Katie Couric, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton And Muriel Fox To Be Honored At The 9th Annual Elly Awards

The Women's Forum of New York will present the 9th Annual Elly Awards Luncheon benefiting The Education Fund of the Women's Forum on Monday, June 17th, at The Plaza Hotel in New York City. The awards, named for the Women's Forum founder Elinor Guggenheimer, will honor outstanding women leaders. This year marks the 32nd anniversary of the Education Fund of the Women's Forum, which has helped over 260 women, age 35 and over, whose lives have been disrupted by extreme adversity, complete their college degrees.

Mika Brzezinski, MSNBC Co-Host of Morning Joe and founder of Know Your Value, will give keynote remarks at the Elly Awards.

The 2019 Elly Award Recipients will be:

Katie Couric, award winning journalist, producer, New York Times bestselling author, cancer advocate, podcast host, documentary filmmaker, and former co-anchor of the Today Show on NBC.

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, representative for the District of Columbia and former Professor of Law at Georgetown University.

Muriel Fox, Board Chair of Veteran Feminists of America and former Executive Vice-President of Carl Byoir & Associates.

Cheryl Wills, Emmy Award winning anchor for Spectrum News NY1 Live at Ten and host of the public affairs talk show In Focus with Cheryl Wills, will moderate a conversation on leadership with honorees Eleanor Holmes Norton and Muriel Fox following the presentation of the awards.

The Women's Forum of New York is comprised of the most accomplished and successful women in the city from every professional sector. We know from our own success how critical education is, so our Education Fund is one way we 'give back' helping women age 35 and over whose lives have been disrupted by extreme adversity complete their education and get their lives back on track. We hope we inspire them, because their dreams, drive, and determination certainly inspire us. Linda A. Willett, President of the Women's Forum of New York.

The Education Fund of the Women's Forum has transformed lives, influenced families, and improved communities. Launched thirty-two years ago to help other women realize their dream of a college education, The Education Fund has awarded over $1.8 million in financial awards to over 260 women to help them return to school, earn their degree, and take their place in the professional work world. Many of these women have overcome very difficult circumstances to realize their dream of a college education. We are proud to support their efforts. Barbara Marcus, President, The Education Fund of the Women's Forum.

Daryl Roth and Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney are Co-Chairs of the 2019 Elly Awards. Both women are past honorees of the Elly Award.

Katie Couric, is an award-winning journalist, producer, New York Times bestselling author, cancer advocate, podcast host, and documentary filmmaker. She was co-anchor of the Today Show on NBC for 15 years before going to CBS and becoming the first woman anchor of a nightly news broadcast. After CBS, Katie moved to serve as the Global News Anchor at Yahoo News, where she interviewed prominent political and cultural figures and covered breaking news.

In 2015, Katie founded Katie Couric Media, her production company which centers around scripted and non-scripted projects that are committed to creating smart, trustworthy, relatable content that aims to tell the stories that need to be brought to awareness.

Projects under Katie Couric Media have included her National Geographic series Gender Revolution and America Inside Out. In Gender Revolution, Katie travels around the United States speaking to experts and learning about how our idea of gender has evolved throughout the years and highlighting the stories and experiences of trans and intersex individuals. In America Inside Out, Katie once again travels the country bringing into focus some of the most divisive subjects and themes present throughout our nation. Her most recent project was a partnership with The Skimm and P&G called Getting There which followed six successful women from diverse career backgrounds throughout their day and told their stories of how they got to where they are today.

In addition to all her projects at KCM, Katie also is the host of her own podcast on Stitcher called Katie Couric. Katie's longtime friend and former producer at CBS, Brian Goldsmith, joins her as co-host of the show which interviews a diverse and eclectic range of people in politics, media, and pop culture such as Ina Garten, James Comey, Amy Schumer, and Adam Grant to name a few.

In addition, Katie is one of the founders of Stand Up to Cancer and the National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance. To this date, Stand Up to Cancer has raised over $600 million dollars that helps fund scientific teams researching and collaborating in an effort to find cures for different types of cancers.

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, now in her fifteenth term as the Congresswoman for the District of Columbia, is the Chair of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. She serves on two committees: The Committee on Oversight and Reform and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

Before her congressional service, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to serve as the first woman to chair the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She came to Congress as a national figure who had been a civil rights and feminist leader, tenured professor of law, and board member at three Fortune 500 companies. Congresswoman Norton has been named one of the 100 most important American women in one survey and one of the most powerful women in Washington in another. The Congresswoman's work for full congressional voting representation and for full democracy for the people of the District of Columbia continues her lifelong struggle for universal human and civil rights.

