Global & Cultural Effectiveness

Grace A. Odums, an independent strategy consultant, has a growing consultancy spanning over fifteen years.  Her impressive client list boasts Fortune 500 and Fortune Global 500 companies including: Disney ABC Media NetWorks, Waste Management (PA/WVA Area), Fairmount Southampton Resorts, Chevron-Phillips, Siemens Medical Solutions, Wells Fargo Bank.  

A much sought after international speaker, Grace welcomes the opportunity to partner with organizations and professionals in the areas of management coaching, revenue recapture, change leadership, optimum customer care, talent performance enhancement, productivity improvement, increased efficiencies, balanced scorecard architecture, and diversity strategy creation with diversity scorecard and strategy map development and system-wide implementation.

Joe Gerstandt brings greater clarity, action, and impact to organizational diversity and inclusion efforts.

Joe has worked with Fortune 100 corporations, small non-profits, and everything in between. He speaks at numerous conferences and summits, and blogs at joegerstandt.com. He is a featured contributor for the Workforce Diversity Network Expert Forum and his insights have been published in Diversity Executive, HR Executive, and numerous other print and on-line journals.

A strong advocate for resetting the diversity and inclusion conversation, Joe sees these issues as poorly understood and often misunderstood.

In his current role, Mark is responsible for program development, project management and the expansion of Tanenbaum programs nationally and internationally. A sought-after expert on equality issues like race, gender, sexual orientation and religion, Mark's recent engagements include workshops at SHRM’s Annual Conference & Exposition, the National Association for Multicultural Education, the Out & Equal Workplace Summit, and Multicultural Forum for Workplace Diversity.

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.

Howard Ross is lifelong social justice advocate, and is considered one of the world’s seminal thought leaders on identifying and addressing unconscious bias.  Howard has delivered programs in 47 states and over 40 other countries to audiences including Fortune 500 companies, colleges and universities, and major institutions within healthcare, government, and non-profit sectors. He authored the Washington Post best seller, Everyday Bias:  Identifying and Navigating Unconscious Judgments in Our Daily Lives, ReInventing Diversity: Transforming Organizational Community to Strengthen People, Purpose and Performance. His latest  book, Our Search for Belonging: How the Need for Connection Is Tearing Our Culture Apart, published by Berrett-Koehler in 2018, received the Nautilus Gold Medal for Social Change and Social Justice. His next book, Building Belonging: 9 Pathways to Creating Inclusive and Joyful Organizational Communities, will be published in 2020.

 

Michael is “the happiest person he knows!” That said – Michael has a unique take on life given his experiences growing up in The Bronx, New York City. The son of a brave New York City Policeman and fabulous Italian-American mother, Michael finds being direct and honest easier than most – allowing him to mix humor and passion in a way that makes him memorable and motivational!

Expect no soft soaking – rather, Michael gets you motivated in this arena by telling it like it is and by insisting that you consider new ways to “get it done.” Done humorously, his employers and clients repeatedly claim that his manner really gets people to listen and motivates to make positive changes.

Michael has been working at hundreds of college campuses across the US for 10+ years.  He brings a positive attitude, a multitude of experience and humor to all of his programs.  As a former Student Affairs professional, he is in touch with the needs of college campuses today.

After reading this, you might like to meet Michael – consider this session as your first introduction.

Sarah began working with Deaf/Hard of Hearing people while she was still a college student in the year 2000. Upon her 2001 graduation she earned her national certification as a Sign Language Interpreter and became a staff Interpreter for the National Institute of Technology for the Deaf (NTID) in Rochester, NY. In 2006 Sarah earned her graduate degree in Service Management and Leadership from the Rochester Institute of Technology and transitioned to working in the, then brand-new, arena of Video Relay Service interpreting, where she became a team lead for Snap! VRS. In 2011, Sarah joined the Central Intelligence Agency’s EEO office as a staff Sign Language Interpreter, and transitioned to the National Reconnaissance Office as a Reasonable Accommodations Specialist in 2013. She is passionate about bringing education to the workplace about working with Sign Language Interpreters and the Deaf/Hard of Hearing population.

Nikki Cicerani became president & CEO of Upwardly Global in April 2009 after serving as founding managing director of the organization’s New York Office. During her tenure as CEO, the organization expanded from two major metropolitan areas to five, launched online, virtual services and elevated its mission from a local program to a national conversation around skilled immigrants’ value to the United States. Upwardly Global's services now reach thousands of underserved immigrants and refugees across the country, who are increasingly being recognized as a valued community asset at the city and state level.

 

Today, Nikki leads the organization’s efforts to scale its impact by advocating for inclusion of skilled immigrants in federal, state, and local workforce policy, as well as full integration of this population into corporate recruiting and diversity programs. Nikki believes in building strong national and community partnerships that support the awareness and resources available to this often invisible and overlooked talent pool.

 

Nikki is a founding member and serves on the steering committee of IMPRINT, a coalition of organizations working to promote and implement best practices in the integration of immigrant professionals. She has advised the White House Domestic Policy Council on the economic integration of foreign-trained professionals. She has also served as an expert panelist at national and international forums on migration, including the 2010 Cities of Migration Conference, 2014 Global Great Lakes Conference, and the 2011 and 2013 Clinton Global Initiative meetings on the U.S. economic recovery.

Prior to joining Upwardly Global, Nikki worked in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors. She was an associate in Morgan Stanley's Private Wealth Management Practice, and spent several years with Ernst & Young in the Economics Consulting Practice, as well as in the Office of the Chairman where she focused on evaluating the success of integration strategies for advancing women to the Partner level. Nikki proudly initiated and led the creation and implementation of the first network for women of color at the firm. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, where she was president of Columbia Women in Business, and a bachelor’s degree in Policy Analysis from Cornell University.

Nikki lives in Millburn, New Jersey with her husband and two children.

Dr. Shirley Davis, CSP, President of SDS Global Enterprises, a global workforce solutions firm, is an award-winning Human Resources expert, with over 30 years of business experience in a variety of senior executive roles for several Fortune 100 companies, as well as her last role of Vice President of Global Diversity and Inclusion for the Society for Human Resource Management. She’s also a best-selling author of 5 books, serves on the National Speakers Association and the NSA Foundation Boards, and the Make A Wish Foundation Board. She is a popular facilitator for eight LinkedIn Learning leadership courses.

 

 

Grace A. Odums, an independent strategy consultant, has a growing consultancy spanning over fifteen years.  Her impressive client list boasts Fortune 500 and Fortune Global 500 companies including: Disney ABC Media NetWorks, Waste Management (PA/WVA Area), Fairmount Southampton Resorts, Chevron-Phillips, Siemens Medical Solutions, Wells Fargo Bank.  

A much sought after international speaker, Grace welcomes the opportunity to partner with organizations and professionals in the areas of management coaching, revenue recapture, change leadership, optimum customer care, talent performance enhancement, productivity improvement, increased efficiencies, balanced scorecard architecture, and diversity strategy creation with diversity scorecard and strategy map development and system-wide implementation.