Women Answering the Call: Leadership Rooted in Boundless Love, Wisdom, Creativity, Transformation
IN PERSON OR VIRTUAL OPTIONS
CEU’s available via this form.
If you cannot make it In Person or Live on Zoom with us, join us through the video recording whenever your schedule allows! A video recording will be provided to all registrants.
Friday, October 23 from 6:00-8:30 PM EASTERN
Saturday, October 24 from 10:00am-5:00 PM EASTERN
Early Bird: $195 until October 11
Full Price afterward that: $225
Event Overview
Imagine an extraordinary gathering of women, awakening to the truth of who they really are, and committed to live and lead with heart and wisdom.
The Sophia Institute is convening a symposium on this topic: Women Answering the Call: Leadership Rooted in Boundless Love, Wisdom, Creativity, Transformation on Friday evening and Saturday, October 23-24, 2026.
We envision this symposium addressing a leadership centered in boundless love — “the kind of love that is courageous and disciplined rather than sentimental, rooted in wisdom, creativity, trust, dignity, solidarity, and shared purpose. A leadership that organizes, endures, and transforms systems”, as Pat Mitchell puts it. One that empowers people to make a real difference in their own lives, their families, their communities, and that awakens in all of us the truth of who we really are.
The women leaders who have accepted our invitation to offer a session are answering the call. See more about them below.
If you are called to join us, you are one of those women answering the call or yearning to become one. We welcome you!
With love and blessings,
Carolyn Rivers,
Founder and Director of The Sophia Institute
A POWERFUL SERIES SESSIONS:
Stewarding Influence with Love and in the Spirit of Service
Pat Mitchell in Conversation with Savannah Seydel
How do we gain “influence” and what do we do with it? In our personal lives as women, wives, friends, colleagues and in our communities. How is it gained or earned and how do we steward it with love and in a spirit of service? We all have influence, even though for most of us, our sphere of influence is a much smaller circle that the numbers social media platforms reach. But it’s also true that our choices of what we talk or write about, how we spend our time and money reflect our personal values; each choice also has the potential to influence others. Let’s influence a new narrative about how we, as women, influence the nature of power by the ways we use it and share it; how we steward our influence towards actions that encourage women to connect rather than compete; how we can, individually and collectively, shift the mindset of scarcity to one of abundance. That will influence everything we do!
Does the Call Change Us? Two Women in Conversation About Love, Power, Purpose, and Leadership
Ronda Dean with Shawan Gillians
What happens when we answer the call to lead? Does leadership change who we are, or reveal more fully who we have always been? Drawing on leadership journeys that span different generations, races, professions, and seasons of life, two friends reflect on the experiences they share, the places their paths diverge, and what each has learned about power, purpose, courage, and love. Rather than offering easy answers, their conversation invites us to consider whether we can answer a call to transform our institutions, communities, and world without also being transformed ourselves.
From Brigid to Bridget: Answering the Call of Boundless Love
With Zoe Holland, MBE
“Leadership may not begin when we take responsibility for others. It may begin when we become willing to live truthfully enough to take responsibility for ourselves.”
There is a call that has always existed beneath the noise of our lives. A call to lead from the deepest, most creative and most courageous place within us. A call rooted not in power over others, but in love – boundless, transformative, fiercely tender love.
This session draws from Zoë Holland’s book Crafted by Heart: Living and Leading with Love, tracing a sacred path from Brigid — ancient flame-keeper, well-tender and bridge between worlds — to Bridget: the woman alive today, answering her own call, often in the quiet moments where nobody is watching.
Through seven invitations woven from wisdom, creativity and the power of love in action, Zoë explores what happens when women stop waiting for permission to lead — and instead return to the fire they have always carried:
Feed the Soul · Weave a Tapestry · Step into Your Beauty
Lean into the Shadows · Build Your Fire
Trust Your Silent Knowing · Be Still
These invitations are not a programme. They are a homecoming. Tested in grief and rupture. Illuminated in stillness. Awakened in community — just as they were for the women of Silk Elephant, who during the darkest days of the pandemic stitched handmade hearts for strangers and, in doing so, transformed themselves.
Courage is love in action.
Creativity is love expressed.
Wisdom is love deepened by living.
Transformation is what happens when we finally answer the call.
The fire is not something you need to find.
It is something you already carry.
Come ready to tend it together.
