Nyna Caputi. (Jasmine Sunga/@techandcoffeemedia)

Nyna Caputi wears several hats. She is a filmmaker, startup founder, blogger, advocate and speaker on gender violence, startups, cross-cultural skills, diversity and expat life. Nyna is winner of the ‘Global Influencer 2019’ award from Women Empowerment Awards North America.

She was born in India, has a Masters in Zoology from Pune University and worked in the Biotechnology field with one of India’s largest and women-owned biotech companies, Biocon, before moving to the US. She studied film at the New York Film Academy and has   produced and directed several short, award-winning films including “Desi Confused by America”, which premiered at the Luna Fest in San Francisco in 2007, “Able” which won best film at the Vale Film Festival and received an honorable mention at the Cinema Vita Film Festival and “Gentle Lovers” which screened at the Park City Film Music Festival in 2006.

She is also the producer and director of the award-winning film Petals in the Dust: The Endangered Indian girls focused on gender violence and gendercide in India and North America. The film has won many awards and also has screened globally including at the United Nations Film Festival.

She also highlighted the work of several non-profit organizations in India and USA, including Maitri, Global Girl Power, Bal Ghar Orphanage, Navjyoti India Foundation, and Empower People,  who are working on ending gender discrimination and violence against women and educating and empowering women.

She also founded the Global Walk for India’s Missing Girls in 2010 in San Francisco, an international awareness campaign on the violence and genocide of Indian women that has taken place in over 25 cities and five countries including India, Kuwait, Canada, USA, and Australia.

Nyna is a recipient of Women of the Year 2015, California State Assembly, District 14, Recipient, Woman of Distinction 2015, Soroptimist International of Diablo Vista and MediaMaker Fellow 2014, Bay Area Video Coalition.

She is also the Founder and CEO of The Expat Woman, a startup/social enterprise that helps to inspire, connect and empower immigrant and native-born women across the globe through online and offline events, networking opportunities and valuable resources and content. The Expat Woman Club headquartered in San Francisco was founded in Nov. 2013, currently has over 12,000 members and has hosted over 250 workshops, conferences, hackathons, webinars and networking events. tech, sales and marketing, product and startup and investor panels, career fairs, recruiter panels, female founder pitch events, and women’s leadership summits.

She has been interviewed and featured in the Huffington Post, ABC 7, NPR, Times of India,  The Hindu, Zee News, Sony TV, The Telegraph, India West, India Currents, KALW radio, Women in Film and TV Vancouver, KPFA Women’s Magazine, Radio Zindagi and the Concord Pioneer.

Nyna lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and kids. She enjoys riding her bike around and going on hikes with her kids, creating Indian inspired and abstract art, reading memoirs and watching biopics.