Kent Women's Leadership Forum 2026 Honorees

Heidi Stultz Brooks '86
Active Empathy

Dr. Heidi M. Stultz Brooks '86 is an accomplished academic, leadership expert, and organizational consultant who graduated from Kent School in 1986. After her time at Kent, she pursued an extensive education, eventually earning her doctorate in psychology. She has since become a prominent figure in the field of organizational behavior.

Heidi is a Senior Lecturer in Organizational Behavior at the Yale School of Management. At Yale, she is well-known for her expertise in interpersonal dynamics and leadership development, teaching popular courses that focus on the human side of professional life. Her work emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence and the creation of "courageous" learning environments within organizations. Dr. Brooks currently hosts a podcast at Yale called Learning Through Experience.

Her connection to Kent School has remained strong throughout her professional life. She has been a member of the Kent School Board of Trustees since 2020, where she uses her background in organizational management to help guide the school's future. Additionally, she is an inductee of the Kent School Athletic Hall of Fame. She has remained a vocal advocate for the school’s athletic programs and was a featured speaker at the celebration of the 50th anniversary of girls' rowing at Kent.

In addition to her academic role, Dr. Brooks consults for various organizations and leaders, helping them navigate complex interpersonal transitions and improve team effectiveness. She lives in Connecticut and remains an active voice in the Yale and Kent communities.

Bertie "Bebe" Deming Heiner '67
Servant Leadership

Bebe is a licensed professional counselor, community leader, and philanthropist who graduated from Kent School in 1967. After her time at Kent, she dedicated her career to expanding access to mental health services and supporting educational and cultural institutions. Heiner is best known as the founder of The Women’s Initiative, a nonprofit organization based in Charlottesville, Virginia. She established the agency in 2007 to address a critical need for affordable mental health care for women who were uninsured or underinsured.

As a licensed professional counselor, she recognized that emotional well-being is a fundamental right and worked to remove the financial and social barriers that prevent women from receiving care. Before founding this initiative, she served as the director of counseling services at the FOCUS Women’s Resource Center and was an active board member for the Charlottesville Free Clinic. In addition to her clinical work, Heiner has held numerous leadership roles in the nonprofit and educational sectors.

Following a family tradition of service, she served on the Board of Trustees for Mary Baldwin University. She has also lent her expertise to the boards of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the UVA Art Museum, and the Virginia Institute of Autism. Her professional excellence and commitment to service were formally recognized by Kent School when she was inducted into the Sill Society, the school’s highest alumni honor for those who have achieved significant distinction in their careers and lives.

She remains a prominent figure in the Charlottesville community, continuing to serve on the Board of Directors for The Women’s Initiative, the Foundation Board for the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, and supporting various philanthropic causes. 

Wendy W. P. Ettinger '74
Critical & Creative Thinking

Wendy Ettinger (she/her) is a film producer, philanthropist and a steadfast advocate for equity in the film industry. Her career began as a casting director for theater and film, culminating in her first foray into producing The War Room (1993), which earned an Academy Award® nomination. In 2005, Ettinger co-founded Chicken & Egg Films dedicated to mentoring and funding women and gender expansive filmmakers whose innovative storytelling drives social change.

In 2013, Ettinger furthered her commitment to gender equity by co-founding Gamechanger Films, the first equity fund exclusively financing feature films directed by women and marginalized voices. Gamechanger's productions have premiered at renowned festivals such as Sundance, SXSW, and Tribeca, earning Emmy® and Academy Award® nominations. Ettinger's recent work includes executive producing Paige Bethman's Remaining Native, a coming-of-age story about Ku Stevens that premiered at SXSW 2025 and received both the Audience and Special Jury Awards. She also executive produced Allison O'Daniel's The Tuba Thieves, a groundbreaking exploration of sound through Deaf culture, which debuted at Sundance 2023.

Her contributions have garnered widespread recognition, including being featured in Variety’s "Power of Women New York Impact" issue and receiving accolades such as the PVBLIC Social Impact Leadership Council Award and the Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award with Chicken & Egg Films. Ettinger actively serves on advisory boards for Sandbox Films, Film Fatales, and Brown Girls Doc Mafia’s Capacity Council. She serves on the board of Media Arts Xploration (MAX) which expands live performance through science and technology. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 
 

Alicia Coppola '86
Effective Communications

From MTV’s Remote Control to CBS’s Jericho, to writing, directing, and producing award-winning short films, Alicia Coppola is a force to be reckoned with in the entertainment industry. She is an actress, author, director, podcaster, producer, and writer with an illustrious career spanning 35 years that includes starring, recurring, and guest roles in numerous television series and appearances in feature, documentary, and short films.

