Jessica Buchleitner

Jessica is a storyteller, communicator, and diplomat exploring the human experience across sectors and mediums. Her mission is to raise global consciousness, drive innovation/change, and empower people by virtue of multi-medium storytelling about the human experience.

For 8 years, Jessica has served in United Nations interfacing roles, first as an NGO delegate and now as an NGO permanent representative. She collaborated with diplomats, politicians, and civil society stakeholders as part of the “Cities for CEDAW” campaign, encouraging U.S. city mayors to adopt the CEDAW ordinance, the international women’s bill of rights. Jessica also brought CEDAW to the private sector, encouraging Silicon Valley technology and financial companies to implement its provisions for policies affecting female employees. She is the co-author of 6 official UN statements.

To solve growing inequality issues yielded by financial products and services and to address the global absence of women in budgetary processes, Jessica provides communications strategy consulting to financial services organizations during international brand dissolutions, divestments, mergers, and for brand journalism.

In 2017 as a European Union External Action press fellow, she witnessed “Brexit Day” unfold. She was named Journalist of the Month in May 2015 by International Journalists’ Network. Her journalism features and books tell the stories of global unsung heroes, while attacking hard-hitting issues of sexual violence, armed conflict, and diplomacy structures. She is published with Harvard Nieman Foundation, Women News Network, Smithsonian Magazine Online, Reveal/ Center for Investigative Reporting, and a Knight Lab use case exploring virtual reality for storytelling. She is the author/curator of the 50 Women anthology series – a dual collection of personal stories chronicling world events told by 50 women from 30 countries. In 2017, she welcomed a third title, Stories from Girls and Women of Mogadishu with personal stories of women and girls from various sectors of society in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Using her film and voice-over acting background, Jessica has delivered powerful speeches and panels discussions at United Nations official sessions, U.S. national chapters, universities, and conferences. In 2016, she and a panel of women from 50 Women, Book One addressed the incoming Trump Administration at the Commonwealth Club of California one week after the U.S. presidential election.

As Medill Editorial Scholarship recipient, she received a Master of Science in Journalism/ Media Innovation from Northwestern University. She studied the application of agile innovation methods to media companies and technologically driven cultural shifts in news reporting. Through the program, she joined a NUvention team to co-found MUSE, an activities-based dating application.