Welcome to Womensphere: Inspiring Global Change for Women

Analisa Balares

Analisa Balares is CEO and founder of Womensphere and the Womensphere Foundation. Prior to Womensphere, Analisa launched her career in the Goldman Sachs High Technology Investment Banking group, where she helped execute over $1.5 billion in IPOs, corporate financings, and mergers and acquisitions for companies like open source software leader Red Hat and communications leader Nokia. Her professional experience includes working for Milestone Capital Management, Morgan Stanley's Energy Investment Banking Group, the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, and the Japan External Trade Organization.

 Analisa holds an MBA from Harvard Business School; a BA in Economics & Mathematics cum laude from Mount Holyoke College; and an International Baccalaureate Diploma from Lester Pearson United World College of the Pacific in Canada. While at Harvard Business School, Analisa founded and co-led the non-profit Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN), and served as a President of the HBS Entrepreneurship Club, and Debate Coach/Team Co-Captain of the HBS Debate Team. Following business school, Analisa joined Microsoft as Global Marketing Manager for Microsoft's blogging and social networking service, where she managed the global marketing launch of Windows Live Spaces in over 30 countries, and led the strategy and execution of Spaces projects around branding, partnerships, events, and online community development. She managed Spaces' internal partnerships with MSN Entertainment and XBox, and external partnerships with NGOs (Global Fund for Women, Earth Day Network), media companies (ABC, Sundance Channel), and independent music/film/TV festivals (SXSW, MethodFest Film Festival, New York TV Festival).

Keren Bergman

Keren Bergman is the Charles Batchelor Professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University. Dr. Bergman received the B.S. from Bucknell University in 1988, and the M.S. in 1991 and Ph.D. in 1994 from M.I.T., all in Electrical Engineering. As director of the Lightwave Research Laboratory she leads multiple research programs on optical interconnection networks for advanced computing systems, data centers, optical packet-switched routers, and chip multiprocessor nanophotonic networks-on-chip.

Gwen Effgen

Gwen Effgen is a Ph.D. candidate in biomedical engineering at Columbia University and the President of the Columbia Graduate Society of Women Engineers. She earned a BA in Physcisc from Barnard College.

Angela Leaney

Angela Leaney is chief marketing officer for the Harlem Globetrotters. She previously worked as Chief Marketing Officer for Newsweek and has been a marketing executive for 20 years with such companies such as Mattel, Unilever, MTVN, Kimberly-Clark, Cadbury,and Washington Post Co.

Michele Wucker

Michele Wucker is a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York City, where she is co-director of the Immigrant Voting Project and director of the Program on Citizenship and Security. She specializes in immigration and assimilation, transnational political processes, the politics of culture, Latin America and the Caribbean, and international finance and debt crisis.

She is the author of Lockout: Why America Keeps Getting Immigration Wrong When Our Prosperity Depends on Getting It Right, and of Why the Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Struggle for Hispaniola.