r(E)volutionary Woman

Lola Akinmade Åkerström is an award-winning visual storyteller, international bestselling author, and travel entrepreneur. She has dispatched from over 80+ countries and her work has been featured in National Geographic, New York Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, BBC, CNN, Travel Channel, Travel + Leisure, Lonely Planet, Forbes, and many more. She has collaborated with commercial brands such as Dove, Getty Images, Mercedes Benz, Intrepid Travel, Electrolux, ASUS, and National Geographic Channel, to name a few.

As a storyteller, Lola was featured on Condé Nast Traveler’s Women Who Travel Power List. She was named one of the Most Influential Women in Travel by Travel Pulse, a 2022 Hasselblad Heroine and Bill Muster Travel Photographer of the Year. She was also honoured with a MIPAD 100 (Most Influential People of African Descent) Award within media and culture and a Newsweek Future of Travel Storytelling Award. 

Her book, Due North, received the Lowell Thomas Gold Award for Best Travel Book, and she is also the author of international bestselling “LAGOM: The Swedish Secret of Living Well” available in over 15 foreign language editions.  Her internationally-acclaimed novel, “In Every Mirror She’s Black”, was a Good Morning America (GMA) Buzz Pick, Apple Editors’ Pick, Amazon Editors’ Pick,  Independent UK “Best Thought-provoking Story”, and was shortlisted for the Bad Form Review Book of the Year. Her novel, EVERYTHING IS NOT ENOUGH, is an NAACP Image Award Nominee for Outstanding Literature, Jennette McCurdy Book Club Pick, a Washington Post, Sunday Times, and Amazon Editors’ Pick, amongst others. Her latest novel, BITTER HONEY, was published in May 2025.

As an entrepreneur, she runs Stockholm-based creative storytelling agency Geotraveler Media and online academy, Geotraveler Media Academy, which runs photography experiences around the world and is dedicated to visual storytelling and helping the next generation of travel storytellers put the heart back into the craft.

To learn more about Lola Akinmade Akerström:

Links – Media Kit  |  Portfolio

Director, Geotraveler Media

Social – LinkedIn | Instagram

Dr. Rebecca Whittington is the Online safety editor for Reach Plc, the UK’s largest commercial news publisher. She was appointed to the role, which was the first of its kind established in the UK, to protect journalists from online harassment and harm. Rebecca also writes about online threats, campaigns for the online safety of women in journalism, and sits on the advisory committee for Women in Journalism and the employers subcommittee of the National Committee for the Safety of Journalists.

To learn more about Dr. Rebecca Whittington:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccalucywhittington/

Isabella “Bella” Hughes is a repeat founder, mentor, and angel investor with experience spanning the arts, entrepreneurship, and emerging CPG. Born and raised in Honolulu, she splits her time between Austin and Hilo. Currently, she’s the chief revenue officer and co-founder of Better Sour, a globally inspired sour candy brand founded with her lifelong best friend. She also co-founded Hawaiʻi Contemporary and Shaka Tea, and most recently was honored by Inc. Magazine as one of 2025’s Female Founders 500.

Social:

www.bettersour.com

 @eatbettersour

Marivir R. Montebon is a New York-based journalist who runs her media company Awesome Media, Ltd. In 2012, she established the online magazine OSM! (awesome!) together with her daughter, Leani Alnica Auxilio. In 2022, she produced Conversations with MM, a digital talk show, on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook platforms.
Marivir was president of the FilAm Press Club of NY in 2018 and 2019. She set up a 501 (c) (3) non-profit in 2018 called Women’s Immigration and Communications Cafe (WICCAFE). It has a project arm called Women & Media (WAM), a collaborative platform for women and communities to amplify their voices and actions.
Marivir was a media fellow for Montclair University’s Cooperative Media Program for COVID-19 Reporting in 2020 and a member of the Theta Alpha Kappa honor society.
She finished her Doctoral Studies, with distinction, in May 2024 at the HJ International Graduate School for Peace and Public Leadership in New York City with a focus on Peace and Public Leadership. Her doctoral research is titled: Bridging the Political Divide of US Immigration Reporting through Transformative Journalism.
She is currently a United Nations representative for the Women’s Federation for World Peace International (WFWP), a global women’s organization with a Consultative Status with the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
Marie Montebon – Instagram
Marivir Montebon – Facebook
Marivir Montebon – LinkedIn

Aayusha Prasain is a dynamic leader with over a decade of experience in strategic planning, community development, and responsible tourism. As the CEO of Community Homestay Network, she has been instrumental in scaling community tourism across Nepal and building/strengthening partnerships for sustainable impact.
Her expertise spans leadership development, youth engagement, research on gender, and women’s economic empowerment. With a Master’s in International Development from Nagoya University, Japan, her work is deeply rooted in rural and regional development. Her thesis on women-led micro-enterprises highlights her commitment to creating equitable economic opportunities. Throughout her career, Aayusha has been recognized for her contributions to research and community development.

Social Media Handles:
Community Homestay Network (website): https://communityhomestay.com/
Community Homestay Network (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/communityhomestaynetwork?igsh=YWdia3U5MWhieDN2
Community Homestay Network (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/company/13353695/admin/dashboard/

LinkedIn (Mine): https://www.linkedin.com/in/aayusha-prasain/

During her term as 20th Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia (2020-22), Emerita, the Academy of American Poets awarded Luisa A. Igloria one of twenty-three Poet Laureate Fellowships in 2021, to support a program of public poetry projects. She is the recipient of the Immigrant Writing Series Prize from Black Lawrence Press for Caulbearer (2024), and was one of 2 Co-Winners of the 2019 Crab Orchard Poetry Prize for Maps for Migrants and Ghosts (Southern Illinois University Press, fall 2020). In April 2021, the Writers Union of the Philippines (UMPIL) conferred on her the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas lifetime achievement award in the English poetry category. In 2015, she was the inaugural winner of the Resurgence Prize (UK), the world’s first major award for ecopoetry, selected by former UK Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion, Alice Oswald, and Jo Shapcott. Former US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey selected her chapbook What is Left of Wings, I Ask as the 2018 recipient of the Center for the Book Arts Letterpress Poetry Chapbook Prize.

Other works include The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis (Phoenicia Publishing, Montreal, 2018), Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (2014 May Swenson Prize, Utah State University Press), and 10 other books. She is lead editor, along with co-editors Aileen Cassinetto and Jeremy S. Hoffman, of Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States (Paloma Press, September 2023). Her poems are widely published or appearing in national and international anthologies, and print and online literary journals including The Georgia Review, Orion, Shenandoah, Cincinnati Review, The Common, Indiana Review, Crab Orchard Review, Diode, Missouri Review, Rattle, Poetry East, Your Impossible Voice, Poetry, Shanghai Literary Review, Cha, and others. Luisa served as the inaugural Glasgow Visiting Writer in Residence at Washington and Lee University in 2018.

Luisa also leads workshops at The Muse Writers Center in Norfolk (and serves on the Muse Board). She is a Louis I. Jaffe Professor and University Professor of English and Creative Writing, and a member of the core faculty of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University, which she directed from 2009-2015. Since 2010, she has been writing (at least) a poem a day. www.luisaigloria.com

Social Media:
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/VAPoetLaureate2020
Instagram @poetslizard
Bluesky       @thepoetslizard.bsky.social
https://linktr.ee/thepoetslizard