EMPOWERING WOMEN – NONFICTION

FRANCESCA "CESI" DE QUESADA COVEY is the chief innovation and economic development officer for Miami-Dade County and a recognized business development leader with experience in the federal government and private sectors. She began her career in finance and later served in the White House’s Office of Public Engagement. De Quesada Covey joined Facebook (Meta) in 2013 to help grow and scale products internationally, then left in 2021 to join a Miami-based venture capital firm and serve as Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s technology advisor. In 2023, she joined Levine Cava’s administration and successfully secured a Tech Hub designation from the Department of Commerce in her first year. She now serves as the regional innovation officer for the quad-county initiative led by Miami-Dade County. The ClimateReady Tech Hub works with public, private, academic, and philanthropic partners to commercialize and deploy climate technology. De Quesada Covey received her bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and her master’s degree from Sciences-Po in Paris. She is the daughter of Cuban immigrants, and along with her husband and two daughters she proudly calls Miami-Dade home.

JOSIE COX is a journalist who has worked for media outlets in Germany, Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S., including Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, and The Independent, where she served as business editor. As a freelancer, she writes regularly for the BBC and has also written for The Guardian, The Washington Post, Forbes, Fortune, and other publications. Cox was a 2020/2021 Knight-Bagehot fellow at Columbia Journalism School. She has an MBA from Columbia Business School and is an associate instructor at Columbia University School of Professional Studies. She lives in New York City.

MAYA WILEY is president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the nation's oldest and largest civil rights coalition. A former legal analyst on MSNBC, this lifelong civil rights advocate and a civil rights attorney mounted a historic performance in New York City's 2021 Democratic mayoral primary, contesting to be the first woman mayor on a reform platform. Before that race, Wiley served as senior vice president for social justice at New School University and as a member of the graduate faculty at its Milano School. The first Black woman to serve as counsel to a New York City mayor, her expertise and compassionate approach were (and remain) almost unprecedented in the world of advocacy, activism, and politics. Wiley also serves as the Joseph L. Rash Jr. Chair of Civil and Human Rights at the University of the District of Columbia School of Law.