SHRM PDCs

Timothy Davis
Managing Partner
Constangy, Brooks & Smith & Prophete, LLP
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Tim concentrates his practice exclusively on labor and employment law in the representation of management.  Tim is the Managing Partner/Office Head for Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete’s Kansas City and Des Moines offices.  Constangy is recognized as a “go to” employment law firm and one of the best law firms in America for employers. 

Tim advises and defends clients on all aspects of the employer/employee relationship including advising clients on compliance with various federal and state employment laws, developing and managing handbooks, policies and LOA programs and counseling clients regarding difficult accommodation, discipline and discharge scenarios.  Tim has also developed a special focus on managing labor relations, union avoidance and litigating cases before the National Labor Relations Board. 

In this capacity, Tim is a nationally recognized labor & employment lawyer.  Recent recognitions include:

  • A “Top Ranked Labor & Employment Lawyer” by the United States Chamber of Commerce
  • “Top Ten Most Influential Employment Lawyers” by Business Today
  • Ingram’s “Employment Lawyer of the Year”
  • “Best Lawyer” by Ingram’s
  • “Top Labor Lawyers in America” by LRI.

Tim is also active in the human resources community as a member of SHRM and is the former President of SHRM-KC.

 
SESSIONS:
Monday, June 18, 2018 - 10:00am to 10:18am
Elizabeth Speck
Principal
MindOpen Learning Strategies LLC
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Elizabeth Speck is the Founder and Principal of MindOpen Learning Strategies, a training, consulting, and coaching firm that helps people and organizations learn new ways to work in order to achieve social justice goals. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Development from Fielding Graduate University and an M.A. in Drama Therapy from New York University. She uses her unique background to create transformative adult learning experiences that lead to measurable business results and social impact. Prior to founding MindOpen, Elizabeth most recently led large-scale organizational and systemic change efforts as Chief Learning Officer for the Workforce Professionals Training Institute in New York City, and Senior Training Director for Safe Horizon, the nation's largest victim assistance organization. Elizabeth's doctoral research studied the workforce entry and career advancement experiences of formerly incarcerated professionals.

 

SESSIONS:
Toney Earl, Jr.
founder and executive director
M.A.D.E. Transitional Services
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Toney Earl, Jr. is the Founder and Executive Director of M.A.D.E. Transitional Services, and his passion is deeply rooted in the creation of this organization. Having witnessed firsthand the difficulties of the transition process with limited agencies equipped to assist the formerly-incarcerated population in the lower Hudson Valley area of New York, Toney identified an area of need and formed M.A.D.E. Transitional Services.

Today, M.A.D.E. provides assistance to individuals across the New York City area and in northern New Jersey who are reentering their communities after incarceration. M.A.D.E.’s pre and post-incarceration services include job-readiness, job-placement, intra-correctional facility programs, transitional housing and career integration. As part of M.A.D.E.’s advocacy work, Toney serves as M.A.D.E.’s spokesperson on reentry and at-risk youth issues. He has joined several panels where he discussed the benefits of employing the formerly incarcerated, workforce inclusion, reentry challenges and solutions, reentry policy, and other social justice and restorative justice issues concerning the formerly incarcerated. In partnership with MindOpen Learning Strategies, M.A.D.E. facilitates a Fair Chance Hiring curriculum to educate business leaders and talent professionals on best practices for fair chance hiring and retaining non-traditional candidates including those with criminal backgrounds.

Toney was appointed a Social Justice Fellow as part of the inaugural Beyond the Bars Justice Leadership Fellowship 2014-2015 cohort at Columbia University’s Center for Justice in New York City. This Ivy League, interdisciplinary leadership program brings together a diverse group of fellows to enhance leadership in social justice work, while uncovering the causes and consequences of mass incarceration. He now serves as
Co-Chair and Engagement Lead of the Reentry Accelerated Program (REAP) Business Association at the Tamer Center of Social Enterprise at Columbia University’s Business School where he helps REAP foster collaboration between academia, nonprofits, government, and the private sector to develop innovative solutions for expanding workforce inclusion for the formerly incarcerated and individuals with a criminal record.

Toney Earl, Jr. is an Offender Workforce Development Specialist (OWDS), certified by the New York State Department of Criminal Justice. He attended Lincoln University in Oxford, Pennsylvania where he studied business administration and is a certified professional coach.

