FOX 5 San Diego Morning News Anchor Shally Zomorodi has been waking up San Diego for more than a decade. A dedicated journalist, Zomorodi launched her news career as an assistant for KTTV FOX 11 in Los Angeles. Quickly advancing into an on-air reporting position in Beaumont, Texas, Zomorodi, with her winning smile and refined reporting skills, woke the Southwest residents of the Lone Star state to breaking local and national news.

Shally’s embracing personality and dedicated reporting returned her to the Southland and family she loves dearly in Orange County. She reported for LA City View in Los Angeles and then became the anchor of DAYBREAK OC, a two-hour live morning show broadcasting from the heart of Orange County for all of Southern California. Versed in international broadcasting as the reporter for Voice of America, and fluent in Farsi, Shally now brings her global skills, diversity, and Southland knowledge to FOX 5. Shally credits her success in broadcasting to pageants. Shally won the title of Mrs. California Globe and was 3rd runner-up to Mrs. US GLOBE. She also held the titles of Miss Orange County Teen USA and Miss Orange County USA. It was during her competition at MISS CALIFORNIA USA that Shally won an award in journalism.... Read More

Dr. Nina Ansary is an award-winning Iranian-American author, historian, and women’s rights activist. She is the director of the World Affairs Councils of America (WACA) Global Women’s Lecture Series; the director of the Cambridge Middle East and North Africa Forum Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) at the University of Cambridge; and inaugural patron and former visiting fellow at the London School of Economics Centre for Women, Peace and Security.

Her books Anonymous Is a Woman: A Global Chronicle of Gender Inequality (Revela Press/2020) and Jewels of Allah: The Untold Story of Women in Iran (Revela Press/2015) received multiple awards, including the 2016 International Book Award in “Women’s Issues” (Jewels of Allah) and the 2021 Benjamin Franklin Book Award in “Interior Design” and “History” (Anonymous Is a Woman). All of proceeds from her books have been donated to women and human rights organizations.

Nina is the recipient of the 2020 Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Alumni Award, the 2019 Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the 2018 Barnard College and Columbia University Trailblazer Award. She has appeared on CNN International, Fox News, Larry King, the Today Show, the BBC, and Sky News and been featured in Time, Newsweek, Maria Shriver’s The Sunday Paper, The Los Angeles Times, and Teen Vogue.

She has presented her work on women’s rights at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security; the London School of Economics; the UN Social Good and Girl Up Leadership Summits; and at Columbia, Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge universities. She holds a master of arts in Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies and a doctorate in history from Columbia University. She serves on the international advisory board of the Cambridge Middle East and North Africa Forum (MENAF), a think-tank based at the University of Cambridge; the board of trustees of the Iranian American Women Foundation (IAWF); and the board of directors of My Stealthy Freedom (MSF), an independent, nonpartisan, non profit organization dedicated to the promotion of Iranian women’s actions to secure their rights.

She can be found on Twitter @drninaansary | Instagram @ninaansary | Facebook facebook.com/ninaansary

Parisa Khosravi is a multi-award-winning veteran journalist and news executive. With over three decades of experience on the global stage, Parisa has first-hand experience dealing with world leaders, dignitaries, and high-ranking officials in order to open doors to difficult and dangerous parts of the world where freedom of speech is in no way guaranteed. She is a strategic adviser and global speaker who calls on her incredibly eventful life as an immigrant, as a journalist, and as a mother.

Parisa is an advocate for individuals with autism and has focused her efforts in helping the “silent champions” like her son. Parisa’s joy and passion both in her career as a journalist and as a mother to her special son is to help give voice to the voiceless. She leads with empathy, compassion, and integrity earning her the nickname of “Mother Parisa”.

Throughout her career as senior vice president for international news gathering, national news gathering, and global relations for CNN Worldwide, Parisa directed historic coverage of countless award-winning news stories such as the fall of East Bloc, the Rwandan genocide, 9/11, the earthquake in Haiti, and the Arab Spring. Parisa left CNN in 2015.

CNN lauded Parisa in its farewell to her by stating: “No one has played a greater role in the emergence and then dominance of CNN international news gathering than Parisa.”

Parisa is the recipient of multiple Emmys, Edward R. Murrow, and Peabody awards, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and numerous other humanitarian awards.

