Running Toward Equity: Allyson Felix and the Fight for Maternal Health

Join us for a powerful conversation with Allyson Felix—icon, entrepreneur, and maternal health advocate—whose personal journey from Olympic champion to changemaker has sparked a national reckoning around how mothers are treated in sports, business, and healthcare.

This moderated discussion, presented in partnership with Bentonville Film Festival and Ingeborg Initiatives, will explore urgent issues in maternal healthcare, from rising maternal mortality rates to the critical role of midwives and the need for equitable, woman-centered care models. The conversation will center on the intersection of healthcare, policy, and storytelling as drivers for change.

Tickets are $15 ($10 for members, free for students), reserve your spot online or with Guest Experience at (479) 657-2335 today.

Geena Davis

Two-time Academy Award winner Geena Davis is one of Hollywood’s most respected actors, appearing in several roles that became cultural landmarks.

Davis received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the offbeat dog trainer Muriel Pritchett in Lawrence Kasdan’s “The Accidental Tourist.” She was again nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe for her performance in Ridley Scott’s “Thelma & Louise,” in which she co-starred with Susan Sarandon. Davis went on to receive a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress for her portrayal of baseball phenomenon ‘Dottie Hinson’ in “A League of Their Own.”

Earning the 2006 Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series—Drama, Davis broke ground in her portrayal of the first female President of the United States in ABC’s hit show “Commander in Chief.”

She recently received her second Oscar as the recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Board of Governors of the Motion Picture Academy.

Davis made her feature film debut opposite Dustin Hoffman in “Tootsie.” She went on to star in such films as “The Fly,” “Beetlejuice,” “Angie,” “The Long Kiss Goodnight,” and “Stuart Little.”

Davis is the Founder and Chair of the non-profit Geena Davis Institute, which works to reinvent, transform and inspire how global content creators and media tell stories through authentic portrayals of the population in entertainment. The Institute received the Television Academy’s Board of Governors Award in 2022.

Geena is an Executive Producer of the Gracie Award winning feature film “This Changes Everything” as well as the Emmy nominated, People’s Choice and Gracie Award winning television show “Mission Unstoppable” on CBS.

Davis is the Chair of the Bentonville Film Festival, launched in 2015 to champion underrepresented voices in film and other forms of media. BFF’s goal is for the population in front of and behind the camera to reflect the diverse—and half female—world we live in.

Davis is also the author of the best-selling memoir Dying of Politeness, and the new picture book The Girl Who Was Too Big for the Page. She holds honorary degrees from Boston University, Bates College and New England College.

Sharronda Williams

Sharronda Williams is an established film and television critic known for shaping conversations around entertainment and culture. She is the founder of Pay or Wait, a trusted platform for film and TV coverage, and shares her expertise with television audiences through her news segment Peach Picks on Atlanta News First, where she spotlights must-see releases and cultural moments. Sharronda also serves as the film and TV columnist for Blavity, covering industry trends and elevating underrepresented voices. A Rotten Tomatoes–approved critic and member of the Critics Choice Association and the African American Film Critics Association, she is recognized for her sharp commentary, on-camera presence, and commitment to inclusive storytelling in Hollywood.

Allyson Felix

Allyson Felix is the most decorated American Track & Field Olympian of all time, with 31 global medals and a reputation as one of sport’s most transformative figures. Since retiring from competition in 2022, she has emerged as a leading advocate for gender equity and maternal rights in athletics.

Felix is the co-founder of Saysh, a lifestyle and footwear brand built for and by women, and Always Alpha, the first sports management agency focused exclusively on women’s sports. In 2024, she launched the Olympic Village nursery at the Paris Games in partnership with Pampers, setting a new precedent for supporting athlete-parents. In 2025, she was inducted into the US Olympic & Paralympic Hall of Fame and elected to the IOC Athletes’ Commission.

Felix’s upcoming documentary, She Runs the World, will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. Her memoir, Fast and Slow, is currently in development with Dial Press.

Felix made history at the Tokyo Olympics by racing in spikes created by her own company—making her the first Track & Field athlete to do so. Saysh raised $8M in a women-led Series A and continues to champion inclusivity and innovation in women’s footwear.

Felix lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.

Cara Osborne

Cara Osborne MSN, CNM, ScD is a nurse midwife who holds a Masters in Nursing from Vanderbilt, and a Masters and Doctorate in Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health. She spent her early career as a clinician, nursing professor and perinatal epidemiology researcher. Cara owned and operated her own health services business, and in 2013, she sold her business to the partners fund at Fortress Investment Group. She has spent the past three years as a professor of practice in Entrepreneurship at the University of Arkansas Sam M Walton College of Business, starting businesses and advising start-ups. She is a technical advisor to Diana Health, a venture backed comprehensive maternity care solution based in New York, founder of Blaize and Brooks Bourbon, Managing Partner at Native Spirit Holdings and a maternal health subject matter expert for Ingeborg Initiatives.

Tammy Sun

Tammy Sun is the Founder and CEO of Carrot Fertility, the leading global fertility, family-building, and lifelong hormonal healthcare platform providing care for everyone, everywhere. More than a thousand of the world’s top multinational companies, health plans, and health systems trust Carrot to deliver exceptional experiences and superior clinical outcomes to millions of members. Prior to Carrot, Tammy was a presidential appointee in President Obama’s administration at the Federal Communications Commission and held various roles at The White House, national and local campaigns, as well as forward-thinking public policy think tanks. Tammy also managed growth partnerships at Evernote. She graduated from NYU and attended the London School of Economics.

Tammy has been nationally recognized as a pioneering healthcare and business leader. She was most recently honored as one of Modern Healthcare’s 2024 Innovators, Fierce Healthcare’s 2023 Women of Influence, a 2023 Woman Award for Corporate Leadership recipient presented by Engage, and named one of Entrepreneur Magazine’s 100 Women of Influence in 2022. She has been featured in national and international media on issues related to the future of work and universal access to fertility healthcare, including MSNBC, Bloomberg, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, National Public Radio, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, BBC, The Economist, and more. Tammy is a frequent speaker at key healthcare conferences, including Aspen Ideas: Health, Oliver Wyman, HLTH, Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Next Gen, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, and the British Fertility Society.

Under Tammy’s leadership, Carrot has established its position as the largest and most comprehensive global platform for fertility care and has received numerous awards, including the Digital Health Award for Best-in-Class Women’s Health, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies and Best Workplaces for Innovators, and Fortune’s Best Workplaces in Healthcare. The company is fully distributed, with teams in more than 40 states across the United States and dozens of countries around the world. Tammy lives in Bentonville, AR, with her partner and their beloved dogs.

BFFoundation is a non-profit organization focused on promoting underrepresented voices of diverse storytellers. The core mission is to champion female, non-binary, LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, API, and persons with disabilities’ voices in entertainment and media, through research, education, and supporting the production and distribution of inclusive content.

The foundation believes that by taking real action with content creators, talent, influencers, advertisers, and content distributors, we can accurately reflect the gender balance and diversity of our country. Our goal is to create a seismic change in how media inspires young minds to do great things.

Along with the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, the foundation also partners with schools and community institutions to educate the challenging effects of stereotyping, unconscious bias, and representation imbalance of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and persons with disabilities. We also utilize media-based tools and content to build positive association and equality-based learning models.

BFFoundation is focused on working with its partners to foster inclusivity in media and entertainment to produce a positive influence in the community at large.

For more information, visit bentonvillefilm.org.