The Network of Advisors

Award-winning international business journalist Sissel McCarthy is a Distinguished Lecturer and Director of the Journalism Program at Hunter College. She has been teaching reporting, multimedia writing, and news literacy to undergraduates for more than 15 years at Hunter College, NYU, and Emory University. At Hunter College, she has introduced multimedia reporting across the curriculum, beginning in Reporting and Writing 1 and 2 right through all upper-level courses.

All Hunter journalism students now build their own website to establish their digital identity and publish their work while learning best practices for digital journalism. Students are also using social media to research, report, publish and promote their stories. Journalism classes at Hunter use #hunterjourn for tweets, #hunterjourpgm for Instagram posts, and the YouTube channel Hunter College Journalism and Hunter Students Speak for visual storytelling. McCarthy has also introduced the study of news literacy at Hunter College, and her course MEDIA 211: News Literacy in a Digital Age is now a CUNY Common Core course.

At the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, she taught an intensive writing workshop on the basic elements of news writing and reporting while at Emory University, she was a Senior Lecturer, Journalist-in-Residence and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Journalism Program, teaching reporting and writing, podcasting, news video production, news literacy and professionalism in the workplace from 2004-2014.

Before her job in academe, McCarthy spent more than a decade reporting business news for CNN, CNBC, and PBS in New York, London, and Atlanta as both an anchor and reporter. Before her career in television news, she worked on Wall Street where she was vice president of proprietary trading at the investment bank Lehman Brothers. She was also a vice president at Bankers Trust where she traded foreign exchange and government bonds.

McCarthy holds master’s degrees in Journalism and International Affairs from Columbia University in New York. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Government and Romance Languages from Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. She was a Daniel Webster Scholar during her four years at Dartmouth (top 5 percent of the class in academic and personal achievement) and received a Citation for Excellence in Speech and Debate. She lives in Bronxville, NY with her husband, Steve, and their four sons.

Penny Manis is the Vice President, Editorial & Content Strategy of CNN en Español . She has direct responsibility for the editorial and strategic direction of the network, the development & enhancement of digital services and products, audience growth, and revenue-generating commercial opportunities. Previously, she was the Vice President of Programming at CNN International. She oversaw the network’s programming including New York, Atlanta, London and Abu Dhabi based shows. Manis was instrumental in the network’s coverage of major global stories. She has also served as the Senior Director of Business Programming for CNN International based in New York, shaping the network's financial & economic news agenda and directing reporters and shows. Her experience includes working as a senior producer for “AC360”, a prime time CNN program hosted by Anderson Cooper. Manis played a leading role selecting and launching stories and guest segments. Manis joined CNN 25 years ago as an associate producer for CNN en Español in the Washington bureau where she covered U.S.-Latin American relations. She then transferred to CNN’s Atlanta headquarters to become an editorial producer, booking and preparing news makers and analysts to appear on CNN/U.S., CNN International and CNN en Español. Manis has worked overseas in CNN’s London offices for several years, selecting and producing stories for CNN’s European and Middle Eastern audiences. She brings national, global and business expertise to her current role as a member of CNN International’s Executive Team.

George Svigos is Executive Director of Communications, GM International, a role he assumed in 2020. He leads a team of communications professionals across South America, Europe, Russia, Central Asia, Middle East, North Africa, India, Southeast Asia, Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, which is focused on corporate, consumer and internal communications, as well as corporate social responsibility.  His objective is to develop and implement communications strategies in support of GM’s vision of creating a world of Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions and Zero Congestion. George joined GM in 2013 and has held leadership roles in communications and government relations across a number of markets in the international region. Previous to joining GM, he held senior public affairs roles in the energy and banking sectors. Prior to this, he was a political adviser in state and federal politics in Australia. George has a degree in Journalism from the University of South Australia and in 2021 obtained an Accelerated Management Development Certificate from the University of Michigan Stephen M Ross School of Business.

Sean Branagan is an instigator, educator, serial entrepreneur, investor, advisor and evangelist for innovation and startups. He is the founder & director of the Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Syracuse University's prestigious S.I Newhouse School of Public Communications, Chief Instigator of Media-Nxt about shaping the future of media, and Chair of Scrappy Capital, a seed fund that invests in startups in rising tech cities. Sean has spent a career in media and tech: founder of one of the first digital marketing agencies, head of marketing at an early cloud services company, partner in a boutique investment banking firm, co-founder of a search and social media marketing firm and creator of a national collegiate startup competition that culminated at the South By Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, TX, every year. Sean is a recipient in 2020 of a Fulbright grant in Media Entrepreneurship and Innovation working to build the Creator Economy in Estonia and is helping more than eight universities across the world establish media entrepreneurship programs. He is also working with a new initiative in India to develop creative entrepreneurial thinking for hundreds of thousands of middle- and high-schoolers. In 2023, he spoke at the GSA Africa Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, about the media opportunity in Africa and is working to help those countries further develop those opportunities. Sean is a active coach, advisor and founding board member of early-stage ventures disrupting media and other industries, and he serves as a board member for a handful of community and media-focused not-for-profits.

