ABOUT NELL MERLINO
Nell Merlino is a creative catalyst, iconic leader and a visual artist.
Her life’s work is making women and girls more visible, valued and heard
Nell has captured cultural moments and created movements like Take Our Daughters to Work Day, The YWCA Week Without Violence and Make Mine a Million $ Business Competitions.
As the catalyst and founder of Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence, Nell helped mobilize global companies including American Express, Walmart and Cartier and Senator Hillary Clinton, Mayor Corey Booker and financial guru, Suze Orman to help women business owners across the country and around global gain access to $billions in financing, grants, contracts and customers.
Nell mobilized 25 million to take girls ambition seriously and inspired thousands of individual women business owners with her blunt business critiques and the constant challenge to think bigger. Now she is capturing the impact of those movements in collage portraits of women and girls who are leaving their marks on the world.
For centuries women shrunk to fit in, tried to be pleasing and always played a role. Now the tide is turning. Nell is documenting what it means to be fully ourselves creating collage portraits of women influenced from across the centuries, around the globe, in the present and into the future.
TAKE OUR DAUGHTERS TO WORK
Created Take Our Daughters to Work Day. Mobilized more than 20 million people to participate, setting the stage for millions more women to attend college, join the workforce, take leadership positions and change the nature of work itself.
MEDIA
Generated more than 3 billion media mentions speaking out and mobilizing girls, movements, women, corporations and governments. Nell recognizes that paramount importance for all people to see people who look like them leading and succeeding.
MAKE MINE A MILLION
Launched the world’s first online micro loan fund at Count Me In and created a new business competition that drove thousands of women to grow their micro businesses with Make Mine a Million $ Business