Jacquelyn Gates Shipe is the Chief Executive Officer of Global Ties Alabama, a nonprofit organization that promotes global peace and understanding through citizen diplomacy. Shipe is also the President and CEO of SOARing, LLC, which delivers global leadership development consulting services specializing in ethics and compliance, diversity and organizational culture shaping. Her clients include the International Finance Corporation and The World Bank Group, Jacobs ESTS, ERC, Kaizer Permanente, Nationwide, and Oakwood University.

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From 2008 to 2010 she served as the Associate Vice President of Development at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and from 2004-2006, she served as the Vice President for Advancement and Development at Oakwood University.

Shipe is the former Ethics Officer for the World Bank Group where she reported to the Office of the President and was a corporate officer for Duke Energy and Bell Atlantic/Verizon having served as the Vice President of Diversity, Ethics and Compliance. As a result of her impact in the area of domestic violence prevention, Verizon is today a leading corporate advocate in this work. Shipe also held strategic management positions at the Senn Delaney Leadership Consulting Group, Time Warner, PepsiCo, Revlon, and JCPenney.

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Shipe is an ex-officio member of the Board of Directors of Global Ties U.S. and former Board Chair. She is an emeritus board member of the Ethics Officer Association and Operation ReachBack Inc. Shipe is on the Advisory Board of the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College, the Advisory Committee of Oakwood University’s New Beginnings Single Parent Resource Center and is the Planned Giving Director of the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Clubs Inc - - of which she is one of its former national presidents. Shipe is an honorary member of the Greater Huntsville Rotary Club and an alumnus of the FBI Citizens Academy – Class of 2011 and Leadership Huntsville’s Class 29 and FOCUS Class 2004. She is the Women’s Ministries Leader of Abundant Life Ministries in New Market, AL. Shipe has been cited by Ebony Magazine as one of America’s 100 Most Influential Blacks and by

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Good Housekeeping Magazine as one of 100 Young Women of Promise. Shipe was inducted into the 2004 Women’s Hall of Fame at the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte, North Carolina. She is a well-known speaker on ethics and values leadership, global diversity, women, education and youth issues.

Originally from Anchorage, Alaska, and now a DC transplant, Ryanna Miller is a Real Estate Agent at Compass.  As part of the Foreman Properties Team, she specializes in first-time home-buying, residential buying and selling, international clientele, investments, and more recently focusing on Opportunity Zones.  

 

As an entrepreneur, she currently owns businesses in the District of Columbia. She is the President of Miller International, a DC-Based global consulting firm that helps clients research and write grants, access capital, and benefit from strategic partnership growth. Prior to becoming a Realtor, Ryanna worked as the Director of Public-Private Partnerships at Sou Sou, a DC-based financial technology firm that is working to bridge the global access to capital gap. In 2018, she was a featured speaker at the Concordia Summit on best practices for emerging international development and technology as it relates to women.  

 

Ryanna graduated Summa Cum Laude from Alabama A&M University in 2013 with a B.A. in Political Science.  During matriculation at Alabama A&M, she served as president of the Pre-Law society, was the student liaison for the District 6 County Commission, and studied as a U.S. Department of State Benjamin A. Gilman Scholar through the Duke University program on Global Health Issues in South Africa.  While studying in South Africa, Ryanna completed research on access to healthcare for populations living in rural villages.  She credits this experience in solidifying her love of international relations and the importance of citizen diplomacy. 

 

As an International Exchange Alumni, Ryanna was a 2019-2020 Gilman Alumni Ambassador through the State Department and the Institute of International Education. Her duties included advising higher education campus administrators at the Thurgood Marshall Leadership Institute, lobbying on Capitol Hill, and conducting workshops on the academic and professional return of international study abroad.  Beyond her work as a Gilman Alumni Ambassador, Ryanna has had countless speaking engagements geared towards exposing HBCU and Community college students to international education opportunities.

 

In 2017, Ryanna received her M.A. in International Relations concentrating on Conflict Resolution and International Negotiation from American University's School of International Service.  Currently, she is the Co-Founder of Diplomatic Perspective, a DC-based nonprofit, working to advance diversity and inclusion within international affairs beginning with programming that provides education, access, and social capital to under-served students and populations.