Business Acumen

SHRM member Scott Oswald is an accomplished trial lawyer who has brought more than 40 trials to verdict, tallying more than $300 million in judgments and settlements. As managing principal at The Employment Law Group, he represents employees and whistleblowers in matters ranging from wrongful termination to corporate fraud. Mr. Oswald serves as chair of the Federal Bar Association's Qui Tam Section, which focuses on whistleblower law. He earned his law degree at Howard University and is a fellow of the elite College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. He has been recognized by Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers, Lawdragon, and more.

Chris Forman is the CEO and Founder of StartDate Labs Inc., the parent company of Appcast and StartWire. As the former Chief Executive Officer of AIRS and Chief Development Officer of The Right Thing, Chris has worked in the recruiting industry for 19 years, developing smart recruiting tools that have helped hire millions of people around the globe. Chris is a nationally recognized expert in recruiting and talent management and has been quoted in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Staffing Industry Review.

Zack pushes the Syndio team to provide customers with the most applicable and advanced network analysis solutions on the market. His more than five years of experience researching, teaching, and applying social network analysis to the marketplace guides the team in building tools, scaling solutions, and creating value for customers and shareholders.

Rick Tiemann started The Executive Group in 1991 and works with companies in the areas of organizational and business development. His expertise is on developing organizational effectiveness through employee selection and development with a targeted focus on sales and leadership. His experience in mergers and acquisitions including turnarounds and employee integration make him a sought after consultant to organizations preparing for or in the midst of implementing change.

With over 40 years of business experience including having owned three businesses, Rick has worked in both national and international arenas and has held positions of Director of Sales and Marketing, VP of Sales, Asian Business Development Manager, and President of a 75 million dollar company in the fire and security industry.

He brings a unique mix of sales and business expertise along with a deep understanding of personality and performance potential to his practice. Over the past 24 years he has interpreted more than 12,000 16PF assessments.

Rick is also an accomplished Executive and Behavioral Coach and uses his insight into behavior to assist CEO’s, Sales and Operations Managers, and business owners in their professional development.

Rona Borre, CEO of Instant Alliance, stands out as one of the leading female entrepreneurs in Chicagoland. Since its founding in 2001, Instant Alliance has become a nationally recognized woman-owned business enterprise, consistently increasing revenue year over year. As a leader in the Chicago community, Rona sits on the board and holds leadership roles with the Economic Club of Chicago, the Young Presidents Organization and The Chicago Network. As a thought leader in the human capital industry Rona has been featured by CNBC, CBS 2 Chicago, USA Today, CNN, and Crain’s Chicago and has been honored as an Influential Woman in Business by The Business Ledger and the National Association of Women Business Owners. Rona was also acknowledged as the Enterprising Woman of the Year by Enterprising Women Magazine, in addition to the number of accolades awarded to her agency. She received her BS in Business from University of Arizona. Rona is passionate about helping companies achieving their goals by pairing them with the absolute best talent.

Tim Sackett, SCP, is the CEO of HRUTech.com, a leading technical recruiting firm. Tim has over 20 years of combined executive HR and talent acquisition experience working for Fortune 500 companies. Tim is a highly sought-after international speaker on leadership, HR &TA Tech, talent acquisition, and HR execution. Tim is currently a Senior Faculty member with the Josh Bersin Academy. He is also an Angel investor and advisor and sits on multiple HR Technology corporate boards.

Tim is the author of the newly released book The Talent Fix, Vol. 2. He also writes daily on his blog, the Tim Sackett Project. Tim is married to a hall-of-fame wife, has three sons, and his dog Tucker. In 2023, he was named a Top Global HR & Recruitment Influencer by HR Executive. He has more Twitter (X) followers than his 3 Gen Z sons and is sponsored on stage by diet Mt. Dew.

Karl Ahlrichs specializes in helping professionals make order from chaos. He is a national speaker, author, and consultant, presenting on the people issues in all industries, and is often quoted in the local and national media. 

