Whether being interviewed by radio, TV, or news media or speaking at an event, rally, university, or conference, Choice USA is available to provide expertise and experience through our speakers bureau.

Choice USA Former Executive Director, Crystal Plati, speaks at a rally in Colorado

The mission of our speakers bureau is to not only provide expert speakers and panelists, but to also assist you in selecting a topic that precisely meets your needs and specific interest areas of your audience. Our speakers and Choice USA staff will work with you to assure a presentation, program, or interview that matches your needs.

Please contact Edith Sargon at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 202-965-7700 to discuss interviews and upcoming engagements. We'll happily help find the right speaker for your event.

Kierra Johnson, Executive Director, Kierra Johnson, Executive Director is a southern girl from the peach tree state of Georgia. With a solid background organizing around reproductive health, racial justice, student’s rights and access to education, Ms. Johnson is a prominent and dynamic leader in developing the growing national reproductive justice and progressive movements. As a recent addition to the Resource Generation Regional Organizing Advisory Committee, she works with young people of financial wealth to effect progressive social change through the creative, responsible and strategic use of financial and other resources. Also a member of the Women’s Health Leadership Network with the Center for American Progress, Ms. Johnson is guiding new and innovative initiatives across the progressive movement to ensure youth leadership and investment in long-term social change in support of reproductive and social justice.

Ms. Johnson’s top priority is developing new leaders and since 1999, she has helped Choice USA transform its image, voice, and mission, from a pro-choice organization with a youth project into a dynamic, youth-led and youth-focused organization. From the diversity of participants in regional and national trainings, to the organization’s strategic collaborations and partnerships, Choice USA has redefined what it means to be youth-driven by developing young leaders and funneling them to positions of leadership across the progressive movement.

Ms. Johnson is a Choice USA success story: her journey with the organization started as a participant in Choice USA’s National Gloria Steinem Leadership Institute in Washington, D.C., in 1999, after which she became Choice USA's 2000 Maxine Waters Reproductive Freedom Fellow. Once immersed in the movement as a Fellow, she knew that this would be her life’s work and joined the staff in 2001 as Choice USA’s Field Director.

Under Ms. Johnson’s leadership as Field Director from 2001 to 2003, Choice USA became more campaign-oriented; strategically targeting winnable issue campaigns in states and regions around the country. Choice USA engaged in unique regional and cross-movement collaborations to foster youth leadership development that will strengthen the pro-choice progressive base in crucial communities in the United States. As Choice USA’s Field Director for more than three years, she served as the co-chair of the Campus Coordinating Committee of the Campaign for Access and Reproductive Equity (CARE2000), a coalition of organizations committed to working on issues of reproductive health and rights access for lower-income women, tackling issues like welfare reform and Medicaid funding for reproductive health services.

Also in 2002, she developed and ran Choice USA’s state-wide student and youth-led campaign in California for emergency contraceptive (EC) access. As a result, the state passed legislation that year to require training for pharmacists to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception over the counter. It was the first state in the nation to embrace this standard long before the FDA made EC over the counter nationwide in late 2006, becoming a model for other campaigns nationwide and demonstrating a shift in youth power and leadership in the state.

Ms. Johnson took on the reins of Choice USA’s Development Department in 2003, becoming its Director from then until mid-2007. In her new role, she focused on building new relationships with foundations, individual donors, and funding sources, attracting new long-term supporters to innovative programs and collaborations of the organization. Under her leadership, Choice USA developed an individual donor program, encouraged innovative peer-to-peer annual house party fundraisers, and started Choice USA’s trademark Generation Awards – an annual event to recognize and give national visibility to amazing young leaders in the reproductive justice movement and raise support to further their leadership development.With her leadership in 2005 – as part of the organization’s planning committee – Choice USA undertook a comprehensive strategic planning process that incorporates forward-thinking and groundbreaking ideas into the future of Choice USA’s reproductive justice work.

Ms. Johnson is the 2002 recipient of the Young Women of Achievement Award from the Women's Information Network (flesh out WIN description) and recently served as a member of the Board of Medical Students for Choice from 2003 to 2006.

Ms. Johnson’s began her career as a student organizer around choice issues at the University of Colorado (CU) in 1999 at the age of 22. Through a pre-collegiate program at CU, she was a teaching assistant and a summer counselor, targeting low-income youth and youth of color. She also served as a Tri-Executive of the school’s student body during the 1997-1998 school year, where she worked for students rights and access to higher education.