LEADERSHIP TEAM
MORRA AARONS-MELE, EVP, SOCIAL IMPACT AT GEBEN COMMUNICATION
Morra Aarons-Mele has worked with the world's leading companies and institutions on digital marketing campaigns since 1999, especially in the political arena. She helped Hillary Clinton log on for her first internet chat, was the Director of Internet Marketing for the Democratic National Committee during the 2004 Presidential Election, was BlogHer's first Political Director, founded Edelman’s digital public affairs team, and has worked in various roles at leading online companies. She founded Women Online and created the influencer network The Mission List in 2011.
In addition to her work in the digital marketing space, Morra is passionate about helping the socially anxious and those who struggle with depression or anxiety thrive in their careers. An extremely anxious introvert herself, Morra hosts The Anxious Achiever podcast for HBR Presents from Harvard Business Review, which is a Webby Award Honoree for Business podcasts and a top 10 management podcast on Apple. Until 2018, Morra was host of the popular podcast Hiding in the Bathroom. Her book Hiding in the Bathroom: How to Get Out There (When You'd Rather Stay Home) was published by HarperCollins and is available in many languages.
A prolific freelance writer, she has written for The Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Slate, InStyle, O The Oprah Magazine, The Wall St Journal, Forbes, and The Guardian. Since 2004, she has covered the campaign trail, the White House, the lactation room, and the office cubicle in her role as a blogger on women, politics, and work. Morra has degrees from the Harvard Kennedy School and Brown University, and holds a certificate in Government from the London School of Economics. She and Nicco Mele live in Boston with their three children.
Morra is the point of contact for onboarding new and returning clients, and she also offers her strategic counsel to client campaigns.
JENNIFER VENTO, VICE PRESIDENT
Jennifer’s experience blends digital strategy, marketing and production expertise, as well as a passion for research and analytics. Jennifer began her career in New York’s entertainment industry as head of technology and production for a music company and has consulted on media-related projects for organizations including PBS, the US Navy’s Maritime Civil Affairs Group, and Public Agenda. In 2006, she co-founded a film production company and worked with clients including the United Nations, OECD, and Stanford University. She has produced work appearing on ABC, PBS, CNN and TechCrunch. Prior to joining the Women Online team, Jennifer served as the founding director of the Personal Democracy Forum and chief operating officer of the award-winning organization Personal Democracy Media, dedicated to covering the intersection of technology, politics, and civil society. Jennifer is a graduate of the George Washington University and the Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy at the New School. She serves on the Board of Civic Hall, the nation’s leading center for learning and collaboration to advance civic tech for the public good. As VP at Geben, Jennifer handles client contracts, offers strategic counsel to client campaigns, and manages market research and campaign analysis.
CHRISTINE KOH, CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Christine Koh’s spent a decade as a music and brain scientist before leaving academia for the Internet in 2006. She founded Boston Mamas in 2006, a stylish resource portal for families in Boston and beyond, created the design firm Posh Peacock in 2007, published Minimalist Parenting: Enjoy Modern Family Life More by Doing Less in 2013, and launched the Edit Your Life podcast in 2015. Christine has been featured in Boston Magazine, The Boston Globe, Woman’s Day, Parents Magazine, National Public Radio, ABC News, Metro Boston, FOX 25 Boston, and other fine media outlets. She has been named to Babble.com’s Top 50 Mom Bloggers, Top 50 Twitter Moms, and Top 30 Parenting Listserv lists. Her design work has been featured in Cookie, Brides, Pregnancy & Newborn, Daily Candy, and more.
Christine holds degrees from Wheaton College (MA), Brandeis University, and Queen’s University. She lives in the Boston area with her husband Jonathan and daughters Laurel and Violet. As the Creative Director of Women Online, Christine blends her expertise in the blogging space with her passion for creative engagement and beautiful design across all strategic and aesthetic levels for client campaigns.
MELISSA FORD, SENIOR STRATEGIST
Melissa Ford is a social media amplifier and content creator, helping messages and ideas go viral. She employs her background as a storyteller and editor with over ten years experience covering a diverse range of topics including health, social media trends, technology, parenting, and politics, when building and managing digital campaigns for Women Online.