Congresswoman Norton's accomplishments in breaking barriers for her disempowered district are matched by her success in bringing home unique economic benefits to her constituents. Among them are senatorial courtesy to recommend federal judges, the U.S. Attorney, and other significant federal law enforcement positions for the District; up to $10,000 per year for all D.C. high school graduates to attend any public U.S. college or university and up to $2,500 per year to many private colleges and universities; a unique $5,000 D.C. homebuyer tax credit, which has sharply increased home ownership in the District and was a major factor in stabilizing the city's population; and D.C. business tax incentives, including a significant wage credit for employing D.C. residents, which has maintained businesses and residents in the District.

Congresswoman Norton also has brought significant economic development to the District of Columbia throughout her service in Congress, creating and preserving jobs in D.C. The most significant are her work in bringing to D.C. the U.S. Department of Homeland Security headquarters compound, now under construction, and the largest federal construction project in the country; her bill that is developing the 55 acre Southeast Federal Center, the first private development on federal land; her work that resulted in the relocation of 6,000 jobs to the Washington Navy Yard; and her successful efforts to bring to the District the new headquarters for the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, along with an additional Metro station at New York Avenue, which has resulted in the development of the NOMA neighborhood.

Congresswoman Norton helped end the city's most serious financial crisis in a century, in the 1990s, by achieving a historic package that for the first time restructured the financial relationship between Congress and the District, by transferring $5 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and billions more in state costs to the federal government.

The Congresswoman, who taught law full time before being elected, is a tenured professor of law at Georgetown University, teaching an upper-class seminar there every year. After receiving her bachelor's degree from Antioch College in Ohio, she simultaneously earned her law degree and a master's degree in American Studies from Yale University. Yale Law School has awarded her the Citation of Merit for outstanding alumni, and Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences has awarded her the Wilbur Cross Medal for outstanding alumni, the highest awards conferred by each on alumni. She is the recipient of more than 50 honorary degrees.

Muriel Fox is the Board Chair of Veteran Feminists of America and the former executive vice president of Carl Byoir & Associates, one of America's three largest public relations firms. She was a co-founder and public relations chair of the National Organization for Women in 1966, acting as the communicator who introduced the new women's movement to the media of the world. She chaired NOW's national Board from 1971 to 1973.

Muriel joined with founder Elinor Guggenheimer in co-organizing the Women's Forum of New York as one of the Two Elinors and Two Muriels (Elinor Guggenheimer, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Muriel Fox, Muriel Siebert) who brought the organization into being in 1974. She served as president in 1976. She has served on the boards of directors of Rorer Group, the international pharmaceuticals company, and Harleysville Mutual Insurance Company.

She was a co-founder of Legal Momentum, formerly the NOW Legal Defense & Education Fund. She has served as its president, then Board Chair, and now honorary Board Chair. While president she chaired the National Assembly on the Future of the Family (1979) and the Convoca tion on New Leadership in the Public Interest (1981). For 22 years she served as Chairwoman of its Equal Opportunity Awards Dinner. In 1991 the organization created the Muriel Fox Award for Communications Leadership Toward a Just Society, and named her the first winner of its "Foxy."

She was president of the Rockland Center for the Arts and a director of the American Arbitration Association, the Child Care Action Campaign, International Rescue Committee, and the United Way of Tri State. She was Senior Editor of VFA's Feminists Who Changed America, published by U. of Illinois Press. She is listed in "Who's Who In America," "Who's Who In The World," "Who's Who in Advertising," "World Who's Who of Women," and "Fore most Women of the Twentieth Century." Business Week Magazine's list of 100 Top Corporate Women described Muriel in June 1976 as the "top ranking woman in public relations." In 1985 Barnard College selected her to receive its Distinguished Alumna Award, and she also became the first recipient of New York State NOW's Eleanor Roosevelt Leadership Award. She was the first public relations executive to win the Achievement Award of American Women in Radio & Television and the first woman to receive the "Business Leader of the Year" Award from Americans for Democratic Action. She received the Matrix Award from New York Women in Communica tions, the Woman of Accomplishment Award from the Wings Club, the Caroline Babcock Award from Rockland County NOW, and the Woman of Achievement Award from Veteran Feminists of America. She has been elected into the Public Relations Hall of Fame.