Toney has been
recognized by New York Nonprofit Media as one of 40 under 40 rising nonprofit leaders in New York City making an impact in nonprofit work and named one of 50 People to Know by New York’s WCBS 880.

SESSIONS:
Donna Brazile
Former Interim DNC Chair and Political Strategist
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Veteran Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile is a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy. She is the former interim Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, and the author of the upcoming book Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House. She is a former syndicated newspaper and magazine columnist, and the former Vice-Chair for civic engagement and voter participation at the DNC as well as the former Chair of the DNC’s Voting Rights Institute. Brazile is the founder and managing director of Brazile and Associates, LLC, a consulting, grassroots advocacy and training firm based in Washington, D.C. She was a fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics in 2001 and has lectured at more than 200 colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. While at the Shorenstein Center, Brazile will conduct research and write about understanding American democracy after the cyber-attack on the 2016 election. In her presentations, she addresses our current political environment, hot-topic legislation, campaigns, and voting.

Brazile was named to O magazine’s first-ever list of 20 “remarkable visionaries.” Washingtonian magazine named her among its “100 Most Powerful Women,” while Essence magazine listed her as one of the “Top 50 Women in America.” The author of the best-selling memoir Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics, she is also an on-air contributor to ABC, regularly appearing on This Week. She contributed to Essence magazine’s 2016 presidential coverage and to O, The Oprah magazine. Brazile has made three cameo appearances on CBS’s The Good Wife, appeared twice on Netflix’s House of Cards and, most recently, on BET’s Being Mary Jane. She received the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s highest award for political achievement and, in 2017, was a recipient of Harvard University’s prestigious W. E. B. Du Bois Medal—the university’s highest honor in the field of African and African American Studies.

Brazile began her political career at the age of nine when she worked to elect a City Council candidate who had promised to build a playground in her neighborhood. The candidate won, the swing sets was installed, and a lifelong passion for politics was ignited. Four decades and innumerable state and local campaigns later, Brazile has worked on every presidential campaign from 1976 through 2000, when she served as campaign manager for former Vice President Al Gore, becoming the first African-American woman to manage a presidential campaign.

She is currently on the board of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, the National Democratic Institute, the National Institute for Civil Discourse, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the BlackAmericaWeb.com Relief Fund, Inc. She also serves as co-chair for Democrats for Public Education.

A native of New Orleans, Brazile was appointed by former Governor Kathleen Blanco to serve on the Louisiana Recovery Board to work for the rebuilding of the state and to advocate for the Gulf recovery on the national stage. Brazile was recently appointed by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu to serve on the Tricenntinal Commission. Aside from working for the full recovery of her native New Orleans, Brazile’s passion is encouraging young people to vote, working within the political system in order to strengthen it, and running for public office.

She is the proud recipient of honorary doctorate degrees from Louisiana State University, North Carolina A&T State University, Grambling State University, Morehouse School of Medicine, Northeastern Illinois University, Thomas Jefferson University, and Xavier University of Louisiana. 

SESSIONS:
Sean Spicer
Former White House Press Secretary
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Everybody knows Sean Spicer. At least, polls show, they know his name and his trademark style behind the White House podium. But before the former White House Press Secretary made his mark as one of the most recognized staffers in the Trump administration, he built a decades-long career in Republican politics, witnessing and shaping the inner workings of Washington, DC, from every vantage point--as a House of Representatives communicator, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative, Republican National Committee chief strategist, top advisor to presidential campaigns, and, of course, White House spokesman. Few in Washington are as well-equipped as Sean to pull back the curtain and dissect what’s really happening in the nation’s capital.
 
Sean is a lifelong Republican operative who worked his way up through the ranks and whom colleagues know as relentless, quick-witted and good-humored. Melissa McCarthy’s depiction of his press briefing performances earned him a spot in Saturday Night Live lore, but it was his role as the architect of the Republican National Committee’s PR strategy that earned him a reputation as one of the party’s most effective and hardest-charging strategists and communicators. He helped the party successfully rebuild following losses in the 2012 election, and he then played a key role in the strategy behind the party’s sweeping 2014 victories, the must-see 2016 primary debates and the party’s improbable wins across the country that November.
 
