The Team

The discovery in 2008 that women held only 18 percent of top leadership roles motivated Gloria to write the best-seller, No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power, in which she gives women practical “power tools” for personal and professional success. She co-founded Take The Lead with former investment banker Amy Litzenberger in 2014 with the bold mission to bring women to leadership parity by 2025. And she has since developed a wide range of powerful programs resulting in tremendous career breakthroughs for the women participating in them. A former teen mom, she turned hard work, determination and a knack for leadership into a 30-year career at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, including a 9-year stint as its national president and CEO. People magazine called her “the voice of experience,” while Vanity Fair named her one of America’s “Top 200 Women Legends, Leaders and Trailblazers.” Gloria is also an excellent chili maker.

Michele Weldon is editorial director of Take The Lead, producing several weekly blog posts, the weekly newsletter as well as input on Power To You podcasts. The author of six award-winning nonfiction books, including the most recent, Act Like You're Having A Good Time: Essays, Weldon writes frequently on gender, media, diversity, pop culture and women’s issues. Her commentaries appear in The New York Times, NBC, USA Today, Forbes, Time, CNN, The Washington Post, Slate, Cosmopolitan and many more. She is emerita faculty in journalism at Northwestern University where she taught for 18 years and a senior leader with The OpEd Project, where she has led fellowships and programs mentoring thousands of thought leaders across the U.S. and globally since 2011. She is the mother of three grown sons and a frequent live storyteller on stages across Chicago.

Former HR Executive turned Leadership & Branding Consultant whose work focuses on empowering women at the intersection of Sovereignty, Self-Expression, and Social Justice. Founder of Haus of Vocal Empowerment lto help Black women reclaim their agency to use their experience, expertise, and voice as a catalyst for change. Their mission is to dismantle the structure of cultural inequalities by using the influence of communication to drive change.