Women Of The C-Suite: Teach For America’s Jemina Bernard, Tracy-Elizabeth Clay, Dr. Barbara Logan Smith, Joy Okoro & Crystal Rountree On The Five Things You Need To Succeed As A Senior Executive

An Interview With Doug Noll

…In the midst of major change and transformation, most folks — internally and externally, and me included — struggle with the patience needed to see the fruits of transformation come to be, and expect you to have all the answers to all the things, all the time. Oh, and you can rarely make everyone happy at the same time, even if it’s worth trying. I knew all of this before taking on the role but it has been reinforced during the first 6–8 months of actually being our President & COO, responsible for implementing a major change effort.

As a part of our interview series called “Women Of The C-Suite”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Jemina R. Beard, Tracy-Elizabeth Clay, Dr. Barbara Logan Smith, Joy Okoro and Crystal Rountree.

They are the newest members of Teach For America’s (TFA) C-Suite, featuring 5 women of color who are working alongside CEO Elisa Villanueva Beard to lead the organization through a transformation.

Jemina R. Bernard, Chief Operating Officer:

Jemina R. Bernard, a graduate of Yale University and Columbia Business School, began her career in education twenty years ago, after working in global business consulting with Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers and in community development with the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone. In her previous position as CEO of ROADS Charter High Schools, she led the start-up of two NYC charter high schools serving more than 400 students facing the greatest obstacles, to ensure they had the opportunity to graduate from high school thoroughly prepared for academic, professional and personal success. She also served as Executive Director at Student Leadership Network, where she managed a network of all girls’ public schools across the country, and a college access program in NYC. Prior to TFA, Jemina worked at the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE), with increasing levels of responsibility, ultimately taking on the position of Chief Operating Officer (COO) in the Office of New Schools.

Tracy-Elizabeth Clay, Executive Vice President, Talent & Administration:

Tracy-Elizabeth has twenty years experience as a nonprofit leader which she brings to bear in her current role leading the People, Finance, Legal and Risk functions of Teach For America. She earned her B.A. from Stanford and is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School. In 2001, Tracy-Elizabeth left private practice to join TFA’s national staff focused on local and state policy advocacy. In 2003, Tracy-Elizabeth launched TFA Greater Philadelphia and served as the founding executive director until 2006 before becoming TFA’s first full-time general counsel. In addition to serving as general counsel for TFA, Tracy-Elizabeth was also the general counsel for Teach For All from 2008–2011 and for Leadership for Educational Equity from 2009–2014.

Dr. Barbara Logan Smith, Chief of Equity & Belonging:

With over 25 years as a dedicated teacher, administrator and master trainer, Dr. Barbara Logan Smith has worked to build capacity in over 20,000 educators, business executives, and non-profit leaders on a national scale and to ensure the achievement of educational equity, excellence, and access for all children. With previous service as Vice President of the Efficacy Institute, and Executive Director of Teach For America’s Greater Delta region of Mississippi and Arkansas, Dr. Logan Smith currently works as the Chief of Equity and Belonging at TFA. Focused on illuminating brilliance, her work centers on increasing equity, belonging, and grace in the world.

Joy Okoro, Executive Vice President of Field Impact & Integration:

Joy leads Teach For America’s 45 regional teams and the executive leadership body, who are charged with ensuring TFA’ snetwork of 70,000 corps member teachers, tutors, alumni and staff staff deliver on TFA’s promise to partner to end educational inequity and expand educational opportunities for all students — particularly Black students, Indigenous students, students of color and students living in poverty. Joy earned her Bachelor of Science from the Fox School of Business at Temple University in 2008 and that same year became a math teacher and TFA corps member in Greater New Orleans. Since then, Joy has been leading in talent, strategy, executive management and nonprofit leadership. Joy was born and raised in Queens, New York and now lives in the city of New Orleans. As a first generation American, Joy credits her Nigerian father and West Indian mother, who came to the United States to advance their education, for her unwavering belief that a quality education is the key to unlock all possibility.

