• About
  • Featuring
  • Buy Tickets

Women Mean Business Luncheon 2025

Friday, April 4, 2025

The Plaza Hotel
770 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10019

11:30 AM Reception | 12:00 PM Luncheon

Keynote Speaker
Maya Wiley, Esq.
President and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Emcee
Kristine Johnson
CBS 2 Co-Anchor 5 p.m. and 11 p.m.

Philanthropic Honorees In Memoriam
Lou and Helen Lowenstein
Philanthropists

About the Event
Each year, more than 400 of New York City’s most accomplished and engaged leaders gather to attend the Women Mean Business Luncheon, which supports the Coalition’s First Step Job Training Program. The event features program graduates sharing their moving stories and experiences. Past events have also featured guest speakers including Eve Ensler, Arianna Huffington, Hillary Clinton, Christine Quinn, Anna Quindlen, Ashley Graham, Darlene Love, Adenah Bayoh, Dari Alexander, Alicia Graf Mack, and Jennifer Egan.

First Step gives homeless and low-income women the skills and confidence needed to achieve financial independence. Our innovative 14-week curriculum offers computer and job skills training, an internship with a major corporation or nonprofit organization, mentoring, job placement assistance and extensive post-graduate support.

 

First Step Advisory Board

Cindy Arnold, Chair
Yvette Arsenec-Weir
Vanessa Barnett
Christy Burke
Marisol DeLeon
Austin Fremont
Sara Fusco
Barbara Kolsun
Deborah Krulewitch
Natalie Lederman
Susan Lerner
Natsayi Mawere
Rachel Noel
Ruth Pryor
Wendy Samuel
Joan Sapinsley
Jane Singer

Luncheon Committee

Aoanan Talavera
Kimry Blackwelder
Emily Blatt
Susan Brundage
Liz Daly
Nikki MacCallumn
Anna Panettiere
Marisa Rametta

Maya Wiley Esq.
President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
Keynote Speaker

Maya Wiley is the president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund. A nationally respected civil rights attorney, Wiley has been a litigator at the ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Inc., and the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. In 2014, she became the first Black woman to be Counsel to a New York City Mayor, Bill de Blasio, where she worked to protect and expand civil rights, Minority and Women-Owned Business contracts and broadband access. Wiley became the Henry Cohen Professor of Public and Urban Policy at the Milano School of Policy, Management and Environment where she founded the Digital Equity Laboratory and also served as the Senior Vice President for Social Justice at the New School University. She has served on the New York City Automated Decisions Systems Task Force and the Atlantic Council Task Force for a Trustworthy Future Web. She has received numerous awards, including being named one of the World’s 100 Most Influential Leaders in Digital Government by Apolitical. Wiley has been a public voice for rights, justice, and democracy, through written opinion editorials and as a former legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.


Kristine Johsnon
CBS New York Anchor 5 p.m. and 11 p.m.
Emcee

Kristine Johnson currently anchors the 5 p.m. & 11 p.m. news at the CBS owned and operated station in New York City. She joined CBS New York in the fall of 2006. Since then, she has been the recipient of several Emmy awards.

Kristine has navigated her viewers through numerous breaking news events. Including, Hurricane Sandy, the Newtown school massacre, the Boston marathon bombings and two separate papal visits to the Big Apple. She also anchors weekly on the network’s digital streaming platform, is a fill-in anchor for “CBS Mornings” and has filed reports for “CBS Sunday Morning.”

In 1994, Kristine began her career at WPRI in Providence, Rhode Island. She was hired as a part-time assignment editor. Over the next 10 years she transitioned through several production positions to her ultimate goal of reporting. Kristine left Providence for New York City in 2004. She was hired by MSNBC and anchored daytime coverage.

Kristine is honored to represent CBS News New York at various events around the Tri-State Area. She’s worked closely with the greater New York chapters of the Susan G. Komen Race for a Cure, March of Dimes, The Brain Tumor Foundation and the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Run.

Kristine lives with her family in Northern New Jersey. She completed two NYC marathons and credits yoga for keeping her “balanced.”


Lou and Helen Lowenstein
Philanthropic Honorees in Memoriam