GlobalPittsburgh's Gail Shrott Among Women Honored For Global Impact by Women & Girls Foundation

Gail Shrott, Director of the International Leaders Program at GlobalPittsburgh, was among a select group of women in Western Pennsylvania honored for making a global impact in the region by the Women & Girls Foundation.

Gail Shrott

"Shrott’s work with GlobalPittsburgh is bringing the world to Pittsburgh to share ideas and build relationships, while helping them see the best of what our region has to offer to the world," the WGF said in making its presentations during a banquet Saturday night at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture in Pittsburgh.

"All of Shrott’s work introduces Pittsburgh residents, businesses, organizations, and other community groups to their counterparts and a world of opportunities for the future. She has also mentored more than a hundred interns, many of whom have gone on to pursue global careers.

"It is not just with knowledge and experience that Shrott’s work is benefiting the Pittsburgh community, the international leaders for whom GlobalPittsburgh developed itineraries infused nearly $250,000 into the regional economy, staying at hotels, eating at local restaurants, and using local transportation services.

"She designs and implements itineraries of professional meetings and cultural activities for distinguished visitors invited each year to the U.S. under the auspices of the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program and sponsored by other institutions. In the past year and a half, she has developed programming for visitors from one hundred countries, on topics such as STEM education, energy, higher education, entrepreneurship, and sustainability, among many other issues.

"Shrott began her career as a museum curator/director. Two years after her arrival in Pittsburgh, she met the Executive Director of what was then the Pittsburgh Council for International Visitors while arranging a session for a seminar for regional museum professionals about the needs of international tourists. When a job was posted at the organization in 1989, Ms. Shrott applied, was hired, and, effectively, changed her life!

"Shrott transferred her research, writing, and volunteer management skills to the benefit of her new career connecting western Pennsylvania’s people and resources to emerging leaders around the world. She has been recognized for her creativity and ability to promote the Pittsburgh region’s experts in a wide variety of fields by the National Council for International Visitors – to which GlobalPittsburgh is affiliated - and by the Office of International Visitors in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.  

"Shrott is currently working on a special initiative with the National Council for International Visitors to prepare training materials to recruit new volunteers of all ages to become involved with GlobalPittsburgh’s counterpart organizations throughout the U.S.

"This past June, Shrott arranged an 8-day training program for a group of five environmentalists from Kazakhstan in which they met with environmental education programs at Chatham and Duquesne Universities, regional non profits such as GASP and TreePittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s  Department of Environmental Protection, an environmental charter school,  and Giant Eagle’s Corporate Fleet Manager, among others. The group’s program also included opportunities to kayak near Point State Park and tour Phipps’ Center for Sustainable Landscapes.  It is her hope that the training program will nurture a linkage between Pittsburgh environmentalists and environmentalists in Aralsk, Kazakstan, working with the decimated ecosystem of the Aral Sea.

"More recent programming enabled Shrott to arrange itineraries for high level visitors from France, Greece, Germany, and China.   The best parts of Shrott’s work is that each request for programing allows her to tap into  new Pittsburgh resources and  cultivate potential linkages to address issues of great importance to other countries."

The other women receiving recognition for their global impact were:
Yinka Aganga-Williams, Acculturation for Justice Access & Peace Outreach (AJAPO)
Robin Alexander, United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE)
Esther Barazzone, Chatham University
Tacy Byham, Development Dimensions International (DDI)
Miriam Cremer, Basic Health International
Simin Yazdgerdi Curtis, American Middle East Institute
Anne Nemer Dhanda, PPG Industries, Inc.
M. Bernardine Dias, TechBridgeWorld
Stephany L. Hartstirn, UPMC Health Plan
Tavia La Follette, ArtUp
Ali McMutrie, Haitian Families First
Prabha Sankaranarayan, Mediators Beyond Borders International
Alberta Sbragia, University of Pittsburgh
Kathy Keim Surma, The Nyadire Connection and Girl Child Network