Leadership in Action

Umbreen Bhatti  is the Constance Hess Williams ‘66 Director of the Athena Center for Leadership at her alma mater Barnard College, where she works with young women building a better world. Previously, Umbreen led the innovation lab at KQED, the Bay Area’s NPR | PBS station. Umbreen also serves on the board of Global Press, a news organization dedicated to reinventing the craft and business of international journalism by recruiting diverse populations of local women and training them to become professional, ethical journalists. As a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, she developed and then hosted the podcast “Kaleidoscope: Reflections on Islam.” Beyond media, Umbreen has guided universities, libraries, local government, and nonprofits in their efforts to meet the needs of their communities in new and exciting ways. Earlier in her career, she practiced law at the Disability Rights Legal Center in Los Angeles, the ACLU in Delaware, and Latham & Watkins in Washington, D.C., and taught law students as an adjunct professor at Widener University School of Law. Umbreen is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School.

Headshot credit: Kevin Abosch

Jenna Freedman is the Curator of the Barnard Zine Library, Librarian for Women's Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Interim Librarian for American Studies, Personal Librarian for transfer students

She/her.

My undergraduate degree is in theater. I have Master's degrees in Library and Information Science (University of South Florida) and Digital Humanities (CUNY Graduate Center). My research and practice center on zines and activist librarianship. I write and present on those and other topics and co-founded projects called Radical Reference and #critlib.

Malla Haridat is an award winning entrepreneur, author, and founder of New Designs for Life Inc. an innovative training company.  (NY State and NYC MWBE certified). Malla has been recognized by the Mayor of New York City for her work as a mentor to entrepreneurs. She has won the NYC Small Business Award for entrepreneurship innovation. The New York Times did a full-page article on her work and said “Malla Haridat gets people thinking like an entrepreneur.” Malla Haridat is a contributor to Black Enterprise, HuffingtonPost and has been quoted by Fox Small Business, ABC and Inc. She has worked with Black Enterprise Magazine Entrepreneur Conference and sits on the Board of Advisors for Barnard College’s Entrepreneurship Group. Malla has a degree from Columbia University and is the former Vice President of College Relations for the New York chapter of the National Board of African-American HR professionals. She specializes in teaching people how to tackle the big question marks in their life to get the most important answers needed to experience success. Malla started her entrepreneurial pursuits at age 16 when she sold the car she inherited from her grandmother to start a vending machine and when she’s not working, she resides in Westchester County where she is teaching her young daughter how to take advantage of life through entrepreneurial thinking.