Into-Me-See: Living and Leading from the Inside Out
With Dr. Jeannelle Perkins
What if our capacity to lead others is directly connected to our willingness to deeply know ourselves? In this engaging and reflective session, Dr. Jeannelle Perkins explores intimacy beyond romantic relationships as the practice of Into-Me-See: the courage to look inward with honesty, compassion, and curiosity. Drawing from her work in relational health, resilience, and human connection, Dr. Perkins invites women to consider how self-awareness shapes the way we communicate, establish boundaries, navigate vulnerability, exercise power, and build trust. Participants will explore what becomes possible when leadership is rooted not simply in what we accomplish, but in the clarity of who we are. Living and leading from the inside out becomes an act of courageous love, one capable of transforming ourselves, our relationships, our communities, and the systems we influence.
Leading from Intuition, Creativity, Compassion, and Truth
Molly Fienning in conversation with Carolyn Rivers
After more than two decades of building companies, leading teams and pursuing traditional measures of success, Molly Fienning began to hear a deeper call: to lead not only from strategy and ambition, but also from intuition, creativity, compassion and truth. Her journey reflects a larger shift unfolding across society as we recognize the limits of systems shaped primarily by competition, control and relentless growth. The emerging paradigm asks us to restore qualities historically associated with the feminine, including connection, reciprocity, receptivity and care, while integrating them with the masculine strengths of clarity, structure and decisive action. This is not about women replacing men or one form of power overtaking another. It is about recovering our collective wholeness. Molly will explore what becomes possible when women answer the call to lead from that integrated place and how doing so can transform not only our own lives and organizations, but also the culture we are creating together.
Stewarding from Sovereignty
With Kenya Dunn
Good leadership is good stewardship of people, of resources, of outcomes. But Kenya makes the case that none of it is sustainable without a deeper foundation: radical sacred self-love, the daily practice of trusting ourselves completely and reclaiming full authority over our own decisions and lives. In this session, she’ll share the practices that fortify her own leadership: slow mornings, nervous system regulation, intentional mentoring and offer a framework for leading with both diligence and devotion. Women will leave with permission to steward boldly, precisely because they have first learned to love themselves fiercely.
Rooted in Place, Connected by Purpose: Blue Zones, Nature, and Leadership for a Flourishing World
With Dr. Susan Johnson
What if wellbeing is not simply a matter of individual choice, but a reflection of the environments, relationships, and rhythms that surround us every day? Drawing from Blue Zones research on the world’s longest-lived communities, this session reflects on cultures where purpose, belonging, movement, rest, and spiritual grounding are woven into daily life. Dr. Susan Johnson will connect these lessons with nature-based wellbeing, her own leadership journey, and the healing power of nature as a pathway to restoration, creativity, and connection. This talk invites women leaders to consider how we answer the call to create healthier, more connected, and more purposeful communities by shaping the systems, places, and cultures that help people flourish.
Meet Pat Mitchell
Pat Mitchell, a pioneering journalist, producer, and media executive, has spent her career breaking new ground for women and amplifying underrepresented voices. She produced the award-winning series A Century of Women, launched Woman to Woman—the first national television program owned, produced, and hosted by a woman—and, as President of CNN Productions, oversaw films that earned numerous national honors. As the first woman President and CEO of PBS, she led the digital transition of public broadcasting and successfully defended its federal funding. Later, as CEO of the Paley Center for Media in New York and Los Angeles, she convened global leaders to examine the media’s role in shaping culture and society. A lifelong activist, Mitchell is now focused on advancing women’s leadership as a catalytic force for addressing the global climate crisis through Project Dandelion, the women-led movement she co-founded. She serves on the boards of the Skoll Foundation, the Woodruff Arts Center, and the Sundance Institute (as Trustee and former Chair), Emeritus Chair of the Women’s Media Center, and the IMAGINE mission board. She is a founding member of the board of V-Day, a global campaign to end violence against women, the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, and she’s also a member of CARE’s Global Advisory Council. In her memoir, “Becoming a Dangerous Woman: Embracing Risk to Change the World,” Pat shares her journey as a frontline advocate for a just, equitable and sustainable world.