Angella Nazarian is a noted speaker and best-selling author of four books: Life as a Visitor, Pioneers of the Possible: Celebrating Visionary
Women of the World, Visionary Women, and Creative Couples, which is in its second printing.
Angella is also the co-founder of VISIONARY WOMEN, a social impact organization that drives change for some of the most pressing
issues facing women and girls. Visionary Women’s mission is three-fold: it creates a community of female changemakers, informs the community by bringing together some of the most dynamic thought leaders in the country for in-depth conversations, and has created a women’s fund that deploys much-needed financial support for high-impact women’s initiatives both nationally and internationally.
A former professor of psychology, she continues an active role in education. She was featured in Angeleno Magazine’s list of the Top 12 Philanthropists shaping Los Angeles. In 2018, Angella and her husband, David, received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. (The medal is given to American Citizens whose accomplishments and service to the United States are a cause for celebration) In 2019 Nazarian was awarded the Visionary Award in Arts and Culture in philanthropy by C-Suite Quarterly Magazine.

Throughout her 25+-year career, Tracey G. Sameyah has become known as a founder whisperer, delivering epic wins for brands such as Lancer, Murad, and Dermalogica. Tracey is an unapologetic revolutionary who propels the growth engine by unleashing innovative solutions worthy of a cult following and celebrity endorsements while staying true to the founder’s vision and the brand’s essence.

Recognized for her egoless demeanor, Tracey is a natural at cutting through politics and aligning teams behind winning strategies. An expert dealmaker, she unlocks expansion, sponsorship, licensing, exit, and M&A opportunities by steering business development efforts at the highest levels of business and society. Tracey’s own career is an authentic success story based on ascent through the ranks of the beauty industry. Her leadership track record begins in salon management and culminates in President and CEO roles for founder-led brands that were acquired for up to $1B and sharpened P&L for businesses with teams of up to 300 and annual revenues of up to $150M.

Currently CEO of Lancer Skincare and Lancer Dermatology, Tracey has successfully used the under pinning of Lancer Dermatology to further enhance the trustworthy positioning of Lancer Skincare with a more relative and inclusive message for all consumers. With a precise and strategic lens, Tracey has fiercely cascaded the Lancer brand from its original prestige origins to new heights via major deals with QVC, Amazon, Asian-Pacific and Middle Eastern distributors. As CEO, Tracey is responsible for leading Lancer’s overall vision and strategy, financial objectives, and crisis management, as well as new business development for the skincare brand’s global business ventures. With over 20 years of vast experience formulating scalable growth strategies for founder-led beauty and wellness brands, Tracey has leveraged a fierce education in the skincare industry which propels her unique approach to Lancer’s brand performance.

A respected industry leader, mentor, and power networker, Tracey is active on Linkedin and has recently joined the Exclusive CHIEF network to further champion women to leadership positions. Tracey has a uniquely international profile. Born in London, she was raised between Iran and the UK and came to the U.S. to launch her career—drawn to its entrepreneurial framework. Her greatest sources of pride include her LAPD officer husband, her USC graduate son, and her daughter who is in law school.

Goli Ameri is the co-founder of Startitup a mobile accelerator for upskilling Solopreneurs. Previously she was Under Secretary for Humanitarian Diplomacy at the International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent. Ms. Ameri served as the US Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs. Her previous positions include serving as a presidentially appointed Representative to the 60th Session of the UN General Assembly and a Public Delegate to the UN Commission on Human Rights.
She received her BA and MA from Stanford University and has studied at the Sorbonne. Ms. Ameri is the Vice Chair of Freedom House and serves on the Advisory Boards of the Rand Center for Middle East Policy and USC Center for Public Diplomacy where she has endowed an annual prize honoring U.S. foreign and civil service officers for creative and scalable initiatives that advance global public diplomacy. She is the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

Known as "The Duchess of Decorum" by her 982,000+ followers, Pattie Ehsaei (@duchessofdecorum TikTok ), has established herself as one of the leading financial experts in the space. Pattie’s TikTok teachings on female equality in the workplace, financial literacy, workplace decorum and financial independence for women have over 6.6 MILLION likes.

Born in Iran, the Persian beauty moved to Los Angeles as a youth and has spent the last 20 years in a multi-faceted career focused in finance. A lawyer by trade and currently a Senior Vice President of Mergers and Acquisitions lending for a major national bank, Pattie is the perfect example of “tough, but fair" and believes that success comes from information and empowerment. She has delivered keynote addresses for numerous platforms and organizations including the Women’s Investment Summit and the University of Denver STEM Program and has been a panelist for events that inspire the next generation of women such as the Meet Me in Malibu Influencer Panel. Pattie’s voice can also be seen in print on Forbes.com where she shares her wisdom as a financial contributor.

