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About Dr. Terri K
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not to drown them, but to cleanse them."
-- Aughey
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Teresa Kay-Aba Kennedy - "Dr. Terri K."
What do you get when you cross a Harvard MBA and a Doctor of Philosophy in World Religions with a Holistic Health Counselor interested in Global Development and Public Policy?
Quite a bit of yin-yang! After almost dying from an ulcerated digestive system in her twenties, Teresa Kay-Aba Kennedy realized that her Type-A workaholic tendencies might be good for the bottom-line, but not for her spirit or health. The process of rebuilding herself - mind, body, and spirit - unveiled her calling. A few years later, when she decided to leave her lucrative media career to become a social entrepreneur and health advocate, most people thought she had lost her mind. Instead, she found her Self.
Dr. Terri Kennedy is a leading expert on Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS), with a specialty in stress, productivity management and personal empowerment. An advocate for social change through individual transformation, all of her work - writing, speaking, coaching, corporate training, community engagement programs, global health and empowerment initiatives - is focused on helping people live more purposeful, productive and sustainable lives. From a family of educators and communication experts, she seeks to reach people in engaging and culturally-relevant ways. With a dual B.A. in Sociology and Studio Art from Wellesley College, an MBA from Harvard Business School, a Ph.D. in World Religions, and multiple certifications in Holistic Health, Fitness, Lifestyle & Weight Management Counseling and Yoga, she offers a unique multidisciplinary approach to success in business and life. She also has an international background and has completed the Global Leadership & Public Policy for the 21st Century Executive Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She is President and CEO of Power Living Enterprises, Inc., a lifestyle media and consulting company which produces content, educational programs, and experiences around Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability. She is also Founder of PWR Brokers Incorporated, whose mission is to educate, engage and empower youth and individuals in underserved communities around health, self-development and leadership development.
Recognized as a leader in wellness and empowerment, Dr. Kennedy is a National Spokesperson for the American Heart Association / American Stroke Association Search Your Heart program and Power To End Stroke campaign, representing the association in the national media and educating the public about the risks of heart disease and stroke. She is also an Advocate for Power and sits on the New York State Advocacy Committee for the American Heart Association and the Global Strategy group for the American Stroke Association. In 2009, she was named a CUP Fellow. The Council of Urban Professionals (CUP) selects and trains talented minority and women professionals who have demonstrated leadership potential and who want to become political or civic leaders for their communities. As a Fellow, she is working on CUP's Education Reform agenda. In 2009, she was also selected to become a Member of the Forum of Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum in Geneva. The honor recognizes outstanding leaders age 40 and under from around the world for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world. The five-year term provides an opportunity to engage in high-level dialogue with leaders from around the world. She has attended Forums in Rio, Jordan, Cape Town and China. She is co-leading the YGL Global Health initiative and is involved in the Global Redesign Initiative which seeks to re-frame how business is done around the world from a corporate responsibility standpoint. She has been invited to participate in the 2010 Annual Meeting in Davos. The program will focus on six areas of inquiry and their global, regional and industry dimensions: how to strengthen economies, mitigate global risks, ensure sustainability, enhance security, create a values framework and build effective institutions.
Dr. Kennedy is on the faculty of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and is the Founder of Ta Yoga, which operated one of the first yoga studios in Harlem. She is on the Board of Yoga Alliance – the internationally-recognized non-profit organization that sets standards for yoga teaching in the United States, and was their first African American Chair. She is also on the Education Working Group for the Academic Consortium for Complementary and Alternative Health Care (ACCAHC), where she is contributing to creating educational content and programs which foster cross-disciplinary understanding within the integrative health care arena. In addition, she is part of the curriculum development team for A New Way Forward, a new initiative created by The National CARES Mentoring Movement to "train the trainers" in order to foster the development of African-American mentors for vulnerable Black youth in communities across the United States. National CARES recruits and directs mentors to youth-support, mentoring and re-entry organizations, where coast-to-coast large numbers of Black youngsters fill waiting lists for volunteers and White volunteers vastly outnumber Black ones. Today there are CARES Mentor-Recruitment Circles at various stages of development in 55 U.S. cities. Before becoming a social entrepreneur, Dr. Kennedy was Vice President of Business Development and Operations at MTV Networks, and started her career as the youngest staff member at Harvard Business School writing cases studies on Fortune 500 companies. She has been featured in media around the world from ARD TV in Germany and Tokyo FM, to CNN and Oprah's book Live Your Best Life!
