Introducing Our New Board Members!

The new year brings some new faces to Girls Write Now! We’ve added four new members to our Board of Directors, rounding out this group of incredible advocates to a total of sweet sixteen. From an intellectual property attorney and small business strategist to a veteran ABC News producer and a mentor-alumna—they all have a passion for helping to write the future, one young woman at a time. Please join us in welcoming them to the Girls Write Now Community!
Faiza S. Issa is Assistant Commissioner at SBS where she leads the organization’s Innovation and Strategy team. Previously, Faiza served as Director of Entrepreneurship Initiatives at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, where she oversaw the expansion of the city’s incubator initiative and spearheaded other real estate, technology, and talent programs to support NYC’s entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem. Prior to joining NYCEDC, Faiza worked at the Council on Foreign Relations and Goldman Sachs. She holds a BA from Yale University, a JD from NYU Law, and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Laura Scileppi, who is serving as our Fundraising Chair, is a Partner at Dunnegan and Scileppi LLC, an intellectual property law firm. An experienced litigator, she has overseen large scale antipiracy programs, argued in the Second Circuit and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeals, and second-chaired a case in the Supreme Court of the United States which altered the standard for inducing patent infringement. Laura has also presented on the topics of copyright enforcement, fair use, and the public domain at Rights and Permissions Advisory Group Conferences of the American Association of Publishers. An avid reader and writer, her poetry has been published under a pen name in Gargoyle Magazine. Laura holds a BA in English from Vassar College and a JD, with honors, from Rutgers School of Law. She currently lives in New York City.