Meet the Leadership Team and Presenters

Leadership Team Bios 2010

Katherine Edgecumbe—Project Chair (18, Senior – Mitty) is the leader of the Health, Fitness, and Body Image workshop, and has been involved with Girls Lead Now for three years. She loves running cross country and track. In addition to Girls Lead Now she is passionate about Teens for Teens, her project to get Christmas gifts for homeless teens. In her free time, she loves to run, read, listen to music, and spend time with friends and family. In the future, she aspires to be a social justice lawyer.

Maya Seshadri— Head of Public Relations/Marketing (17, Senior—Homestead) holds leadership positions in Homestead community service - National Key Club and National Honor Society. In addition to training for her solo Indian classical dance performance this spring, she is a Professional dancer and instructor for the largest nation-wide Bollywood dance company, MSDC. Maya has been Head of PR for Girls Lead Now for the last three years and hopes to pursue International Business and Communications in college. Outside of her million activities, she loves traveling, dancing, laughing and eating chocolate :) 

Shannon Risk –You’re Hired (18, Senior—Wilcox) is passionate about dancing, animals, photography, and…dancing. One of her goals in the future is get into UC Davis and get her major in Veterinary Science and a minor in dance. In her spare time she enjoys to rock out to music, dance, and give people awesome hugs.

Sruthi Ramaswami—Fearless Speaking (15, Sophomore—Mitty) is an avid competitive tennis player, and enjoys playing singles for her high school varsity tennis team. Sruthi is also a South Indian Classical vocalist, and has performed at various locations in the Bay Area. Sruthi is involved in the Mitty Advocacy Project, a program that lobbies legislators on critical societal issues. She is also a member of the Sunnyvale Teen Advisory Council, which plans recreational activities for teenagers in Sunnyvale. She is honored to be a part of Girls Lead Now.

Maya Raman – Time Management (17, Senior—Mitty) is the Co-Captain of the varsity tennis team, and editor of the newspaper, and loves participating in Mock Trial. This is her second year as a member of the Girls Lead Now Leadership team and her third year participating in the program. Next year she hopes to be an environmental science major. She is extremely excited for the Time Management workshop this year.

Rebecca Organ – Budgeting (17, Senior—Mitty) has being involved with Girls Lead Now for two years now. She loves running track, snowboarding, cooking, and reading. She hopes to attend college on the East Coast.

Karin Nilo – Unleashing Creativity (18, Senior—Cupertino) plays varsity water polo, participates in ASB and is actively involved in the school’s theater department. This is her second year on the Girls Lead Now Leadership Team. She loves musical theater, eating, and spending time with her friends. She aspires to be an actress, though she is open to whatever comes her way.

Lindsay McHugh – Power Over Plastics (17, Junior—Notre Dame) is an insightful, fun, enthusiastic, life-loving girl who aspires to earn her Ph.D and work as a licensed clinical psychologist. She is passionate about reaching out to help others, changing lives and promoting self-love. She loves studying Creative Writing and AP Psychology. She’s on the softball team. She also loves to run and do yoga in her free time. Favorite hobbies include art, learning, reading, volunteering and giving back to the community. She believes we are ALL worthwhile and full of potential. Her goal is to help others see that in themselves.

Sarah Percell – Snap Judgments and Stereotypes (17, Senior—Mid Peninsula) loves being able to instill confidence and teach other girls as a part of the Girls Lead Now leadership team. In her free time she loves to ride horses and has been competing in horse shows for the last few years. She plans to major in communications in college.

Aubreanna Bobb – College Prep (17, Senior—Homestead) participates in the HHS Interact Club, sprints for the track team, and devotes most of her time to the Equestriettes Dance Team. Aubreanna hopes to travel the world and be an International Businesswoman after graduation from college. She is very excited for her college prep workshop because she has been researching colleges since freshman year!

Presenters Bios 2010

Cate Crockett is an independent high tech consultant and founder of Embark Partners. For over 12 years, she has provided marketing, management and communications strategy services to start-ups and established companies. Prior to that she lived on the East Coast and worked in cable television (A&E Network) and the magazine print publishing business.  A mother of two teenagers, Cate believes that every young woman (and young man) has a unique, and individual contribution to make to the world.

Chaitali Mallick is a human resource professional.  She has worked

with IT Services companies for over fifteen years in the United States

and abroad.  In addition, she has also worked with various non profit

organizations, helping and serving underserved communities.

In her free time, she loves doing things that make a positive

difference to people and their surroundings.  This is her second year

with the Girls Lead Now program.  What she loves about this program,

is the opportunity to working with the vibrant and creative teenagers.

 She is very excited about working on Ready, Set College with her

mentee – Aubreanna Bobb.

She lives in Fremont with her husband and two adorable dogs.

Christine Nesbitt enjoys being a part of the Girls Lead Now program because she likes the opportunity to mentor young girls.  She believes that the key to success and fulfillment is mentorship.  When a young person has an idea, a vision of who they are now and what they want to become; mentorship manifests those goals.  Christine has been coaching people to attain their true potential and heart's desires for 18 years and has mentored them in becoming exactly what they want, whether it's feasible to the outside world or not.

Christine is a medical device sales specialist.  She does clinical presentations for hospitals and long term care facilities, including physicians and nurses.

She loves outdoor sports because it stretches her limits.  It challenges her mental discipline and physical endurance.  Christine has done road bike races of 150 miles in the Rocky Mountains for children's cancer research and Multiple Sclerosis.  These days Christine belongs to a Dragon Boat Team in Berkeley and she races internationally.  Christine believes that the great outdoors fuels her spirit and fire for life!

