After over twelve years of investment experience, Guy-Max Delphin opened Delphin Investments. Currently, he is the Senior Portfolio Manager heading Fundamental Research and Macro/Top-Down overlay. Mr. Delphin’s extensive experience includes the Yale-New Haven Health System as a leading Investment Strategist, Senior Analyst at Fortis Investments, and Senior Associate of Equity Research in the Small-Cap Industrials group, a division of Jefferies & Company, Inc. Mr. Delphin also held an Associate Analyst position within the Prudential Equity Group, LLC. Early in his career, Guy-Max functioned as a quantitative analyst in the Investment Product Design and Risk Management Group divisions of OppenheimerFunds, Inc. In 2012, he joined the NYC Special Education Collaborative, an organization working with charter schools advocating sustainable, high-quality special education programs. Mr. Delphin is on the Stony Brook Foundation Board of Trustees and serves as Chair of the College of Business Advisory Board. His philanthropic activities focus on education and healthcare. Mr. Delphin received a M.S. in Financial Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of NYU, in addition to B.S. degrees in both Applied Mathematics and Economics from Stony Brook University.

Darryl Ford Williams is the Vice President of Content for WQED Multimedia in Pittsburgh. In her current role at WQED, Ms. Ford Williams oversees the creation, development, production and delivery of all new and existing local, national, international and syndicated television, radio, interactive and educational programming for WQED Multimedia. She led the effort for the PBS series American Masters, August Wilson: The Ground On Which I Stand serving as Executive Producer for this highly acclaimed documentary. Under her leadership, productions have taken WQED documentary teams across the country and abroad to Kenya, Poland, Vietnam and Austria for productions distributed to the PBS system. She also launched an informational television station for the Government of Bermuda.

Prior to her work with WQED, she was the sole proprietor of the Ford-Williams Agency, one of the first companies in the nation to focus on minority recruiting for major market television stations. Throughout her career, Ms. Ford Williams led content and program development for broadcast groups across the country. Her background as a television news producer and news manager is extensive. The following are just a few examples of that work: managing site producer for CBS News in its coverage of September 11—focusing on the Pennsylvania crash site of United Flight 93; coordinating producer for ABC-TV’sGood Morning America; executive producer at WJLA-TV in Washington, DC; news producer at KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh and WBAL in Baltimore.

Ms. Ford Williams’ work has been recognized with many awards, including several Emmy Awards in addition to numerous Emmy nominations. She has been honored by the Easter Seals Society, International Association of Business Communicators, and has won multiple awards from Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters.

With roots in the Midwest, Steve Hissam mixes creativity and strategic agility with solid business acumen to deliver quantifiable results in the ever-changing marketing space.

He began his career on Madison Avenue where he worked on a range of product categories from Mercedes-Benz automobiles to Yoo-Hoo chocolate drink. At Kirshenbaum & Bond he propagated the agency’s distinctive under-the-radar approach to advocacy marketing for clients such as Duckhead apparel and CNBC cable network.

His pioneering social media campaign for Hennessy cognac not only garnered industry awards and praise from The New York Times and Business Week, but also changed the way spirit brands are marketed.

Accepting an offer to work for a client, Steve spent the next phase of his career working in brand management. Leading blue chip companies like Remy Cointreau and LVMH toward creative resolutions across a myriad of business challenges, Steve’s expertise in equity-building initiatives and innovative integrated marketing campaigns have become his hallmark.

Steve established film as an event marketing platform for Grand Marnier, and created strategic partnerships with major and independent film studios and film organizations. Sponsorship of the New York Film Festival achieved exceptional consumer outreach and awareness through a comprehensive public relations program that generated over 100 million impressions.

To fill in knowledge and data gaps in the multicultural space, Steve employed an anthropological approach to insight mining and leveraged his expertise to improve the cultural competency of the organizations.

At Geometry Global, Steve served as a key player in integrating and elevating best-in-class shopper marketing process and practice into the new Mondelez organization and SC Johnson.

Working directly with both brand and field teams, Steve identifies strategic opportunities to reinforce brand equity and drive category growth across multiple classes of trade.

