SHRM PDCs

For over 20 years, Allison West has used her employment law background in delivering customized workplace training, conducting investigations, coaching executives/managers, serving as an expert witness, and specializing in conflict resolution and facilitated discussions to create more collaborative work environments. 

Allison is a top-rated speaker at the SHRM Annual Conference as well as other HR/diversity conferences, and is a national expert on harassment, discrimination and investigations. She has appeared on PBS, CBS This Morning and in O Magazine discussing workplace harassment issues. 

She is a member of the State Bar of California and holds her SHRM-SCP certification and AWI-CH (investigation) certificate.

Regina Petty is a partner in the San Diego and Los Angeles offices of Fisher Phillips. She practices in state and federal courts at the trial and appellate levels and is experienced in multi-district and class-action litigation. Regina advises employers and public agency boards and handles litigation for private and public employers. She successfully argued Jones v. The Lodge at Torrey Pines Partnership, (2008) 42 Cal.4th 1158, before the California Supreme Court, a case noted on Bender's California Labor & Employment Bulletin's top 10 list of most significant cases and trends for the Fair Employment and Housing Act's 50th anniversary.

Regina is a past president of the San Diego County Bar Association and a former member of the board of directors of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association. She is "AV" peer-review rated by Martindale-Hubbell and has been listed in San Diego Super Lawyers every year since its inaugural issue. She has been named one of the Los Angeles Daily Journal's Top 75 Women Litigators in California and one of the San Diego Daily Transcript's Top Ten Attorneys in both the labor and employment and business litigation categories.

Regina is also a recipient of the San Diego Business Journal's Women Who Mean Business Award, and she was honored by the Stanford University Black Community Services Center with its Legacy Award.

Shari Harley, author of How to Say Anything to Anyone, is known globally as an engaging, funny, content-rich business speaker. Her international training firm, Candid Culture, is making it easier to tell the truth at work. Shari is bringing candor back to the workplace. A former HR practitioner and operations leader, Shari’s practical approach has led her to speak and train in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Dubai and Australia. From “Making Meetings Work” and “Delegating Better” to “Managing Your Career” and “Saying Anything to Anyone,” Shari’s tips are sure to delight and inform in a real, direct and very funny way. Watch videos and learn more about Shari at www.candidculture.com.

Edie Goldberg, Ph.D., is the president of E.L. Goldberg & Associates in Menlo Park, Calif. She is a nationally recognized expert in HR and talent management strategy and organizational effectiveness. She is the co-author of The Inside Gig: How Sharing Untapped Talent Across Boundaries Unleashes Organizational Capacity. Edie earned her Ph.D. in industrial/organizational psychology from the University of Albany, SUNY, and she earned a B.S. and M.S. in psychology from San Diego State University. She serves on the board of the SHRM Foundation, is past chair of HR People + Strategy (HRPS), and is  a fellow of the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology. She is the recipient of the HRPS Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions made to the HR profession.

Dima is Middle-Eastern in her genes and global citizen in her spirit. She ignites the untapped potential in individuals across the globe, empowering them to shatter limitations and become courageous, purpose driven leaders.

Through keynote speeches, workshops, and executive coaching, Dima shares her unique leadership transformation journey with one goal in mind: motivate those around her to reimagine their potential and grow into leaders.

Dima has worked across the United States, Europe, Asia, Middle East, and Africa for several Fortune 100 companies and has honed a keen expertise in developing leaders to meet the demands of the global workforce.

Alex envisions a world where work is effortless and teams are drama-free.

Standing side by side since 2015 with New York Times best-selling author and thought leader Cy Wakeman, Alex collaborates with organizations and leaders globally to help them ditch the drama from the workplace, hardwire accountability in their teams and turn excuses into results.

Everything he does is designed to help people understand that success and happiness is their natural state as a human being—once the drama is gone. With this core belief, Alex’s passion is revealing to those he works with that once people carve away drama from their lives, the same job they found themselves upset with today becomes the job they look forward to and love tomorrow.

As a keynote speaker and trainer, he helps organizations exchange the endless argument for a DIFFERENT workplace reality for a shifted perspective that enables them to start achieving more success and fulfillment in their CURRENT workplace reality.

In addition to sharing the reality-based philosophy from the stage, Alex is also a quintessential part of Cy Wakeman’s content creation and media team, spreading the ditch-the-drama message online. Over the last three years, his expertise, insights and execution have helped to balloon her  online community of raving fans from 15,000 to 150,000 followers across multiple platforms.

As the host of The Carvery Podcast with Alex Dorr (available on Apple iOS, Google Play and Simplecast), he shares his journey, stories and insights as a reality-based speaker and practicing drama defuser to help others carve away their own drama and start calling those they lead to greatness.

Although Alex stands at 6’6” tall and is commonly told at events, “you look a lot taller up close,” he prides himself on being down-to-earth or, better yet, grounded in reality.