Prior to joining Women Online, she was the blogging and social media editor for BlogHer, an online magazine reaching more than 60 million women each month in addition to 40 million followers via social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. She also specialized in covering White House events, policy discussions, and campaign work, including writing for President Obama's second election site. She is the author of six works of fiction and nonfiction (http://www.melissafordauthor.com/), as well as writer of the award-winning blog, Stirrup Queens (http://stirrup-queens.com), named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top ten parenting blogs. She earned her MFA from University of Massachusetts – Amherst.
KRIS-ANN RACE, DIGITAL CAMPAIGNS ASSOCIATE
Kris-Ann joined the team at Women Online in 2017 as the digital campaigns jack-of-all-trades. Before Women Online, Kris-Ann spent 15+ years as a marketer and communicator for a Boston area child care company. There she was tasked with increasing brand awareness, creating marketing materials (both print and digital), growing enrollment and making things like the annual open enrollment period and updated employee handbooks sound fun and exciting. In addition to her work in the corporate world, Kris-Ann has done editorial work for websites like Boston Mamas and Parent Hacks and chronicled her parenting journey at both The Family Room blog and CT Working Moms.
Kris-Ann lives in central Connecticut with her husband, two sons, and the only other girl in the house, Lilly, the black lab mutt.
BRADY HAHN, STRATEGIST
Brady Hahn is a strategist specializing in brand positioning, content curation, experience design, and strategic partnerships. She is passionate about bringing people together to connect, learn, and build community. Over the past eight years, Brady has advised clients on over 80 B2B partnerships and shaped over 200 activations with global brands at conferences, private gatherings, executive trainings, and digital campaigns reaching over 100,000 professionals across the US, Europe and Asia. In 2016, Brady formed the Insight Collective to offer in-person gatherings, a monthly-ish newsletter, and The Speaker List, which connects professional women to speaking opportunities and event organizers to a diverse cross-section of women experts. Brady has moderated over twenty panels and presents on the topics of women's leadership, professional development, and reframing stress. She has been featured on Inc.com, in Porter Gale's book “Your Network Is Your Net Worth” (Atria Books, 2013), and has written for Firm of the Future, Escape The City, RYOTNews, Eventbrite, and Social Media Week.
A student of meditation for over 20 years, Brady is a certified Facilitator of Council, Reiki Master, and Atma Yoga Teacher. She holds a BA with a focus on Philosophy of Science from Boston University.
REBECCA MCQUIGG RIGAL, STRATEGIST
Rebecca is a consumer insights/foresights and brand/content strategy consultant who excels at helping businesses and organizations stay forward focused and relevant within targeted communities. For nearly 15 years, Rigal has been uncovering trends and providing consumer and cultural insights, market intelligence, strategic counsel and content ideation, creation and curation services to forward-thinking brands, Fortune 500 companies, and creative/trend/strategic agencies including Pepsi Co, H&M, Nike, Target, Adidas, Equinox, HBO, FOX, Trendera, The Future Laboratory and Brand Central. She has held executive positions at leading consumer trends and insights agency, Cassandra (formerly The Intelligence Group @ Creative Artists Agency); GOOD/GOOD Projects, as Arts & Culture Ambassador and advisor for the Pepsi Refresh Project; at the creative innovation hub Maker City LA as Director of Community and Culture; and at Bottlenose, a business intelligence company, helping enterprises surface actionable insights from a variety of social data sources.
Rebecca has contributed to leading culture and trade publications including The Cassandra Report/Cassandra Daily, GOOD/GOOD.is, C Magazine, the Matte Black SHAPESHIFT Report, iMedia’s Entertainment Spot, and covered the 2009 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as a citizen journalist on behalf of MySpace and The Wall Street Journal. She lives in Los Angeles, CA with her husband and baby-on-the-way and holds a BA in Journalism from The Ohio State University.
THE INFLUENCER NETWORK
The Mission List is our online database of online influencers who are passionate about using their voices in social media for social good and to spread the word about amazing initiatives and products.