In her talk Doing Power Differently, the author of “Girl Power: Sustainability, Empowerment, and Justice” will lay out the facts on women and girls along with the first-ever global data concretizing what empowerment is—exactly. With a unique framework for building the “muscles of empowerment” Jin will showcase real-life stories of empowered girls modeling a distinct “empowerment muscle”— tackling global crises like climate change, terrorism, gun violence and war. Lastly, this event is a call to action challenging each of us, “How are you going to do power differently?”
Jin has been called to help tackle persistent global challenges like poverty, climate change, and insecurity. She has worked with Democratic and Republican administrations, White House National Security Council, Departments of State, Defense, and Homeland Security, UN Agencies, NATO, and grassroots organizations in 145 countries. Serving as the inaugural girls’ health fellow in the first federal office dedicated to gender equity and policy, the Office on Women’s Health, Office of the Secretary, US Department of Health and Human Services, she created the first federal health program for young people, by young people, quadrupling congressional funding for girls and winning awards from the White House as well as the private sector. She was the first Assistant Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion at Boston University.
Jin’s commitment to empowerment and justice stems from her personal story. Born into one of the wealthiest families but in an underdeveloped country with no rights or protection for females, poverty became her new reality at seven months when her father died. South Korea, then, entrenched in systemic and systematic inequity and discrimination against girls and women, her mother immigrated them to the United States. In Texas, Jin learned from an unlikely mentor that an eight-year-old immigrant from a poor country, raised by a widow, can change the world.
With a Master’s in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley, Jin has also studied medicine, global affairs, and theology.