Neda Nobari is an Iranian-American justice advocate and founder of Mozaik Philanthropy. Nobari earned her B.S. in Computer Science in 1984 from SFSU and her M.A. in Liberal Studies in 2015 from Dartmouth. She was the Co-Founder and Vice-Chair of Bebe stores from 1984 to 2006. Nobari established her private foundation in 2007 and has served on over a dozen nonprofit boards and advisory boards catering to both Iranian and non-Iranian communities.

Since becoming a trustee of IAWF in 2013, Nobari has served as Chair of the Northern California Chapter and Co-Chaired two conferences in San Francisco. In 2016, Nobari established the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at her alma mater, San Francisco State University where she is the current Chair of the University Foundation Board. Nobari was named the Alumna of the Year in 2020 and inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame at SFSU. In 2023, Nobari received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

Halé Behzadi is the North America Head of Citi Private Bank and a member of the Private Bank Global Leadership Team. Halé has more than three decades of experience working with ultra-high net worth families and their closely held business and philanthropic ventures and leads the Private Banking activities in 25 offices across the United States and Canada.
Most recently, Halé was the Global Market Manager of the Western Region at Citi Private Bank and directly responsible for leading the ultra-high net worth private banking practices in seven offices in California, Arizona and Washington. Halé co-chairs Citi’s California Leadership Council and is the Executive Sponsor of Citi’s North America Diversity Committee. Previously, Halé chaired the Mentoring Committee at Citi Private Bank and served as the Business Sponsor of Citi’s Pride Network for Southern California and the Women’s Network for Northern California.
Prior to joining Citigroup and establishing the Private Bank office in Beverly Hills in 2002, Halé enjoyed a long and distinguished career with Bank of America leading a team of private banking professionals in Beverly Hills. Halé holds a BA in Economics from Georgetown University, where she is an active member of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. Throughout her career she has played an active role in numerous civic and charitable organizations that provide social services, education and health care in the local community. She is also the Vice Chair on the Executive Committee for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation and a Trustee for the Iranian American Women Foundation. Previously, Halé served on the Board of Trustees for Viewpoint School as a member of the Executive Committee. She has also held a number of leadership roles including Vice Chair, Advancement Committees, and Chair of the Committee on Trustees where she was focused on recruiting more diverse board members, especially women. Halé was recently recognized as a Deborah Award recipient by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for her leadership and civic contributions exemplifying the qualities and ideals of ADL. She holds Series 7, 24, 63, and 65 FINRA licenses.

Kathy Hadizadeh founded Heart Mind Tuning Corp in Los Angeles after her 15 year tenure with Fortune 100 and 500 companies as an IT executive.

Based on her corporate experience and training in WHOLE person coaching, she founded this coaching and advisory agency to assist leaders in their personal and professional development. The mission of her company is to help high achievers, particularly in the tech, product, and engineering space, achieve their full potential and help organizations adapt Mindful Leadership practices

A certified integral life, leadership, and executive development coach, Kathy is also a certified neuroscience-based emotional intelligence and mindful leadership consultant through Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute. She is a UCLA Mindfulness Awareness Research Center-trained mindfulness facilitator and a Collective Brains Certified Executive Mentor. Her clients can benefit from her certification as an assessor by 6Seconds, an organization that utilizes artificial intelligence to create emotional intelligence reports, and her designation as a leadership architect by Korn Ferry & Center for Creative Leadership's 360 assessment suite to experience the power of technology and data.

With years of experience serving on the board of the International Coaching Federation, Los Angeles chapter, she is committed to education for coaches. She is also committed to elevating the coaching culture in the corporate world.

Clients and audiences benefit from her 15-year experience working for companies such as DIRECTV, AT&T, Yellow Pages, Westfield, and Omnicom, which exposes her to the ins and outs of various industries. She shares real life leadership lessons she's learned from hundreds of leaders across technology, entertainment, marketing, and advertising.

Based on her two Master's degrees in engineering and information management and experience in mind-body connection, Kathy developed the PAUSE to RISE method. By helping her clients to connect with what matters to them in life and leadership, she helps them be resilient, show executive presence, enjoy a deep sense of fulfillment and avoid burnout even in uncertain times. She enjoys singing, traveling, hiking, as well as exploring life near Venice Beach with her husband and two children.

