#ECW 2025

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Tedros Mengiste leads the strategy and execution of all sales, after-sales, marketing, and growth strategies for Genesis in the United States and Canada. 

Mengiste joined Genesis Motor America in March 2020 as executive director of sales operations and was later promoted to vice president, sales operations in 2022. Under his leadership, Genesis sales have grown exponentially in the United States along with significant growth among the brand’s standalone retail facility network. 

Mengiste has 30 years of extensive automotive industry experience and prior to joining Genesis served as regional vice president of Infiniti and held various executive positions at Nissan Motor America and Ford Motor Company. Mengiste’s automotive background includes expertise in national and regional sales strategy, field operations, market representation, and product and consumer marketing. 

Mengiste holds an MBA from the University of Michigan and a bachelor of science in business marketing from Indiana University. 

About Genesis 

Genesis is a new global automotive brand that delivers the highest standards of design, safety, refined performance, and innovation while looking towards a more sustainable future. Drawing from its cultural heritage and distinctly Korean hospitality, Genesis crafts experiences focused on customers as “Son-nim”, or honored guests. 

Genesis Motor North America offers a growing range of award-winning SUV, sedan, and electric models through its network of more than 190 independent U.S. retailers, in addition to its more than 30 Canadian agency distributors. Genesis now counts more than 100 standalone retail facilities across the North American region, with dozens more in development. Consumers can discover the brand through its many retail points, at Genesis House, the brand’s flagship space in New York City, or online. 

Saba Abashawl recently retired after nearly 27 years with the City of Houston, where she served under five mayors as Chief External Affairs Officer and Deputy Director for Houston Airports. Throughout her career, she served as the City of Houston’s senior executive for international relations, strategic partnerships, and global business development, building partnerships with governments, businesses, and organizations worldwide to strengthen Houston’s global connectivity, economic growth, and international profile.

Saba is also the Founder and President of ABSAMglobal LLC, an international consulting firm specializing in strategic partnerships, international relations, business development, and stakeholder engagement. Born and raised in Ethiopia and a longtime Houston resident, she is recognized for connecting people, ideas, and opportunities across cultures and sectors. Saba is passionate about mentoring emerging leaders and helping organizations build meaningful relationships that create lasting economic and community impact. 

Sosena Solomon is an award-winning Ethiopian-American social documentary filmmaker and multimedia visual artist whose work explores culture, identity, and communities in transition through immersive, cinematic storytelling. Her recent work includes the African Landmark Series, a permanent film installation for The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Arts of Africa galleries, as well as Dreaming of Jerusalem and MERKATO. Her films have screened at Sundance, Tribeca, DOC NYC, Cinema Africa, and internationally at museums and festivals, and her work has been featured in The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Art Newspaper, Hyperallergic, Forbes Africa, and Artnet News.

Solomon is the recipient of the 2025 Pew Fellowship from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and is a National Geographic Expedition Explorer and Filmmaker. She serves on the 2026 Forbes Africa 30 Under 30 Selection Committee for Film & Storytelling and is a lecturer in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Ruhama Wolle is an author, editor, and brand strategist whose work sits at the
intersection of editorial, culture, and commercial storytelling. She is Vice President of Brand Partnerships, Strategy & Culture at the New York Post, where she helps shape how brands enter moments with purpose, taste, and a clear point of view.

Most recently, Wolle worked in Style Partnerships at The Cut, developing creative collaborations across fashion, beauty, entertainment, talent, social video, and branded content. Before that, she was Special Projects Editor at Glamour, where she helped lead marquee franchises including Women of the Year and College Women of the Year, and contributed to ASME-recognized work on paid leave and maternal health.

She is the author of I Hope You Elope, a sharp critique of modern wedding culture and friendship and is the creator of Meskel Flower, a visual project honoring Ethiopian womanhood, beauty, and cultural inheritance.

• Author of They Talk When They Feel Safe: A Conversational Guide for Habesha Parents of Preteens and Teens
• Speaker and parenting educator specializing in parenting, emotional wellness, trauma, and family relationships.

Mulualem Adgeh is a distinguished attorney with over ten years of legal experience nationally and internationally. His extensive background spans legal counseling, negotiation, trial experience, and advisory roles across various sectors and jurisdictions, including international trade law, immigration law, and corporate law. Mulualem holds a JD and an LL.M. from the University of St. Thomas School of Law and a Postgraduate Diploma in International Relations and Foreign Affairs from Ethiopia.

He is an active member of the Minnesota State Bar Association and is licensed in the State of Minnesota and the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. His practice of immigration is in all 50 states.

Merry Nebiyu is the Director of Community at Glimpse—an Andreessen Horowitz-backed AI tech company automating the back office of consumer goods brands —where she has built one of the most active community-led marketing programs in the consumer goods industry. Before Glimpse, she led social media and creative work at Januarie 1st Inc, a creative production studio, with earlier digital roles at NBCUniversal, Michelle Obama’s Civic Nation, and the House Judiciary Committee. A Boston University graduate with a degree in political science, Merry has built her career at the intersection of media and community-led growth — often as the youngest person in the room. She’s based in New York City.

Seble Yigletu is an epidemiologist with a passion for advancing health equity. Her experience spans academia and industry, with expertise in clinical development, clinical trial diversity, and public health. She is currently an Associate Clinical Operations Manager at Merck, where she contributes to the operational and regulatory execution of late-stage clinical trials across a range of therapeutic areas. In addition, she serves on Merck’s U.S. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Steering Committee, where she helps drive initiatives that foster equity, inclusion, and belonging across the organization. Seble earned a Master of Science in Epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Arts in Community Health from Tufts University. Her academic research focused on reproductive, perinatal, and pediatric epidemiology in Ethiopia, with an emphasis on culturally responsive research approaches.

Eden Getahun is a first-generation Ethiopian American poet, writer, and collage artist from Sacramento, California. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard University’s Class of 2025, where she studied Social Studies with a secondary in Global Health and Health Policy, focusing on Racial Justice, Healing, and Social Change. Her work explores how art can be used as a tool to help people imagine the future and heal from race-related trauma by creating community with one another. 

Eden currently works at Kinfolk Tech, a nonprofit that uses immersive technology, public art, and community-centered design to preserve histories that have often been overlooked or erased, especially in Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. Through augmented reality monuments, cultural archives, and digital tools, Kinfolk is building a new commemorative model where communities shape what is remembered and public space becomes a canvas for truth, imagination, and belonging.