Leslie Berliant
Cause-based Marketing and Public-Private Partnership Strategy
Leslie is a partner at BLU MOONGroup, a marketing and communications company that specializes in cause and advocacy campaigns. With BLU Moon, and independently, Leslie writes on the topics of sustainability, the climate crisis, environmental health and corporate social responsibility for publications that include the LOHAS Journal, Sustainablog, Celsias, Personal News Network, the Santa Monica Mirror and others. She is a published poet with works featured in the anthologies Deliver Me and Big City Mantra, as well as the literary magazine Mo+Th. She lives in Santa Monica, California with her 15 year-old daughter where she is helping people create more sustainable homes, work places and events. Leslie is currently Kick-starting her long-time passion: an organic Truffle Company, Le Marais Chocolat!
Holly Mosher
Media & Communications
A serial award-winning Filmmaker for Change, Holly Mosher grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In high school she developed a passion for both photography and philosophy that led her to pursue filmmaking. In her college entrance paper, she cited George Orwell’s idea that all art should be political, and today, uses that concept to guide her work.
After graduating with honors from New York University's Tisch School of the Art , she spent two years in Brazil working as an assistant picture and sound editor on four feature films, including the Oscar nominated films O QUATRILHO, TIETA, and PEQUENO DICIONARIO AMOROSO. Now having executive produced many of her own masterpieces including, HUMMINGBIRD, FREE FOR ALL!, and THE VANISHING OF THE BEES, Holly has launched her second directorial project, BONSAI, where she is following the work of the Nobel Peace Prize winning Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank. Holly is also a co-founder of Be Well Media, a non-profit which aims to create films and other entertainment that inspire people to take their health into their own hands.
Jeff Weigel
Finance and Management Structure
Jeff's vision: "By 2035 a world in which all communities have access to the knowledge, skills and resources to provide for their own well being". After helping Empowerment Works raise funds to launch its 7 Stages curriculum in 2009, he joined the Board to bring his global vision to life.
Jeff Weigel retired from a Vice President's position at a Standard and Poor's 500 company to form an executive level group working with European technology companies on North American business issues. He has spoken to groups around the world about the challenges and approaches of crossing cultural bounds to do business.
Jeff and his wife, Karen have a home in Fiji and are active in social projects there. In 2006 they structured, financed, staffed and operated a project to treat a whole Fijian island for scabies, head lice and a collection of dermatological conditions. In four weeks the project treated 5,000 people and disinfected 1,000 homes. They are also active in bringing pre-school education to the Island of Taveuni and structuring a Fiji wide scabies control project. See Linked In Profile
Pamela Millar
Information & Communication Technologies / 1PIE Collaboration Portal
At the nexus of Sun Microsystems’ role in creating Open Standards for Globalization, Pamela is now lead adviser of EW's strategy to globalize sustainability standards, starting with six key sectors of PIE (Partners in Empowerment).
Principal of Bridgemakers Consulting, Pamela Millar has entrepreneur in her bloodstream, having spent the past twenty years launching computer software and hardware companies into the global market. She has her MBA in international management and some of the biggest names in information technology companies in the world have been her clients, including Pixar, Compaq, Netscape and Sun Microsystems. Pamela helped optimize market positioning for innovative software companies around the world, including Dynaware, Pastel Development, Pixar Corporation, No Hands Software, Kensington Microware and others. Her range of experience includes both inbound and outbound marketing, from market development planning to product advertising and messaging worldwide. She is fluent in French and Spanish, speaks some Mandarin Chinese, and has lived and worked in France, Belgium, Mexico and Taiwan.
Leading development of EW's 1PIE Portal, Pamela brings experience as senior global product strategist for Sun Microsystems for seven years, Pamela contributed over one million lines of source code to the open source community, including the entire multilingual architecture for the Solaris Operating System. Since leaving Sun, Pamela has been guiding and stewarding new entrepreneurial companies such as Green Technology Institute, TEKIO, the Romero Institute, Earth Networks Television and Justsystems Corporation.
In her spare time, Pamela has also been active social entrepreneur, riding her bike across America for Mobility International, an organization which helps people with disabilities travel internationally. Still committed to this cause, Pamela helped form the Accessibility initiative at Sun Microsystems, ensuring equal access for people with disabilities to the latest internet technology across the suite of Sun's products.
Sophie LaPaire
Strategic Development
Sophie has a keen eye for optimizing organizational efficiency within business planning systems. She has a talent in unifying processes across multiple divisions and organizations, standardizing workflow, eliminating redundancy in process, and specifying exact time lines and deliverables. She has worked very actively with product teams to increase time to market while keeping an eagle eye on quality metrics. She has vast experience in architecting repeatable and efficient workflow systems and guiding her customers toward desired success metrics. An experienced diplomat, Sophie is a skilled business negotiator, successfully mediating cross-cultural and cross-divisional priorities. She is also versed at financial planning, budget tracking systems and financial reporting.
Sophie has a personal passion for the protection of human rights and has been actively supporting numerous humanitarian causes since her early adulthood. She lived and worked in the Vietnamese refugee camps in Hong Kong, assisting the “boat people” with social and job skills and offering a source of moral support for their plight. She has also served as liaison and communications manager for numerous flood relief efforts in conjunction with the International Red Cross and has spoken before international audiences on the needs of refugees and the disenfranchised. She co-authored a book of Buddhist spiritual teachings which is now selling in 23 languages worldwide. She is also a field reporter for a satellite television station broadcasting only positive and inspirational programming around the world.
Sophie is now president of Bridgemakers Consulting Corporation, a group of like-minded consultants and business coaches who offer a range of services including product management and product marketing, strategic business planning, program management and customer service optimization.
In her private life, Sophie is an avid golfer, having played for years on the French National Golf team as well as competitively representing UCLA on a Fulbright scholarship throughout her college years before joining the professional mini-tour.
Dianne McCutchan, MA
EW Co-founder & Development Adviser
Dianne McCutchan has helped build EW from the ground up- since 2001. Formerly director of consulting and information services for the Nonprofit Support Center in Santa Barbara, Dianne is now serving as the Development Director of the United Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Barbara. In that role, she is growing resources available for youth development programs, athletics, summer camp and teen programming. She has chosen to focus on local youth, as a means of providing compelling alternatives to youth violence, bridging the achievement gap, and helping acquire and implement tools for academic success.
Applying her MA in Anthropology from University California Santa Barbara, Dianne lectured college courses on Women in Development, and community psychology giving much needed exposure to issues faced by the global communities EW serves. At home in California Ms. McCutchan, with over seven years experience in nonprofit management, has successfully implemented a variety of youth education programs emphasizing teenage pregnancy prevention work and public education. Her professional roles include Project Coordinator for United Boys & Girls Clubs and a collaborative grant project with Planned Parenthood; Launching Teens and Toddlers, a youth development program for at-risk youth in Santa Barbara through Empowerment Works; Executive Director of "Children: Our Ultimate Investment". Dianne is now a development professional for the University of California Santa Barbara.
