The Most Empowering Female Leader In Social Change To Watch Out In 2025

July 2025

ISSUE Power With Purpose: Women Reimagining Global Leadership in 2025

She Leads the Change: Women Pioneering Social Impact in 2025

Executive Director Act for Change

The Most Empowering Female Leader In Social Change To Watch Out In 2025

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Santiago’s Scenic Escape: Chile’s Capital and Its Andean Backdrop

Lea Misan

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LEA MISAN Executive Director | Act for Change

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BLOG Power With Purpose: Women Reimagining Global Leadership in 2025

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TRAVEL ESCAPE Santiago’s Scenic Escape: Chile’s Capital and Its Andean Backdrop

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SEO ARTICLE She Leads the Change: Women Pioneering Social Impact in 2025

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Cover Story

Lea Misan UNCOVER YOUR TRUE YOU BY TAPPING INTO YOUR INNER SYSTEM

Executive Director Act for Change We live in a world that often rushes to “fix” things we don't fully understand. Even in an era that champions freedom of speech, many still struggle to open up about their inner battles. In pursuit of higher education or better opportunities, countless individuals embrace an expat life only to find that unfamiliar environments can quietly erode their mental and emotional well-being.

Isolation becomes a silent companion. Communication falters, even within our closest relationships. Conversations that should come comfortably, especially with family, feel daunting. This is where systemic psychotherapy steps in. It offers a path toward clearer communication, stronger self-awareness, and deeper emotional connection.

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Awakening to Success Amidst the three cultures, Swiss, Moroccan, and Brazilian, Lea got an insight from a very young age. There's no single narrative to a given situation. She developed a steady ear and sought out the humanity behind every story. She integrates this perspective into her therapy sessions as she believes cultural context immensely shapes how trauma is experienced and how healing unfolds. This insight has made her approach people with humility, empathy, and curiosity, which are the pillars of therapy and leadership.

For Lea, the transformation was no sudden occurrence. It was deeply rooted in her motherhood and her work with youth who had overcome significant challenges. To ensure young people receive comprehensive support. As she pursued her training in process-oriented psychotherapy, she gained an understanding of the power of presence, empathy, and emotional transformation.

Breaking the Chain Lea noticed that the vicious cycle of marginalization, violence, and intergenerational trauma haunts the lives of many young people. The support systems lacked a systemic and trauma-informed approach. Realizing this compelled her to take the plunge to establish the charity 'Act for Change' that not just “fixed” individuals but adopts a holistic approach with the systems around them to nurture positive outcomes.

Act for Change extends a helping hand to individuals facing issues like trauma, conflict, and abuse by adopting this comprehensive approach: crisis intervention, counseling, mentoring, family therapy, and systemic wraparound care. Its DATIS EF (Developmental Awareness, Trauma-Informed Systemic) methodology was developed out of the practice of many years. To voice for the youth, getting support from all possible angles, the charity organization partners with schools, youth justice services, and local authorities. The aim is to shift the focus of responsibility from young people being defined as 'the problem' to addressing the issues they experience, but which belong to a whole system.

Since its founding, Act for Change has supported some 7,000 young people and families, with 74% showing measurable improvement in school attendance, reduced self-harm incidents, and family relationships. The organization has delivered professional training to educators and social workers across multiple sectors, with active partnerships with housing associations, churches, and other charities in the sector, as well as integration into Family Hub networks.

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Evolutionary Juncture

Leading Through Hurdles

Lea emphasizes people's longing to feel seen, safe, and empowered. She shared an inspirational quick story. A teenage girl, isolating herself and self-harming, voiced her story in front of her whole class, not to be ashamed but empowered.

The team at Act for Change has steered through funding constraints, staff shortages, and the demands of expansion. Still, the most challenging part remains holding space for deep emotional work while also running an organization. It takes stamina, humility, and support. Lea finds support for herself through supervision, bodywork, and peer connection. She allows herself to rest.

She states that Leadership in this field means modeling vulnerability as strength and fostering a culture of care, both for clients and within the team.

Lea adds,” It's not about pathologising the person — it's about transforming the environment.”

Systemic psychotherapy unites the invisible threads of people, families, and institutions. In this work setting, Lea aims to swap the preconceived notion that has been causing harm for generations. It eradicates structural inequalities, institutional abuse, and intergenerational trauma.

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Human Framework The DATIS model that Lea developed blends trauma theory, developmental psychology, and systemic therapy. It equips professionals across education, healthcare, and justice sectors to understand behavior in the context of people's life experiences, not just in isolation.

At its heart is empathy, not as a soft skill, but as a practical, strategic tool.

The model encourages leaders to focus on both individuals and the systems they live in, creating lasting change through connection and responsibility.

It's all in the Mind In process-oriented psychology, our body's posture, breathing patterns, and tone of voice reveal deep emotional truths. Lea's clients learn to attune to their body's signals, allowing them to access fragmented or disconnected memories. Through somatic awareness, they uncover information that the mind alone cannot articulate.

By attaining body awareness, clients can access information that the mind alone cannot articulate. She integrates somatic tracking, movement, and mindfulness-based techniques to help clients deepen their connection to inner experience and embodied selfhood. The aim is not to fix the individual but to synchronize the body and mind by nurturing curiosity and compassion.

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Healing Continuum For those who cannot work with her directly, her writing serves as a companion, offering access to her approach through language, metaphor, and embodied insight. Her upcoming book 'The Tribe Within' is a mirror, a map, and an extension of her therapy room. This book revolves around people being trapped in trauma responses and how they shape their bodies, relationships, and communities around them. Through her writing, she desires to change the question “What's wrong with you” to “What happened to you, and what strength have you shown to be here today?”. She wants to decipher trauma and invite readers into a compassionate, empowered relationship with themselves.

Her upcoming projects include The Tribe Within, set to launch in September 2025, alongside a suite of self-help tools grounded in her DATIS EF Methodology. Her team is also developing a digital training platform and the Act For Change Network, a collaborative space for practitioners and communities to deepen their trauma-informed skills and grow together in the work of relational repair.

Panel Discussions Lea thinks of branding not as self-promotion, but as an act of integrity and message clarity. For her, it is a tool for building trust, reaching wide audiences, and ensuring collective action.

She prefers direct dialogue through speaking engagements and in-person encounters over social media and welcomes any opportunity to convene meaningful conversations about trauma, empathy, and systemic change.

Throughout all aspects of her work and writing, Lea desires to spread the message that empathy isn't a luxury but a necessity.

Together, people can build systems where every child grows up feeling safe, seen, and empowered.

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