Meet Ronda Dean
Ronda Dean is an accomplished chief executive with a track record of robust and sustainable growth, creating long-term value for start-up and established corporate and non-profit entities. An industry thought leader in women’s reproductive health, Ms. Dean spent her career making a positive impact and building resilient, high-performing organizations that adapt and scale to industry demands and opportunities.Ms. Dean recently retired from Afaxys, the company she co-founded in 2008, and is currently serving as an executive advisor to the CEO. She led the start-up of this first-of-its-kind healthcare enterprise serving a national market of community and public health providers. She led the successful execution of the company’s start-up operations and capitalization strategy and expanded operations into the pharmaceutical sector.
Ms. Dean is passionate about community service and civic leadership. Over the years, she has sat on numerous boards, including Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, the Storm Eye Institute at the Medical University of South Carolina, the New Morning Foundation, and Wings for Kids. Ms. Dean currently serves as the Governance Committee chair of the Board of Directors at the Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina, and on the board of Charleston Gaillard Performance Arts Center. Ms. Dean holds a Master of Business Administration from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and a Bachelor of Science from The Ohio State University.
Meet Shawan Gillians
Shawan Gillians spent nearly twenty years as a transactional lawyer before transitioning out of the everyday practice of law to become a communications and community engagement executive with the South Carolina Public Service Authority (Santee Cooper) in January 2025.
She is a magna cum laude graduate of Wofford College where she majored in both Economics and Religion, as well as a graduate of The College of William & Mary Law School from which she received a Juris Doctor, and a graduate of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina where she received a Master of Business Administration. Shawan is currently pursuing a Master of Divinity at Emory University and will complete that degree in December 2026 and is an ordained transitional deacon in the Episcopal Church. Her bishop and the people consenting, she will be ordained to the priesthood in January 2027.
Shawan is driven by a desire to help people move from where they are to where they’d like to be. She is passionate about serving her community, and lives into that passion through service on a number of non-profit boards, including serving as chairperson of the Coastal Community Foundation, and as a member of the executive committees of the Trident United Way and Children’s Trust of South Carolina, in addition to serving on the boards of the Roper St. Francis Berkeley Hospital and Coastal Crisis Chaplaincy. She is also privileged to serve on the Board of Trustees of her alma mater Wofford College.
Meet Zoë Holland MBE
Zoë Holland is a C-Suite leader of one of the Uks fastest growing law firms, an author, leadership coach, celebrant and interfaith minister-in-training whose work sits at the threshold of the sacred and the everyday. Her book Crafted by Heart: Living and Leading with Love was born from Silk Elephant, the charity she founded during the pandemic, through which hundreds of women stitched handmade hearts for strangers — and in doing so, answered a call far older than themselves: the call to lead with boundless love.
Guided by the flame-keeping spirit of Saint Brigid — goddess, saint, and bridge between worlds — Zoë traces a path from Brigid to Bridget: from ancient flame-tender to the everyday woman who already carries fire within her and is learning, at last, how to tend it without abandoning herself.
Zoë holds an MBE for services to the community and is training as an interfaith minister with One Spirit Seminary in the UK.
Meet Dr. Jeannelle Perkins
Dr. Jeannelle Perkins, LMFT-S, EMDR, is an author, educator, speaker, and entrepreneur whose work explores the intersection of intimacy, relational health, resilience, and human connection. She is the author of Into-Me-See: Mastering Black Intimacy for the Relationship You’ve Always Wanted and Strategic Emotional Resilience: Mastering Your Inner World for a Life of Power, Purpose and Peace. She teaches individuals and organizations how to proactively strengthen their capacity to navigate stress, adversity, and change.
Dr. Perkins has spent more than two decades helping individuals, couples, leaders, and communities understand how our internal experiences shape the way we connect, love, work, and lead. She is Founder and CEO of Haruki Health, an emotional resilience platform designed for professionals working in high-stress environments. Her work has reached international audiences, including presentations in Vietnam, Kenya, and Australia, and her 2024 TEDxCharleston talk explored the historical and psychological forces that influence intimacy and connection. Across her clinical work, writing, teaching, and leadership, Dr. Perkins invites people to look inward, not simply for greater self-understanding, but as the foundation for more authentic relationships, courageous leadership, and meaningful transformation.