Her international Curriculum Vitae (CV) is available upon request.
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| Health & Productivity Expert |
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With an MBA from Harvard, a Ph.D. in World Religions, and training in Holistic Health and Yoga, Dr. Kennedy offers a unique multidisciplinary approach to crafting an authentic, healthy, and successful life - whether you are a CEO looking to increase the productivity of your company or a stay-at-home mom trying to find balance, whether you're a looking to change jobs or completely transform your life. She started her career as the youngest staff member at the Harvard Business School, where she consulted with and wrote case studies on Fortune 500 companies specializing in Production Operations Management. She wrote case studies for the second year "Operations Strategy" MBA course, research notes for Harvard Business Review articles, and papers on entrepreneurship and small businesses. As a Holistic Health Counselor trained in Integrative Nutrition, she has also worked with people with specific ailments, ranging from Adult ADD, Asthma, Anorexia and Diabetes to Hypertension, Obesity, IBS and even Leukemia. The common thread for all of those coming to her is the desire to take control of their own lives - from what they do for work to how they manage their physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and environmental energy. She offers individual coaching in-person or by telephone, as well as group workshops on topics such as personal branding, purpose planning, nutrition, and stress management. As a corporate consultant, she can help you set up and achieve a Return on Investment for your Health & Productivity Management program.
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| Dr. Terri Kennedy has led personal development workshops, motivational talks, retreats and panels for a variety of corporations, business associations, and other groups - from the Social Venture Network, National Sales Network and Harvard Business School to Deloitte Financial Advisory Services, Eileen Fisher and the Cruise Lines International Association. Because of her multi-faceted background, she can speak effectively to many different audiences, from CEOs, business executives, politicians, hospital administrators and doctors to a church pastor, a pre-teen, a stay-at-home mom, and a newly-diagnosed patient. Working in Harlem since 2002 has also honed her ability to interface with community, youth and faith-based groups, and deliver practical and culturally-relevant messages to traditionally underserved groups. Check out events and clients for a sampling appearances, or to book her for an event. Read what others are saying.
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| Dr. Terri Kennedy has offered her views on TV, radio, print and online - from commenting on stress management for Katrina survivors on CNN and discussing the growth of Yoga in the U.S. on Fox News... to discussing what it takes to be a woman entrepreneur on Smart Woman TV to being featured in a documentary on time/energy management on ARD TV in Germany and talking about holistic health and youth empowerment on Tokyo FM in Japan. She is a frequent guest on radio from Martha Stewart Living Radio to 98.7 KISSFM, and has contributed to a variety of magazines from The Hallmark Magazine and Yoga Journal to Essence and The Network Journal. She has been featured in magazines such as O: The Oprah Magazine and Prevention Magazine, and in newspapers such as The New York Times and The Daily News. She also writes a monthly "The Power of..." column and contributes to Yoga Matters, which goes to over 20,000 yoga teachers and almost 1,000 yoga studios. For more on her media appearances and constributions check out The Buzz.
