Global & Cultural Effectiveness

Sander Nieuwenhuizen was appointed as Vice President, Recruitment for Shell International in The Haugue, Netherlands in September 2009. In this role Sander has general management responsibility for the global Recruitment organisation that sources all graduate and experienced  hires for Shell worldwide.  He joined Shell in 2007 as VP, HR supporting the global IT function. 

Prior to this, Sander served as Senior Vice President, Human Resources and Organization for Lafarge S.A., a world leader in construction materials.  He joined Lafarge  in 1999 as SVP, Organization Development to contribute to globalizing and modernizing its management practices.  In this capacity he revamped the leadership development practice and introduced a People review process in the company management cycle. 

Cisco Chief Inclusion & Collaboration Officer Shari Slate is responsible for building a strategy that enhances Cisco’s vision to be a world class, benchmark company for inclusion and collaboration, driving exponential value across Cisco, its partners and customers. She is promoting thought leadership across Cisco’s people strategy enabling employee engagement and inclusion outcomes to fuel innovation and market leadership. She is also directing the integration of new models of inclusion and collaboration designed to guide future workplace practices to realize the $19 billion opportunity of the Internet of Everything over the next decade.

In her previous role, Slate served as Chief Inclusion and Collaboration Strategist for Cisco’s Sales Organization. She was responsible for making inclusion relevant in the revenue generating arm of the business and incubating new strategies for fostering full spectrum participation to unleash the power and potential of people.

Slate joined Cisco in 2010. Prior to that, she was Chief Diversity Officer and Director of Global Community Affairs at Sun Microsystems. Slate has been widely recognized for her visionary leadership and her transformational views on the true value of inclusion. The YWCA recently named her a 2014 “Tribute to Women in Industry” honoree. In 2013, she was named one of Diversity Woman Magazine’s “Stars Who Mean Business”. Previously, she was honored by the California Diversity Council as one of the “Most Influential Women in California” and a “Woman Worth Watching” by Diversity Journal Magazine. She received the National Coalition of 100 Black Women 2010 Corporate Leader Award and The Network Journal's "40 Under Forty" Achievement Award. Slate serves on numerous charitable and community organizational initiatives and advisory boards.

Slate holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in political, legal, and economic analysis from Mills College.

Eric C. Peterson, MSOD is a Senior Consultant with Cook Ross Inc. He is a recognized facilitator and educator in the Diversity & Inclusion space with over 15 years of experience in Unconscious Bias, Diversity & Inclusion (D&I), Learning Strategies, and Organization Development. Eric is certified in the use of both the Predictive Index and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and is a graduate of the Facilitation Learning Partners Program of Healing the Heart of Diversity. He has been published in Profiles in Diversity Journal and Echelon Magazine, and has been sourced as a D&I expert by CNN, National Public Radio, USA Today, The Bloomberg Group, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times.

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.

Brad is the Founder and CEO of JB Training Solutions. An accomplished public speaker and executive coach, Brad has been featured on CNN, CNBC, and Dr. Phil, and has been quoted in: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, and USA Today. Brad is also the author of three business books including the critically acclaimed Manager 3.0: A Millennial’s Guide to Rewriting the Rules of Management, which you can read in Mandarin (assuming you can read Mandarin).

Prior to creating JB, Brad spent 15 years at advertising agency Leo Burnett in Chicago. Today, Brad presents for major organizations including Eli Lilly, Securitas, Top Tier Capital Partners, and Saint Laurent. When he’s not enjoying a robust buffet, you can find Brad playing racquetball or drafting the perfect fantasy football roster. Brad is left-handed.

Giselle is the Practice Lead in Optimus SBR’s Learning & Development Group with over 25 years experience as a sought after resource to industry leaders across the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors dedicated to building strategies and programs that help clients target, motivate and engage employees in order to increase performance and productivity.

Giselle has devoted more than 20 years to researching the impact that generational differences have on organizational performance, creating solutions and programs in four areas – leadership, high performance teams, early career talent, and reinforcement & sustainment of learning. Giselle has co-authored two books and completed her Master of Arts Degree in Communications Studies at the University of Windsor.

She is Chair of the Board at The Institute for Performance and Learning (I4PL), co-chair of the Cross Academy Association and Advisory Council member at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Martin began his unique path towards “leveraging difference” at Harvard, earning his AB in Psychology & Social Relations in 1983. His PhD in Psychology was received from Stanford University in 1988, where his emphasis of study was on Personality and Social Psychology. The topic of his dissertation, entitled Distinguishing Repressive Coping from Impression Management, served as the beginning of his career-long exploration into emotion, conflict, and differences in identity. That work evolved into his current work—a unique approach to managing diversity, leveraging difference, and developing talent in organizations.

Martin’s captivating and thought-provoking teaching style has earned him praise and recognition from MBA students and Executive Education participants he has impacted at two of the top-ranked business schools in the country—currently at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, and previously at the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College.

Martin teaches Leadership and Organizational Behavior at Darden, and has served as the Faculty Leader for the Leadership and Diversity section. And he served two years as the Associate Dean and Chief Diversity Officer for the Darden School, where he is worked to create a more diverse and inclusive environment for faculty, administration, staff, and students.

Jeremy Eskenazi, SHRM-SCP, SPHR, CMC is Managing Principal of Riviera Advisors, Inc., a global Human Resources management consulting and training firm that helps organizations improve, enhance and optimize their internal talent acquisition and recruiting capabilities.

Prior to founding Riviera Advisors in 2001, Jeremy spent almost 20 years leading talent acquisition and recruiting teams at Universal Studios, Amazon.com, and Idealab. A regular SHRM speaker and a member of the SHRM Talent Acquisition Special Expertise Panel, Jeremy is also proud professional member of the National Speakers Association (NSA) and the Institute of Management Consultants-USA.

Jeremy is the author of the books, “RecruitCONSULT! Leadership – The Corporate Talent Acquisition Leader’s Field Book”, and “The High-Performance Talent Acquisition Advantage”.

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.

An award-winning journalist, author and multimedia entrepreneur, Guy Garcia is President of New Mainstream Initiatives for EthniFacts LLC, a research and consumer insights consultancy (www.ethnifacts.com). His book, The New Mainstream: How the Multicultural Consumer Is Transforming American Business has been hailed as a wake-up call and road map to the multicultural markets of 21st century America. The New Mainstream explains how Americans will eat, work, play, learn, and spend money in the 21st century— and why any organization that ignores the lessons of the new mainstream is doomed to fail. 

A noted consultant and lecturer on social, cultural and demographic trends, Guy has worked with the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau, Time Warner, The Walt Disney Company, Pepsi, Kraft Foods, Astra Zeneca, Johnson & Johnson, McKinsey & Co., Nissan Motors, Fox Entertainment, Turner Broadcasting, People en Espanol, MTV Networks, Harvard University and The Council on Foreign Relations.  Guy is a co-founder of Total New York, one of the first urban web sites, where he oversaw the development of interactive content and virtual environments. As an executive at AOL, he developed content for AOL International and launched the first iteration of AOL Latino.  

A contributor to the Huffington Post and the National Journal, Guy and his work have appeared in Time, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Fortune, Vanity Fair, Ad Age, The Financial Times, the Times of London, ABC, Univision, NPR, CNBC, CNN Money and PBS. Guy was Chief Consultant and a contributing producer to the WGBH-PBS-BBC documentary Latin Music USA. A three-time National Magazine Awards judge, he is an Edward Albee Fellow and a member of PEN. His books include Skin Deep, Obsidian Sky and The Decline of Men.