An advocate for mental minimalism and a former professional basketball player, Alex holds a MSc in international business from the University of Derby (England) and his client list includes the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Adobe, Carnival Cruise Lines, Ely Lilly, Kohler, Emory Healthcare, Methodist Healthcare (San Antonio), Nationwide, the U.S. Department of Commerce, NetJets, Allina Health, Delaware North, AMC Theatres, Washington Department of Transportation, Our Lady of the Lake Medical Center, Providence Medical Center, the University of Oregon, Baton Rouge General Medical Center, CH Robinson, Intact Insurance, National Association of Credit Management and Credit Institute of Canada, among others.

Coretha Rushing has over 30 years of corporate business and leadership experience.

She has worked in various executive roles at Equifax Inc., The Coca-Cola Co., Pepsi, IBM and Cameron Wesley LLC and also had her own human resource consulting firm. Additionally, she has provided consulting services and served on various nonprofit boards. She currently serves as a board member of 2U Inc., an educational technology platform company, and is a member of the Compensation and Succession Committee.

Coretha served the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), a 300,000-member global human resource organization, for eight years as a board member. During that period, she served as board chair and board chair emeritus. Currently, Coretha serves as an executive coach to various clients. She also provides advice and counsel to Kano Partners, a private investment partnership specializing in the acquisition, support and sale of family and founder-based businesses and startup businesses. She also serves as an advisor for Evident ID Inc., a tech company that supports companies that want to screen and contact trace employees to monitor COVID-19 status.

Coretha retired in January as the senior vice president and chief people officer for Equifax Inc., a 3B global credit and data analytics organization currently based in 24 countries. She joined the firm in May 2006 and led the global HR organization and the company’s Foundation during its greatest period of financial growth, global expansion and product innovation and during its biggest business challenge: a cybersecurity breach.

Prior to joining Equifax, Coretha served as president of Cameron Wesley LLC, a human resource strategy and executive coaching firm.

From 1996 to 2004, Coretha held progressively senior roles at The Coca-Cola Co. She was promoted in 2000 as the first woman and Black EVP, chief people officer, for the company. During her tenure as the chief people officer, she played an instrumental role in the resolution of the largest U.S. racial discrimination lawsuit, working with the board of directors and a court-appointed board chaired by Alexis Herman, a former U.S. secretary of labor. Coretha also led the development of leading-edge people programs and initiatives that serve as the foundation for the company's current leadership and employee programs designed to ensure business success and leading-edge diversity, inclusion and equity programs. Other experiences include working as the vice president, human resources, for the Midwest division of Pizza Hut, a division of PepsiCo.

She began her global HR career at IBM where she held several roles during her 10 years across all HR disciplines, supporting diverse businesses in various major IBM US locations.

A native of Virginia, Coretha received her undergraduate degree in education from East Carolina University and holds a Master of Education with an emphasis in human resources and counseling from The George Washington University.

She is active in several professional and community organizations and has served as a panelist and keynote speaker at various business, university, women and human resource conferences. She has received numerous community awards and has been recognized for four consecutive years (2016-2019) for outstanding business achievements by Black Enterprise.

She currently resides in Atlanta and St. Petersburg, Fla., with her husband, Howard Smith.

Attorney James P. (“Jim”) Reidy is a management-side labor and employment lawyer. He is a partner in the New England based law firm, Sheehan Phinney Bass & Green, PA, where he is the Chair of the firm’s Labor and Employment group. His practice focuses on prevention, training and compliance but he also handles matters when claims arise.

He has more than 35 years of experience in the field and been a media resource on workplace law for media outlets including CNN, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Business Magazine, Bloomberg, NPR, The Associated Press, NPR Market Place, Buzz Feed, Law 360, Inc. Magazine, The HR Power Hour, HR Breakroom, SKI Magazine and HR Magazine as well as several local/regional publications.

In 2020 Jim was inducted as a Fellow in the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. 

Chambers USA and New England Super Lawyers have ranked Jim in the Top Tier of management-side employment lawyers for each year of the last 15 years. Best Lawyers USA named Jim the 2022 Lawyer of the Year for Labor and Employment Law (Manchester, NH) and the NH Business Review named him one of the top 200 most influential business leaders in New Hampshire.

Jim has been a presenter regularly at SHRM’s Legal and Legislative Conference in Washington, DC as well as SHRM’s annual conferences.

Kim Ades is the Founder of Frame of Mind Coaching™ and The Journal That Talks Back™. Recognized as a pioneer in the field of leadership coaching and thought mastery, Kim uses her unique philosophy and quirky coaching style to help leaders identify their blind spots and direct their thinking to achieve extraordinary results. Author, speaker, entrepreneur, coach, and mom of five, Kim’s claim to fame is teaching her powerful coaching process to leaders, executives, and entrepreneurs worldwide. Kim has been featured in a variety of online publications including Forbes and Inc. and has spoken for organizations including Microsoft and SHRM.