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Isabel González Whitaker

Senior FelllowEncore.org

Biography

Isabel González Whitaker is a Principal Advisor for the world's largest healthcare charity where she leads C-suite thought leadership and executive visibility efforts especially at the intersection of Purpose. Previously Isabel was Deputy Editor of Billboard and prior to that Features Editor at InStyle. During her 18-year career as a journalist in New York, she wrote cover stories and produced features on Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, President Biden, Sec. Clinton, as well as the World Trade Center attack and the Bataclan and Pulse tragedies. Isabel’s work has appeared in Time, The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, The Washington Post among other outlets. Isabel is the co-author of Latin Chic: Entertaining with Style and Sass (HarperCollins) and executive producer of documentary short "Women in Music: Inspiring a Generation" featuring former First Lady Michelle Obama. In 2019, she co-edited and contributed the essay "Finding La Reina in Queen Bey" to Queen Bey: A Celebration of the Power and Creativity of Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (St. Martin’s Press). In 2018, Isabel was selected to be a Presidential Leadership Scholar as determined by the Pres. Clinton, H. W. Bush, W. Bush and Johnson Presidential Centers. As a Scholar, she debuted the first park in the State of Georgia to be named for a Latinx individual, the Sara J. González Memorial Park, which President Clinton wrote "will have a lasting positive impact on the community [and] inspire all those who visit it in the years to come." The Atlanta-based park reflects themes of diversity, inclusion, unity and equity and demonstrates these values through pan-generational, community-centric programming and design. Isabel received the 2018 Trust for Public Land Heroes Award and the 2018 Park Pride Inspiration Award. Isabel was the Scholar in Residence at Rhodes College 2018-2019 and is an 2021 Encore.org Senior Fellow examining intergenerationalism through Latinx identity.

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