Leading Waco Women Summit Series

Shannon Sedgwick Davis
CEO, Bridgeway Foundation & Author, To Stop a Warlord

Shannon Sedgwick Davis is the CEO of Bridgeway Foundation and the author of To Stop a Warlord. The Bridgeway Foundation is a philanthropic organization dedicated to ending and preventing mass atrocities around the world. Established in 2000 as the charitable giving arm of Bridgeway Capital Management, the organization serves as a catalyst for peace and reconciliation in international communities suffering from oppression, genocide, and other human rights violations.

An attorney, activist, and passionate advocate for social justice, Ms. Sedgwick Davis has guided the Bridgeway Foundation in pioneering solutions to seemingly intractable issues around the world. The organization has supported the work of groups like Aegis Trust, Resolve Uganda, Human Rights Watch, Invisible Children, and dozens of community-based organizations. Ms. Sedgwick Davis and the Bridgeway Foundation have been credited for their pivotal role in mobilizing awareness, civilian protection, and recovery efforts to counter the violence of the Lord’s Resistance Army and its leader, Joseph Kony, the first-ever indictee of the International Criminal Court. Ms. Sedgwick Davis and the Foundation’s work have been featured on NBC’s TODAY, TEDxSanAntonio, PBS NewsHour, and in Forbes.

Before joining Bridgeway Foundation in 2007, Ms. Sedgwick Davis served as Vice President of Geneva Global, a leading philanthropic consulting firm that advises individuals, foundations, non-profit organizations, and corporations on international development, global health, and poverty solutions. Previously, Ms. Sedgwick Davis was the Director of Public Affairs at the International Justice Mission (IJM), a human rights agency that focuses on ending slavery, forced prostitution, and illegal land seizures in the developing world. Her work in helping rescue children from sex trafficking in the Svay Pak village of Cambodia was featured in the 2005 Emmy award-winning piece, “Children for Sale,” on Dateline.

Ms. Sedgwick Davis is an honors graduate of McMurry University and Baylor Law School, from which she received the institution’s Young Lawyer of the Year Award in 2011. Her other recognitions include the Nomi Network’s 2014 Abolitionist Award; a Global Human Rights Hero award from Saving Innocence; the Navy SEAL “Fire in the Gut” Award; and the 2022 International Citizen of the Year Award from the World Affairs Council of San Antonio. Ms. Sedgwick Davis serves on the advisory council of The Elders and is a board member of several organizations including Humanity United, charity: water, Verdant Frontiers, and, formerly, TOMS.

Deidra Emerson launched her career in Public Administration in 1995. She currently serves the City of Waco as the Deputy City Manager.  Deidra leads city efforts on equitable strategies, and oversees a diverse set of city services, including Housing and Community Development, Planning and Inspections, Waco – McLennan County Health District, Waco Transit, Neighborhood Engagement, as well as manages the Prosper Waco Collective Impact Initiative and Creative Waco contracts. She previously, provided leadership for multiple departments to include Water Utilities, Public Works, Public Library, General Services, Waco Convention Center and Visitor’s Bureau, Parks and Recreation and Waco Regional Airport.

Deidra is active in numerous professional and civic organizations, to include Waco McLennan County United Way Board, McLennan County College Foundation Board and Baylor Board of Advocates Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty.  She is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., The Links and alumna of Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management and later went on to earn a Master of Business Administration from Texas Wesleyan University located in Fort Worth, Texas.

Carolyn is approaching her 25th anniversary with Central National Bank where she currently serves as President – Chief Lending Officer. She and her husband, Rusty, have two daughters – Emma (15) and Kate (11). Current active community involvement includes the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce, Midway ISD PTA, and National Charity League.

Becky has been in Waco for only 3 and a half short years but has worked very hard to get involved and make an impact in any way that she can and with every organization she can get involved in. Becky Kramm has never met someone she would not consider a friend. She is extremely optimistic and works well with everyone. She is a wife to Lucas, mother of 2 little princesses, Annabelle 8 and Vivienne 5 (or as Vivienne would remind everyone, almost 6) and an only child to her beloved mother Diane who is here with her today.

Becky was born and raised in Austin, TX where she lived until she left for college at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. Becky loved her time at Southern Methodist University so much and made it a point of getting involved in many organizations on campus during her time as a student. She served as an Resident Advisor (RA), volunteered tutoring at local elementary schools, was a Hall council advisor, a member of student foundation, a member of a sorority, Alpha Chi Omega, and a member of the advertising club. She also made a point of joining and getting involved with Highlight Park United Methodist Church by teaching 2/3 years olds on Sunday. One of the things she was most proud of during her time at SMU was being elected as the Panhellenic President of all sorority houses on campus which encompassed over 1200 women. Becky graduated with two bachelor’s degrees from SMU in 2004 and received multiple awards for involvement, leadership and grades during her time at SMU.

Upon graduating from SMU, Becky took a job working for an aviation company based at Love field in Dallas, TX called Associated Air Center. The company was a VIP aviation company that modified, and outfitted interiors of aircraft for extremely wealthy individuals all over the world. Becky started her career there in sales and marketing where she worked for 7 years and had the opportunity to travel all over the world and boy does she have some fun stories. This company is also where she met her future husband Lucas who was an engineer for the company at the time. Just before their marriage, Becky and Lucas were both recruited away separately to a competitor based in Indiana. Becky and Lucas both decided to accept the offer, and in true Becky form, decided to get everything done at the same time including getting married, taking a one week honeymoon, giving a one week notice at the old job and taking a new job Indiana all within a span of 3 weeks. Becky and Lucas stayed in Indiana 8 years and had both of their babies there, all the while longing to be back in Texas. As you know, there is no place like Texas, so they came back as quickly as they could and both took positions with L3harris in Waco, Lucas as a Project Manager and Becky as a Business Development Manager and established herself also as L3harris’s main Community Outreach point of contact.