Meet Molly Fienning
Molly Fienning is an entrepreneur, creative strategist, writer and mother living South of Broad in Charleston. She is the co-founder of Sipland, a leading creative agency shaping the future of drinking culture through storytelling, hospitality, events and brand strategy across the low-, no- and alternative beverage space. Prior to Sipland, Molly co-founded Babiators, one of Forbes’ 100 Most Promising Companies, and Red Clay Hot Sauce, which Food & Wine called “Tabasco for the 21st century.” She also mentors women entrepreneurs and writes Lead by Light, a Substack exploring modern leadership, creativity, motherhood and becoming. At the heart of her work is a desire to return the divine feminine to leadership, community and civic life, and to imagine a more intuitive, relational and humane way of building what comes next.
Meet Carolyn Rivers
Carolyn Rivers is Founder and Director of The Sophia Institute. A convener, teacher, and thought leader, her work centers on personal and societal transformation. As Founder and Director of The Sophia Institute since its inception in 2001, she carries both Spiritual and Executive Director responsibilities, has recruited an outstanding Faculty of over 150 teachers, thought leaders, scientists, and visionaries for The Sophia Institute, many of whom serve on the National Advisory Board. The Sophia Institute is drawing participants from all fifty states and forty-seven other countries to participate in The Sophia Institute’s transformational programs. The Sophia Institute offers retreats, seminars, series, summits, and special events. The Sophia Institute’s Core Work for personal and societal transformation and its Initiative, Social Justice Racial Equity Collaborative, focus on fostering a more equalitarian world where power with, rather than power over, become a way of living and being that honors our interconnectedness, fosters care and protection for all people and for the Earth, and honors wisdom and love at the center of life. Sophia Institute works out of a principle of wholeness, grounding Sophia principles as love in action in the world. Prior to founding The Sophia Institute, she studied for twelve years with many of the leading transpersonal teachers in America, many of whom are now on the faculty of The Sophia Institute.
Meet Kenya Dunn
Kenya Dunn is the creator of Leadership as Stewardship, a philosophy born from nearly three decades of guiding business growth, community investment, and cross-sector partnerships. As Managing Partner of Equity Impact Partners and CEO of PFW Coaching and Consulting, she has advised public officials, corporate leaders, and philanthropists on how to steward resources, relationships, and outcomes with integrity. As Executive Chair of the Lowcountry African American Giving Circle, she leads a growing network of donors and changemakers advancing Black philanthropy across South Carolina’s Lowcountry, strengthening community grantmaking and expanding what collective giving can build. But Kenya has come to believe that stewardship of the world begins with sovereignty over the self. Her own journey through diligence, self-trust, and what she calls radical sacred self-love has become the ground beneath her leadership, teaching her that a woman cannot rightly hold what is entrusted to her until she has first claimed full authority over her own life. She now brings this integration of strategy and Soul to executives, philanthropists, and community leaders alike, helping them lead not from depletion, but from wholeness.Meet Dr. Susan Johnson
Dr. Susan Johnson is a recognized leader in workplace wellbeing and nature-based health promotion, known for translating research into practical strategies that help organizations improve employee health, wellbeing, and performance through greater connection to nature. She is the Founder & CEO of Nature at Work, a statewide initiative that brings together employers, healthcare organizations, universities, conservation partners, and community leaders to advance nature as an evidence-based workforce wellbeing strategy. She also serves as President & CEO of the South Carolina Healthy Business Coalition, a statewide membership organization advancing workforce wellbeing through education, collaboration, and evidence-based practice. Dr. Johnson brings decades of experience in health promotion, higher education, and cross-sector collaboration. She spent more than 15 years at the Medical University of South Carolina, where she served as Director of Health Promotion, and has held faculty roles at Duke University, The Citadel, and Charleston Southern University. Throughout her career, she has developed partnerships across healthcare, business, education, and conservation and translated research into practical, real-world strategies that improve health outcomes, strengthen organizational culture, and support healthier communities.
Dr. Johnson serves on the boards of the South Carolina National Heritage Corridor, Lowcountry Land Trust, Bee Cause Project, and the MUSC Arboretum, and contributes to advisory councils for The Citadel, Trident Technical College, the Town of Mount Pleasant, and the City of Charleston. She is also part of the SC7 Expedition leadership team, where she helps advance public engagement in outdoor recreation, resilience, conservation, and the connection between healthy people and healthy places. A sought-after speaker, Dr. Johnson helps leaders translate the science of nature and wellbeing into practical strategies that improve employee health, strengthen organizational culture, and create healthier, more resilient workplaces and communities.
