2025 WORTHY. Speakers
Worthy. Our power within: tools, truths and transformation.
Brenda Loukes-Johnson
The Power of Drawing to Make the World a Better Place
Talk Summary:
Could something as simple as drawing help us become more grounded, compassionate, and connected? Brenda invites us to rediscover drawing not as an artistic performance, but as a daily practice of creativity, calm, and connection that can ripple outward to make the world just a bit kinder, one line at a time.
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Brenda Loukes is a professional multi-disciplinary artist with a background in musical theatre, television production, trauma-informed massage, dance, and movement therapy.
She is passionate about creating community and brings 20 years of facilitating therapeutic movement and creativity workshops to her art practice, which sits at the intersection of healing, neuroscience and planetary health.
She grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa and at the age of 50, relocated to the USA in 2018 with her husband.
Her commitment to collaboration and community led to her receiving grant funding to organize and facilitate public live painting events in the cities of Seattle and Bellevue.
Brenda calls herself a “Flow Facilitator”. She is the creator of InFlow Project, an online space where she teaches women to reconnect to their innate creativity, using expressive painting and doodling as tools for healing.
She published The Doodle Journal for Grown Ups in 2016, to encourage adults to use creativity for getting centered and calm.
Her art has been exhibited and sold in Seattle and surrounds, and in South Africa.
Brenda loves to draw on walls, and making large-scale paintings in her home studio in Sammamish is part of her wellness program.
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Her art can be found at www.brendaloukes.com
InFlow Project at www.inflowproject.comVideos of public art events can be seen on her YouTube Channel:
(30) Brenda Loukes - YouTube
Call and Response No 2. https://youtu.be/dvuNLxeeHc0?si=iPR16YJgjo7gSiEMCall and Response No 3. https://youtu.be/KxDt6LXh2Rg?si=_QatlqRPDKcqcKol
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Instagram: @brendaloukes_artist & @inflow_painting
Courtney Byers
Be a Kind Woman, Not a Nice Woman: The Courage to Care Without Losing Yourself
Talk Summary:
For too long, women have been praised for being “nice” – quiet, compliant, self-sacrificing. Courtney calls time on that myth, showing that real kindness takes more courage than guilt. It’s about boundaries, truth, and the radical act of treating yourself like you matter.
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Courtney Byers is a women’s strength and conditioning coach, community builder, and former birth doula. For over 12 years, she’s helped women move past diet culture and discover the power of training like athletes, building strength, confidence, and self-trust along the way.
Her years as a birth doula gave her a front-row seat to women’s resilience in its rawest form, shaping how she coaches and connects with women today.
She also founded the Seattle Wellness Society, a community that brings women together through movement, connection, and support.Her TEDx talk, Be a Kind Woman, Not a Nice Woman, explores the cultural cost of “niceness” and why true kindness rooted in courage and integrity is a radical act that transforms not only women’s lives, but the world around them.
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Elisa Yuen
Building Resilience, on Purpose: The Practice of a Meaningful Life
Talk Summary:
We’ve been taught to climb toward purpose as if it’s the prize at the top. Elisa turns that idea upside down – literally – revealing how purpose can become the foundation that steadies us through chaos, rejection, and reinvention. Because when you start from purpose, you don’t just survive, you grow stronger.
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Elisa Yuen is an authentic leadership coach and innovator who helps people clarify their purpose as the foundation for resilience and impact.
Over 15+ years in high-tech leadership, she guided teams through new-to-the-world challenges—launching the first 4G LTE smartphone, shaping emerging 5G use cases, and scaling gaming beyond consoles.Known as a Connector of Everything, Elisa naturally bridges people, ideas, data, and resources to solve complex challenges—whether in global technology, leading large teams, or coaching individuals to define and act on their purpose.
Through her Reaching for Higher course, she has guided over a dozen people using structured tools and reflective exercises to uncover the themes that connect different facets of life and reveal their authentic purpose.
Her own journey showed that our hardest experiences often fuel our greatest strengths, and leading from purpose transforms challenges into clarity, resilience, and meaningful impact. -
Maansi Shandilya
You Don’t Have to Do It All Alone: Lessons in Asking for Help and Living Fully
Talk Summary:
What if the bravest thing you can do isn’t pushing through, but asking for help? Maansi challenges the myth of “doing it all” and shows how letting help in – even from unexpected places – can turn exhaustion into resilience and chaos into connection.
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I am a corporate leader, innovator, and mother of three who believes in rewriting the narrative of what it means to be “enough” in today’s fast-paced world.
Over the past decade, I have built a career leading complex initiatives in the corporate sector while navigating the equally demanding journey of parenthood.My life reflects a constant search for balance; between ambition and family, structure and spontaneity, technology and humanity. This journey came to a pivotal moment during a summer of intense personal and professional challenges, when I turned to Artificial Intelligence for support. What began as a practical tool soon transformed into a catalyst for growth, resilience, and self-discovery.
With my story and work, I want to champion the idea that worthiness is not measured by doing it all alone, but by embracing courage, adaptability, and the willingness to ask for help.
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Mary Jesse
Owning Your Story in a Machine-Led World
Talk Summary:
When technology remembers everything we post, what pieces of our true selves are we leaving behind? Mary invites us to slow down, write it down, and reclaim the human stories that no algorithm can tell – reminding us that our words are how our voices live on.
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Mary Jesse is a seasoned technology leader and innovator with more than 30 years of experience in both public and private companies, serving as CEO, CTO, VP, founder, and board director.
She has driven groundbreaking innovations across industries, including wireless, media, retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and government services, with deep expertise in digital systems and product development.As founder and CEO of ACME Brains, Inc., an early-stage artificial intelligence software company, Mary is at the forefront of developing next-generation AI solutions. A registered Professional Electrical Engineer (P.E.) and holder of over two dozen patents, she blends technical mastery with visionary leadership.
Passionate about supporting technology equity, women in business, and underserved communities, Mary is committed to using innovation as a force for positive change.
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Rashmi Raghavendra
What Dying Taught Me About Life
Talk Summary:
When a high-achieving executive flatlines and still asks for her phone, it’s a wake-up call to how we define strength. Rashmi exposes the hidden cost of overfunctioning in a world that demands more than any one person can give, and offers a new blueprint for women to rebuild, reinforce, and rise whole.
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Rashmi Raghavendra is a healthtech leader, investor, and advocate for equity in healthcare.
Why you should listen
With more than 20 years of experience at Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, and Philips Healthcare, Rashmi has led global teams of 350+, generated over $500M in business impact, and holds 40+ patents for innovations in AI-powered health technology. At Philips, she spearheaded digital health solutions that advanced patient monitoring and access to care.
Today, she is Managing Partner of rcubed | ventures, investing in women- and minority-led startups, and Founder and Board Chair of HLWF℠ Alliance, a nonprofit breaking silos in healthcare to tackle inequities. She also serves on the board of the University of Washington’s Engineering Innovation in Health (EIH) program, guiding research at the intersection of health access and innovation.
A Sammamish resident, and mother of two boys, Rashmi brings deep personal insight to her work. In 2020, she nearly lost her life during childbirth. That experience fuels her mission to redesign what strength, leadership, and worthiness mean for women today.
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rashmirao/