Advisory Council Member
Activist Sinéad Burke has used writing, public-speaking, and social media to highlight the lack of inclusivity within the fashion industry and encourages the industry to design for and with disabled people on a global level. Sinéad has visited schools, workplaces, government agencies and the White House to facilitate honest conversations around education, disability, fashion, and accessibility. She advocates for the inclusion of all and challenges officials to legislate with the most marginalized in our communities. She is currently working on a Ph.D. at Dublin’s Trinity College in human-rights education that specifically confronts the ways in which schools allow children to have a voice. She is an ambassador for the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the Irish Girl Guides. Burke is also the host of Lemonada Media’s podcast As Me with Sinéad.
Advisory Council Member
Jamillia Ferris is an antitrust partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini, where she focuses on competition issues facing technology companies. Jamillia has held leadership positions and oversaw mergers at both the Antitrust Division of the DOJ and the FCC. In 2014, she led the FCC’s review of AT&T’s proposed $49 billion acquisition of DIRECTV, overseeing all aspects of the FCC process. Jamillia has served in numerous leadership positions in the Section of Antitrust Law, American Bar Association, and currently is an editor of the ABA publication, The Source. She says of Lemonada: “I have been a beneficiary of Jessica Cordova Kramer’s wisdom and creativity for more than a decade—and of Stephanie Wittels Wachs’ vision for the last year. I am thrilled to get even closer to their stories and Lemonada Media’s growth as part of the Advisory Council.
Advisory Council Member
Stephanie Hannon is currently the Chief Product Officer of Waze, a navigation and community tool powered and used by drivers all over the world. Stephanie was previously the Senior Director of Product Management at Google leading the COVID-19 Exposure Notification project in collaboration with Apple. Stephanie is also an Advisor to U.S. Digital Response, a grassroots technical volunteer organization focused on COVID-19 response. She was most previously Chief Product Officer at Strava, a fitness tracking app, data visualization platform and social network for athletes. As the Chief Technology Officer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, Stephanie built an 80-person engineering team in under 20 months. Together, they launched more than 100 products for grassroots organizing, voter registration, voter activation, fundraising, analytics and volunteer engagement. Preceding her time on the Clinton campaign, Stephanie was Google’s Director of Product Management for Social Impact, focused on building innovative technology to help people broaden engagement with their community, government and nonprofits. In Google’s Sydney office, Stephanie led product for Google Wave, a real-time communication and collaboration tool built as a startup experiment. From the Zurich office, Stephanie launched the first version Google Transit and launched Google Maps in more than 80 countries. She started her time at Google as a product manager for Gmail (in its first year of life) at the headquarters in Mountain View, where she also helped launched the first version of Google Apps.
At Facebook, Stephanie led product management for Site Integrity and Trust Engineering, working to ensure safe-space communication where people use their authentic identities. Prior to Facebook, Stephanie co-founded an ambitious startup that aimed to bring web innovations, technology and transparency to residential energy management and markets. Stephanie also spent six years as a software engineer building operating systems for the Catalyst line of switches at Cisco Systems after the acquisition of a startup she joined called Granite Systems. Stephanie holds a B.S. Computer Systems Engineering, an M.S.E.E. from Stanford University, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. She was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Greylock Partners in 2017.
Advisory Council Member
Former U.S. Representative Patrick J. Kennedy was the lead author of the landmark Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (Federal Parity Law), which requires insurers to cover treatment for mental health and substance-use disorders no more restrictively than treatment for illnesses of the body, such as diabetes and cancer. In 2013, he founded The Kennedy Forum, a nonprofit that unites advocates, business leaders, and government agencies to advance evidence-based practices, policies, and programming in mental health and addiction. In 2015, Kennedy co-authored the New York Times Bestseller, A Common Struggle: A Personal Journey Through the Past and Future of Mental Illness and Addiction, which details a bold plan for the future of mental health care in America.
In 2017, he was appointed to the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. Kennedy is also the founder of DontDenyMe.org, an educational campaign that empowers consumers and providers to understand parity rights and connects them to essential appeals guidance and resources; co-founder of One Mind, an organization that pushes for greater global investment in brain research; co-founder of Psych Hub, the most comprehensive online learning platform on mental health, substance use, and suicide prevention topics in the world; co-chair of Mental Health for US, a nonpartisan initiative designed to elevate mental health and addiction in policy conversations during the 2020 election cycle; and co-chair of the Action Alliance’s Mental Health & Suicide Prevention National Response to COVID-19.