Outside of politics, Sean serves as a commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve. A Rhode Island native and Connecticut College graduate, he also holds a master’s degree from the Naval War College. A husband and father of two, he resides in Virginia but remains a loyal fan of the Boston Red Sox.
SESSIONS:
Monday, March 12, 2018 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Jonathan A. Segal
Partner
Duane Morris, LLP
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Jonathan is a partner at Duane Morris LLP in its Employment Group.  He also is the Founder and managing principal of the Duane Morris Institute, which provides training on employment issues to HR professionals, in-house counsel and other leaders.

The core of Jonathan’s practice is helping employers maximize legal compliance and minimize legal risk with regard to harassment, discrimination, retaliation and reasonable accommodations.
Over the past few years, Jonathan has focused on religion in general and antisemitism in particular. In addition to helping clients, Jonathan has delivered a number of talks on antisemitism on behalf of the EEOC as well as to field directors of the EEOC.
 
Jonathan has provided training to federal judges and other members of the federal judiciary on various employment issues for more than 20 years.

 

SESSIONS:
Monday, March 12, 2018 - 3:45pm to 5:15pm
John Fillingham
director, HR performance
Matchett Group
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John Fillingham is Director of HR qualifcations and HR performance for Matchett whose role in partnership with SHRM for Northern Europe, is to raise brand awareness of the SHRM proposition, grow membership and create development opportunities for HR professionals through SHRM certification, re-certification and high quality education opportunities.

A bilingual HR leader and HR development expert, John has had a 27 career in HR and learning and development at senior levels in strong commercial environments with  large FSTE 100 companies such as Sainsbury’s, Debenhams, The Bullough Group and now Wilmington PLC.

 

SESSIONS:
Jennifer Shirkani
Author and Keynote Speaker
Penumbra Group
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Jen Shirkani is a nationally recognized expert on emotional intelligence and a featured speaker at several national SHRM conferences and at state affiliates in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Washington. She is the author of Ego vs EQ and Choose Resilience, guides to leveraging the power of emotional intelligence. She has spent over 25-years working with organizations as a business consultant and executive coach. In addition to emotional intelligence, she frequently speaks and writes about workplace challenges including interviewing and selection, employee engagement and motivation, generational differences, and coachability. Jen has been a frequent guest of several national radio programs, and has been featured in Bloomberg/Businessweek, Leadership Excellence magazine, Investors Daily, Business Insider, Reader’s Digest, Publishers Weekly, Fast Company, and Upstart Business Journal.  She holds a Master’s Degree in Organizational Leadership and has devoted herself to improving leadership effectiveness and on making common sense more common. 

SESSIONS:
Wednesday, April 18, 2018 - 11:15am to 12:30pm
Jennifer Shirkani
Author and Keynote Speaker
Penumbra Group
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Jen Shirkani is a nationally recognized expert on emotional intelligence and a featured speaker at several national SHRM conferences and at state affiliates in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Washington. She is the author of Ego vs EQ and Choose Resilience, guides to leveraging the power of emotional intelligence. She has spent over 25-years working with organizations as a business consultant and executive coach. In addition to emotional intelligence, she frequently speaks and writes about workplace challenges including interviewing and selection, employee engagement and motivation, generational differences, and coachability. Jen has been a frequent guest of several national radio programs, and has been featured in Bloomberg/Businessweek, Leadership Excellence magazine, Investors Daily, Business Insider, Reader’s Digest, Publishers Weekly, Fast Company, and Upstart Business Journal.  She holds a Master’s Degree in Organizational Leadership and has devoted herself to improving leadership effectiveness and on making common sense more common. 

SESSIONS:
Tuesday, April 17, 2018 - 4:00pm to 5:15pm
Michael P. Aitken
Senior Vice President, Government Affairs
SHRM
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Mike Aitken has worked at SHRM since 2003 and currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Government Affairs. Prior to joining SHRM, he served for 14 years as associate director for Governmental and External Relations at the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR). Previously, Aitken worked on state public policy issues at Bonner & Associates, a public affairs firm in Washington, DC. Currently, he is based in Alexandria, VA.

 

SESSIONS:
Sunday, June 17, 2018 - 12:30pm to 2:00pm
Jonathan A. Segal
Partner
Duane Morris, LLP
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Jonathan is a partner at Duane Morris LLP in its Employment Group.  He also is the Founder and managing principal of the Duane Morris Institute, which provides training on employment issues to HR professionals, in-house counsel and other leaders.

