Convention Speakers

Ashton Lee is an 18-year-old transgender youth advocate and participant in TRUTH, Transgender Law Center and GSA Network’s youth-led storytelling campaign for trans and gender non-conforming youth and their families.

Senta S. Scarborough is an award-winning journalist. She is a senior writer/reporter for E! News, the entertainment television show, and E! Online.

Jane Sasseen is an award-winning financial journalist and founding executive director of the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

Tim Teeman is a Senior Editor and Writer at the Daily Beast. For fifteen years he was a journalist at The Times of London.

Jill Marcellus is senior manager, communications for Transgender Law Center. She honed her professional passion for storytelling that advances racial, gender and educational justice as communications manager at Gay-Straight Alliance Network, a national LGBTQ and racial justice youth leadership organization.

Fiona is EVP of Television & New Media for Martian Entertainment in New York City, producing content to promote equality. Her early career was in Houston, Texas in resource development, marketing and communications for nonprofit organizations.

Martha Mendoza is an Associated Press National Writer whose reports have won numerous awards and prompted Congressional hearings, Pentagon investigations and White House responses.

Michael Scotto rejoined the Time Warner Cable News and Local Programming group as a political reporter for the Washington D.C. bureau in January of 2013.

Richard Leong has been covering the U.S. economy and financial markets for nearly two decades at Reuters. One of his focus on monetary policy and regulations on market structure. He also frequently writes about food and spirits for Reuters.

Award-winning journalist Kerry Eleveld covered Obama for four years for The Advocate, first on the campaign trail and then at the White House.

Heather Boerner is a San Francisco-based health and medical journalist who specializes in telling thoughtful stories about complex topics.

Jason Rosenbaum, Talent Management Project Manager at Thomson Reuters is responsible for delivering on Reuters Talent Engagement and Selection strategy along with supporting its diversity and other talent & recruiting initiatives.

Kristine Hyde is the director of human resources for the corporate group at The McClatchy Company. She has an extensive human resources management and recruiting background in a variety of industries in addition to journalism.

Sarah Blazucki is former editor of Philadelphia Gay News, the oldest LGBT newsweekly in the country. Under her direction, the staff won more than 35 awards for news writing, arts and entertainment, columns, photos and advertising.

Paul Cheung is AP’s Director of Interactives and Digital News Production. He manages a global team of visual journalists, data journalists and researchers who produce multimedia stories and information graphics for all formats, including print, online and mobile.

Judy Siegel is current a Fellow at Blue Ridge Labs, a Brooklyn-based social impact incubator. Prior to that, she was a senior Interaction Designer at Ericsson and CNN Digital.

Margaret “Margie” Archer works as a Financial Advisor with Wells Fargo Advisors in Atlanta, Georgia, where she specializes in investment planning and strategies for her clients. Wells Fargo Advisors has recognized Margie as a Premier Advisor.

Joe Hopper is president of Versta Research, a market research company that specializes in customized market research and public opinion polling.

John is currently Vice President and LGBT Segment Manager on the Wells Fargo Enterprise Marketing Segments and Strategy team.

Bob Witeck is the President of Washington, D.C.-based Witeck Communications, Inc., since 1993 a leading communications expert in designing strategies to reach lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) households and consumers. Bob brings over four decades professional communications expertise in the public and private sector.

Shana Naomi Krochmal is a writer, producer and shameless enthusiast. She is the executive editor of Entertainment Tonight online and a longtime contributing editor and former staffer at OUT magazine.

Dayan Candappa is Regional Editor for the Americas at Reuters, and runs Thomson Reuters news operations from Toronto to Buenos Aires.

Rand Morrison is the executive producer of CBS SUNDAY MORNING WITH CHARLES OSGOOD. He is the winner of 10 Emmy Awards, two George Foster Peabody Awards and two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards.

As a producer and editor for CNN’s medical unit, Jen Christensen produces investigative stories and documentaries for Dr. Sanjay Gupta and does data analysis for CNN.com. Christensen has earned the highest awards in broadcasting — the Peabody and DuPont — producing Christiane Amanpour’s “God’s (Jewish) Warriors.” She produced several other award-winning documentaries including “MLK’s Words That Changed a Nation,” “Black in America” and “Obama Revealed.”

Lisa Marie Pane is the South regional editor for The Associated Press. Based in Atlanta, she oversees breaking news and enterprise from the southeastern United States.

As Reuters’ West Coast Bureau Chief, Dina Kyriakidou Contini leads coverage of a vast region of the United States, including some of the world’s most important companies, creative entrepreneurs and active geological faults.

Jahna Berry is the new web editor at Mother Jones. She joined the publication in August and works in Mother Jones’ San Francisco office.

Belinda Hernandez is an Emmy Award winning executive producer who successfully transitioned from journalism to the business side of broadcasting four years ago.  She is currently Senior Director of Sales & Affiliate Relations for CNN Newsource, CNN’s subscription based content and news services provider for more than 900 domestic television and newspaper affiliates.

David became the Opinion Engagement Editor for The Tennessean in 2014, serving as the editorial writer, a columnist and editorial board chair for Nashville’s daily newspaper.

Justin is the social media manager for Pac-12 Networks in San Francisco, CA.  For the past year and a half, Justin has led the charge for the Networks, the Pac-12 and its 12 member schools in becoming the nation’s most socially engaged athletic conference.

John Yang is an NBC News correspondent based in Chicago, where he covers a variety of stories for “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams,” “Today” and MSNBC.

Pioneering and award-winning journalist Eden Lane is the creator, host and producer of “In Focus with Eden Lane,” a Colorado Public Television weekly program celebrating arts and culture.

Larry Gross spent 35 years teaching communication at the University of Pennsylvania before joining USC Annenberg in 2003 as director of the School of Communication. Gross was the Sol Worth Professor of Communication and deputy dean of the Ivy League university’s Annenberg School for Communication.

div>Thomas Roberts is an award-winning journalist who anchors “MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts” on weekdays at 1pm. He also serves as a fill-in host on NBC’s “TODAY.”

Robert Murphy ’71 is the Vice President of Administration for ABC News, part of the ABC Television Network and The Walt Disney Company, where he played key roles in the re-launch of Nightline and the political coverage of the 2008 and 2012 elections.

Joe Cutbirth is a former editor of the Texas Observer and has been on the journalism faculty at Columbia University, New York University, University of Virginia and the University of British Columbia.

Throughout his career, Brian Balthazar has maintained a double life – balancing work as a television executive producer and director with appearances as a pundit and journalist on camera.

Linda Villarosa runs the journalism program at the City College of New York in Harlem. A formerNew York Times editor and contributing health writer, Linda rose to prominence in the early 90s after coming out in an article with her mother in the pages of Essence Magazine. In 1992, she was the keynote speaker with Andrew Sullivan, Michaelangelo Signorile, Randy Shilts and Sarah Pettit at NLGJA’s first national convention in San Francisco.

David became the Opinion Engagement Editor for The Tennessean in 2014, serving as the editorial writer, a columnist and editorial board chair for Nashville’s daily newspaper – one of the top 100 daily publications in the U.S. Previously, Plazas worked for The News-Press Media Group in Fort Myers, Fla., as an award-winning reporter, Spanish-language community weekly editor, opinion editor and digital editor.

Bob Bennett is Senior Producer for WAVY-TV/WVBT-TV in Norfolk, VA.  Bob has 22 years of television experience, and has won numerous Emmys and an Edward R. Murrow award for news coverage.

Randy Dotinga is president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, a 1,200-member association devoted to helping independent writers survive and thrive.