Eileen O’Connor was the senior vice president for Communications, Policy, and Advocacy, a member of the Foundation’s executive team, overseeing all government relations and strategic communications for all program priorities, including the climate strategy. Before joining the foundation, O’Connor spent her career as an attorney, government official, non-profit leader, and award-winning war zone and political journalist. In those capacities, she worked as vice president of Yale University, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Obama administration, for South and Central Asia, Senior Adviser to the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, based in Kabul for 14 months, and White House and foreign correspondent for CNN and ABC news. As an attorney, O’Connor specialized in complex litigation, political investigations, multi-party dispute negotiations, and crisis management in the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine. As a journalist, O’Connor won the DuPont, Peabody, Overseas Press Club, Cable Ace, Emmy nominations, the New York Film Festival Golden Eagle, and National Headliner awards for her investigations at the White House, into the terror attacks on 9/11, Russian organized crime, and her coverage of the fall of Communism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. O’Connor has a bachelor’s degree in business administration, a Juris Doctor from Georgetown University, and a post-graduate Diploma in World Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. O’Connor is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the advisory boards of the Ad Council, the Earth Public Information Collaborative, and on the board of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. She consults for the Department of Homeland Security on incident response for natural and terrorist threats. She comments on Russia, foreign policy, and misinformation on Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, and Russian TV, as well as contributes commentary to the New York Times and CNN.com.

Jere Van Dyk is a journalist, writer and hostage advocate. In the early 1980s, working as a correspondent for The New York Times, he lived with the mujahideen (holy warriors) in Afghanistan as they fought against the Soviet Red Army, an experience that was recapped in his Pulitzer Prize-nominated articles, and in his first book, “In Afghanistan: An American Odyssey.” From 1987 - 1995, he was an explorer for National Geographic Magazine, traveling the length and finding the source of the Brahmaputra and Amazon rivers, among other assignments. Twenty years later, he returned to Afghanistan to report on the U.S.-led war, only to be captured and held by the Taliban for 45 days in 2008. This harrowing experience is detailed in his book “Captive: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban,” which Foreign Affairs selected in 2010 as one of its “Must-Read Books for the World Ahead.” His book, “The Trade, My Journey into the Labyrinth of Political Kidnapping,” is the story of his trip back to Afghanistan and Pakistan to find out who really kidnapped him, and why. It was selected in 2017 by The Sunday New York Times Book Review as an Editors’ Choice. His most recent book, “Without Borders: The Haqqani Network and the Road to Kabul,” published in late 2022, is in part about his relationship to the Haqqani Mujahideen, with whom he lived in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan in the 1980s, when they were U.S. allies, who today the U.S. and its allies call the “Haqqani Network,” the most powerful of all Taliban-related military groups, maybe the most powerful jihadist group in the world.

Rahsaan Johnson is a senior communications and marketing executive with extensive senior-level experience building global brands, strengthening consumer trust and driving measurable business growth across the airline and financial-services industries. He is known for translating complex business strategies into compelling narratives that connect emotionally with audiences and advance commercial goals. Most recently, Rahsaan served as Managing Director of Global Communications at Delta Air Lines, where he led an international team across more than 20 countries and redefined how the airline used traditional media relations, owned media channels and paid social media amplification to strengthen its network and international brand relevance. Under his leadership, Delta’s international communications strategy elevated brand sentiment and engagement across key regions outside the United States, modernizing global communications and deepening consumer affinity through data- informed, purpose-driven messaging. Before joining Delta, Rahsaan spent more than 13 years at United Airlines, where he led consumer PR and then transformed the company’s sponsorship and brand activation portfolio to emphasize community impact and cultural engagement. His work helped reshape how the airline measured sponsorship marketing success and earned national recognition for creative, values-based campaigns. Earlier roles at Aon Corporation, HSBC, Continental Airlines and US Airways further established his reputation as a leader who aligns communications strategy with business transformation and long-term growth. Rahsaan began his career in journalism, first as a radio show announcer and then as a reporter for Inside Washington Publishers, where he covered environmental policy and regulation across the United States. He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and expects to earn an Executive Master’s degree from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in July 2026. He also earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.