Girl Up Texas Coalition
Our Speakers
Kirsten Foster
Girls and Women Advocacy Officer
United Nations Foundation
Speech: Girl Up: The Basics
Workshop: Advocacy/Fundraising
Kirsten Foster works at the United Nations Foundation as their Girls and Women Advocacy Officer and for the Girl Up campaign as their Advocacy Officer. Kirsten leads advocacy efforts to pass legislation that helps the most vulnerable girls and women worldwide.
She previously worked for the National Republican Congressional Committee and the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. Kirsten attended university in California, where she received a B.A. in International Relations and minored in Women’s Studies.
Crystal Lee
Miss California 2013
1st Runner Up to Miss America 2014
Speech: Building Your Best Personal Brand
Crystal Lee is a former Miss California and 1st Runner Up to Miss America 2014. In 2015, she co-founded LifeSite, a cloud-based solution for financial advisors to manage their clients' information. She’s passionate about encouraging women in STEM and business.
Crystal had prior stints at Dropbox and Google before starting her own company. Her undergraduate degree is in Human Biology and she later also earned a Master's degree in Media Studies from Stanford University.
Crystal also hosts This is SF, a Bay Area lifestyle show featuring local businesses. You can see what she’s up to on @crystalclues.
Dr. Latha Ramchand
Dean and Professor of Finance
C.T. Bauer College of Business, University of Houston
Speech: Run The World
Workshop: Women in Business
Appointed in 2011 as Dean, C.T. Bauer College of Business, Latha Ramchand leads an institution with over 6,000 students in the fourth largest city in the country. Under her leadership, Bauer College has raised over $62 million in funds, facilitated the naming of three endowed Centers of Excellence, created six new degree programs, and introduced over ten new certificate programs and tracks. In 2016, Bauer College created the Bauer Executive Education platform to leverage Bauer faculty thought leadership to serve business leaders in the community, as well as the Cougar Venture Fund, with an associated advisory board, which invests in start-ups and expanded initiatives in social entrepreneurship. Under her leadership the College has expanded its touch points with the business community via the creation of four new advisory boards.
A gold medallist from University of Bombay and with a doctoral degree in Finance from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, Latha is also a CFA Charter Holder. She serves on the National Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Advisory Board, the Beta Gamma Sigma Board of Governors, the Center for Financial Planning Board (CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER BOARD OF STANDARDS, INC.) and on the advisory board of Cadence Bank.
Y. Ping Sun
University Representative
First Lady of Rice University
Speech: Power Through Participation
Y. Ping Sun, Rice University Representative and Of Counsel with the law firm of Yetter Coleman LLP., serves as a member of the advisory board of Rice’s Shepherd School of Music and the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, and is an honorary co-chair of Rice’s Baker Institute Roundtable. Ping is a board member of Texas Children's Hospital, Asia Society Texas Center, Teach For America, United Way, the Center for Houston’s Future, BARC Foundation, Hermann Park Conservancy and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Ping also serves on the corporate board of Era Group, Inc. and is an Advisor to EastWest Bank.
Ping received several awards for her community service, including the 2014 Friendship Ambassador Award along with former President George H.W. Bush, Sr. from the US China People’s Friendship Association, Houston Chapter and Ping was named one of the 2015 Most Powerful and Influential Women of Texas by National Diversity Council. Girl Scouts of San Jacinto honored Ping at their fifth annual Success to Significance luncheon on April 23, 2015 and City of Houston designated April 23, 2015 as “Y. Ping Sun Day” in Houston. Ping, a member of IWF Texas, received an A.B. degree from Princeton University and a J.D. degree from Columbia Law School.
Mini Timmaraju
Former National Women's Vote Director
Hillary Clinton Campaign
Speech: "Nevertheless She Persisted": Your Role In The Long Fight For Gender Equality
Mini Timmaraju has over 20 years of professional experience in federal, state and local politics, as well as extensive advocacy and policy background on gender issues and outreach strategies for minority constituencies. She currently serves as an Executive Director on the External Affairs team for Comcast in Washington D.C. In this role she serves as a liaison between Comcast and external stakeholders including advocacy organizations, political organizations, and public policy groups.
She most recently served as Hillary for America’s National Women's Vote Director leading the campaign’s planning and implementation of its strategy to maximize women's participation in the election. Previously she spent the last year as HFA’s Women’s Outreach Director spearheading a nationwide effort to organize women voters across the country to elect Hillary Clinton. This involved engaging with a variety of stakeholders—Members of Congress, donors, advocacy groups, volunteers— to mobilize grassroots support for Clinton.
Prior to this role, Mini was the National Director of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans, where she managed legislative, advocacy and communications strategy for a coalition of 34 national Asian Pacific American organizations. Before that, Mini was the Chief of Staff to Congressman Ami Bera M.D. (D, CA 7th District) where she directed the daily operations of the D.C. and district offices as well as oversaw the legislative, outreach and policy agenda of the Congressman. She has also served in various senior roles with Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), including Director of PPFA’s Office of the President and Vice President of Public Affairs and Government Relations for the Gulf Coast affiliate. During her early career, Mini held a number of senior positions in state and local political organizations.
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Mini received her Bachelor's degree from the University of California-Berkeley and completed her J.D. at the University of Houston Law Center where she was the recipient of the Joan Garfinkle Glantz award for outstanding work in the field of civil rights and the Class of 1999 Distinguished Service Award.
Karen Yang
Co-Director of Young Women's Business Leadership Conference
Harvard College Sophomore
Workshop: Women in Business
Karen Yang is currently a sophomore at Harvard College and an alumnus of the Dulles High School Math and Science Academy. At Harvard, Karen studies Statistics and East Asian Studies. She is currently the Director of HSA Strategy, the internal consulting arm of the Harvard Student Agencies, which is the largest 6-million dollar, student run company in the world. She is also the Vice President of the Harvard-Radcliffe Chinese Students Association and the Co-Director of the Harvard Undergraduate Women in Business Young Women's Business Leadership Conference.
Karen has interned with the research branch of Harvard Business School in Shanghai, working alongside HBS professors to write case studies related to business in China and was a Private Equity intern at Bain Capital. Aside from school, she is the 2017 Miss Chinatown USA and enjoys dancing, trying new restaurants, and doing work at cafes.
Courtenay McMillan
NASA Flight Director
Speech: "Where Will You Take Us?"
Ms. McMillan has worked at Johnson Space Center since 1996, first as a flight controller supporting the Shuttle/Mir and International Space Station Programs, and subsequently in increasingly responsible roles for human space flight operations. In 2007 she was selected to serve as Flight Director. She led the teams that transitioned ISS to a permanent crew of six people, conducted the first set of contingency spacewalks for ISS, overhauled the ISS emergency response operations, and completed the Cygnus commercial cargo vehicle’s demonstration flight. She has directed over 400 shifts of ISS flight operations, and continues to plan, train, and fly complex mission objectives for ISS and its international and commercial partner teams.
Since June 2015 Ms. McMillan has also served as the Assistant to the Chief Flight Director for Commercial Crew. In this role she coordinates the efforts of the Flight Operations Directorate in support of commercial crew vehicle development, integration, and preparation for their future flight operations.
McMillan, skilled in various occupations ranging from Flight Director to Assistant to the Chief Flight Director for Commercial Crew at Johnson Space Center, coordinates the efforts of the Flight Operations in support vehicle development, integration, and preparation for their future flight operations.