Muriel is a graduate of Barnard College, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She and her husband, Dr Shepard Aronson, had a son and daughter and three grandchildren. He died in 2003. She now resides in Kendal on Hudson in Westchester County, NY, where she serves on the Residents Council and the staff of The Kendal View magazine.

Mika Brzezinski is the co-host of MSNBC's Morning Joe, founder of Know Your Value, and the author of four best-selling books. Her memoir, All Things At Once, became a New York Times best seller in January 2010. Her second book, Knowing Your Value: Women, Money, and Getting What You're Worth, which examines the role of women in the workplace, reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for business books in 2011. It is being expanded and rereleased in the fall of 2018. Her third book, Obsessed: America's Food Addiction--and My Own, debuted on the bestseller list in spring of 2013. In 2015, Mika released Grow Your Value: Living and Working to Your Full Potential, which is a sequel to Knowing Your Value and explores the intersection between self-fulfillment, family, and career.

In 2015, Mika partnered with Comcast NBCUniversal to take the message of Knowing Your Value to women all across the country through a national conference series. In 2017, the Know Your Value franchise expanded to include knowyourvalue.com, social channels, and an employee engagement curriculum for corporations.

Most recently, Mika was awarded with the New York Women in Communications' Matrix Award. Mika, along with Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough, was inducted into the Cable News Hall of Fame. She and Joe also served as Visiting Fellows at the Institute of Politics at Harvard's Kennedy School in the fall of 2017.

Prior to joining MSNBC in January of 2007, Mika was an anchor of CBS Evening News Weekend Edition and a CBS News correspondent who frequently contributed to CBS Sunday Morning and 60 Minutes. She reported live from Lower Manhattan for CBS News during the September 11, 2001 attacks.

A native of New York City, Mika is the daughter of late foreign policy expert and former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. She is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and a Williams College alum. Mika's new book EARN IT!: Know Your Value and Grow Your Career, in Your 20s and Beyond (Hachette Books; May 7, 2019) with co-author Daniela Pierre-Bravo, provides young women the tools to find their voices and build success.

Cheryl Wills is a veteran anchor for Spectrum News NY1. She joined the cable network during its launch in 1992 and this year she is celebrating her 25th anniversary with the national news team. She is the primetime anchor for NY1 Live at Ten and the host of the public affairs talk show In Focus with Cheryl Wills. In 2018, Cheryl became the first African-American reporter in NY1's history to win an Emmy Award.

Cheryl is the author of three books about her great-great-great grandfather Sandy Wills who fought in The Civil War: Die Free: A Heroic Family Tale, an illustrated children's book The Emancipation of Grandpa Sandy Wills, and a YA book Emancipated: My Family's Fight/or Freedom. Cheryl has been invited to do readings of her Emancipation Series to tens of thousands of students across the country.

Cheryl has interviewed some of the most powerful people in the world including the first woman president of Africa: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia. Cheryl's groundbreaking report earned her a prestigious medal from the United Nations Correspondents Association. She also scored an exclusive interview with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Cheryl's personal favorite was going one-on-one with the late great writer and activist Maya Angelou.

In March of 2018, Cheryl was honored with the prestigious Commander's Medal from the U.S. Department of the Army. The Public Service Commendation Medal is the fourth highest public service decoration the United States Department of the Army can bestow upon a civilian.

Cheryl has also received awards from The New York Press Club, The Newswomen's Club of NY Front Page Award, and The Associated Press. In 2017, The Association of Social Studies Teachers I UFT awarded her The Rosa Parks Award for Social Justice for "illuminating the struggle for Black equality from The Civil War to present." In 2017, Cheryl also received the Dr. Martin Luther King Award from three prominent Jewish organizations at The Israeli Consulate for bridging the gap between African-Americans and Jews.

In 2017, City & State Magazine honored Cheryl as one of New York's most remarkable women. In 2010, McDonald's honored her as a broadcasting legend. In 2015, McDonald's again honored her with the first ever Harold Dow Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of extraordinary and unparalleled contributions to broadcast media.

Cheryl also has been featured in a number of major television shows and movies including Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016), numerous episodes of Law & Order: SVU (NBC), Limitless (CBS), The Strain (FX), Freedomland with Samuel Jackson, The Brave One with Jodie Foster, and several other stage and film productions.

Cheryl Wills was the first journalist invited to address the General Assembly of The United Nations about the impact of slavery on her family during the UN's International Remembrance of Victims of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.