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Dr. Terri Kennedy comes from a family of international human rights activists, and cares about the wellbeing of others. Known for her passion for health literacy, she has offered health education programs on behalf of organizations such as the Congressional Black Caucus, New York City Department of Health, the American Heart Association and Speaking of Women's Health, as well as hospitals and faith-based groups. A graduate from Wellesley College, Dr. Kennedy is a long-time supporter of women's issues and speaks often for women's leadership and empowerment programs. A proponent of youth empowerment, she has also taught positive life skills to youth, working with organizations such as the Thurgood Marshall Academy, The Beacon School, Figure Skating in Harlem and the Harlem Wizards Basketball Camp. Through the Young PWR® Brokers initiative, she has taught self-esteem building skills to youth from 8 to 25 starting with a group of formerly homeless pre-teen girls in Harlem. After almost dying and then healing using an integrative approach, she also supports a move from the current Disease Management Model of healthcare to an Integrative Wellness Model. She educates medical students on the "Body-Mind-Spirit Connection" at venues such as the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine, Mentoring in Medicine and the SNMA Medical Education Conference, and also works with corporations to implement wellness programs and understand the effects of stress on productivity. She is also on the Education Working Group for the Academic Consortium for Complementary and Alternative Health Care (ACCAHC), where she is contributing to creating educational content and programs which foster cross-disciplinary understanding within the integrative healthcare arena.
Read about our alliance with the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association and join the cause.
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Degrees:
Ph.D. in World Religions, Universal University
MBA, Harvard Business School
B.A. in Sociology and Studio Art, Wellesley College - Durant Scholar magna cum laude
Certifications:
Global Leadership & Public Policy for the 21st Century, Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education
Holistic Health Counselor, Institute of Integrative Nutrition (IIN)
Vinyasa Krama Yoga, Srivatsa Ramaswami
Hatha Yoga Instructor, Integral Yoga Institute (IYI)
Gentle/Chair Yoga Instructor, Integral Yoga Institute (IYI)
Personal Trainer, American Counsel on Exercise (ACE)
Group Fitness Instructor, American Counsel on Exercise (ACE)
Lifestyle & Weight Management, American Counsel on Exercise (ACE)
Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN), Certified Television Producer
Adult CPR, American Heart Association
Other Studies:
Interactive Telecommunications Masters Program, New York University
Design & Italian Culture, Rhode Island School of Design - Rome, Italy
Staging & Production, United States International University - Nairobi, Kenya
Cable Management and Finance, University of Denver
Effective Communicating, Decker Communications, Inc.
Various advanced yoga & meditation workshops
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Although she is American, Dr. Kennedy, known as "Terri" to her family and friends, had an unusual international upbringing. She was born in Accra, Ghana; started school in Adelaide, Australia; and as a Stetcher Scholar, studied and lived in Rome, Italy. She tutored high school Italian at the Boston Latin School, and has traveled to over 30 countries around the world and has been on all continents except for Antarctica.
Exposed to yoga and integrative nutrition by her mom, Terri has followed a natural, holistic and positive lifestyle since she was 4 years old. She also grew up reading spirituality-related books, from The Science of Mind and Emerson's Essays to the Tao Te Ching and The Prophet. The philosophy and habits she learned when she was younger has helped her succeed in business and life, and has greatly informed her current work. She was a dancer and competitive athlete in track, swimming and gymnastics; skipped two grades of school; entered Wellesley College at the age of 16; and was named one of GLAMOUR magazine's "Top Ten College Women in America" in 1988 appearing on the The Today Show with Jane Pauley. With the initial desire to become an entertainment attorney, she was a corporate law and litigation intern at Ropes & Gray in Boston, and a Complaint Mediator for the Department of the Attorney General in Boston. She then became the youngest staff member, and then student, at the Harvard Business School.
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| She spent over seven years as an executive at MTV Networks, becoming one of the youngest Vice Presidents at the company. As a special advisor to the President of VH1, Terri designed the financial structure for the VH1 Strategic Plan, evaluated new business opportunities, and managed cross-departmental projects involving Marketing, Ad Sales, Program Planning, Development, Research and New Business on behalf of the President. She also wrote a monthly competitive research newsletter distributed throughout the company, and supervised the Viewers Services Department, including database management, direct marketing, phone, mail and email support. Working with a new President of VH1, she helped reposition the VH1 Television network in 1993, and then founded/created VH1 Interactive (www.vh1.com) in 1994. A pioneer in new media, she negotiated VH1's first deal with America Online and integrated online in on-air events with artists such as Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks and Paul McCartney.
