r(E)volutionary Woman

Ngozi Okaro advocates for a fashion industry that honors planet and people. She founded Custom Collaborative to support immigrant & no/low-income women launching sustainable fashion

Today, Tes speaks with Hana Shannon. Hana is a classically trained painter from the Czech Republic specializing in portraiture.  She received her Master’s degree in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and moved to the US over a decade ago to pursue her painting career. The energy and freedom of NYC have always provided great inspiration.

Maggie Kane first and foremost has a passion for loving people. Full on hype queen, she is a speaker, entrepreneur, and Executive Director with a special focus in nonprofits and small, killer coffee shops.

8 years ago, Maggie founded A Place at the Table, Raleigh’s, NC’s pay-what-you-can nonprofit cafe, which has fed thousands of humans some incredible food, and an even better community. She believes strongly in the power of unconventional communities and showing everyone she meets that they have a place at the table.

She is a proud member of the Downtown Raleigh Alliance board, Band Together Advisory Board, and Feed the Pack Food Pantry Advisory Board at NCSU.

She lives in Raleigh, loves to jump rope, and eats a large amount of peanut butter. She loves hiking in the mountains and hour-long tattoo appointments. You’ll find her watching movies at the theaters in those big comfy chairs, skydiving, or breaking away for a quick 2-day weekend trip.

To learn more about Maggie Kane:
Table Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tableraleigh/
Table Website: https://tableraleigh.org/
Segment on Kelly Clarkson Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkQJeAFzZHc

JoAnna Haugen is an award-winning writer, speaker, consultant, and solutions advocate who has worked in communications-related positions in the travel and tourism industry her entire career.

She is also founder of Rooted, a solutions platform at the intersection of sustainable tourism, social impact, and storytelling. Through Rooted, JoAnna helps tourism professionals decolonize travel experiences and support sustainability using ethical marketing and strategic storytelling.

An international election observer, intrepid traveler, and American expat, JoAnna currently resides in Carthage, Tunisia.

To learn more about JoAnna Haugen:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rootedstorytelling/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joannahaugen/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/joanna_haugen

As Founder and CEO of Indigo River, Dena Prastos, AIA, is the first “waterfront architect,” trailblazing a new category in the industry. Indigo River is a women-owned transdisciplinary design firm focused on progressive waterfront architecture, resiliency, and climate adaptation. A leading authority in New York Harbor and beyond, the firm specializes in climate adaptation through waterfront solutions that seamlessly transcend boundaries – guiding and executing projects from ideation through final construction and operations.

Waterfront architect, civil engineer, futurist, climate adaptation expert, entrepreneur, and creative original, Dena is driven to transform the built world at the water’s edge. With transdisciplinary and progressive views, she is fueled by the overlapping of design, technology, and nature.

Dena is a licensed architect with a graduate degree in civil engineering. Born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, she deeply appreciates nature and humankind’s ability to design, build, and create infrastructure in some of the world’s harshest conditions. Dena is an experienced leader of innovative leading projects around the world, directing infrastructure construction, marine
engineering, and the design of waterfront architecture. This experience has given her the tools to navigate the firm’s diverse client work with her unique vision and competency in construction, engineering, and waterfront architecture.

As a one-stop shop for solutions at the water’s edge, Indigo River works on notable projects around New York Harbor including East Side Coastal Resiliency in Manhattan, Robert De Niro’s Wildflower Studios in Astoria, River Ring in Williamsburg, and the Harlem River Greenway in East Harlem.

Before starting Indigo River, Dena worked at DCAK MSA Architecture and Engineering as the Director of Project Management and Business Development, McLaren Engineering Group as a senior project manager and The Conti Group. Dena earned her Bachelor of Architecture at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), where she subsequently completed a graduate degree in Civil Engineering. At NJIT, she was a Division 1 soccer player. After gaining valuable experience in the industry, she went to Harvard Business School’s “Leading Professional Service Firms” Executive Education program.

She serves on the National Council of Architectural Registration Board’s (NCARB) Future’s Collaborative. In 2021, she joined the AIA Resilience and adaptation Advisory Group, and in 2022 she was asked to join AIA’s YAF Summit 30: Mission 2130; the Summit seeks to respond to critical issues present in the profession, namely, to address challenges the architecture
profession will face in the next century, focusing on architecture, society, and our planet. She also serves on her local Planning Board in historic Grand View-on-Hudson, New York.