Alicia’s most recent project was her feature film directorial debut with Lifetime’s He Slid Into Her DMs, starring Courtney Thorne-Smith and Stella Gregg. The film, which was inspired by the true story of a high school-aged social media influencer whose stalker showed up on her doorstep with a gun after she had blocked him online, premiered on Lifetime in September 2024 and is currently streaming on Tubi.

Before that, Alicia demonstrated her talent as a versatile filmmaker by writing, directing, and producing the short film And You Are...? This film, described as "the unlikeliest of buddy movies," stars the legendary Jane Seymour alongside Zach Barack and Diana Lu.  The heartwarming narrative follows a grandmother battling Alzheimer’s and clinging to her past for validation, and her transgender grandson, who yearns to break free from his past to discover his true identity. Premiering to enthusiastic acclaim at the Cinequest Festival in San Jose, the film also captivated audiences at the 24th Beverly Hills Film Festival in May 2024 and has been featured in numerous film festivals across the country.

Alicia showcased her many skills by writing, directing, producing, and starring in Between Us. This captivating short film has garnered accolades such as Best Comedy/ Dramedy at the 2018 London Independent Film Festival, Best Short Narrative at the 2019 Artemis Women in Action Film Festival, and Best Short Narrative at the 2019 My Hero International Film Festival.

While earning degrees in Political Anthropology and Philosophy at NYU and working as a model with the famed Elite Agency, Alicia wasn’t afraid to jump into the fast lane, landing a gig on MTV’s first-ever game show, Remote Control alongside future comedy giants like Colin Quinn, Denis Leary, and Adam Sandler.

Shortly after graduating college, the Huntington, Long Island native originated the role of Lorna Devon on NBC’s long-running daytime drama Another World, for which she was twice-nominated for the Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Younger Leading Actress, winning the award in 1993.
 

Grace H. Cordsen '15
Engaged Citizenship

Grace Cordsen is an internationally recognized explorer, storyteller, and entrepreneur working at the intersection of polar research, conservation, and impact-driven communication. She has extensive experience across the Arctic and Antarctic in expedition logistics, education, science communication, and field research. Since graduating from Princeton University, she has worked across both Poles as a logistics manager, educational director, researcher, and journalist.

In 2024, Grace became one of the youngest women to manage a camp in the Antarctic interior, including a visit to the geographic South Pole, before voyaging to the geographic North Pole as a WINGS Flag Carrier, polar activist, science communicator, and Arctic Research Foundation researcher. She was named WINGS Explorer in Residence in 2025 and returned to Antarctica to document climate change through the intersection of art, science, and environmental storytelling in collaboration with The Polar Collective and leading researchers. Her work explores sustainable tourism, conservation initiatives, and how visual records shape our understanding of environmental change.

In 2025, she led a Smithsonian Institution student program in Iceland focused on climate change and renewable energy, co-led a Canadian Arctic wildlife conservation and photography expedition in Churchill, and circumnavigated Svalbard aboard SV Linden as a consultant, journalist, and GUIDE-BEST researcher. Beyond the field, Grace focuses on scaling conservation impact through storytelling and strategy. She is the Director of Strategic Impact at Kogia, a nonprofit advancing global conservation through visual media, education, and partnerships across more than 70 countries. She is also an Alliance member and ambassador with Protect Our Winters and is actively involved in the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation’s Polar Initiative, where she contributes to international dialogue and collaboration on polar conservation.

Grace recently completed her Master’s in Sustainability Management at Columbia University and will begin her PhD in Stanford University’s highly selective Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER) in Fall 2026, where her research will focus on the environmental and societal impacts of human interaction with the poles and pathways for more sustainable, science-informed exploration.

She continues to work as a freelance journalist and creator with organizations including the Arctic Research Foundation, Climate & Capital, and The Polar Collective, while maintaining ongoing roles with Smithsonian Student Travel, Adventure Canada, Great Expedition Company, and other expedition partners. She also leads the Next Generation of Exploration Network at The Explorers Club and serves as their United Nations Department of Global Communications (DGC) Youth Representative where she advises climate and human rights organizations on engaging and mobilizing rising generations of changemakers.