7th Annual SheisMe Conference

Natalie Bulger brings lived experience, leadership, and a deeply personal understanding of healing to her work. At 18, within a two-month period, she survived sexual assault, became pregnant as a result, lost her father to cancer, and miscarried on the same day. She spent years pushing forward and climbing the corporate ladder, believing achievement might fix what hurt. Her later journey through therapy changed that perspective and taught her that healing is not about returning to who we were before, but understanding and integrating what we have lived through.

Iya Sy is a speaker and founder of Entry492 whose work is rooted in honest self-reflection and the power of asking better questions. During a period of physical and mental struggle, journaling became a way for her to confront truths she had avoided and examine the assumptions shaping how she saw herself and her life. That experience became the foundation for work that encourages women to slow down, question the stories beneath their thinking, and create questions that open the door to deeper honesty, clarity, and intentional change.

Michele Vilseck is the owner of Signature Stages LLC and Speakers Stadium LLC. After years of chasing success through perfection, overwork, and other people’s expectations, stress began taking a serious toll on her health. She later repeated the pattern in business and experienced burnout. Over more than two decades, Michele studied stress, behavior change, emotional awareness, health, and sustainable success, eventually rebuilding her work around her strengths, priorities, and the life she actually wanted.

Sylvia S. Glanton is the CEO of Personameant Solutions and Founder of The Future Rich Aunties Community. Her journey through personal transition, loss, reinvention, and identity shifts shaped a leadership approach grounded in clarity, structure, self-belief, and service. Today, she helps women build businesses, strengthen their financial foundations, release unnecessary overwhelm, and create support systems that allow both their lives and their work to thrive.

Amanda Nielsen is a coach, nonprofit consultant, and the creator of The Aligned Life System™ (ALS), a capacity-based life operating system built for ambitious women ready to move from hesitation into intentional action. Her own journey began with a pull she couldn’t ignore, an inner knowing that the life she was building on paper wasn’t the life she actually wanted to live. With no system built for that kind of shift, she built her own. Today, ALS helps women replace calendar-based hustle with capacity-based clarity across three pillars: Structure, Strategy, and Self-Leadership. Amanda’s work centers on identity-led execution and the belief that confidence comes from action, not the other way around.

Dr. Diane Dye is a management consultant who helps leaders examine the behaviors, assumptions, and protective patterns that can limit their impact. As a neurodivergent, gay executive, she understands what it means to enter high-stakes spaces while managing what others may see or judge. Her work draws on validated frameworks and practical experimentation to help leaders challenge bias, reduce costly decision patterns, and create meaningful change without adding unnecessary burnout or change fatigue.

Kelly Edmondson is a trauma nurse, nurse executive, certified grief counselor, entrepreneur, and bereaved mother. After her son Darius died unexpectedly at age 28 in January 2023, Kelly experienced the painful gap that often follows early support after a loss. That experience became the foundation for Timely Presence, a company created to change how people, workplaces, and communities support those who are grieving long after the funeral ends. Her work centers on grief, presence, purpose, and resilience.

Carmen Wiesinger is a coach whose work explores what happens when capable women lose access to their confidence under pressure. She began coaching in 2020 with a focus on discipline, mindset, and performance, then shifted her work after recognizing that knowledge and preparation alone do not always determine how someone responds in high-visibility moments. Her current work focuses on helping women recognize their responses to pressure and strengthen their ability to remain present, clear, and intentional when the stakes feel high.

Dr. Stefanie Bennett, Ph.D. is a transpersonal psychologist, author, trauma specialist, and founder of the Sophia Research Institute. Her work explores trauma, perception, consciousness, identity, narcissistic abuse recovery, and the process of personal transformation. She is the creator of frameworks designed to help people recognize the deeper patterns shaping their experiences and become more intentional participants in their own change. Dr. Bennett is the author of Am I an Intentionalist? The Hidden Architecture of Transformation and several other works examining trauma, consciousness, and human transformation.

Laura Nespoli is the founder of Meshin Movement, a strategic storytelling consultancy, and a brand strategist with more than 15 years of experience guiding sales and marketing growth for organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to local nonprofits. Her work explores the connection between the stories we tell about our businesses and the stories we tell about ourselves. Laura is also the author of Threads of Me and You, a memoir paired with strategic tools for personal and professional growth. Her work is rooted in helping people use storytelling as a catalyst for connection, confidence, change, and meaningful growth.

