Academic, Conference Organizer, Best-Selling Author and Entrepreneur is Public Champion of Women’s Personal Growth and Innovation
BURBANK, Calif. (April 6, 2017) – Bestselling author and women’s empowerment advocate Angella Nazarian will deliver the keynote address to Woodbury University’s Class of 2017 during graduation ceremonies on May 6, the university announced today.
The best-selling author of Life as a Visitor and Pioneers of the Possible: Celebrating Visionary Women of the World, Nazarian was a professor of psychology and faculty member at Mount Saint Mary’s College, California State University/Long Beach, and Los Angeles Valley College for more than a decade. Her workshops and seminars on women’s personal growth, innovation and leadership have received wide acclaim. Nazarian has been a keynote speaker at such national forums as the YPO-WPO Global Leadership Conference and the YPO Women’s LEAN IN Conference, a panelist at the Milken Global Conference on Visionary Women Entrepreneurs and Visionary Women in Social Enterprise. She served as a delegate at Newsweek/The Daily Beast’s “Women in the World” conference and was a speaker during the World Leadership Forum Mexico City.
Nazarian is co-founder and president of Visionary Women, a non-profit women’s leadership organization in Los Angeles that brings together dynamic thought leaders from around the nation for in-depth conversations. She is also co-founder of Looking Beyond, a charitable organization that promotes awareness and creates advancement and enrichment for children with disabilities. In 2014 Manhattan Magazine featured her in its “Power Women” series, and Angeleno Magazine has listed her as one of its “Top 12 Philanthropists Shaping Los Angeles.”
“As noted editor Tina Brown has said of Angella, her work illuminates the power and potential of women through mesmerizing stories of groundbreakers and harbingers of change,” said Dr. David Steele-Figueredo, Woodbury University President. “Through her writing, organizational work and public speaking, she lives her mantra of ‘inspire, create, exchange.’ It is in that spirit that Woodbury is so delighted to welcome her as this year’s graduation speaker.”
“As The Equality of Opportunity Project made clear earlier this year, Woodbury is a very special place — the Number #1 private, non-religious college in the State of California, in terms of student economic mobility, “ Nazarian said. “Woodbury is all about empowerment, for all of its students, which is a big reason why I could not be more proud to serve as the graduation speaker for the Class of 2017.”
Nazarian serves on the Parent Advisory Board at Stanford University and the Iranian American Women’s Leadership Conference Advisory Board, and is a past trustee at Brentwood School. She is active in Women Moving Millions, a community of individuals promoting the advancement and empowerment of women and girls. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Psychology from UCLA and earned her graduate degree summa cum laude in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from California State University, Long Beach.