World-renowned journalists to speak at Inspiring Leadership Forum

Posted: February 5, 2016 12:00 p.m.

(l-r) Naomi Klein, Mellissa Fung and Mona Eltahawy are keynote speakers at the annual leadership event .

The University of Regina is hosting its seventh annual Inspiring Leadership Forum (ILF) on March 9, 2016. The Forum, Compelling Voices, features keynote speakers Naomi Klein, Mellissa Fung and Mona Eltahawy.

“It is an honour to participate in the Inspiring Leadership Forum each year, and to share experiences with people who are so committed to being leaders in their home communities, in our province, and around the world,” says University of Regina President and Vice-Chancellor Dr. Vianne Timmons. “I am very excited about this year’s keynote speakers – women who are prominent leaders in the field of journalism, and who will inspire us, teach us, and give us tools to be heard in our communities.”

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist and author of the New York Times and #1 international bestseller, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Klein’s critically acclaimed new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, is the 2014 winner of the prestigious Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction.

She is a contributing editor for Harper’s and reporter for Rolling Stone, and writes a regular column for The Nation and The Guardian that is syndicated internationally by The New York Times Syndicate. Additionally, her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, The Globe and Mail, El Pais, L’Espresso and The New Statesman, among many other publications.

Mellissa Fung is a veteran correspondent and bestselling author. She covered the war in Afghanistan for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), and also produced the award-winning documentaries Canada’s Ugly Secret and No Country for Horses. Her bestselling book, Under an Afghan Sky, chronicles her experience as a hostage after she was kidnapped while on assignment in Afghanistan in 2008. She speaks with passion on human rights (with particular attention paid to women and children), development issues, current events, and her personal experiences as a journalist.

In addition to the CBC, her work has appeared in The Walrus, The Toronto Star, GlobalPost, and PBS among other publications. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Gracie award, the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association award for documentary, and several Radio and Television News Directors awards.

Mona Eltahawy is an award-winning columnist and international public speaker on Arab and Muslim issues and global feminism. The author of Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution, released April 2015, Eltahawy is based in Cairo and New York City. A contributor to the New York Times opinion pages, her commentaries have appeared in several other publications and she is a regular guest analyst on various television and radio shows. During the 18-day revolution that toppled Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, she appeared on most major media outlets, leading the feminist website Jezebel to describe her as "The Woman Explaining Egypt to the West".

In addition to the three keynote speakers, the event will feature Zarqa Nawaz as emcee. Nawaz is best known as the creator of Little Mosque on the Prairie, the world’s first sitcom about a Muslim community living in the west. The full-day event will also feature a panel of Saskatchewan-based leaders.  

Read complete biographies of the keynote speakers or follow us on Twitter @UofRinspire.