Daria Astanaeva is a Russian-born entrepreneur and founder of The Sell Well Agency. After moving to Canada with big dreams and no network, she built an influencer marketing and talent management business that ultimately collapsed, costing her $45,000 and nearly her belief in herself. She rebuilt by using her voice, sharing her journey online, and helping other women do the same. Today, her personal branding and content work has helped more than 300 women grow their visibility, confidence, and income online.

Rachel Mailer is a dating strategist and connection expert with more than 11 years of hands-on experience helping people navigate dating, relationships, attraction, and compatibility. Her training includes psychology, attachment theory, NLP, CBT, life coaching, relationship workshop coaching, body language, conflict management, and leadership. Rachel’s work helps women move beyond overthinking and recurring dating patterns by getting clearer about their needs, boundaries, non-negotiables, preferences, and the difference between chemistry and compatibility. She is also the host of Dates Don’t Lie.

Kristen MacDonald is a writer, author, and card designer whose work centers on affirmations, self-worth, mindset, and reclaiming one’s voice. A survivor of domestic violence, Kristen describes losing confidence and self-belief through bullying, manipulation, and control in her first marriage. She used affirmations as part of her healing and rebuilding process, eventually publishing an affirmation book that has been accepted into 21 schools in Australia. Her work encourages women to use intentional language to rebuild belief in themselves.

Laura Fisher is the Founder and CEO of Survivor Sanctuary, a survivor-led organization in the United Kingdom creating community, connection, and opportunities for survivors of sexual violence to heal and lead. Her work grew from her own lived experience of child sexual abuse, grooming, rape, and navigating a justice system that failed to deliver accountability. Laura believes recovery continues beyond counseling and is strengthened through belonging, relationships, and spaces where survivors no longer have to carry their experiences alone.

Krystal Jugarap is a business mentor and visibility strategist who helps women strengthen how they communicate their value, show up publicly, and build momentum around their work. Her approach centers on the 6 C’s of Visibility: Clarity, Conviction, Content, Consistency, Community, and Credibility. Through practical strategy and live application, Krystal helps women move beyond simply knowing what they do and become more confident in how they articulate it, promote it, and create content that reflects who they actually are rather than simply following what is trending.

Kenescia Ortiz is a speaker, author, entrepreneur, and leadership development consultant with more than 11 years of leadership and training experience, including service as a Navy trainer. Her journey has included professional success as well as divorce, financial hardship, significant debt, and major life transitions while raising two daughters and building multiple businesses. Through MichelleK Speaks and K. Ortiz Solutions LLC, she helps others build confidence, navigate change, strengthen communication, and turn adversity into purposeful action.

Dr. Fariba Parsa is an Iranian-American scholar, author, women’s leadership advocate, and Founder and Executive Director of Women’s E-Learning in Leadership (WELL). Her work centers on women’s rights, dignity, voice, agency, leadership, and democratic change, with particular attention to women connected to Iran, Afghanistan, and diaspora communities. She is the author of Fighting for Change in Iran: The Women, Life, Freedom Philosophy Against Political Islam.

Lisa Quam is the owner and founder of Quamedy Productions, LLC, and a speaker who uses storytelling and humor to explore healing, vulnerability, and resilience. After a lifetime of appearing confident and capable while carrying perfectionism, childhood abuse, an eating disorder, and the pressure to meet others’ expectations, Lisa discovered the freedom of sharing her truth on stage. Her work encourages women to loosen the grip of perfectionism, remove the masks they wear, and recognize the strength in authentic vulnerability.

 Lori Petin is an author, speaker, burnout recovery and workplace wellbeing coach, and founder of City Wellness LLC.  She grew up believing there was always something she should be doing and carried that deeply ingrained productivity mindset into adulthood until exhaustion forced her to question it. Over time, Lori began examining inherited beliefs about work, success, responsibility, timelines, and what a woman’s life is supposed to look like. Her work invites women to decide for themselves what still belongs in their lives and what they are ready to lay down.

Nancy Boyd is a nonconformist, author, and creator whose work helps people make sense of their lives and navigate change with greater authenticity. After a lifetime of feeling different and being punished or excluded for not fitting conventional expectations, she built an ecosystem of support for people committed to creating a world no one needs to recover from. Nancy has written more than 40 books, nearly 20 of them published through her own imprint, Bright Wings Press.