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As part of the core digital strategy group for Viacom and MTV Networks, she worked closely with the Chairman and CEO, CFO and COO at MTV Networks, as well as the senior business development team at Viacom. She worked on the launch of MTV Networks' digital package of spinoff music video channels, the Suite from MTV and VH1. The Suite included MTV2, hard rock/heavy metal channel MTV "X," Latin music channel MTV "S," R&B channel VH1 Soul, VH1 Country, and jazz/new age channel VH1 Smooth. She also started the Business Development & Operations group for MTV Interactive (www.mtv.com) in 1996 which made the negotiation of music interactive deals more efficient. In addition, she developed/founded the VH1@Work radio network in 1998. As Vice President of Business Development and Operations for the combined MTV and VH1 group, she managed the operations of a 150-person interactive team (including online, CD-ROM & PC/TV applications, and digital cable), created the initial personnel and financial policies, as well as identified business opportunities and negotiated landmark content/distribution deals bringing in over $30 million into the digital division. In addition, she was part of the Viacom due diligence team for the acquisition of SonicNet, and managed such partnerships as Intel, Microsoft, Yahoo!, America Online, N2K/CDNOW, Lycos, and Excite@Home. She also helped to create MTV Networks' Diversity Council, coordinating events with notables such as Betty Shabazz - the late wife of Malcolm X and a family friend. At the start of her cable career, she was selected to be a Walter Kaitz Foundation Fellow and received training in Cable Management and Finance at the University of Denver. She was also involved in and was a speaker for the National Association of Multi-Ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC) and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB).
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Inspired by her mother, who started practicing yoga in the early 70's, Terri is trained as a Hatha and Chair/Gentle Yoga Instructor from the Integral Yoga Institute in New York, and has done various advanced Vinyasa Yoga and meditation trainings. She has been greatly inspired by teachers such as Srivatsa Ramaswami, Swami Ramananda, Tao Porchon-Lynch, Dharma Mittra, as well as her lineage guru, Sri Swami Satchidananda. Her yoga teachers gave her the spiritual name "TARA," which means "Star and Savior. A Name for Devi the Divine Mother."
In 2002, she founded the Ta Yoga House (www.tayoga.com) to make healthy and positive living physically, culturally and financially accessible to underserved urban communities. It was one of the first yoga studios in Harlem. She offers free yoga classes to the Harlem community through the Shape Up New York program sponsored by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, as well as free classes for cancer patients at the Ralph Lauren Cancer Center in Harlem as part of the PWR Health Initiative. She also became the first African-American to be Chair of the Board and then Interim CEO for Yoga Alliance (www.yogaalliance.org). In addition to her governance duties for YA, she contributes to Yoga Matters which goes to their registry of over 20,000 yoga teachers and almost 1,000 yoga studios, and interfaces with organizations within the yoga community, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) field, as well as organizations in the general health field.
She teaches at various events across the country and has moderated panels at Yoga Journal Conferences, presented for the Yoga Research Society, as well presented on yoga and stress management for the National Institutes of Health.
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Terri comes from a family of high achievers and is the third generation in her family to be involved in social change and pioneering work around the world. Her parents, journalist/entrepreneur Janie Sykes-Kennedy, and the late playwright/professor Dr. James Scott Kennedy, were international media trailblazers. For more than five decades, they worked on five continents teaching cross-cultural communications and leadership development, and introducing new and positive concepts of people through theatre, television, radio, academia and the pulpit. In the 1950s, they owned and operated one of the first multicultural theatre companies in New York City. In the early 1960s, as Dr. Kennedy taught at Brooklyn College, Mrs. Kennedy founded and operated ID: Inner Dignity in Brooklyn, New York, a learning center focused on promoting self-esteem in girls.
