Tara Abrahams
Deputy Director
Prior to joining the 10×10 team, Tara served as director of the Maverick Capital Foundation, a philanthropy focused on education in New York City. Tara began her career in the nonprofit sector as the founding New York director of Health Leads, an organization that mobilizes undergraduate volunteers to improve the health of low-income children and families. Tara has served as a consultant for The Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit strategy consulting firm, and as a managing director at Acelero Learning, a company that works with Head Start programs to improve early childhood education for low-income children. Tara graduated from Harvard College and completed her MBA at the Harvard Business School. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.
Martha Adams
Senior Producer / Creative Director
Martha Adams is an award-winning storyteller who travels freely between the commercial realm of TV, the independent world of filmmaking and all things “social media.” Whether it’s the war in Iraq or how to design the world’s tallest skyscrapers, audiences can enjoy her films/shows/photographs in more than 188 countries on a variety of networks such as Discovery, National Geographic and Canal Plus.
She is currently the creative director of 10×10, the global action campaign in support of girls education. She is also producing Girl Rising, a feature-length film at the center of the campaign, directed by Oscar nominated director Richard Robbins and executive produced by The Documentary Group’s founder Tom Yellin.
Bonnie Benjamin-Phariss
Vulcan Productions, Executive Producer
Bonnie Benjamin-Phariss oversees Vulcan Productions, partner and co-producer of 10×10. Prior to joining Vulcan, she oversaw operations for the Walt Disney Company’s Disney Institute, and prior to that, oversaw public affairs programming at WNET. Under her management, Vulcan Productions has produced documentaries on evolution, global health, the environment, music, education, mental health and space travel. Programs have won numerous broadcast and journalism awards, including the George Foster Peabody Award, the Emmy Award, the Grammy Award, and the Wildscreen Panda Award.
Didi Bethurum
Director of Marketing and Digital Strategy
Didi Bethurum brings over 10 years of digital marketing and social media strategy experience to 10×10. Prior to joining the team, Didi served as the Director of Customer Success at Involver, and the Director of Marketing for IAC‘s online gaming endeavor. She also held several marketing management positions for the MSN and Windows divisions during her 6-year tenure at Microsoft. She is thrilled to align her digital marketing experience with her belief that increased access to education for girls will ignite positive and powerful global change.
Daniel Dittrick
Digital Project Manager
Daniel arrives at 10×10 after studying and working in the field of Peace and Conflict Resolution. Having originally completed a degree in Classical languages and literature, a passion for travel, philosophy, culture, the environment, and non-violence has led him on a bicycle trip across the US; from master’s research in England and Sri Lanka; to hiking and teaching in Nepal. He’s thrilled to join the team in NYC, to support bringing gender consciousness and education to the forefront of the global mindset.
Holly Gordon
Executive Director & Executive Producer, 10×10
Prior to joining TDG, Holly Gordon was Director of Content for the Tribeca Film Festival, where she managed video collection and production for the 2007 Festival. She was the executive producer of Tribeca Presents: The Best of the Festival, a broadcast highlighting the award-winning films in the 2008 Festival. Before her tenure at the Tribeca Film Festival, Holly spent 12 years at ABC News, where she worked as a producer and booker for the major news broadcasts: World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Good Morning America, 20/20 and Primetime. She was an integral part of ABC’s breaking-news coverage during the weeks following the September 11th attacks. For three years, as Editorial Producer for the ABC News magazine unit, Holly managed the team responsible for identifying and booking national and international stories. Holly graduated from Brown University with a BA in International Relations.
Kayce Jennings
Senior Producer, 10×10 / Executive Vice President, DocGroup
Before co-founding The Documentary Group, Kayce was a producer at ABC News for 20 years, covering international and national news events for virtually every news division broadcast, and was on the staffs of Nightline, World News Tonight and 20/20. She works closely with non-profit organizations including Teach for America and Concern Worldwide, and serves on the boards of Women in Need, and The Peter Jennings Project for Journalists and the Constitution.
Lauren Mitte
Director of Global Engagement
Lauren began her career in film and television as an associate producer and line producer for commercials and independent feature films. She made the transition to nonfiction film and television when she joined The Documentary Group in 2009 and supported the producing team on the Emmy-nominated 20/20 News Special Over a Barrel: The Truth About Oil and was involved in coordinating shoots and booking talent for America in Primetime, a four part series for PBS. Lauren helped to launch 10×10 by supporting the day-to-day vision and strategy implementation, partnership building, and outreach efforts to extend the reach and impact of the campaign. A believer in the power of storytelling and technology to raise awareness, strengthen dialogue and mobilize action for sustainable social change, Lauren is thrilled to be a part of the 10×10 team.
