Our Team
Deesha Dyer
Co-founder & Advisory Board Member
Deesha Dyer is an award-winning strategist, on-the-ground community organizer, and executive operations expert. She specializes in transforming ideas into causes that create tangible change. For nearly two decades, she has produced social-impact campaigns across entertainment, politics, philanthropy and business. She is most notably known as the former Obama Administration Social Secretary. The Philadelphia native became a White House intern at the age of 30 and completed a seven-year tenure there that honed her expertise in event coordination, logistics, protocol, and statecraft. Deesha has been featured in national media outlets including TIME, The New York Times, Marie Claire, Essence, Vogue, Refinery29, Forbes, The Root and Washington Post. Deesha currently runs her own social impact firm, Hook & Fasten and lives in Washington, DC with her partner Wes and cat Gus.
Fun travel fact: Deesha once went to London for 36 hours just to see her favorite band (Jamiroquai) perform.
Marcella Hudson
C
o-founder & Advisory Board Member
An enthusiastic researcher of different cultures and exploring countries, Marcella demonstrates to teens that travel is not just for people with unlimited means, that they too are able to travel by strategically finding educational, humanitarian, and career paths. One of Marcella’s major goals is to take one year off of work to extensively travel the world. She is also more than halfway complete her #50by50 goal to visit all 50 US states, well before she reaches the age of 50. Marcella is a construction, design, and development professional by trade. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, and two daughters.
Fun travel fact: Following the theme of their destination wedding in Nassau, Marcella and her husband explore a new place each anniversary. Her favorite was a 12 day cruise of the Mediterranean for their 5th!
Megan Brandenberger
Advisory Board Member
I started my journey in travel as a teen on a high school trip to Europe. Having that opportunity at a young age made me an all around independent person in life. I am better equipped to communicate with all kinds of people and I feel confident in new settings even when I am on my own because of it. This was so important as I moved on in life and started college away from all of my friends and family. It also carried on when I started my adult life with a job in the corporate world where I was required to travel for a new hire training trip and many trips for client visits going forward.
On Megan’s Top 10 favorite places visited: Chicago
Heidi Roland
Advisory Board Member
Heidi is a Philadelphia based photographer who specializes in weddings and human love and connection. She has worked as a full-time photographer for the past 8 years and loves all the people she has been able to meet and places she has been able to as a photographer. It is an honor for her to be a part of beGirl.world and support the mission of the program.
Travel is such a life-changing experience. It brings understanding not only of the world we live in but also the world inside ourselves. It is especially vital for young people to travel as they are shaping the way they see life. Traveling also has a way of getting you out of your comfort zone, where all the growth and magic happens!”
Favorite Place of Travel So Far: Morocco