Karl’s experience is ideally suited to times of organizational change as he pulls on risk management and organizational development theories to replace “best practices” with “next practices”. He owes much of his communications mastery to working as a writer and editor in daily media, to on-the-job writing experience and to the process of becoming a published author.

He joined Gregory & Appel in 2010 after serving as a founding partner of ExactHire, bringing his HR, operations, diversity & belonging, and learning & development skills with him. Karl’s affinity for design, composition and learning started at a very young age, by taking and examining thousands of boring pictures with the goal of improving his craft. He loves deploying that practice-to-improve approach with all manner of hobbies including writing haiku, mastering cutting-edge technology and learning Spanish.

In 2003, he was named the SHRM Human Resource Professional of the Year for the State of Indiana. He is on the Boards of several organizations, including the Maryland CPA Society.  He has lived in Scotland and Spain and lives to explore new experiences with his wife and family.

Jay is responsible for leading the design and delivery of talent solutions used across the entire ADP enterprise.  Talent solutions are the processes and tools used to identify and close gaps between the organization’s talent supply and demand.  This includes strategic workforce planning, succession planning, talent review, and talent assessments.  During his time at ADP, Jay has also worked with the Global Talent and Learning organization to formalize a Change Leadership and Management center of expertise, revitalize performance management, and deliver global leadership development programs and tools.

Prior to joining ADP, Jay was the Manager of Organizational Effectiveness and Leadership Development at Selective Insurance.  His responsibilities included the talent review and succession planning processes, leadership and management development programs, talent systems, team development, individual development planning, and company-wide organizational development initiatives to intentionally shape the company’s culture.  Jay also led an immersive summer-intern program to develop a pipeline of early career insurance professionals. 

Prior to joining Selective, Jay was an Associate Consultant at the Leadership Research Institute (LRI).  Jay used research and data driven approaches to help his clients address their leadership and organizational development needs.  His areas of expertise included leadership and management development, talent and organizational assessments, cultural integration, and HR systems/processes.  Jay’s consulting work was focused in the Finance, Pharmaceuticals, and Information Technology industries.  

Jay is a member of the Conference Board’s Strategic Workforce Planning Council, th Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM), the Association for Talent Development (ATD).  He earned an M.A. in Industrial/ Organizational Psychology from the University of New Haven and a B.A. in Psychology from Quinnipiac University.  In addition to earning his Senior Human Resources Professional (SPHR) Certification, Jay is a Certified MBTI and DiSC facilitator, and has completed Strategic Workforce Planning Certifications with both Human Capital Institute (HCI) and The Conference Board.

Mr. Steven Rothberg is the Founder of CollegeRecruiter.com, Inc., and serves as its President. Mr. Rothberg focuses his efforts on managing CollegeRecruiter.com's employees, business development, and all strategic decisions. He is also primarily responsible for sales and marketing efforts. While in college, he spent a summer working in London, England designing and building the first management compensation database used by Argos Distributors, which was one of the United Kingdom's largest retailers. In his senior year, he convinced the University to outsource the publication of its campus map to his micro company. He gave the maps to the University for free and earned his revenues from the sale of advertising around the borders. After graduating, he sold the business to two of his friends and moved to Minneapolis. While he served as a judicial law clerk in the fall of 1991. He has become widely recognized as an expert in online marketing, particularly in the fast growing areas of affiliate /revenue share programs; job boards, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and blogging. In fall 2010, he was named by Fast Company's Influence Project as the 43rd most influential person on-line. He has been widely quoted by local, regional, national and international print and on-line media, including the Associated Press, Business Week, Chicago Tribune, CNN.com, Fortune Small Business, Journal of Career Planning & Employment (National Association of Colleges and Employers), Reuters, USA Today, Washington Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. He enrolled at the University of Minnesota School of Law in1988. While in law school, he was selected for and had his article published by the University of Minnesota Law Review. In 1991, he graduated and was admitted to the bar. He graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce (Honors) from the University of Manitoba in 1988.