Global Cybersecurity expert, Jessica Robinson, to helm World Pulse board: a leader for holistic security for women’s voices and movements while championing a commitment to technology governance that elevates the voices of the least heard.

PORTLAND, Ore. — The World Pulse global community welcomes Jessica Robinson as its new Board Chairwoman, thus affirming its longstanding commitment to a safe online space for women at a time when gender-based online attacks and domestic violence are skyrocketing worldwide as a result of the COVID crisis.

In tandem, a new World Pulse representative body called Powershift Inclusive Excellence (PIE) held its first summit. PIE will chart a course for World Pulse as a leader in the technology sector modeling community-powered, inclusive systems that shift power to under-represented gender-diverse and women’s communities and movements.

Robinson is a global cybersecurity leader and CEO of PurePoint International who has served on the World Pulse board over the past eight years as a leader of security and governance committees. Through PurePoint, she helps CEOs prevent data breaches by bridging the gap between data security, cyber risk, and privacy. Robinson works with leaders to build inner and outer security, particularly for underrepresented populations including people of color, women, and Black communities.

Robinson’s leadership agenda includes ensuring holistic security, sustainability, racial equity, and inclusion across World Pulse’s digital social networking platform and international network of 75,000 changemakers logging on from 200+ countries and territories, impacting millions more.

“World Pulse must be safeguarded as an online sanctuary for women’s voices and our community celebrated as the igniter of hope, love, and collective power that we are. These values are urgently needed to shift humanity to sustainable systems and achieve gender justice because the world’s women and gender-diverse continue to experience the brunt of the economic downturn, social unrest, and overlapping pandemics of COVID-19, violence, and mental health suffering,” says Robinson.

“We must remain focused on intersectional solutions during this time of profound insecurity,” Robinson continues. “Recent data shows that more than half of young women online globally are experiencing cyber harassment; in addition, domestic violence has increased exponentially in every country worldwide.”

Robinson’s philosophy of holistic security has been featured in media such as The Root, BBC, Bustle, CNN, and Mother Jones. She has spoken at the Social Venture Network Conference, Women of Silicon Valley, TriBeCa Film Festival Anti-Summit, Lesbians Who Tech + Allies, Women’s Economic Forum, The Hague, United Nations, U.S. Capitol, and Microsoft. She has published articles in Security Director Magazine, among others.

Robinson is excited to work alongside World Pulse’s new PIE steering committee. “True inclusion creates security, and PIE is instrumental to our future as a leader in online and offline inclusion. Their decisions will result in additional innovative, accountable, and participatory systems across our board, staff, advisors, community, and regional chapters. I look forward to fully supporting PIE’s agenda.”

Working Hand in Hand for a Community-led Power Shift

World Pulse inaugurated its Powershift Inclusive Excellence (PIE) steering committee in December 2020 as a decision-making body that will guide key aspects of World Pulse’s future as a social network platform leader for inclusivity and shifting power to under-represented voices. Depending on group priorities, PIE may address issues as wide-ranging as organizational structure, online platform technology, HR, programs, and culture.

The multi-stakeholder body is composed of 13 members of World Pulse’s online community, staff, and board of directors, with a majority of leaders based in the Global South. The group represents persons with multiple disabilities and diverse religious beliefs, ages, class backgrounds, and sexualities. They are survivors, storytellers, and movement builders. PIE’s members hail from conflict zones as well as rural and urban regions in Africa, Asia, North America, Latin America, and Europe.

The committee members are Ana Laura Lozano, Arrey-Echi Agbor-Ndakaw, Busayo Obisakin, Dawn Arteaga, Jeanine Becker, Jill Langhus, Karen Quiñones-Axalan, Kirthi Jayakumar, Paulina Lawsin, Sally Mboumien, Sherna Benjamin, Tamarack Verrall, and Zulma Miranda.

PIE will meet bi-monthly to feature rotating facilitation and storytellers, who will communicate deliberations and engage with multiple stakeholder audiences.

Members cite many reasons for joining World Pulse’s PIE steering committee: "These are extraordinary times,” states Zulma Miranda. “A moment not just to push through incremental change, but to realign and transform our societal systems from suffering and injustice to healing and mutual flourishing."

“I’ve joined PIE so the voices of other women and girls around the world that are still silent as if they are in the graveyard will be amplified as my own has been," says member Busayo Obisakin

“World Pulse can be an innovative global leader and I want to be present at the creation of something beautiful for generations to come,” says member Sherna Benjamin.

“This new structure of PIE for shared global power, values, and true sisterhood for our collective liberation are exactly what the world needs," says member Jeanine Becker.

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We Are World Pulse

World Pulse is an independent, women-led social network that is connecting women leaders worldwide to speed up global change.

With a decade of experience using the power of technology to grow women’s leadership across the globe, we provide a supportive, protected online space where 75,000 women from 200+ countries are connecting, gaining digital leadership skills, and exchanging stories and resources.

As a result of these new connections, they are increasing the pace of change by starting businesses, building movements, running for office, winning awards and scholarships, and collectively improving the lives of more than 17.6 million people.

Available across the globe to anyone with an internet connection, World Pulse offers every woman and girl a safe community to tell her story, grow her voice, and build her vision for change. To join the community, visit worldpulse.com. To learn more or donate, visit impact.worldpulse.com.