Crystal Rountree, Chief Development & Revenue Officer:

In her role Crystal is responsible for leading the team that grows, strengthens, and diversifies TFA’s philanthropic partnerships and revenue pathways in ways that optimize and maximize contributions to TFA’s impact. She has been on staff at Teach For America since 2005 and most recently served as a Regional Field Executive, directly managing and supporting a cohort of 10 executive directors across the country. Previously, she was the Executive Director of TFA’s Charlotte-Piedmont Triad region where she successfully led the merger of two regions in 2018. In that role, she led an operation of nearly 900 corps members and alumni across both communities. Prior to her time in Charlotte, Crystal served as SVP, Advisory Support on TFA’s Regional Operations team where she was responsible for helping to build the capacity of executive directors and regional boards through intensive coaching, personalized professional development, and interim executive- level leadership. Before that, Crystal served as the SVP, Strategic Initiatives & Partnerships, where she oversaw TFA’s national engagement and partnerships strategy through nine identity- and instructional-based initiatives.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

Jemina Bernard: I’ve always believed in the old adage, “to whom much is given, much is expected.” As a Black, Puerto Rican woman who grew up in the South Bronx and went to a mix of public and private schools, ultimately graduating from Yale University and Columbia Business School, I’ve always been driven to do work that would have an impact on kids who look like me and who are growing up in neighborhoods that look like the one I grew up in. I deeply believe that access to an excellent education has been a critical lever for the opportunities and success I’ve been able to attain, and am blessed to have a career that positions me to make that possible for hundreds of thousands of young people throughout the country.

Tracy-Elizabeth Clay: As a lawyer by training, it might seem curious how I ended up in educational equity work for the last 14 years. I think I got here by following my curiosity and the skills in my toolkit. And looking back, I realize now how much educational equity work was in my DNA from an early age. We talked about education at the dinner table most nights. And not just about our family getting the best education, but our community in Chicago. My dad founded an organization called A.P.P.L.E., African-American Parents for Purposeful Leadership & Education and it’s still around today 40 years later.

Dr. Barbara Logan Smith: As the granddaughter of sharecroppers from Mississippi and the daughter of educators and activists, the journey to pursue educational equity and excellence runs as deeply in my veins as my DNA. I have learned at the feet of ancestors, including my own personal family, what it looks like to show up invested, clear about my own deficits, and committed nonetheless to making the world better than I found it so all people can be free. I believe in the brilliance of people and I believe I can work alongside others to illuminate that brilliance, eliminating or mitigating the things that would block the shine of our collective light and our collective power to make a more just and more equitable society.

Joy Okoro: I was born and raised in New York, but reared in New Orleans. I’m first-generation American and my family is Nigerian and West Indian. The running joke in my family is that we come to America to get an education to be doctors, engineers and lawyers and put our families on a better financial trajectory; we don’t come here to be IN education. But for me it all comes full circle with the economic mobility element that undergirds Teach For America’s 2030 goal: By 2030, twice as many children in communities where we work will reach key educational milestones indicating they are on a path to economic mobility and co-creating a future filled with possibility.

Crystal Rountree: I thought I was going to go off and make documentaries after I graduated from college (Clark Atlanta University). I would often see young people from local neighborhoods walking through our campus, and even though this was a college campus with proximity to where they were growing up, I knew the obstacles they would have to traverse and what a distance they would have to travel to sit in seats on our campus as students. I knew what a game-changer education had been in my life — my single mother making incredible sacrifices and teaming up with my incredible (and favorite) teacher Ms. Stevens to ensure I had a quality education. In so many ways, I became the exception to the rule. I didn’t want there to have to be exceptions — I wanted to change the rules. Inspired by my own past and the beautiful brown children I saw walking through my college campus, I decided to become a teacher instead of going to grad school. When I heard about Teach For America, it was like the stars aligned and I knew this is what I had to do. Maybe one day I’ll eventually go back to making documentaries!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

Jemina Bernard: I’m not sure how interesting this is but I will say that I didn’t rejoin TFA’s staff in 2019 aspiring to join the C-Suite. I’ve always been driven by accomplishing big goals and doing my best to achieve outcomes and impact. I’ve also been blessed to have great managers and mentors, especially at TFA, who have appreciated and valued my leadership, impact and approach and have pushed me to continuously take on even greater levels of responsibility.