When Becky started at L3Harris., she quickly saw the need for L3H to be more visible in the community and to do more to both get their name out, get involved, and give back. So she made it her mission to get L3Harris more involved in the community by joining multiple boards and organizations and getting L3harris involved more in both volunteering and sponsoring community based activities and events. A few months after she started Becky was selected to serve as the LIFT (L3harris Investing For Tomorrow) chair for the site which allowed her the opportunity to connect with local non profits and get the L3harris employees in the community. Last year, L3H through their volunteering and raising funds was able to raise over $10,000 for the Alzheimer’s walk which was more than was ever raised to date and the first time L3H as a company was involved. In addition to this, she helped initiate an organization called WE3 within L3Harris which is an employee resource group created and lead by employees. WE3 is for Women encouraging, enhancing and empowering other women to have a voice, give them resources for professional development and provide social and networking opportunities as well. We also started organizing for our site and then later joining the community for the annual breast cancer walk in Waco.

In addition to these groups within L3harris, Becky has also made it a point to get very involved directly in the community including activities with the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce, first by joining the Greater Waco Aviation Alliance and then by helping develop, along with several other amazing women leaders, Harold Rafuse and the late amazing Terry Stevens, the Women in Aviation Central Texas Board. Becky was also extremely honored to be nominated by L3Harris and selected as one of the winners of the prestigious honor of Waco Under 40, 2020. Becky also serves on multiple committees including Leading Waco Women, Freedom Ball, and she is a mentor at Midway High school for two high school students through the LEAD program. She has also served a mentor for Waco Young Professionals in the past. Becky also was selected to be a participant in the Leadership Waco Program. If you have not had a chance to do the program, she highly recommends it as she believes it is one of the best experiences she has had in Waco and she was able to learn so much. Upon graduating, Becky along with a handful of other leadership Waco graduated developed a board and decided to re-start the Leadership Waco Alumni organization, Becky was very humbled to be asked by her peers to serve as the President of this organization on a board with them, which they are all very proud to say was officially launched in September of this year.

Becky has also been very involved in her church, Harris Creek, since coming to Waco, including teaching grades Kinder through 3rd grade and also coordinating for all elementary age kiddos each week with her husband. Becky also sees family and being involved with your family as extremely important so she took an active role as a member of her daughters PTA and served on the Board of the PTA for South Bosque Elementary both last year and this year. She is currently the PTA President Elect for the 2023-2024 school year. Additional Becky applied for the prestigious Midway Education Foundation Board of Directors and was extremely honored to have been selected to be a member of this organization as well. She loves being able to support, volunteer and give back to the schools, the administration, teachers, parents and precious kiddos in different ways.

Becky also volunteers her time as a committee member of Cattle Barons Ball which supports and benefits the American Cancer Society. She is a committee member this year and chair elect along with her husband and Laura and Billy Page, for next year’s 2023 Cattle Barons Ball, so definitely let her know if you are interested in getting involved.

In 2022 Becky decided she was not busy enough so she started the process with the suggestion of a few of her friends, who are also amazing women leaders in the community, to join the local Junior League. She is currently going through the new member process and graduates from the program next week on the 12th of December. She is rally excited to start this new chapter with the Junior League and has already made some wonderful friends and connections.

Becky Kramm can be described as being passionate about Waco, passionate about people and extremely community focused. She is truly humbled and honored to have even been nominated for the Athena awards and never would have dreamed to have been considered as a finalist. She is extremely grateful to be part of this prestigious group of finalists.

Dr. Tyrha M. Lindsey-Warren is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Marketing and the Faculty Director of Industry Relations and Experiential Learning at the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University. At Baylor, Dr. Lindsey-Warren teaches Advertising, Digital Marketing and is the Founder of the Baylor Business Advertising Summit. Dr. Lindsey-Warren also has over fifteen years of experience working in marketing and public relations in the corporate, performing arts, entertainment, and non-profit arenas for such firms as Quincy Jones*David Salzman Entertainment, NBC, Creative Artists Agency, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the United States Tennis Association, and UniWorld Group. She is also the Founder and Lead Producer of the Waco Family & Faith International Film Festival.

Dr. Lindsey-Warren speaks nationally on the topics of multicultural marketing and communications, fundraising for arts organizations, effective communications and leadership. Her research streams are rooted in empowered storytelling, media and advertising, “health edu-tainment,” emotional contagion (Word-of-Mouth) and the business of Hollywood. Dr. Lindsey-Warren is a published Consumer Behavior Scholar with academic articles that have appeared in the Journal of Advertising Research, the Journal of Cultural Marketing Strategy, Journal of the Association of Consumer Research, the Journal of Academic Marketing Education, and in the book, “Entertainment Values,” published by Palgrave UK.

Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Dr. Lindsey-Warren received her Bachelor of Science in Radio/TV/Film and a certificate in Musical Theater from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She also has a Masters of Business Administration, with a concentration in Marketing, from the Peter F. Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California and a PhD in Marketing from Rutgers University in New Jersey.

In her spare time, Dr. Lindsey-Warren sings jazz professionally and has opened for GRAMMY award-winning jazz musicians, Kirk Whalum, Jonathan Butler, and Pieces of a Dream, to name a few. Locally, she also serves on the Boards for Art Center Waco and the Waco Symphony Association, along with being an active member of the Waco Central (TX) Links Chapter, a Life Member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and an active member of Toliver Chapel Missionary Baptist Church.

Dr. Lindsey-Warren is married to Sidney Warren, a successful entrepreneur.