Leadership & Navigation

Been there – done that!  With 30 years of HR and business experience – Lori has walked in your shoes.  A recovered HR Generalist, she built a consulting company that she sold to Arthur J Gallagher after 7 years and then reinvented her current business – HR Topics -  training, speaking and developing content for HR professionals.  Lori delivers facts, tips, tricks and best practices in a way that appeals to human resource and business leaders: with a sense of humor, a bias toward actions that improve their operations right away, and practical resources and tools to support their progress.  As an annual speaker at the National SHRM conference, she has leveraged her masters in HR, SPHR and SHRM-SCP background to elevate the position of all HR professionals!

It was 1971, and four University of Texas soon‐to‐be graduates decided to start an advertising agency in Austin, Texas—then a funky little college town known primarily for hippies, Texas Longhorns and Willie Nelson. Their simple business plan was to stay together, stay in Austin and use the power of marketing to make a difference. Forty‐seven years later, Roy and his partners are still together, still in Austin and still trying to make a difference. Roy signs every letter with the words, “Ride at Dawn.” That’s not just a sign‐off, it’s a manifesto—a call‐to‐action to live life to its fullest every day. Roy and his partners built GSD&M from scratch into a marketing, advertising and idea machine. Flying with Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines. Riding with Sam Walton, founder of Walmart. Driving with BMW and the PGA TOUR. Plowing with John Deere. Defending freedom with the United States Air Force. Designing with AIA a Blueprint for Better. Donating time and talent to create compelling public service awareness (PSA) ads to mobilize goodwill to help people in the moments that matter the most, like Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti, the terrible floods in Baton Rouge and recently, filming and producing PSAs with the five former presidents for hurricane relief for the victims of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

Roy’s passion is entrepreneurship, which he refers to as “the miracle of America.” He deeply believes that when America is at her best, it does not matter what your last name or zip code is. If you can dream it, you can build it. Roy is also cofounder and CEO of The Purpose Institute, which is also home‐based in Austin, Texas. The Purpose Institute is singularly focused on discovering the higher calling purpose and core values that define and shape an organization’s culture and the core purpose that captures the difference an organization makes in the world. Its purpose is to help organizations and leaders discover and fulfill their purpose. Along with Haley Rushing, Roy co‐authored the Wall Street Journal best‐selling book, It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For: Why Every Extraordinary Business is Driven by Purpose. And more recently, he authored The 10 Essential Hugs of Life, a collection of heartwarming stories about the need for gratitude and love.

In 2018, Roy founded The Promiseland Project whose purpose is to unleash the power of purposeinspired marketing and messaging to help bridge the massive cultural divide in America. The Promiseland Project is a large and diverse group of purpose‐driven communications professionals from all over America whose passion is a unified America. The goal is to inspire and engage the American people to help move America from the dark winter of political and cultural division into a bright new dawn of a culture of US. As in USA. One of the key drivers of The Promiseland Project is the deep belief that American cities will be the drivers of innovation, new ideas and solutions to America’s most pressing issues.

Keiko Sakurai has expertise in team building, organizational development, executive coaching, management-skills training, and leadership development for multinational companies. She passionately supports individuals and teams to recognize their strengths and expand their abilities to the fullest extent possible. 

Ms. Sakurai holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business from the University of California, Berkeley, with a certificate in global management, as well as a BS in management from Hitotsubashi University in Japan. Ms. Sakurai has also completed coaching and leadership courses at the Coaches Training Institute in California. She maintains her CPA credentials and is Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® certified.

As chief diversity and inclusion officer, Audra is responsible for working with Randstad’s U.S. operating companies to further diversity strategies both internally and externally. With more than 20 years of human resources, diversity and compliance experience, Audra provides clients across the organization with guidance for effective strategies in diversity, inclusion, veterans and compliance. Audra also helps run Randstad’s Hire Hope program to provide career readiness training and job placement services to underserved and at-risk women, including survivors of exploitation and trafficking. Audra holds a Master’s in Business Administration with a Human Resources concentration, and a Bachelor’s in Finance, from the University of North Carolina. A member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM); she is also a Certified Diversity Professional (CDP), a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR), a SHRM Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP) and a Six Sigma Green Belt. Audra is known for her speaking engagements at diversity conferences and has published white papers in her area of expertise.

