, easy-to-understand career advice specifically for women of color.

Cynthia's clients are breaking down barriers in a variety of fields and industries, including: medicine, public health, the arts, social work, sustainability, and the trades. She is a proud introvert, a classic middle child, and an unapologetic Rottweiler enthusiast.

Jennifer Jones is an award-winning entrepreneur who was named a Winner of the Mastercard 'Her Ideas - Start Something Priceless' campaign in December 2019 for the success and impact of her social enterprise Women You Should Know® (WYSK®). Jennifer launched WYSK in 2011 to provide a global platform for women and girls to receive the coverage, content, visibility and support they deserve, but were not getting. Her pioneering venture has grown to encompass three integrated, impact-rich sister brands that are supportive extensions of one another, all women-focused, purpose-filled and mission-driven: Women You Should Know® - leading editorial platform and social community; Women You Should Fund® - niche crowdfunding platform; (EM)POWER® Laces - unique product collection.

Recognized as a diverse resource of women-powered inspiration, perspective, education and support, Women You Should Know was recently expanded to include WYSK VOICES. This specialized division connects women everyone should know with organizations, companies and event hosts that want innovative speakers whose words are as real as their actions are bold.

Prior to Women You Should Know, Jennifer co-founded OUTHOUSE pr in 2001. This award-winning public relations and event marketing firm specialized in grassroots brand building and image proliferation for both emerging and high-profile brands across a number of consumer industries. OUTHOUSE pr was fused with Women You Should Know in mid-2013, and by 2016 had evolved into a strategic think tank and integrated communications consultancy for women-led businesses, endeavors and nonprofits.

Before becoming a founder, Jennifer spent the first 7 years of her professional career in the public relations field working with a variety of domestic and international luxury brands, both in-house at a major American jewelry brand, and on the agency side where she built a highly profitable PR and event marketing division of a New York City-based advertising agency.

Jennifer graduated Summa Cum Laude from Boston College with a BA in Communications.