Susan Omilian
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Thriver Zone
Susan Omilian is an attorney, author and motivational speaker who has helped women who have been abused reclaim their lives, for the last forty years. In the 1970s, she founded a rape crisis center and in the 1980s, represented battered women in divorce proceedings. She has also litigated sex discrimination cases including ones that articulated the legal concept making sexual harassment illegal under Title VII in the 1990s. When her nineteen-year-old niece Maggie was shot and killed in 1999 by her ex-boyfriend, Ms. Omilian vowed to help other women move on after abuse as Maggie could not. In 2011, she created My Avenging Angel WorkshopsTM based on the idea that “living well is the best revenge” that have helped hundreds of women take the journey from victim to survivor to thriver. Her non-fiction “Thriver Zone Series” trilogy of books contain the seven-step motivational model that she has successfully used with women who have experienced domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse and includes easy-to-use worksheets, interactive exercises and thriver success stories. The story in her fictional the “Best Revenge Series” books was inspired by the tragic death of her niece, Maggie. Ms. Omilian has also published books on sex discrimination law and her articles have appeared in newspapers and journals including “The Voice: The Journal of the Battered Women’s Movement of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV).” For fifteen years, she also facilitated psycho-educational groups with male domestic violence offenders. She regularly presents her work about hope and healing to diverse audiences including survivors, victim advocates, trauma therapists, male and female inmates and Indian tribes. She is a member of the Board of the National Partnership to End Interpersonal Violence Across the Life Span and has been Co-Chair since 2014 of the State of Connecticut Advisory Council to the Office of Victim Services (OVS). Ms. Omilian holds a law degree from Wayne State University in Detroit and a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from the University of Michigan.