Ruchi Jalla is Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer of BAE Systems, Inc., a U.S.-based, international defense, aerospace, and security company. In her current role, Ruchi provides direction on enterprise diversity and inclusion strategies and ensures alignment of initiatives that bring about sustainable shifts in workplace culture. Ruchi previously held diversity and Affirmative Action/EEO roles in various organizations including BlackBerry, RBC Financial Group and Sodexo. Throughout her career, she has been responsible for designing and developing programs in the areas of talent acquisition, employee engagement, international compliance, communications and social media. Ruchi graduated from the University of Western Ontario.

Tanuja has over 20 years of experience in Human Resources with large multi nationals at leadership roles both India and USA. She held strategic and leadership roles with organisations like NTT Data, Bank of America and GE.

Tanuja is extremely passionate about the gender diversity cause. Currently Tanuja runs her company “Beyond Pinks” which focuses on gender issues and challenges at corporates as well as atuniversity level. She works with corporates to build leadership talent pipeline and on employability and sustainability of women at workplace.

Tanuja holds a Master’s degree in Human Resources and an Executive MBA from Cornell University.

Her personal belief in life: Live the day as if it’s your last.

Olivia Fox Cabane has lectured at Stanford, Yale, Harvard, MIT, the Marine Corps War College and the United Nations. As keynote speaker and executive coach to the leadership of Fortune 500 companies, she helps people become more
persuasive, influential, and inspiring. From a base of thorough behavioral science, Cabane extracts the most practical tools for business, applying the latest in global behavioral science to everyday leadership needs to improve her clients'
productivity, effectiveness and efficiency.

In addition to being a columnist for Forbes and The Huffington Post, Cabane is often featured in media such as The New York Times, Bloomberg or BusinessWeek. She has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal as well as NPR’s
Marketplace show. Her course at Berkeley’s Business School was so popular that university staff had to guard the entrance to ensure that only the students admitted to that course gained entrance. Cabane previously served as director
of Innovative Leadership for Stanford's StartX program. Her first book, The Charisma Myth, published by Penguin/Random House, went into second printing before it even launched.

Cabane has both French and American nationalities and is fluent in 4 languages; her books have been translated into 17 languages and she was the youngest person ever to have been appointed Foreign Trade Advisor to the French
Government. Her upcoming book on the mental side of innovation is representative of her ability to take the complexities of psychological factors and transform them into immediately applicable leadership tools for individuals.

Dr. Karlyn Borysenko is the force behind Zen Workplace. An organizational psychologist and executive/performance coach, she is a leader in integrating mindfulness strategies at work to increase productivity and creativity, reduce stress, and create better work experiences. Her practice is based in the greater Boston area and serves clients all over the world. She holds an MBA and a PhD in Psychology, is an experienced trainer and facilitator, coach, and award-winning speaker. Karlyn is a contributor to Forbes.com and the author of Zen Your Work: Create your ideal work experience through mindful self-mastery.

Wayne Connell is vice president of Human Resources for The Washington Post, where he leads the HR function in workforce planning, talent acquisition, total rewards, organizational development, retention and HR policy. He has more than 20 years of HR experience, spanning the hospitality, aviation and media industries.

Wayne has guided organizations – including The Post since 2005 – in creating long-term HR strategies that enable the most effective use of their talent. His areas of focus include performance management, succession planning, culture change, leadership development, coaching, employer branding, onboarding, recruiting and employee relations.

He earned his Professional in Human Resources certification in 2001. He also holds a BA from the University of South Florida and an MA in human resource development from the George Washington University. He served as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s graduate program in HR studies for three years. He is published by the Academy of Human Resource Development on the topics of organizational learning and culture and speaks at leading HR conferences on topics of leadership, action learning, and other innovative HR topics.

Wayne lives in Washington, D.C.

Valerie helps companies improve their bottom line by elevating employees from tactical thinkers to strategic leaders.

She served in senior leadership roles at RollsRoyce Aircraft before helping to found InterActiveCorp, parent company to Expedia, Home Shopping Network and TicketMaster. She then went to work for Oprah Winfrey, helping to found the Oxygen channel which was later sold to NBC Universal.

Valerie obtained her mechanical engineering degree from Kettering University and her MBA from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. Val’s book, Clash of the Generations: Managing the New Workplace Reality, helps leaders manage multiple generations in the office.