Katayoun Bahrami is an Iranian multidisciplinary artist and curator living and working in the Bay Area. Through her art, Bahrami delves into the intricate relationship between women's bodies and boundaries, examining their dynamic interplay as subjects and dominators and how their limits catalyze change and transformation. Drawing on Iranian women's history, Bahrami creates work that combines social practice, performance, and textile-based installations.
Bahrami's artistic practice is diverse, utilizing a range of mediums, including mixed-media pieces, installations, textiles, videos, and photographs, to communicate her ideas. Her work has been exhibited extensively across the United States and internationally, with her pieces featured in galleries such as the LoosenArt Gallery in Rome, the Broad Art Center in Los Angeles, the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, and the Murphy and Cadogan Contemporary Art Awards Exhibition at SOMArts Gallery in San Francisco. In addition to her exhibitions, Bahrami has produced performances and artist-led participatory projects for various venues, including the Clarion Alley Mural Project, the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, and Berkeley Art Practice. She continues pushing contemporary art's boundaries and exploring themes of femininity, identity, and culture. Bahrami completed her BFA at the University of Science and Culture in Iran before earning her MA in Arts and Cultural Management—Museum Studies from Michigan State University in 2017. She continued her education at California College of the Arts, where she received her MFA in Studio Arts in 2022.

Haleh Khatami is an advocate of children, who strongly believes that education is the key to rising above socio-economic crisis. In the last 25 years, Haleh has been continuously and voluntarily pursuing her passion towards providing the gift of education for underprivileged children through various family assistance programs across the world. As the president and co-founder of CHILD International, she successfully leads the cause through her strategic planning, especially in the areas of marketing, public relations, and fundraising. Haleh is an entrepreneur with a background in Management Information Systems and holds extensive experience in the fields of finance and real estate. Her company, SSS Real Estate acquires and develops real estate in the Orange County area. Haleh is the mother of three compassionate daughters who kindly support her in pursuing her goals in life. Her personal achievements include a third-degree black belt in tae kwon do, earning her a silver medal in 2011, and two gold medals at the 2013 ATU National Tae Kwon Do Championships. As a side business, she managed Peaceful Warrior Taekwondo along with her husband.

Dr. Sara Safari is an author, speaker, mountain climber, college professor, Electrical Engineer, and advocate for women's empowerment. She is the founder and president of a nonprofit called Climb Your Everest which focuses on empowering marginalized Young women through educational programs.

She received the award for The Global Citizen from United Nations Association in 2015. She also received the award for Outstanding Practice with Broad Impact in the area of women and leadership from the International Leadership Association in 2017.

Sara is the first Iranian in history to climb the Seven Summits, the seven highest peaks in each continent. She works with organizations that want to develop highly productive teams, that deliver profit, performance, and engagement! Her historic climb is featured in the Netflix documentary “Aftershock”.

Farnaz Zabetian is a contemporary painter & creator of unique dreamlike portraits of women in her own generation. Her talent and artistic experimentation reveal and beautifully reflect the concepts related to the inner soul and outer lives of today’s real women. Farnaz was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1976. She began painting and visual experimentation long before graduating with a major in painting from Tehran's University of Art. While painting professionally was her passion, she did branch off into teaching art at several universities in the capital and sleeping suburbs or nearby towns.
Farnaz’s art is inspired by poetry. She strives mightily to find that elusive, much-vaunted, shared space between word/poetry and colors/forms to inspire own work. Just as she imagines it, in the magical predawn waking hours, in the constant give and take of her own Amygdala and temporal lobes.

Her work involves conversations between the realities of our lives and the poetry’s criticism of them, and a conclusion is realized and brought to life by paint. Farnaz’s painting creations are authentic, free from analysis, and predetermination. They are rather infinite roads with no set destinations. Her earlier work was abstract; later, fish and naked women with long necks began to appear in her pieces. Her unstoppable evolution led to later work that aims to express the inner lives of women. The long necks, however, lingered thought their meaning seems to have gone through a mutational jump. Today the long necks seem to represent the long, hard perilous path these women must travel before they can arrive at self-expression. Surrounded by inevitable, painful realities, Zabetian’s dead brides and women cover up their faces with colors and scents of beauty, poetry, and happiness, showing off their love for life and creation, regardless of all limitations and sufferings.