Advisory Council Member
Wendy Kopp is CEO and Co-Founder of Teach For All, a global network of independent organizations that are developing collective leadership to ensure all children have the opportunity to fulfill their potential. Wendy founded Teach For America in 1989 to marshal the energy of her generation against educational inequity in the United States. Wendy has been recognized as one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” and is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and awards for public service. She is the author of A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn’t in Providing an Excellent Education for All (2011) and One Day, All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach For America and What I Learned Along the Way (2000). She holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, where she participated in the undergraduate program of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Advisory Council Member
Ricki Lake is an actress, filmmaker and former talk show host. She is most well known for her lead role as Tracy Turnblad in the 1988 film Hairspray (her first professional acting gig). She was 24 years old when The Ricki Lake Show debuted in 1993. She was the youngest person at the time to host a daytime talk show. She has been featured on numerous reality shows including the Masked Singer and Dancing with the Stars.
Her documentary The Business of Being Born was released in 2008. It included footage and details of Lake’s own “life-changing” home-birthing experience. She produced another documentary with her partner Abby Epstein called Weed the People and they have a new documentary exploring the impact of birth control. She has shared her own experience with birth control and how it contributed to her hair loss. She has been dealing with androgenetic alopecia, most of her life.
A year ago, Lake decided to take control and shave all her hair off; though, to her surprise, the decision opened her up to the beauty of aging. Since then Lake found Harkliniken, a brand that specializes in hair loss, and she now has a full head of hair.
Advisory Council Member
DeRay Mckesson is a civil-rights activist focused primarily on issues of innovation, equity, and justice. DeRay has advocated for issues related to children, youth, and families since he was a teen. As a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter Movement and a co-founder of Campaign Zero, DeRay has worked to connect individuals with knowledge and tools, while providing citizens and policy makers with common-sense policies that ensure equity. He has been praised by President Obama for his work as a community organizer, has advised officials at all levels of government and internationally, and continues to provide capacity to activists, organizers, and influencers to make an impact. As a podcaster, DeRay currently hosts Crooked Media’s Pod Save the People and co-produces Lemonada Media’s The Untold Story: Policing. Born and raised in Baltimore, he graduated from Bowdoin College and holds honorary doctorates from The New School and the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Advisory Council Member
Andy Slavitt has led some of the largest decades of private and public-sector initiatives in health care. From 2015–17, Slavitt was appointed by former President Obama to serve as the Acting Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). He first came to public view as the lead in overseeing the turnaround and relaunch of Healthcare.gov.
He’s been anointed to “The Politico 50,” recognized as one of the 10 most influential people in health care, and has one of the largest and most influential accounts on Twitter. Today, Slavitt is dedicated to building a sustainable, high-quality health-care system that is available to all Americans. Slavitt is the founder and Board Chair of non-profit United States of Care and is a General Partner at Town Hall Ventures, which sparks innovation in vulnerable communities. He writes a regular column for USA Today and frequently appears on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and NPR. Slavitt is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School and The College of Arts Sciences and received an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Advisory Council Member
Kulap Vilaysack is a writer-director who created the TV series Bajillion Dollar Properties on Seeso. She was the showrunner/EP on the show and also directed numerous episodes. Her work on the show was highlighted in a New York Times article celebrating “Young Comic TV Showrunners.” She created and co-hosted the popular Earwolf podcast Who Charted alongside Howard Kremer for seven years before stepping back to pursue other projects. Her original documentary, Origin Story, which chronicles her travels to her native land of Laos to search for her father, debuted at the Bentonville Film Festival and CAAMFest to great acclaim and is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. She was also the showrunner/co-EP on the NBC special A Legendary Christmas With John and Chrissy and directed Emily Heller’s stand-up special Ice Thickeners for Comedy Central Digital. Kulap currently co-hosts Lemonada Media’s Add to Cart.
“It has been a pleasure to witness Lemonada’s formation, launch, and rise,” she says of Lemonada. “Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer—through hard work, perseverance, and good taste—have created a media company that holds up a corner of the sky.”
Advisory Council Member
Melinda Wright is currently Global Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Cambridge Associates. Previously, she was a Senior Program Officer for the K-12 Education Program at the Walton Family Foundation. In this role, Melinda focused on funder networks, African-American donor engagement, and special projects. Prior to joining the foundation, Melinda served in a variety of roles at Teach For America including Senior Vice President of Alumni Diversity. In this role, Melinda developed Teach For America’s first ever national alumni of color association, The Collective. Melinda received her Bachelor of Arts in Africana Studies from Cornell University and upon graduating, she joined Teach For America and taught in New York City. After completing her corps commitment, Melinda attended George Washington University law school where she attained her Juris Doctorate as well as her master’s in history (African-American Studies) and Public Policy (Education). She spent her second summer of law school studying International Human Rights Law at Oxford University. Immediately following law school, Melinda seized the opportunity to serve as the Head Coach of Howard University’s women’s lacrosse team, which at the time was the only Division I team at a historically Black University. Soon after, Melinda and her family relocated to Westminster School, a 9th to 12th grade boarding school, where she served as the Director of Diversity, Associate Director of Admissions and Director of Student Life.
Lemonada Media is an award-winning women-run podcast network that shares the unfiltered version of the human experience.