Dr. Barbara Logan Smith: I never expected that leadership at a nonprofit would include mergers and acquisitions, but I found myself responsible for consolidating two regions that had previously forged really separate identities over five years. In fact, I often refer to it as reuniting “Ross and Rachel” after their break. It required that I fully focus on using the skills I had but also developing a new set of skills.

Crystal Rountree: I became an executive director at TFA’s Jacksonville region at the ripe old age of 27. I had a track record of success as a recruiter, but had never been in an executive role. I quickly rose to the occasion and fell in love with the regional executive director role (it’s still one of my favorite roles to this day; I’ve done it twice now!). I’ll never forget making one of my first big fundraising asks — and then a few months later holding my first check for $1.75M and beaming with pride for what that was going to mean for the students and families in my community.

It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Jemina Bernard: Very early on in my managerial career, I learned that the phrases “You’re not making any sense” and “This is not negotiable” are trash and erode trust. I’m grateful that the people I used those phrases with showed me a level of grace by helping me understand why they were problematic and created space for me to recover and restore trust, which I’m grateful to say that I did as evidenced by relationships that have been sustained for over 20 years.

Tracy-Elizabeth Clay: I learned quickly in my role as the Chief of People and Administration that proximity and practice must go hand in hand. In my capacity as General Counsel I had been proximate to many decisions that were made across the organization. However, just because I had been proximate to decisions made on the human resource side or the like, did not mean that I had the practice down and so that would take time and leaning on the practiced professionals on my team. At the executive level, I’ve had to be acutely aware of the value of both proximity and practice.

Joy Okoro: In one of my first roles as a manager, I hired a friend that I had worked well with in the past. I just skipped right through all the best practices of talent sourcing and matching. And so untangling that mistake was really hard and painful. So now, I am very much grounded in a talent philosophy that values the way you structure an interview process and leave room for growth and professional development. That mistake was a crash course in the talent life cycle and it was formative to who I am as a leader and manager.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Jemina Bernard: There are several people I could name but for this purpose, I’ll say that I’m particularly grateful for my relationship with our CEO, Elisa Villanueva Beard, who was my hiring manager back in 2007 when I first joined TFA staff as New York’s Executive Director (and was one of very few non-alums in leadership roles at the time), managed me directly in that role for three years and then promoted me to be a manager of regional Executive Directors for another three years. From the very beginning, Elisa and I have had a high degree of love for and trust with each other, which has enabled us to push each other to be our best while supporting the others’ success, and be there for one another during personal challenges and tragedies.

Tracy-Elizabeth Clay: There are many people I’ve been fortunate enough to have as mentors over the years, but I think I’ll have to say Barbara Bostic-Hunt and Patrick Costigan. My first year out of college was spent doing community organizing work in Baltimore. These two were incredibly gracious and supportive to an opinionated 21-year-old who at one point was managing over 100 people for the first time. This experience humbled me and would later help me to relate to our corps members (new teachers) who I know feel this same sort of awe with the enormity of responsibility in front of them at such an early stage in their careers.

Dr. Barbara Logan Smith: I have a gratitude practice and my parents and my husband are always on this list. However, in this instance, I want to give honor to Ms. Guinn, a beautiful and brilliant woman who was my fourth grade reading teacher at Lee Elementary School in Milwaukee Public Schools. She was the epitome of style and grace as a professional Black woman and as someone who was deeply skilled and committed to ensuring that every child in her class learned to read proficiently. I was reading above grade level and was challenged to build my skills even further because I could and because it was a tribute to the many people who came before me who had been denied the opportunity to do so.

Joy Okoro: Actually, it’s my Chief of Staff Liz Matsen. One of my first projects as a staff member at Teach For America, more than a decade ago, was putting together a strategic plan for my work as the Director of Talent & Operations in our New Orleans region. Liz was my more tenured colleague and leader of our District & School Partnership team. After realizing I had no idea what to do and deciding that googling “strategic plan” was not getting me far; I went into Liz’s office and just asked her straight up what a strategic plan was and how to put it together. She didn’t laugh or shame me. She just pulled up a seat alongside me and cheerfully walked me through the process. That was my foundation to strategy work and now I’m obsessed. But more importantly, I’m so grateful to still have her alongside me all these years later.