Haley Priebe
Director of Development
A recent graduate from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, Haley joined the 10×10 team upon her return to New York. Her passion for empowering women, education, and international development stems from her studies of Sustainable Development and her work at Pro Mujer, Grameen America, and the Microcredit Summit Campaign. She also co-founded www.MFIConnect.com and helped conceive of the One Dollar a Day documentary (www.onedollaraday.weebly.com).
Justin Reeves
Director of NGO Partnerships
Justin has six years of experience working in South America as an anthropologist, teacher and in development with various non-profit organizations benefitting girls and women. He was awarded an Ambassadorial Scholarship by Rotary International which allowed him to pursue his Master’s degree in journalism and a post-graduate program in documentary screenplay writing in Santiago, Chile at La Universidad Católica de Chile. While in Chile, Justin focused his non-profit work on women and children living with HIV/AIDS and his production work on women marginalized by mental illness. Justin moved to New York City in 2010 where he joined forces with 10×10, confident knowing that empowering and educating girls and women is the key to a more harmonious world. He enjoys educating audiences about the importance of educating girls and has presented at: TEDxUnisinos, Social Media Week NYC, Google Latin American Leadership Conference. Justin is hopeful that his lead will inspire other men and women to invest in girls.
Hilary Sparrow
Vulcan Productions
Hilary Sparrow manages the production, outreach & impact initiatives and evaluation of Vulcan Productions’ film, television and multi-media projects. Her most recent work includes the award-winning six-hour PBS series, This Emotional Life and the web-based toolkit for educators, Success at the Core. Prior to joining Vulcan Productions in 2008, Hilary was Director of Production for a Washington, DC-based independent film company where she oversaw projects for clients including National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, and The Smithsonian Channel.
Jessica Somerhausen
Social Media Strategist
Jessica Somerhausen brings several years of experience in communications and social media strategy, grassroots political advocacy, online organizing, and digital advertising to the 10×10 team. After graduating from the University of Michigan with degrees in Philosophy and Political Science, Jessica went on to raise funds and provide strategic guidance for Democratic campaigns nationwide throughout the 2008 election cycle at ActBlue, managed an Americorps (Public Allies) program based in Miami, and oversaw online communications & digital strategy for Florida New Majority, a statewide advocacy organization for African-American, Latino & Immigrant rights. Most recently, Jessica worked for a digital advertising agency in New York, and is thrilled to use all of her experience to help empower and educate girls around the world at 10×10.
Augusta Thomson
Private and Corporate Screenings Coordinator / Campaign Outreach Coordinator
LAugusta’s passion for documentary filmmaking, social anthropology, and journalism initially led her to 10×10, where she joined the team to help coordinate screenings of Girl Rising in markets and communities around the globe. Augusta will return to Oxford University, in the fall, to finish her degree in Archaeology and Anthropology, after deferring for the year to produce an independent documentary film about an Oxford University and Royal Geographical Society-sponsored research expedition she led across the Tibetan Plateau and around Mount Kailash in July 2012. She can’t wait to bring Girl Rising and the 10×10 campaign back overseas, come fall!
Samantha Wright
Grassroots Campaign Director
Samantha is passionate about the power of storytelling to create global change. A new transplant to New York City, Samantha was recently based in China as Managing Director of TEDxBeijing. Before this, she worked as an analyst with the UN World Food Programme in Laos targeting emergency food assistance. Other projects include crafting narratives for a 12-part history documentary, grassroots human rights advocacy in East Africa, and developing inner-city literacy programmes in Canada. Graduating as a National Millennium Scholar, Samantha holds an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford and is attempting to learn the harmonica.
Tom Yellin
Executive Producer, 10×10 / President, DocGroup
As co-founder and president of The Documentary Group, Tom Yellin has overseen all productions since the company’s inception in 2006. Previously, Tom was president and executive producer of PJ Productions and spent many years as an executive producer at ABC News, where he created the award-winning Peter Jennings Reporting series. His programs have won numerous broadcast and journalism awards, including the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award, the George Foster Peabody Award, the News Emmy Award and the Polk Award.