Jasmine I-Hua Shih is an energetic bi-lingual professional with a unique blend of experience in product marketing, business and sales development, and operations.  After starting a successful produce enterprise in San Diego while attending college, Jasmine continued to develop her career with multi-national companies and start-ups, including leading Silicon Valley high-tech companies, such as Applied Materials, Coherent, and G.E. Capital.  She has significant experience working across cultures to develop businesses across North America, Europe, and Asia.

Jasmine had overcome countless personally challenges since immigrated to the U.S. at age 14 alone and without speaking any English. She successfully supported herself through college and continued with her career growth.  With a passion for girls and women leadership development, Jasmine revitalized and served as the first term Chair of Applied Materials' inter-company non-profit organization, the Women Professional Development Network, Santa Clara Chapter in 2005.  Jasmine Shih is also a regular volunteer for Fountain Blue, Life Science and High Tech sectors, Clean Energy Forum, as well as VLAB with Stanford University. 

Jasmine received her Bachelor of Science from California State University, San Marcos, where she also served as the School of Business Representative for the College of Business, and is currently pursuing her Masters in Business Administration at Santa Clara University. 

Jasmine currently serves as the Treasurer and Fundraising chair for the GLN. 

Jenny Smith is a Business Consultant & Life Designer for the Tanager Group.  She graduated from Stanford University in 1979 with a B.A. in Journalism. 

Jenny has 30 years of experience in marketing, business development and executive management, specializing in start-up and small to mid-sized technology companies.  She was co-founder and CEO of WineBuyer.com in 1999 and 2000.  She has held positions in Channel Marketing, Business and Corporate Development, Strategic Alliance Marketing and Account Management for many successful technology companies in the Silicon Valley. In 2000 she launched Tanager Group, providing business consulting services to both leading and emerging Silicon Valley companies. In 2004 she expanded her services to include “Life Design” coaching, where she helps individuals identify, communicate and take action on their unique talents, passions and strengths.

From 2001 through 2005, Jenny served as volunteer mentor and coach for The Girls’ Middle School (Mountain View, CA) 7th Grade Entrepreneurial Studies program, helping students form, fund and operate start-up businesses as part of the curriculum. Since 2005, Jenny has presented her popular workshop “Power over Plastic: Cash, Credit and Your Brilliant Financial Future” to teenage girls in the “Girls Economic Power Day” and “Girls Lead Now” annual events in Silicon Valley.  Jenny’s financial mentoring expertise comes largely from independent study, living life and encountering and mastering personal and professional financial challenges and opportunities. (See www.poweroverplastic.com for more information.)

Jenny is an accomplished amateur equestrienne, and was ranked #1 in Northern California in Adult Amateur Jumpers in 2003. She enjoys being a volunteer riding coach and mentor, and has successfully developed and marketed top level show jumping horses. In 2005, Jenny began serving on the Board of Directors for the National Center for Equine Facilitated Therapy (NCEFT) in Woodside, CA.   Her most recent endeavor is working diligently to master the golf links of Northern California.

Mary Welty-Dapkus served as a mentor for Girls Lead Now in 2008-2009 and is proud to continue her service this year as a member of the Board of Directors and the mentor for the workshop Snap Judgements and Stereotypes. 

A graduate of Santa Clara University with a B.A. in Humanities and a minor in Psychology and Education, Mary is a certified transformational life coach trained by Martha Beck, PhD and holds a masters certification in Intuitive Medicine (MIM) from the Academy of Intuition Medicine®. Mary launched her coaching practice, Set In Motion, in 2009 and works one-on-one with clients “combining the transformational gifts of an intuitive with the practical skills of a life coach who can help you get clear on your goals and move forward in the direction of your dreams.”

Additionally, Mary served for three years on the Board of Directors at Casa di Mir Montessori Elementary School.  Mary is also the Associate Director of Foothill Music Theatre located in Los Altos Hills and is proud of her 20 year association with this award-winning musical theatre company. 

Married for 23 years, Mary is the mother of two amazing children.  An active school community member, Mary has extensive experience organizing auctions, fundraisers and managing volunteer programs.  Mary is passionate about education, theatre, intuitive coaching, holistic health and Girls Lead Now.   

Ms. Mansford is an industry veteran with over 20 years of international management, marketing and operational experience in the Interactive Entertainment and Online Games industry. Currently Ms Mansford is CEO for Offspring games, a next generation casual games start-up.

Prior to this Ms.Mansford built a successful business strategy and marketing consultancy whose clients included established businesses like Microsoft and Atari and early stage start-ups including Eplay.com, Bestinclass.com and Veryvoo.com. With 16 years in total at Electronic Arts, Ms. Mansford spearheaded some of the company's most entrepreneurial initiatives, including EA's entry into the digital distribution of retail games (as VP Online Distribution) and developing the company's mobile games publishing initiatives (as VP Mobile Publishing). Before this, Ms. Mansford, as Vice President Online publishing, headed up EA's online publishing initiatives including both casual games (Pogo) and online PC games.  She developed a world class customer care organization in North America, initiated EA’s CRM strategy and led their outsource strategy to India and the Philippines.  

As a founding member of Pogo, Ms. Mansford was responsible for the company's customer acquisition, distribution, retention and branding strategies as well as management responsibilities for sales, production, design, engineering, customer support and HR.  Prior to joining Pogo Ms. Mansford was VP Marketing for the entertainment division at EA and responsible for planning marketing strategies for EA's major PC titles. Before this, Ms. Mansford ran her own successful PR consultancy out of London, England.