Crystal Rountree: Other than my mom and some incredible teachers and mentors along the way, it’s two people from Teach For America who stand out for me — Susan Asiyanbi and Fatimah Burnam-Watkins. I first met them when I was working at our summer training site in Houston after my first year as a teacher. I saw these two beautiful Black women seemingly glide through the doors and they looked IMPORTANT. I was in charge of communications, so I ran up to them to greet them and they told me they were there because they were going to launch a summer training site as well. This was such a big deal to me — I had never seen/heard of women who looked like me running a summer training site. I gave them all the information they needed for their stay in Houston, and then immediately asked them to be my mentors. I had no idea who they were, but I knew I needed them in my life. And they have both been there for me over the past two decades modeling, mentoring, pushing, and encouraging me along the way. I trust them completely and consider them more than just my colleagues…they are my sisters.

Leadership often entails making difficult decisions or hard choices between two apparently good paths. Can you share a story with us about a hard decision or choice you had to make as a leader?

Jemina Bernard: The most difficult decisions I’ve ever had to make as a leader — both inside and outside of TFA — have involved transitioning staff from their roles. While I really pride myself on my ability to coach and develop others, sometimes you have to admit that you made a hiring mismatch and that you, the organization and most importantly the person struggling in the role are better served by planning for a graceful transition which includes helping them source their next possible role.

Tracy-Elizabeth Clay: Yes and my first year in this role has certainly had a lot of tough decisions. I think the biggest decision though is our decision as an organization to take on a lot of tough operational challenges while also moving the organization forward in its transformation toward more impact for kids. We thought about slow walking some of this, but ultimately decided that we didn’t have that luxury. That the magnitude of being one of the largest education nonprofits meant that we had to stay really present in this moment of challenge and reinvention happening in education post-pandemic.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Most of our readers — in fact, most people — think they have a pretty good idea of what a CEO or executive does. But in just a few words can you explain what an executive does that is different from the responsibilities of the other leaders?

Jemina Beard: The thing I’m uniquely positioned to do is to hire, inspire and partner with highly capable and qualified senior leaders who thrive by being given a clear charge, set of accountabilities and a level of autonomy to carry out their responsibilities effectively, and in collaboration with each other.

Tracy-Elizabeth Clay: As an executive, I’ve come to understand that I have to be laser-focused on the conditions that I set up for my team to succeed and deliver on the unique value they add. I don’t, however, have the capacity to be in the weeds with them and that’s not what they need from me.

Joy Okoro: I have 1,000 individual examples — as an executive, I find that making hard choices is my value-add to a situation. Sometimes, I think if the choices in front of me aren’t hard, I might be focused on the wrong ones.

Dr. Barbara Logan Smith: My belief is that most people are leaders and executives are the particular leaders who hold enterprise level responsibility for the work, including

operationalizing a clear and compelling vision or north star to guide the efforts of many

stewardship of the systems and structures within which people work

stewardship of the policies and practices that people engage within as they work

stewardship of the people and relationships through which an organization actualizes its vision and mission.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a CEO or executive? Can you explain what you mean?

Tracy-Elizabeth Clay: Control. I think everyone assumes that as you become an executive you have more control over things you are responsible for, but in reality you have less control. Particularly in a larger organization with more layers, you have less capacity to be deeply immersed in any one facet of your team. You depend more on the subject matter experts and the complex work they are doing on the front lines.

Dr. Barbara Logan Smith: One of the biggest myths to dispel is that leadership is about operating with an either/or binary orientation where you center relationships or results. In my experience, the very best leaders operate with a both/and orientation to these two aspects of the work — it is about relationships and results. Leaders who center results and not people are unlikely to get very far. Emotional intelligence and the ability to see and center the people you lead alongside is critical to the work, as is the ability to see and center the results the organization is designed to achieve through the leadership and engagement of the people. Being a results only leader who cannot build relationships will not yield success. Being a relationships only leader who cannot deliver results will not yield success. Effective leaders operate a strong sense of emotional intelligence to honor the people you do the work alongside and with a strong sense of efficacy to deliver on the mission and the impact promised to constituents.

