Our Mission
Doyenne Initiative's mission is to positively impact women around the world, elevating them to an expert level in their field.
Our Vision
Doyenne Initiative's vision is to ignite a movement that will give rise to generations of Doyennes, invoking a significant change in opportunities for women throughout the world. Our program will elevate women through higher education and specialized development equipping them to hold the most esteemed and executive roles in their respective fields. As they prosper, these Doyennes will be role models who influence their countries, communities, families and generations to come.
Our Values
Empowerment
Expertise
Equality
Why Women?
In addition to the general workforce capability shortage, Doyenne sees an even larger gap in women who were experienced technical experts in their field. Due to the widespread recognized need to promote equality for women, Doyenne knows that elevating women to ‘take their seat at the table’ is where we could make the most impact.
Global Challenges
Our Inaugural Class
2021-2023
Meet the Team
Kathy Eberwein
Founder
Kathy Eberwein is the CEO of The Global Edge Group and a Mechanical Engineer from the University of Maryland. Through her experiences as a CEO providing personnel for major capital projects in developing countries, she has witnessed a shortage of local workforce capability to support these projects. The result of this is local employees often miss opportunities to participate in the elevated career paths with these global companies on these projects. Kathy has always had a passion for social impact and felt this was her opportunity to make a positive change.
Claire Johnson
Senior Strategist
Claire is a business professional who worked for 6 years in the energy industry before leaving the corporate world in 2017 to dedicate herself to finding work that she felt made a positive, tangible impact on people's lives. Claire has since studied nonprofit management, social enterprise and sustainability. Claire managed the establishment of the Doyenne Initiative as a 501(c)3 nonprofit and has been the lead on strategy and operations for the Doyenne Initiative since its founding in July 2019.
Jackie Thomas-Suggs
Development Consultant
Jackie has a development and fundraising career which spans over 35 years. Jackie is an advocate for the promotion of the profession of development, is a mentor to many young minority professionals and sits on the board of directors for three non-profits. Jackie has raised money for higher education institutions around the world and has managed various capital campaigns resulting in institutional enhancements that will benefit organizations for years to come. Jackie joined the Doyenne Initiative in 2019 to help the team reach its capital requirements to make the Doyenne Initiative's vision a reality.
Talumba Katawala
Outreach Advisor
Talumba is Co-Founder of Mozambican Women of Energy (MWE), an association focused on achieving the UN SDGs 5 and 7, Gender Equality and Affordable and Clean energy for all. Talumba is a passionate advocate for and believer in diversity and inclusion as business imperatives. As a professional in the energy industry for over 10 years, Talumba has experience in implementing high-level professional education programs in Mozambique. Talumba has been supporting the Doyenne Initiative in establishing its footprint in Mozambique via outreach activities.