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| Dr. James Scott Kennedy |
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| Janie Sykes-Kennedy & Dr. James Scott Kennedy |
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In the late 1960s, they lived in Africa, working at the University of Ghana and producing for the 1966 First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal, and the First Pan African Cultural Festival in Algiers, Algeria in 1969. In the 1970s, they were invited as Fulbright scholars by the Prime Minister of Australia to live in Adelaide and introduce new concepts of African-American and African people to that continent. The Kennedys were the first African-American family to live on the continent of Australia. They produced three plays for the Papau, New Guinea Independence Arts Festival in 1973. Later in the 1970s, Mrs. Kennedy was the Title I Coordinator of a pilot program for the State University of New York for "Learning Through The Arts" and taught acting at The College at Old Westbury in New York. In the late 1980s, Mrs. Kennedy was invited by the U.S. Housing & Urban Development and the Department of Commerce as one of 14 delegates to go to the People's Republic of China on the first trade mission of American women. After that trip, she secured a contract from the China Building Technology Center and started a new company, China Today, Inc., which for five years, distributed Building in China. In the 1990s, Dr. James Scott Kennedy taught at the United States International University - Africa in Nairobi. All of the Kennedys spent time in Kenya. They also worked in the United Kingdom and the Middle East.
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Terri's uncle, Dr. Joseph C. Kennedy, was co-founder and former International Director of Africare, which has delivered over $710 million in aid to Africa since 1970 impacting 36 countries Africa-wide. He was also instrumental in developing the Peace Corps in Africa and Asia under President John F. Kennedy and Sargent Shriver. Her aunt, the late Dr. Lillian Kennedy Beam, was Vice Chancellor of the United States International University Africa in Kenya. The school in Nairobi was founded in 1969 when it was granted a Presidential Charter by President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta making it the first and only secular university in East Africa. Dr. Beam built U.S.I.U.-Africa from a 60-student school located in a hotel into a fully accredited American University with 14 buildings spread over five acres of the 20-acre campus and over 2,500 students today. The library is named after Dr. Beam and now U.S.I.U.-Africa has become the best and most prestigious private university in all of Africa.
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| Jayne Kennedy Overton |
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Terri's great uncle, James A. Atkins, was a member of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Black Cabinet," advising on education. He was a pioneer in the school system in Colorado, writing The Age of Jim Crow (1964), and the widely-referenced book Human Relations in Colorado: 1858 - 1959 (1961). The family's emphasis on education and achievement started with her great grandmother, Mary Atkins, who graduated from Knoxville College in the late 1800s. Other well-known relatives include Adrienne Kennedy, the Obie Award-winning playwright, and Leon Isaac Kennedy and Jayne Kennedy Overton, the film & TV personalities. As a sportscaster for The NFL Today in 1978, Jayne was one of the first women to infiltrate that male-dominated profession.
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| Leon Isaac Kennedy |
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| Muhammad Ali and Terri |
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An artist, photographer, writer and former model with a unique mix of creative and business skills, Terri has also worked in film development at Universal Studios, and worked as an Assistant Buyer for a fashion merchandising company. She has lent her expertise to various consulting projects including creating the financial model and private placement for a new film company and advising on a film festival in Cote d'Ivoire. She has shared her business and marketing knowledge as an Adjunct Professor at Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (LIM), a fashion college in New York. She was also privileged to grow up around such cultural greats as Muhammad Ali and Smokey Robinson, and hear dinner table stories about her parents' friendships and work with people like Langston Hughes and Duke Ellington.
To honor the passing of Terri's father, Dr. James Scott Kennedy, read the Tribute to Dr. K.
View photos of family and friends in the gallery.
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| Visit the PWR Brokers Website |
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| Visit the Power Living Website |
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