Joy Okoro: That leadership is lonely. I haven’t felt that. I feel like I’m constantly engaging with people around important decisions, challenges and opportunities. And I feel that especially within the colleagues I get to work with across the C-Suite.

Crystal Rountree: That you have to have all the answers. I don’t know if anyone ever explicitly said this to me, but it was a myth I had coming into my first executive role. I quickly learned that I don’t have to have all the answers, but I need to gather as much information as possible to shape my perspective and make informed decisions. And even then, I always reserve the right to change my opinion — especially as things evolve & change, and new insights become uncovered.

Jemina Bernard: I agree with all my colleagues have offered and would add the myth of having to be the first to lead or talk at every meeting. Quite the contrary, folks who have worked with me know that I will often name my silence as being purposeful to create space for other voices and perspectives to emerge without mine unintentionally influencing the conversation or a decision being made. To be clear, it’s important that I have an opinion and/or perspective — and when it’s a strongly held opinion, I name that — but it’s also important to have a team know that they are critical to informing and shaping the same.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women executives that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

Jemina Bernard: I think the way women express their passion at work is often more scrutinized or judged than men. For example, while there are still times my passion and emotions ‘get the best of me’ and are expressed with tears, this is something I’ve actively worked to curb over the course of my career for fear of being misinterpreted or judged as weak. I think society also makes it such that women executives have to think a lot more about their physical appearance and dress at work than men do, in order to be taken seriously.

Dr. Barbara Logan Smith: My husband completed his dissertation on the lived experience of women in middle management and so I answer this question from my lived experience and from the benefit of studying his research. Women executives have to navigate a series of double binds. A double bind is a scenario in which none of the available choices is one that sets the woman executive up for success in a situation or circumstance. For example, if a woman executive operates as a “nice person” in alignment with societal expectations and pressures for women, then she is deemed a weak or ineffective leader, but if she leads in more stereotypically masculine ways, then she is deemed as too aggressive. Being warm and nice leads to women being viewed as incompetent but being tough and competent leads to women being seen as uncaring and rude. Men in a leadership context are typically rewarded for being competent and aggressive and not expected in society or in the workplace to be warm and nice. This is only one of the binds, collectively, these binds can lead to an additional tax on women executives and a physical manifestation of that tax in an allostatic load — a generalized lack of wellness given the additional burden.

Tracy-Elizabeth Clay: I think women consistently have the challenge of being their authentic self and being attuned to how that is received by others. As Barabara mentioned, there is a double bind. A woman can be in sync with both the IQ and EQ in a situation, but if they lean toward assertiveness, we are seen as too aggressive; if we are too nice, we are seen as wishwashy. I think women are more attuned to nuance and sometimes that can be seen as at odds with clear communication — but it’s such an important part of making more full and complete decisions.

Joy Okoro: And I would add that in addition to the stereotypes people want to place on women, we also have to say something so many times before it is taken seriously. Even in a female-dominated organization and sector. That being said, I feel incredibly fortunate to be working with Elisa, Jemina, Tracy-Elizabeth, Dr. Barbara, Crystal, and Dr. Henderson as fellow women of color in TFA’s executive cabinet. There is an innate trust between us.

What is the most striking difference between your actual job and how you thought the job would be?

Jemina Bernard: I thought having a set of health, wellness and fitness routines established well before moving into the new role would easily allow me to maintain them but I was sadly mistaken. During the first few months of the new role, I learned the hard way that the intensity and demands of the new role actually required a new — and much more disciplined — approach to these routines. I am still working to adjust but getting better at this month by month.

Crystal Rountree: I thought my job would be much more external than it actually is right now. As we are moving through an org-wide transformation, and there is a lot to be done internally to shape up our systems & structures to live into new ways of operating. As the leader of the team, I’m uniquely positioned to help steward my team through this and see it as my responsibility to do so. That said, I’m looking forward to getting things set up internally to be able to spend a bit more time externally as a fundraiser.

