Communication

Jennifer McClure is an entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and high-performance coach who works with leaders to leverage their influence, increase their impact, and accelerate results.

Frequently recognized as a global influencer and expert on the future of work, strategic leadership and innovative people strategies, Jennifer has decades of in-the-trenches leadership and executive experience working in and with startups, privately held companies, and Fortune 500 organizations in a variety of industries.

As a top-rated keynote speaker, Jennifer has shared her insights with thousands of leaders at conferences and corporate events around the world. Clients include Procter & Gamble, General Electric, IBM, SAP, Bloomberg, Charles Schwab, Stryker, LinkedIn, Notre Dame University, Society for Human Resource Management, Association for Legal Administrators, and Association for Talent Development.

In her informative and entertaining keynote programs and workshops, she shares a blend of research, best practices, case studies and storytelling which leaves audience members inspired and motivated to take action when they return to work.

Jennifer is also the Chief Excitement Officer of DisruptHR, a global community designed to move the collective thinking forward when it comes to talent in the workplace, and she hosts a weekly podcast – Impact Makers with Jennifer McClure – sharing conversations with practitioners, entrepreneurs, authors and speakers who are changing the world while building careers that they love, and lives that matter.

Doug Stevenson is the creator of The Story Theater Method for strategic storytelling in business. He is the author of the book Doug Stevenson’s Story Theater Method, The 21-Step How to Write and Deliver a Dynamite Speech System, and The Next Level Storytelling Video eLearning Series. Doug is a former actor, now professional keynote speaker, trainer and speaker’s coach. His clients span many industries and associations, including the American Medical Assn., the National Assn. of Realtors, Microsoft, Cisco, Amgen, Bayer, Caterpillar, Coca Cola, ConAgra Foods, Oracle, Aetna Insurance, Wells Fargo, US Bank, Eli Lilly and many others. Doug has presented storytelling in business keynotes and workshops in the U.S., Canada, and 15 other countries in South America, Europe and Asia. 

Doug has blended his acting experience with his experience on the keynote platform to bring a unique perspective to speaking and storytelling. He helps presenters of all kinds use strategically chosen and crafted stories to make their content more entertaining, persuasive and memorable. Doug believes that “emotion is the fast lane to the brain” and stories, when told with authentic emotion and imagery, are the best way to create an emotional connection with any audience. People remember your stories!  Join him to learn how to Story Your Message for Communication Success!

Ann was hired by Cirque du Soleil in November of 2001 as an Administrative Assistant for the Marketing Department through a temporary placement agency.  Within 30 days, she was hired as a permanent employee.
 
Throughout her tenure at Cirque, she has held a variety of roles including Marketing & PR Coordinator, PR Coordinator, Assistant PR Manager and Senior Publicist managing the day-to-day operations of the PR team.  Ann was promoted to Director of Public Relations in March 2015.  She currently oversees a team of four publicists and acts as Publicist for the production of Zarkana.

Prior to joining Cirque, Ann worked as a manager for a theatrical merchandising company in New York City as well as part time in an off-Broadway theater box office.

A Minnesota native, Ann has a BA in International Business from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.

With a background in journalism and media studies from Rutgers University, Jamie Helmick has been working in media for more than ten years, with experience that spans both editorial and marketing.

Following graduation, Helmick joined the staff of the Home News, the community journalism arm of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Las Vegas Sun, where she covered several beats, including the state legislature, and won a Nevada Press Association Award for investigative reporting.

Looking for a new challenge, Helmick transitioned to marketing and copywriting with a position at VEGAS.com as a content developer for the entertainment and nightlife sections. While in that position, Helmick found an opportunity to pilot VEGAS.com’s social media presence, setting up the company across multiple platforms and turning the program in a customer service tool and revenue generator.

From there, Helmick parlayed these skills to become Cirque du Soleil’s first-ever social media and interactive marketing coordinator, joining a department that was less than two years old and helping to secure Cirque’s place among some of the biggest players in entertainment in the digital space.

Following a run as Cirque’s community manager, Helmick now oversees all digital marketing efforts for the Las Vegas and Orlando shows as digital media manager.

Terry began his gymnastics training at the age of seven in England, and went on to earn a scholarship for training in Moscow, Russia.

Later, he received a gymnastics scholarship from Pennsylvania State University, where he earned All-America honors six times, and went on to obtain a BS in Physical Education and Business. Bartlett still had time to perform his duties as captain of both the PSU team and the Great Britain Men's team.

Over the years he participated in five world championships as well as three Olympic Games: Los Angeles in 1984, Seoul in 1988 and Barcelona in 1992.  He served as Great Britain's team captain on his final trip. The younger gymnast pushed for a second showing at the '96 games but a broken leg ended his dreams -- he thought for good.

Having established a contact with Cirque du Soleil, the three-time Olympian showed up to his Los Angeles audition wearing a pair of baggy shorts and tennis shoes. He didn't realize the other hopefuls had arrived and warmed up hours before. After the standard gymnastic tests, the director asked auditionees to be stupid, adventurous, funny and jumpy. "It took me about five minutes to say, 'Oh, I can do this.'  I always say that gymnastics for me was really a vehicle to join Cirque du Soleil," Terry said.

