Leadership & Navigation

Adam Smiley Poswolsky is a millennial workplace expert, internationally renowned keynote speaker, and bestselling author of The Quarter-Life Breakthrough (Penguin Random House), and The Breakthrough Speaker. Smiley helps companies attract, retain, and empower millennial talent, and he’s inspired thousands of professionals to be more engaged at work, through speaking at companies like Facebook, ASAE, Unilever, IDEO, Salesforce, SAP, Deloitte, Uber, Harvard Business School, and TED. His TEDx talk has been viewed over 1 million times, and he has done hundreds of speaking engagements, reaching over 50,000 people in 15 countries. Smiley’s writing has been published in The Washington Post, Fast Company, Time, and Business Insider, and his work has been featured in USA Today, Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, CNN, CNBC, and the World Economic Forum, among others.

Tracy Stock is one of the most in-demand and top-rated female speakers in North America today because of her ability to inspire behavior change and achieve positive outcomes. As a workplace culture expert, an engaging Certified Speaking Professional®, highly skilled live and virtual training expert and a best-selling author with five published titles, her 25 years of experience include clients such as the U.S. Army, Motorola, True Value, US Bank and Subway, to name a few. As a speaker of choice, Tracy is committed to helping energize workplace culture, enhance employee engagement and empower high performance. 

Ashleigh Gardere serves as Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at the New Orleans Business Alliance (NOLABA), responsible for implementation of a new business model for economic development. In partnership with NOLABA President & CEO Quentin Messer, Gardere is demonstrating the power of a holistic economic development strategy that fully maximizes opportunity for the people and businesses of New Orleans.

Gardere most recently served as a Senior Advisor to Mayor Mitch Landrieu. In this role, she managed the Mayor’s Economic Opportunity Strategy and supported the revitalization of the Claiborne Corridor through a cross-sector initiative called The Network for Economic Opportunity. The Network was responsible for the start-up, development, implementation and management of productive partnerships among local industries, small businesses, residents, non-profits and city agencies to drive long-term revitalization. By integrating The Network’s portfolio within NOLABA, Gardere expects to prove that an inclusive economy best ensures a thriving, sustainable economy for New Orleans.

Gardere previously served as Vice President of Community Relations at Chase Bank for Louisiana. During her tenure, she piloted the firm’s place-based neighborhood revitalization strategy.

Gardere began her career working in various strategic planning and policy development roles supporting the work of local and national nonprofit organizations with community development-oriented missions.

A New Orleans native, Gardere earned a B.A. in metropolitan studies from New York University and a master’s degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She is the proud wife of Lamar and mother to Jayden and Justin Gardere.

Missy Sparks, PhD serves as Vice President of Talent Management/Human Resources  for Ochsner Health System. In this role she oversees Workforce Development, Orientation & Onboarding, Diversity & Inclusion, Performance Management and Engagement for more than 26,000 team members.

She leads her team in developing a diverse talent pipeline that opens career pathways into healthcare for the unemployed/underemployed. She is a current board member for the Workforce Development Board for New Orleans, YouthForce NOLA, and for Communities in Schools. Additionally, she volunteers weekly to help feed the hungry and homeless through St. Mark’s United Methodist in the French Quarter.  

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.

Kelly Greenwood is the Founder & CEO of Mind Share Partners, a leading workplace mental health nonprofit. Kelly is a Forbes contributor and the editor-at-large for the “Mental Health at Work” section on Thrive Global.

Previously, Kelly served as the Chief Growth & Strategy Officer of Techbridge Girls and was a Principal at the Skoll Foundation. Kelly worked as a management consultant at Accenture, A.T. Kearney, and the Bridgespan Group.

Kelly holds an M.B.A. from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and graduated summa cum laude from Duke University with a B.A. in Psychology and Spanish.

Janice Omadeke is the CEO and Founder of The Mentor Method, an enterprise platform helping companies keep and develop their diverse talent using the proven power of mentorship. Her company won Capital Factory's $100K Women in Tech Challenge, is a MassChallenge Texas Gold winner, and has been featured in respected publications including The Washington Business Journal and Entrepreneur Magazine. Black Enterprise magazine recognizes Janice as one of DC’s top 5 black women in tech, and she was a subject matter expert at the 2016 White House Summit on Building the Tech Workforce of Tomorrow. Janice is certified in Entrepreneurship from MIT, built a mentorship program scratch as a Manager at PwC, and is PMP certified with over 10 years of corporate leadership experience for Fortune 500 companies.

Dr. Gaurav Bhalla is a globally acclaimed leadership and customer-centric growth strategist who inspires organizations, teams, and individuals to undertake human-centric journeys of transformational leadership, cognitive diversity, and collaborative creativity.

Published in both business and literature, his most recent book, “Awakening A Leader’s Soul,” reimagines the purpose of leadership and leadership journeys.

What sets Gaurav apart from other speakers, workshop facilitators, and authors is: 

• his learning, unlearning, and relearning mindset
• his passion for translating knowledge into action, and 
• his purpose that values the humanity of people more than their executive brilliance.

James Wright of JamesWantsToKnowYou.com is a dynamic and compelling leader with a track record of delivering practical roadmaps for increasing Inclusion and Diversity in global corporations such as Apple Inc., LinkedIn, NBCUniversal, and Time Warner (now WarnerMedia). A featured guest on NBC and FOX, Wright’s articles and commentary appear frequently on LinkedIn and his expertise has been included in The Washington Post as well as several SHRM articles. 

In his practice, James offers transformative training solutions on Gender Equality, Unconscious Bias, Improving Race Relations, and Generational Diversity. In addition, James introduced The Language of Inclusion - a free download of over 135 key terms and definitions to help organizations find a common language to Inclusion. With increased focus on gender and LGBTQIA+ equality, James believes it is important to update these terms to signal where we are today in our journey to ensure diverse communities are truly seen, heard, and valued.

James attended Erskine College in SC & The Catholic University of America in Washington DC.

Global Speaker Sonia Aranza has presented on the international stage from Spain to Singapore.  She brings 27+ years of experience in Diversity, Inclusion & Global Leadership. Her clients include Boeing, CIA, McDonald’s and more. The U.S. Department of Labor describes her work as “Outstanding” and was selected to execute programs for landmark cases. SHRM featured her as a Diversity & Inclusion Expert in HR Magazine and she is a LinkedIn Top Voice in Leadership. She serves on the Faculty of Howard University’s Executive Diversity Program; named “100 Most Influential Filipina Americans in the United States” and honored “100 Most Influential Filipina Women in the World.”

Judith has been at the forefront of the culture change movement in technology and entertainment – with a deep focus on analytics and strategies to identify and disrupt bias in social systems and corporate culture. She joined SAP in September 2018. 

Previously as Global Head of Diversity for Dropbox, Judith was responsible for all diversity and inclusion programs, as well as corporate social responsibility, and was the Diversity Programs Manager at Google where she directed the unconscious bias work stream, and built strategies for recruiting, retention, and advancement of the company’s technical employees.