Is everyone cut out to be an executive? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful executive and what type of person should avoid aspiring to be an executive? Can you explain what you mean?

Tracy-Elizabeth Clay: I think everyone can be a leader and should aspire to be so. Leadership is being responsible for whatever you’ve been put in charge of. Or as my grandmother would say, “Bloom where you are planted.” However, to be an executive and lead at the scale of the entire enterprise means that you must be 100% comfortable with taking full responsibility for everything you and your team do AND at the same time be 100% comfortable with the idea that you cannot control everything.

Joy Okoro: I think it boils down to your purview. If you imagine a bell curve, I think there have been certain parts of my career where I was focused on innovation and creating something new. And then there have been other points where my job was focused on problem-solving and “fixing” something. Now, I have to keep everything both and the middle where everything in between lies.

Jemina Bernard: I agree with what Tracy-Elizabeth and Joy have offered, and building on things said earlier by my colleagues, I would say that being an executive requires high degrees of emotional intelligence and empathy, along with a hunger to continuously learn and improve — as a leader, not just at the level of the enterprise — and a sweet blend of confidence and humility. And ideally, successful executives have strong leadership traits and managerial capabilities.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Jemina Bernard: That in the midst of major change and transformation, most folks — internally and externally, and me included — struggle with the patience needed to see the fruits of transformation come to be, and expect you to have all the answers to all the things, all the time. Oh, and you can rarely make everyone happy at the same time, even if it’s worth trying. I knew all of this before taking on the role but it has been reinforced during the first 6–8 months of actually being our President & COO, responsible for implementing a major change effort.
2. Tracy-Elizabeth Clay: That you can ask for help. In fact, sometimes those are the smartest words you can say.
3. Dr. Barbara Logan Smith: I wish I had known sooner that people science is profoundly more complex and complicated than rocket science! I want to aspire to be the kind of leader who learns all she can about people and the ways in which they interact because I am fascinated with their power and possibility and because I find people science is the most rewarding science of all the sciences. After all, without someone deeply understanding people science, there would not even be rockets!
4. Joy Okoro: IMaking hard choices is often my value-add to a situation. Sometimes, I think if the choices in front of me aren’t hard, I might be focused on the wrong ones.
5. Crystal Rountree: That NO is a complete sentence. I’m an “all-in-put-me-in-coach” type of team player and don’t always like to say no because I can feel like I’m letting people down. But I wish someone would have helped me see that saying no actually means saying yes to something else. And that no matter what, you may always be letting someone down — but as long as you are clear on what it is you are focused on, it becomes clearer what to say no and yes to along the way (vs trying to do it all).

You are each people of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Jemina Bernard: My greatest joy would be to see teachers and nurses paid at the levels they so deeply deserve.

Tracy-Elizabeth Clay: Aside from the important movement-building work of educational equity, I would say I would want to see more work done on the environment. I’ve written to my elected leaders about setting a 10 year goal of getting rid of plastics. What kind of innovations could be spurred if we as a country had clear goals to work towards this.

Joy Okoro: Tuition free education. I would love to see a world where all education — not just K-12 — was accessible to all. College, medical school, continuing education, languages– all of it.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them

Jemina Bernard: Amanda Gorman. Every time I read her poetry, I’m blown away by her wisdom and sense of possibility. I’d love an opportunity to be inspired by her and to maybe convince her to work more closely with us at TFA to inspire thousands of future leaders to teach right out of college!

Tracy-Elizabeth Clay: President Barack Obama. I read that toward the end of his presidency that he hosted salon dinners with great intellectuals, advocates and artists. What an amazing thing that would have been to be a part of!

Joy Okoro: Oprah. She truly is living her best life. I would just want to understand how she does all the things she does — grow her own vegetables AND run a media company, for instance.

Crystal Rountree: Michelle Obama. She is a model mama, loving wife, wise soul, brilliant intellectual, and fierce advocate for what she believes in (not to mention a fashion/style icon). I’d love to know how she balances it all and makes it look so easy!

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.