PROFESSIONAL REGISTRATIONS: Registered Architect, NY, NJ & CT, AIA, NCARB, WEDG, LEED AP

ABOUT INDIGO RIVER:
Indigo River is a women-owned transdisciplinary design firm focused on progressive waterfront architecture, resiliency, and climate adaptation. A leading authority in New York Harbor and beyond, the firm specializes in climate adaptation through waterfront solutions that seamlessly transcend boundaries – guiding and executing projects from ideation through final
construction and operations.

To learn more about Dena Prastos and Indigo River:
https://www.instagram.com/indigo_river_/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denaprastos/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/indigo-river-consulting/

Amy Andersson is an Internationally recognized, Grammy-winning conductor and producer.
Named by British music critic Norman Lebrecht as “America’s most watched Symphony
Orchestra Conductor,” Andersson has been praised for her dynamic musicality, expressive
technique and cross genre repertoire. She has toured to over twenty-two countries
conducting concerts and recording sessions in symphonic, operatic, film, musical theatre
and video game genres. She has appeared on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, CBS
Morning News, CBS Evening News and has garnered press coverage in the Wall Street
Journal, Variety, Forbes, and Huffington Post.

Andersson is founder and conductor of Orchestra Moderne NYC, which debuted at
Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and has won critical acclaim for her charismatic and
visionary accomplishments as creator and conductor of Women Warriors: The Voices of
Change, a live-to-picture symphony production and documentary film. Women Warriors has
won over twenty-four international film and music awards including four Telly Awards, a
Hollywood Music in Media Award, a GRAMMY in “Best Classical Compendium, a 2022 BMI
“Impact Award,” a 2023 SCL “Jury Award” and has screened at film festivals in more than
twelve countries, including the Fimucité International Film Music Festival in Tenerife.

Known for her commitment to the music of living composers, she has conducted the works
of composers Neal Acree, Elitsa Alexandrova, Peter Boyer, Nathalie Bonin, Jessica Curry,
Miriam Cutler, Anne-Kathrin Dern, Greg Edmonson, Isolde Fair, Sharon Farber, Steve
Jablonsky, Grant Kirkhope, Penka Kouneva, Bear McCreary, Martin O’Donnell, Kol Otani,
Starr Parodi, Lolita Ritmanis, Garry Schyman, Yoko Shimomura, Jeremy Soule, George
Strezov, Chance Thomas, Nobou Uematsu, Jack Wall, and Austin Wintory, among others,
either on the concert stage or in recording sessions.

Andersson has made guest appearances the St. Louis Symphony, Houston Symphony,
Seattle Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Colorado Symphony,
Honolulu Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Florida Orchestra, Spanish Philharmonic,
Berliner Symphoniker, Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, Stockholm Concert
Orchestra, Spanish National Youth Orchestra, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Classic FM Radio
Orchestra of Bulgaria, Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, Junge Deutsche
Philharmonie, Neiderrheinsche Symphoniker, LOH Orchestra Sonderhausen, Giessen
Philharmonic, Aalborg Symphony Orchestra, Macedonian Philharmonic, Monte Carlo
Philharmonic, Jeunesses Musicales Deutschland, Colorado Music Festival Orchestra,
National Orchestral of Mexico, and at free-lance orchestras in Switzerland, Belgium,
Netherlands, Italy and Ireland. Andersson regularly conducted opera productions in
Germany at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, National Theater of Mannheim, Stadttheater
Aachen, Weikersheim Opera Festival, Rheinsberg Chamber Opera, and Schlosstheater
Schwetzinger. In 2017 Andersson completed a two year, world tour of the live-to-picture
concert Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses.

Andersson is a devoted teacher and educator and known also for her work with youth
orchestras. She was adjunct conducting faculty at the Universität der Künste Berlin, music
director of the famed CPE Bach High School of Performing Arts in Berlin, and adjunct
faculty in Media and Film Scoring at Brooklyn College/Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema.

In Germany she conducted the Rheinberg Chamber Opera Festival and Weikersheim
Opera Festival for four summer seasons of productions that featured rising opera singers
and youth orchestras. She is currently conducting faculty at the USC Thornton in the Screen
Scoring department, and the Hollywood Music Workshop in Baden, Austria.

Current projects include Andersson as co-Executive Producer on the soon to be released
film (2023)Tahlequah The Whale: A Dance of Grief, by filmmaker Daniel Kreizberg, featuring
the music of Lolita Ritmanis. She is also conductor and co-producer of the soon to be
released soundtrack.