10-15-2023 Women to Watch - Flipbook - Page 32
Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, 2013
Zainab Chaudry, 2016
Joyce J. Scott, 2017
Former mayor of Baltimore
It’s been seven years and three mayors since Stephanie Rawlings-Blake made her exit from Baltimore City
Hall. After founding consulting firm SRB & Associates, Rawlings-Blake has maintained a national profile,
making appearances as a pundit on cable news and
representing rapper Travis Scott in 2021 after a crowd
surge killed fans at a festival. Since November, she
has been crisscrossing the country and the globe on
behalf of the National Basketball Players Association
Foundation, which tapped her to become its executive
director. The philanthropic group coordinates and
promotes charitable work from the league’s athletes.
— Emily Opilo
Spokeswoman and Maryland director,
Council on American-Islamic Relations
Nearly a decade into her fierce advocacy work,
Zainab Chaudry has been busy responding to reports
of faith-based harassment and bias, and training
students and workers about their rights. She’s also
a member of a new Maryland Commission on Hate
Crime Response and Prevention, where she’s representing the Muslim community. This year marks the
eighth annual Muslim Youth Leadership Symposium
under her watch. “Youth empowerment is one of my
passions,” Chaudry said. “I strongly believe it’s our
responsibility to not just work for ourselves but for the
next generation and provide them with the tools and
resources to be the future leaders of our communities.”
— Sam Janesch
Artist and performer
The Baltimore-born, MacArthur Award-winning
artist Joyce J. Scott jokes that she comes “from a very
long line of artists, craftsmen and rascals.” Next spring,
the Baltimore Museum of Art will open a 50-year
retrospective of her career. Scott is known for tackling such painful topics as slavery and lynching with
her trademark humor. She dazzles viewers’ senses
with sparkly beads that reflect ugly realities. “This
exhibit is dedicated to my mother, my grandparents
and the ancestors who shaped me,” she said. “A lot of
people gave up their lives so I can be in the position I
am right now.”
— Mary Carole McCauley
Catina Smith, 2020
Liris Crosse, 2018
Stacy Link, 2022
Founder, Just Call Me Chef
A 2019 photo shoot that brought together 100
Black women in the restaurant industry illustrated
the need for organizations like Catina Smith’s Just
Call Me Chef, which offers networking and visibility
for Black women chefs. In the three years since Smith
was recognized as one of The Baltimore Sun’s Women
to Watch, she’s worked to create even more opportunities in the field. Smith’s Our Time Kitchen, a culinary
incubator centered on women of color, launched in
Old Goucher last year and now hosts more than 30
businesses. Next on the agenda is renovating the top
two floors of the incubator building for even more
space. “People always gotta eat,” Smith said. “Whether
it’s me cooking, or finding other chefs that are capable to do it.”
— Amanda Yeager
Model and actor
Liris Crosse, winner of the modeling portion of
“Project Runway” in 2017, returned to the show this
year. She’s also been hungry for a different kind of
screen time and landed a recurring role on NBC’s
“Law & Order: Organized Crime” starting in 2022.
“Acting is like a muscle; you have to keep it trained and
ready,” said Crosse, who grew up in Randallstown and
now lives in Brooklyn, New York. She was on strike
with SAG-AFTRA this summer, but hinted at trying
her hand at producing in the future. “You don’t have
to do just one thing,” she said. “The possibilities are
endless.”
— Abigail Gruskin
Mayor, Sykesville
Knocking on voters’ doors during her 2021
campaign, Stacy Link would describe her goal of
improving the bridge connecting Sykesville to South
Branch Park and modernizing the park’s warehouse.
Two years later, progress: a $2 million state grant and a
bridge project initiated by the State Highway Administration. Link dreams of ultimately transforming the
warehouse into a performing arts venue, and attributes work accomplished so far to building relationships: “[People] will never walk away from me without
knowing what my vision is ... and why it should be
important.”
— Darcy Costello
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