Nicole McKinney, Founder and President – WAKING THE unCONSIOUS

Nicole is a passionate, dedicated senior digital and marketing strategist who has enjoyed more than 20 years of experience as a leader and strategist on behalf of clients across North America. 

In the last year, Nicole has been dedicated to pivoting her business to embrace the change technology is demanding to lead into the future. For her, that focus has always been about women and those that are other. 

Her marcomm business was founded because there were so few women of colour leading and creating content sold to women. 

In, 2019 Nicole founded and launched the Not for Profit WtC WAKING the unCONSCIOUS that has a core premise to focus a lens on both the systemic and relational dynamics of elements like Anti-Black/POC Racism and Unconscious Bias, specifically the Unpacking of Privilege and Marginalisation, allowing for critical examination and an understanding of intersectionality. 

Nicole’s work is inspired by the legacy of her father, Dr. David McKinney Jr: a renowned Academic in the US and Canada, who ended his career at the University of Guelph. 

With a career-long focus on anti-black racism, he worked with organizations such as the Black United Front in Nova Scotia and pioneered research into police brutality. 

He also advocated for human rights in conjunction with Daniel G Hill and took on several major court cases including the famed 1990 Supreme Court case, McKinney vs the University of Guelph.

 Kim Smiley is an artist, fashion designer and social entrepreneur. Kim is building an empathy empire, marrying fashion and philanthropy, empathy and activism. She is employing newcomers in Toronto for a living wage, and has bold plans to expand to India and Israel, where she envisions Arab and Jewish women working shoulder to shoulder to create pathways for peace.

 Stream the Women Leadership Nation Breaking Barriers Podcast featuring Kim Smiley on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
 

In BIG NEWS Kim announced following the taping of this podcast that she was selected to participate in an international reality TV show filming this summer in Miami. The Social Movement will air on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.
 

  Zibby Owens is the creator and host of the award-winning podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books. Zibby, named “NYC’s Most Powerful Book-fluencer” by New York Magazine’s Vulture, conducts warm, inquisitive conversations with authors, making her show a top literary podcast as selected by Oprah.com in 2019 and 2020. She also created the Moms Don’t Have Time to Lose Weight community and hosts the accompanying podcast. Zibby is the Editor-in-Chief of Moms Don’t Have Time to Write, a Medium.com publication. Most recently, she released an anthology, Moms Don’t Have Time To: A Quarantine Anthology(Skyhorse Publishing, 2/16/21).

Zibby is a regular contributor to Good Morning America and has recommended books in the Washington Post, Real Simple, and other outlets. She has also contributed to Parents, Marie Claire, Redbook, the New York Times online, and many other publications. She has appeared on Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, the BBC, and many local news outlets. She currently has a two-book deal for children’s books with Flamingo, an imprint of Penguin Random House, and another upcoming anthology with Skyhorse Publishing: Moms Don’t Have Time To Have Kids: A Second Anthology (11/1/21).

Zibby serves on the boards of the Mount Sinai Health System, the Mount Sinai Parenting Center, the Child Mind Institute, and co-chairs the Library Council of the New York Public Library. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School, Zibby currently lives in New York with her husband, Kyle Owens of Morning Moon Productions, and her four children ages 6 - 13. She always has a book nearby. 

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