Start here
Dina Buchbinder
“What if every young person could see a reflection of themselves in a leader’s story?”
IWF Leadership Fellows · 2024–25 Cohort
Leadership Journeys
Stories of women, leadership and the power of play, told in their own voices.
Drag the blocks · tap to spin
The question behind every story
Who would we be if we had not played?
We learned resilience on playgrounds, discovered our strengths in unexpected moments, and became who we are through a thousand small acts of curiosity, play and courage.
These recordings are a time capsule of the 2024–25 IWF Fellows cohort: what we loved to play, how we imagined the world, and how those early moments still shape the way we lead.
Dina Buchbinder, IWF Fellow 2024–25
47Voices
6Months of recording
1Cohort, 2024–25
The voices · A–Z
Listen to the cohort
Recorded on location, at times in loud environments. Our audio engineer, Daisy Lerner, made each voice as clear as possible. Choose a name to listen.
No fellow matches that name.
What nearly two decades of play have taught
From the project statement by Dina Buchbinder
- Play unlocks our capacity to imagine.
- Stories build bridges across differences.
- Sharing who we are can be the most powerful form of leadership.
IWF Leadership Fellows Program · Legacy Project
How this project began
Leadership Journeys: Sharing to Inspire the Next Generation
The question
What if every young person could see a reflection of themselves in a leader’s story?
For over 18 years, my work has shown how play, our first language of connection, and storytelling, our oldest way of making meaning, can spark growth, empathy and the courage to lead. When the IWF Leadership Fellows Program invited us to design a legacy project, I knew mine would rest on one conviction: stories told with sincerity and vulnerability are transformative.
Why it matters
This collection reflects the extraordinary experiences of women in our cohort and the universal truths we all carry. It invites us to consider how our earliest experiences, what we loved to play and the friendships we made, continue to shape who we are as leaders today.
When young people hear where we began, what we loved to play and what we dared to dream, they will recognize a part of themselves and feel invited to step into their own potential.
An invitation
My hope is that these stories will serve as a gentle guide for those just beginning their own leadership journeys. Whether heard around a kitchen table, in a classroom or quietly on a phone, may they spark curiosity, conversation and courage in the next generation.