Can You Hear Me? Bridging the Divide with the Language of Inclusivity

Mallika Machra is a fellow at Fenway Strategies, a speechwriting and communications firm founded by President Barack Obama's former chief speechwriter, Jon Favreau and national security spokesman, Tommy Vietor. She graduated from Wellesley College and joined Fenway Strategies after working on the successful senate race for Jon Ossoff, currently the Senior Senator from Georgia.

Shaan Heng-Devan is a director at West Wing Writers, a leading speechwriting and strategic communications firm. There, he has penned speeches and op-eds for heads of global foundations, coached speakers from across four continents, and shaped messaging for leaders at every level, from grassroots activists to crowned royalty. A proud advocate for diversity in speechwriting, Shaan also chairs West Wing Writers’ internship program and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Working Group, and is a leading member of Speechwriters of Color.

Michael Franklin is co-founder of Speechwriters of Color and digital media coordinator for The Collective PAC. As the executive vice president of the student association at Howard University, he’s an experienced and driven young professional focused on interrupting structures of the status quo in order to build equity into our institutions. He's skilled in written communication, leadership and project management, social media management, coalition building and event planning. As a soon to be Howard University graduate, he seeks to create intersectional solutions to judicial and political shortcomings throughout our political institutions.

Janet Stovall is a Senior Client Strategist at NeuroLeadership Institute (NLI), where she helps companies replace subjectivity with science to evolve diversity, equity and inclusion practices to be more brain-friendly, more human—and more effective. Her career evolved from a technical systems analyst role at Morgan Stanley into various corporate and agency marketing and public relations roles, including founding her own firm. Her most recent position was speechwriter for the CEO and senior leadership of UPS, one of the world’s largest shipping and logistics companies, with more than 500,000 employees globally. She is one the few Black speechwriters to have worked at the C-level in the Fortune 500. She also led UPS’s diversity, equity and inclusion communications, writing and producing an award-winning video, The Power of Difference, writing award-winning executive speeches, and serving as a founding member of the UPS Equity, Justice & Action Task Force. Her TED talk challenging business to get serious about inclusion has nearly 2 million views.