Deniese Davis got her start in entertainment by producing indie low-budget projects including music videos, short films and digital content. In the web-series realm she is best known for producing Issa Rae’s award-winning web series “The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl”. She is currently a Producer on the HBO comedy series INSECURE and an Executive Producer on the upcoming HBO limited series THE DOLLS while continuing to produce and oversee content for Issa Rae Productions. She also serves as COO of ColorCreative, which provides access and opportunities for diverse and emerging writers and recently sold their first feature film LOVE IN AMERICA to Universal. Originally from Las Vegas NV, Deniese is an alum of CUNY-Brooklyn College and the American Film Institute Conservatory.

Valerie is a certified project management professional with a long career in the overlapping fields of communications, journalism and literacy. In addition to authoring three children’s books and being doctoral candidate (literacy), she has more than 20 years’ experience in marketing and communications, and has worked with private clients and for major corporate brands including Volvo, Disney and Deloitte.

In healthcare and medical communications and marketing, Valerie most recently worked at Columbia University Medical Center in the department of ophthalmology, where she also served on the CUMC Strategic Communications Task Force. Earlier in her career, Valerie served as a healthcare writer and marketing communications manager for Medial Data International.

In addition to her work in the healthcare and medical space, Valerie served as an educator and marketing communications consultant through her company Valorena Online, L.L.C. An off-shoot of this work, Valerie has led workshops on marketing communications and digital marketing, and published peer-reviewed articles and children’s books aimed at building literacy. Her Cocoa Kids Collection of books includes: Isaiah and the Chocolate Mountain, Eddie and the Hot Cocoa Hot Rod, and Lorena and the Magic Mocha Mirror. She also is the blogger behind Valerie’s Vignettes.

Valerie has written and contributed to articles and essays in Associated Press, The Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, Orange County Business Journal, and More magazine, online in the U.S. and in Spain. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Antonia Carew-Watts is General Counsel for WLIW21 and a senior attorney for WNET. WNET is America’s flagship PBS station, which operates New York’s channel THIRTEEN, Long Island’s WLIW21, and New Jersey’s NJTV. Ms. Carew-Watts advises WLIW21 on issues relating to production, intellectual property and new media, underwriting, and labor and employment, among other matters. In addition, she is counsel for THIRTEEN’s long-running award-winning biography series, American Masters. 

Ms. Carew-Watts joined the WNET family in 2013 and was appointed General Counsel for WLIW21 in January 2016. Prior to joining WNET, she was an associate in the intellectual property practice group at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP.  

She received her B.A. from Yale University in 1991 and her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2009. Prior to law school, she enjoyed a long career in entertainment and arts, working in development for non-profit performance space The Kitchen, and non-profit production company Rainbow Television Workshop, as well as serving on the design teams for numerous television series and features, and theme-parks for Walt Disney Imagineering.  Ms. Carew-Watts is a former Director of the Association of Black Women Attorneys.

As the Opportunity Agenda’s senior coordinator for capacity building, Eva-Marie develops a comprehensive and strategically sequenced set of tools and resources to promote organization’s internal and external capacity building. Utilizing skills and expertise in organizational development, strategic communications, and technology, Eva-Marie creates innovative training programs.

Eva-Marie has extensive experience developing communications systems and strategic communications at nationally-known legal organizations and publications such as the Pro Bono Institute, New Jersey Lawyer, and American Immigration Lawyers Association. Eva-Marie has a B.A. from Wheaton College and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Samantha Abrams is a corporate and nonprofit business leader with more than 20 years working and impacting across sectors. Ms. Abrams recently served as Chief Strategy Officer for Halcyon, a global nonprofit incubator supporting early-stage impact companies.

As CEO & Managing Director for Walker’s Legacy, her thought leadership and experience will support a global growth strategy that includes a diverse suite of partners, enhanced programming and board development as the organization focuses on serving more multicultural women entrepreneurs. Ms. Abrams is a champion for entrepreneurs and has deep knowledge and lived experiences as a veteran business owner.

Previously she served at the March on Washington Film Festival as executive director. Ms. Abrams also served at GEICO Insurance Companies for 12 years where she held several leadership roles in Public Affairs and Marketing. Additionally, she led the execution of the company’s social responsibility and diversity business verticals.

She is on the Advisory Board for the University of Guyana Foundation, including being an advisor for the Guyana Economic Development Trust and several early-stage impact Companies globally. Ms. Abrams is a member of CHIEF, a private network for women executives; sits on the Board of Directors for Black Public Media and Six Degrees and is a Founding Board member of the Social Justice School.

Ms. Abrams resides in Prince George’s County, MD with her husband Howard and children Zoie and Zion. She is the proud co-owner of her local family Caribbean restaurant.