"The key to improving the lives of women and girls on a large scale is to convince a broader segment of society that so-called 'women's issues' are their issues. This requires shifting perception of women from a needs-based frame to an assets-based frame. When we demonstrate the essential role women play in strengthening economies and nation-building, sidelining them isn't just discrimination, it's bad strategy."
- Lisa Witter, Chief Operating Officer and Lisa Chen, Senior Vice President

Lisa Witter

Chief Operating Officer, New York Office

Lisa Witter is the chief operating officer of Fenton Communications, the largest public interest communications firm in the country. She heads the firm's practice in women's issues and global affairs for clients including Women for Women International, MoveOn.org, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, the American Medical Association, the American Lung Association and many others. She is a co-founder of the award-winning website SheSource.org, an online brain trust of women experts to help close the gender gap among commentators in the news media. She was honored as an outstanding activist and expert on women's issues by Oxygen.com for her work on a national campaign against privatizing Social Security during the 2000 presidential election. Lisa is a blogger and political commentator with her work appearing on MSNBC, Fox News, The Huffington Post, AlterNet and Anderson Cooper 360. In 2004, she was a contestant on the Showtime reality show American Candidate. Witter is co-author of The She Spot: Why Women Are the Market for Changing the World and How to Reach Them.

Lisa Chen

Senior Vice President

Lisa Chen has more than 10 years of experience in public interest communications on a broad range of issues ranging from education and economic development to human rights. At Fenton she specializes in strategy and message development. Her current and past clients include the New York Academy of Medicine, the Foundation for Child Development, EngenderHealth, the Harvard School of Public Health, Physicians for Human Rights, and the Women's Funding Network.

Before joining Fenton, Chen was a senior account manager at the nonprofit group Communication Works, where she led campaigns on affirmative action, gun violence prevention, human rights, affordable housing and public health, specifically health care access for low-income people. Her work with breast cancer advocates helped increase federal funding for research into the environmental causes of breast cancer and led to improvements in state-funded treatment for low-income women with breast cancer in California. A former staff writer for the San Jose Mercury News, she is the co-author with Lisa Witter of the book The She Spot: Why Women are the Market for Changing the World and How to Reach Them.