Azita Mireshghi is an Iranian-American metalsmith and studio artist based out of Santa Monica, California. She comes from 3 generations of blacksmiths. She obtained her Master of Fine Arts degree in Jewelry and Metal Arts in 2016. Her work explores emotions through jewelry and is process-driven, by creating textures and patterns. She focuses on making work that is strong and bold, meant to incite an internal response and increase confidence for the wearer.

Grandmaster Ladan Homayoon has, against all odds, accomplished great success in her journey. Born and raised in Iran, she continuously challenged gender roles from a young age, survived in a man's world, and found a way to escape the Islamic regime while never compromising her values. She is a true role model who faced many obstacles and fought for her beliefs.
She faced insurmountable challenges, personally and professionally. Her father's stroke led her to take care of him from a young age and ignited a deep appreciation of holistic and wellness practices.
While facing many adversities, she also achieved incredible milestones. Starting her training at age 3, by the time she turned 40, Ladan has held the title of Grandmaster in three forms of martial arts. She currently holds an 8th-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and 7th-degree black belts in Shaolin Kung Fu, and Police Martial Arts.
She has also earned black belts in Karate, Haidong Gumdo, and kickboxing and won titles at numerous international martial arts championships. For Grandmaster Ladan, we are all the same, regardless of gender, physical abilities, religion, or political views. She challenges the notion that Iranian women are passive acceptors of the discriminatory policies and regulations placed by the Islamic government. Grandmaster Ladan has spent her entire upbringing in a fight against discrimination. She has dedicated her life to showing those within her reach to "commit, train, and achieve." Her circumstances didn't stop her from achieving a life filled with abundance and freedom, and she hopes to encourage other folks - especially women, to strive for the same sense of freedom in their lives.

Mobina is an Iranian artist currently living and working in San Francisco. She grew up in Iran where she pursued a variety of her interests in art by completing a B.A. in Theatre at Fine Art Tehran University, and an M.A. in Art and Design at Art University Tehran; before moving to London where she was awarded a Ph.D. in Creativity at City University London.

Mobina’s artworks are deeply rooted in traditional calligraphy and poetry. Her pieces are often created in collaboration with international poets and photographers. Her works blend calligraphy, poetry, and photography. These richly emotive and layered compositions explore connections between forms of body and words of poetry.

In a Career that spans over fifteen years and includes twelve collaborative and solo albums as well as two prestigious Canadian JUNO Award nominations, Azam Ali has confirmed her place as being one of the most prolific, versatile, and gifted singers and composers on the international stage today. Born in Iran, raised in India from the age of four, and currently based in Los Angeles, Azam’s most notable work is with the cutting-edge world music electronic/acoustic project Niyaz with whom she has released four best-selling and critically acclaimed albums on Six Degrees Records. All four albums have debuted at #1 on iTunes and garnered the band an incredible amount of media attention including features on NPR, The BBC, Huffington Post, and PRI. Azam
continues to tour internationally with Niyaz and build on its impressive and loyal fan base worldwide. Azam’s otherworldly voice has become highly sought after by some of the biggest film composers in Hollywood. She has worked with Harry Gregson- Williams, Mychael Danna, Graeme Revell, Ramin Djawadi, Brian Tyler, Michael Giacchino, Trevor Morris, Christopher Young, Tyler Bates, Jeff Rona, etc. Azam's distinctive voice and music can be heard in myriad film and television scores among which include “Thor- The Dark World”, "Matrix- Revolutions", “Prince of Persia- The Sands of Time”, “300”, "Godsend", “The Priest”, “John Carter”, "Papparazi", "The Nativity Story", "Speed Racer", “Lara Croft- Tomb Raider”, “The Fight Club”, “Season of the witch”, "Children of Dune", "Earthsea", "Dawn of the Dead", “True Blood”, "Alias", "The Agency, and "Prison Break". Azam's immense talent and ability to adapt her voice to any musical style have also drawn the attention of many diverse artists. Azam has collaborated in studio and on stage with Serj Tankian of System of a Down, The Crystal Method, Pat Mastellato and Trey Gunn of King Crimson, Peter Murphy of Bauhaus, Dredg, Chris Vrenna formerly of Nine Inch Nails, Ben Watkins of Juno Reactor, Buckethead, Steve Stevens, Mercan Dede, the world-renowned Japanese group Kodo, Zakir Hussain, Omar Faruk Tekbilek, and Mickey Hart with whom she also toured for two years as a lead singer in his group Bembe Orisha.