Gretchen Steidle Wallace

Gretchen Ki Steidle is the founder and President of Global Grassroots, an international organization working at the intersection of mindfulness and social entrepreneurship to catalyze the ideas of grassroots change agents working for women’s rights and well-being post-conflict. In 2006, she launched Global Grassroots’ work among widowed genocide survivors of sexual violence in Rwanda. To date, her incubator for conscious social change has trained over 700 change agents who have designed over 100 organizations across Rwanda, Uganda, Liberia, Cameroon and the US. Gretchen is a producer of the documentary film, The Devil Came on Horseback, nominated for three Emmy Awards in 2009. She is also co-author of the memoir, "The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur", published by PublicAffairs, about her brother, Marine Capt Brian Steidle’s experience as a military observer in Darfur. She holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a BA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia, where she attended as a Jefferson Scholar. Gretchen believes that cultivating inner awareness and contributing to the common good are both necessary to advance the greatest level of positive social change. She is a certified Integrative Breathwork Practitioner and trained in Coherent Breathwork, which she utilizes in her work globally to help women and children heal trauma from war, disaster and gender-based violence. In 2007, Gretchen was honored by World Business Magazine and Shell as one of the top International 35 Women Under 35. In 2010 she was recognized as a CNN Hero working in Haiti after the earthquake. In the same year she was awarded the inaugural Susan J. Herman Award for Leadership in Holocaust and Genocide Awareness by the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College. In 2011 she was chosen one of seven Remarkable Women of the World by New Hampshire Magazine.