CORY TAYLOR
Primetime Emmy Award-winning filmmaker with over fifteen years of experience writing, producing, directing and editing over 40 documentaries for NBC, PBS, National Geographic, The Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and various NGOs. His award-winning film, A Quiet Revolution, narrated by Meryl Streep and featuring Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai, was aired on television in over 50 countries and screened on five continents at film festivals and UN-sponsored events while his recent film, Another Way of Seeing Things, won the prestigious Chris Award at the Columbus International Film Festival.

DARIN NELLIS, MBA
Twenty years of experience working in business management and community relations for private, public an non-profit entities in the U.S. and Africa. Positions in the private sector include Managing Director for the Eurasian distribution company, Power Quality Holdings, and Director of Corporate Planning for the nanotech company, NanoTech Industries. Non-profit positions included Community Development Officer at The United Way of LA, Loyola Marymount Peace Corps Fellow, Community Development Agent for the U.S. Peace Corps and Volunteer & Outreach Coordinator for the American Oceans Campaign.

LIONEL FRIEDBERG
Recipient of a Primetime Emmy, a National Emmy, the American Association for the Advancement of Science ‘Westinghouse’ Award for Science Programming, three Columbus and three Golden Eagles for Best Documentaries. He has worked for over 30 years supervising, producing, writing and directing documentaries, reality, investigative and educational programs and has 18 feature film credits as Director of Photography.

Jill Shively
Jill has spent the past 21 years working with the general public and in local communities, first as an insurance sales executive and then as director of a non-profit. As a top sales executive for Bancsure Brokerage Firm for 12 years Ms. Shively refined her natural talent for working with the general public. She then studied law at the Northrop University School of Law in order to assist mostly urban American Indian communities in the areas of adoption, domestic violence and other legal issues. She eventually started her own nonprofit, the American Indian Legal Assistance Program, where she served as the Executive Director for 9 years. Ms. Shively also holds a BA degree in Business Administration from CSULA.

DAVID LINSTROM
Emmy Award winning cinematographer with 20 years experience working on over three-dozen documentaries in more than 50 countries for National Geographic, Discovery, HBO, CBS, NBC, ABC, DATA and other NGOs.

ALEX RYAN
Alex Ryan was recently nominated for an Emmy for HBO’s “Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq,” Alexandra Ryan continues to produce films for HBO through her partnership with Sopranos actor James Gandolfini as well as a newly signed development deal with HBO. Ryan, a former Paramount creative executive, currently has in development “Hemingway and Gellhorn,” directed by Philip Kaufman (“The Right Stuff,” “Quills”), which chronicles Hemingway’s life; “Sacco and Vanzetti” – a film about the unjust execution of Italian immigrants in 1920’s Boston directed by Rod Lurie (“The Contender,” “Commander in Chief”) and “Sonny” - the story of the notorious Nike shoe executive and basketball scout Sonny Vacarro.

MONIKA MACDONAGH-PAJEROVÀ
Held the post of spokesperson for the University Strike Committee during the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia; former cultural attaché at the Czech Embassy in Paris, Administrator of the Cultural Committee in the Council of Europe, and head of the Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague; currently Chairperson of the civic association “YES for Europe.”