Denise Pirrotti Hummel, J.D., is a Human Capital Principal at EY, where she leads national culture integration and optimization across the globe. She is the former CEO and Founder of Universal Consensus, LLC, a culture transformation firm. Her team helps clients improve global business results and build lasting performance by enhancing corporate, national, gender and generational culture, key components of enterprise financial success. In addition to serving clients, she leads a team of 40 engineers, computer scientists, curriculum specialists and researchers that operationalize EY’s global culture tools used for H.R. transformation and M&A culture integration. Hummel is a member of the prestigious U.S. State Department Worldwide Speaker and Specialist Program and a speaker on culture and change management at SHRM 2013 and SHRM 2014. She has consulted for a myriad of Fortune 100 companies in every sector, as well as the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon. Prior to founding Universal Consensus, Hummel was an attorney practicing commercial and employment law, and D&I internationally. That experience has enabled her to effectively link a client’s HR and cultural considerations with the overall enterprise risk management impacts. Denise was recognized by the American Bar Association as one of the top twenty young attorneys in the United States in 1992. She is a published author and speaks multiple languages.

Conrad is an accomplished and passionate Senior Talent Acquisition strategist and thought leader who possesses over fifteen years of results focused experience in the recruiting arena. He has a demonstrated history of directing, designing and implementing enterprise wide employment branding, recruitment and staffing initiatives for large organizations. Conrad has deep experience collaborating with various levels of corporate and operations lines of businesses to meet hiring objectives. He is adept at executing strategic and operational workforce planning analysis to identify skill gaps and future talent needs. Conrad is a recognized leader in the Talent Acquisition community who has served in leadership roles on boards, professional associations, industry benchmarking groups and task forces.

Follow Conrad on Twitter @ConradSamuels.

Jennifer McClure is an entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and high-performance coach who works with leaders to leverage their influence, increase their impact, and accelerate results.

Frequently recognized as a global influencer and expert on the future of work, strategic leadership and innovative people strategies, Jennifer has decades of in-the-trenches leadership and executive experience working in and with startups, privately held companies, and Fortune 500 organizations in a variety of industries.

As a top-rated keynote speaker, Jennifer has shared her insights with thousands of leaders at conferences and corporate events around the world. Clients include Procter & Gamble, General Electric, IBM, SAP, Bloomberg, Charles Schwab, Stryker, LinkedIn, Notre Dame University, Society for Human Resource Management, Association for Legal Administrators, and Association for Talent Development.

In her informative and entertaining keynote programs and workshops, she shares a blend of research, best practices, case studies and storytelling which leaves audience members inspired and motivated to take action when they return to work.

Jennifer is also the Chief Excitement Officer of DisruptHR, a global community designed to move the collective thinking forward when it comes to talent in the workplace, and she hosts a weekly podcast – Impact Makers with Jennifer McClure – sharing conversations with practitioners, entrepreneurs, authors and speakers who are changing the world while building careers that they love, and lives that matter.

Dr. Jody Janati teaches in the Communication Studies Department at the University of Minnesota. She has an Ed.D. degree in Organizational Leadership and her primary interest area pertains to interpersonal conflict resolution strategies. As an author and independent consultant, she offers a variety of public and professional workshops on conflict reduction tactics and effective interpersonal communication skills. Follow Jodi on Twitter @jjanati.

Howard A. Wallack has been the Deputy Chief Human Resources & Administrative Officer since 2016 in the Global Human Resources (GHR) department at Jhpiego in Baltimore, MD, an international, non-profit health organization, affiliated with Johns Hopkins University. Jhpiego is dedicated to improving the health of women, children, and families in lower-resourced countries, with approximately 4,200 employees worldwide in 38 countries. At Jhpiego, Howard spearheads the organization’s leadership development program and leads a team of 5 regional HR business partners who support country HR operations, himself currently backstopping Ghana, Guatemala, and Mozambique. During his 40-year career with experience in nearly 90 countries, Howard has had senior-level positions in HR, training and development, global business development, and program management in for-profit and non-profit businesses and the US Peace Corps. In April 2023 Howard was recognized with an OnCon Icon peer-voted award among the “Top 50 HR Professionals” for having made a considerable impact on their organization and/or previous organizations; made strong contributions to their community through thought leadership; innovated in their role/career; and exhibited exceptional leadership. He has advanced degrees in international affairs and international human resources and globalization and holds multiple professional certifications, including the SHRM Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP), and the GPHR® & SPHRi™ qualification from the HR Certification Institute. As a volunteer he has served on the Board of Directors of Cultural Vistas since 2011.

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.

 

Charlie joined Interactive Health in 2014 through Interactive Health’s acquisition of Health Solutions, where he served as President. As EVP of Business Development, he holds overall responsibility for corporate sales strategy and client acquisition.

Charlie brings over 30 years of experience in health management, employee wellness and corporate fitness. As the former President of Health Solutions and adjunct faculty member at the Yale School of Public Health, Charlie is often called upon to speak on customer service and wellness program innovation. Earlier this year, Charlie was elected President of the International Association of Worksite Health Promotion.  Prior to his work at Interactive Health, Charlie led the successful development of employee wellness programs at Campbell Soup, General Electric and General Motors, which have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and Newsweek.

Charlie holds a MS in exercise physiology from West Virginia University and a BS from Ithaca College.