On Collaboration: Future Forward and The Climate Pledge with Hilary Sparrow and Senain Kheshgi

01/31/23 • 19 min

Character Development with Suzanne Nugent

“When I came on The Climate Pledge team, I started to learn about all the many incredible efforts of innovation and technology and all of the incredibly smart people across the globe working to solve these [climate change] problems... this story is not being told. I wanted to tell stories of innovation and hope and inspiration.”
-Hilary Sparrow
Today, we’re talking about Future Forward, a character-driven documentary series featuring the people and businesses pioneering industry innovation on the front lines of climate change. The series is a collaboration between award-winning documentary filmmakers from Majority and The Climate Pledge, co-founded by Amazon and Global Optimism.

The Climate pledge currently has 375+ signatories from diverse business sectors including transport, aviation, energy, real estate and software, all committed to be carbon net-zero by 2040.
Our guests, Hilary Sparrow and Senain Kheshgi, are two of the women behind the six-film series, Future Forward. In our conversation, we explore collaboration as the solution to the climate crisis and visual storytelling as a way to share innovation and inspire hope.
About Our Guests:

Senain Kheshgi is an award-winning, South Asian-American, Muslim filmmaker. She has directed several feature and short films. In 2018, she co-founded, MAJORITY, the auteur-driven production company that supports diverse women-identifying filmmakers to create innovative documentary, fiction, commercial and branded projects.

Learn More | www.majorityfilm.com
Instagram: @wearemajority
Linkedin | @majorityfilm
Twitter | @MAJORITYFilm
Hilary Sparrow is the Head of Communications and Content for The Climate Pledge at Amazon where she leads the content and digital strategy designed to inspire other companies to set net-zero climate goals and join The Climate Pledge community. Sparrow’s projects have won numerous awards and nominations including an Oscar nomination, two News and Documentary Emmy’s, Telly’s, and Webby’s, among others.
Learn more about The Future Forward Film Series
Instagram | @theclimatepledge
Twitter | @climatepledge
LinkedIn |

About the Host:
Suzanne Nugent is the bestselling author of Brunch and Other Obligations and an award-winning screenwriter of heartbreaking comedies and funny dramas.
Learn more | suzannenugent.com
Instagram | @suzannenugent
Medium | @suzannenugent
Contact | [email protected]
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Theme Music | Seaside Samba by King Flamingo
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The Decision to Be Prolific with Camille Pagán

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Suzanne talks to bestselling author and master certified coach Camille Pagán about the importance of mindset as a career author.
"I realized it was this beautiful marriage of two things... coaching helps me think more about who we are as humans, which then lends itself to character development. And then having the conversations with other writers just lights me up and makes me more excited to be a novelist.”
About Our Guest:
Camille Pagán is the #1 Amazon Charts bestselling author of ten books that have sold nearly a million copies and have been translated into 20 languages. She is also a master certified coach and the founder of Even Better Co., which helps aspiring to established authors create even better careers.
Learn more about Camille | camillepagan.com and evenbetter.co
Follow Camille on Instagram | @camillepagan

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Resilience in a Creative Life with Maggie Wheeler

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“Saying 'yes' to something you don't know how to do necessarily, seems to be central to a life of art-making of any kind because, or at least from my perspective, I'm always a beginner.”

Maggie Wheeler talks about her career as an actress and how “saying yes” to new challenges led to her biggest career moments - from her first job with Lorne Michaels, to her big break in film... And how getting fired from a job led to her iconic role as “Janice” on the hit TV series Friends.

About Our Guest:
Maggie Wheeler is best known in the U.S and internationally for her work as an actress in film, television and voice-over and most notably as the character of Janice on NBC’s hit series Friends.
Maggie is a passionate singer, songwriter, choir director and workshop facilitator. She has been teaching her vocal workshop "Singing In The Stream" for over 30 years at retreat centers, universities, communities and schools to provide the experience of creating interpersonal harmony and internal harmony through the powerful act of creating vocal harmony.
Maggie directs the 100-voice Golden Bridge Community Choir in Hollywood, an inter-generational, non-auditioned choir now in its 16th year. She is a prolific songwriter with a catalog of powerful and timely songs that have been sung by choirs worldwide. Maggie’s original music for choirs and communities is available on Apple Music and other music platforms. To accompany her CD entitled 'Walk With Me’, Maggie has created a songbook available by request through her website www.goldenbridgechoir.com
Throughout this time of change, Maggie has hosted a weekly online community gathering called Together In Song, bringing together over 4,000 people from around the world to join in the healing power of singing.
To learn more about Maggie’s work, visit: www.goldenbridgechoir.com and maggiewheeler.net