Keynote Speaker
Since February 1, 2025, Mashal Husain has served as President of the World Food Prize Foundation, where she leads the organization’s mission to elevate global food security and agricultural innovations. Her appointment to this role underscores her extensive leadership experience and deep commitment to advancing the Foundation’s legacy. Since joining the Foundation in 2008 as Director of Development and Finance, Mashal has held multiple leadership positions, including Vice President, Senior Vice President and most recently, Chief Operating Officer.
Raised in Pakistan, Tanzania, Thailand, and the Philippines, Mashal brings a truly international perspective to her work. Her upbringing in diverse cultures and regions of the world instilled in her a deep appreciation for global interconnectedness and the importance of diplomacy in addressing shared challenges. As a global citizen, she developed a unique ability to navigate cultural differences, foster collaboration across borders, and build bridges between communities. This foundation of international experience and understanding has profoundly shaped her leadership style and her commitment to creating equitable solutions for pressing global issues.
After moving to Des Moines in 1999, Mashal held leadership roles at Iowa Health System and Principal Financial Group. She is deeply engaged in the Des Moines community, having served on the boards of United Way of Central Iowa and Habitat for Humanity, and contributing to initiatives like Go Red for Women and Women’s Build. A recipient of honors such as the “Forty Under 40” and “Women of Influence” awards, Mashal’s career reflects her dedication to driving meaningful change on both local and global scales.
Mashal earned her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master’s in Healthcare Administration from Cornell University, where she received the Sloan Faculty Award for outstanding achievement. She later completed a post-graduate Fellowship in Hospital Administration at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Mashal and her husband, Fawad, have two grown sons.
Capstone Speaker
Beth M. Howard – Director/Producer/Writer
BETH M. HOWARD is the author of four books, including Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Pie; the cookbook, Ms. American Pie; and her latest release, World Piece: A Pie Baker’s Global Quest for Peace, Love, and Understanding. She has written for The New York Times, Real Simple, and Country Living, among many other publications. She has given a TEDx Talk on the healing powers of pie, and is a regular commentator for her local NPR affiliate in Macomb, Illinois. From 2010 to 2014, she lived in the iconic American Gothic House in Eldon, Iowa, where she ran the Pitchfork Pie Stand. In 2015, she embarked on a round-the-world journey teaching pie classes in nine countries to promote world peace. As a widow who understands grief and the importance of building community, Howard responded to the Sandy Hook Shooting in 2012 by organizing 60 volunteers to bake 250 pies for the residents of Newtown, Connecticut. Her story has been featured on CBS This Morning, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, BBC, NPR, the Hallmark Channel, the History Channel, in the Los Angeles Times, Forbes, Reader’s Digest, and more. She divides her time between an Iowa farm and Los Angeles, and continues to write, bake pie, and advocate for a better, kinder world. Her latest project, a documentary film called Pieowa: A Piece of America, was released in 2025. Her website is theworldneedsmorepie.com.
FILMMAKER STATEMENT
Pie can heal the world. I know this because making and sharing pie with others healed me from the grief of losing my husband. As a nationally known pie maker and author of pie memoirs, making a film about pie was a natural next step. I originally pitched my concept as a docuseries, but Hollywood only wanted baking competitions or a celebrity host. If they couldn’t see that there were so many meaningful stories about people making pie for social good, I decided I would make a film myself.
The film’s theme of kindness, generosity, and unity is timelier than ever, especially considering pie is an immigrant. The origins of pie date back to ancient Egypt, demonstrating how we are all connected on this planet. My film showcases the diverse range of pie makers in Iowa, including a Vietnamese woman with an egg roll business, an Australian couple selling meat pies, a beautiful Black woman with a sweet potato pie home bakery, high school girls learning to run a pie shop, and Latino high school students making pies to donate for Thanksgiving.
To reach my goal, I taught myself filmmaking. I watched lots of YouTube videos and picked the brain of every filmmaker I know. I shed a lot of tears (mostly while learning to edit), made a few expensive mistakes, and spent more hours on this than I can count. But the best part? I’ve met so many wonderful people who have restored my faith in humanity. Two years after committing to doing it, I have a feel-good film that I am happy to share as the world needs uplifting inspiration like this more than ever.