The core of Jonathan’s practice is helping employers maximize legal compliance and minimize legal risk with regard to harassment, discrimination, retaliation and reasonable accommodations.
Over the past few years, Jonathan has focused on religion in general and antisemitism in particular. In addition to helping clients, Jonathan has delivered a number of talks on antisemitism on behalf of the EEOC as well as to field directors of the EEOC.
 
Jonathan has provided training to federal judges and other members of the federal judiciary on various employment issues for more than 20 years.

 

SESSIONS:
Victoria Lipnic
Lead of Human Capital Strategy Group
Resolution Economics
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Victoria A. Lipnic is a Partner at Resolution Economics. She leads the Company’s Human Capital Strategy Group. The Human Capital Strategy Group combines the Company’s expertise in data analytics and deep knowledge of regulatory requirements with an interdisciplinary approach to advise organizations on the full range of their human capital needs and reporting requirements including recruitment, selection, promotions, DE&I, pay equity, and ESG, especially as to equal employment opportunity and anti-discrimination issues.

Ms. Lipnic joined Resolution Economics in 2021. She has broad experience in the full range of human capital, labor and employment issues, especially from the regulatory enforcement perspective. Prior to joining the Company she served as Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) from 2010 to 2020 and Acting Chair from 2017 to 2019. She was appointed to the EEOC by President Barack Obama and confirmed by unanimous consent by the U.S. Senate. At the EEOC she worked on policy, cases, and regulations falling under all of the statutes enforced by the Commission including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Equal Pay Act (EPA), the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). While at the EEOC she participated in numerous agency regulatory initiatives including the final GINA regulations, the ADA, as amended, regulations, and the revisions to the EEO-1 form to include pay data reporting. She organized the agency’s first public meeting on Big Data in Employment, created its Chief Data Officer position, oversaw development of the Office of Enterprise Data and Analytics and published a significant report on age discrimination. She co-chaired the EEOC’s Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace, and co-authored its seminal report, issued in 2016, before the #MeToo movement. Prior to the EEOC, she practiced law with Seyfarth Shaw.  She also served as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment Standards from 2002-2008, appointed by President George W. Bush, where, among other regulatory enforcement agencies, she oversaw the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs and the Wage and Hour Division. In 2021-22 she chaired the Artificial Intelligence – Technical Advisory Committee for the Institute for Workplace Equality.

SESSIONS:
Jeff Kroh
principal
Groom Law Group
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Jeffrey Kroh’s practice focuses on counseling plan sponsors, financial institutions, and tax-exempt organizations regarding the design and administration of executive deferred compensation plans, equity compensation plans, and qualified retirement plans. In addition, his practice encompasses significant experience advising tax-exempt organizations on a broad range of tax and licensing issues.

Jeff has worked extensively on executive and compensation issues, involving traditional deferred compensation plans, supplemental executive retirement plans (SERPs), annual and long-term bonus plans, change in control and severance arrangements, employment agreements, and other top hat plan and rabbi trust design and compliance issues. In addition to regularly speaking at conferences and seminars, Jeff is an adjunct tax professor in Georgetown Law School’s LL.M. program where he teaches a class on executive compensation covering IRC Sections 83, 162(m), 280G, 457(f), and 409A.

 
SESSIONS:
Katie Amin
principal
Groom Law Group
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Katie Bjornstad Amin advises employers, governmental entities, self-funded plans, and insurers on the full range of federal and state laws that affect the administration of health and welfare benefit plans, cafeteria plans, health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs), flexible spending arrangements (FSAs), health savings accounts (HSAs), voluntary employees’ beneficiary associations (VEBAs), wellness programs, expatriate coverage, fringe benefits, and other employee benefit arrangements.
 
Katie also counsels clients on their obligations under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including employer shared responsibility requirements, IRC Sections 6055 and 6056 reporting requirements, annual fee on health insurance providers, insurance market reforms, and the ACA’s tax provisions. Katie assists clients with obtaining rulings from the IRS and submitting comments to the IRS, Department of Labor, and Department of Health and Human Services in response to agency guidance.
 
Katie regularly speaks on the ACA and other employee benefit matters.  She has been quoted in the trade press and her articles have been published by the Benefits Law Journal, Bloomberg BNA Tax Management Compensation Planning Journal, Employers Council on Flexible Compensation FLEX Reporter, and Law360.
 
Prior to joining the firm, Katie spent nearly 4 years at the IRS Office of Chief Counsel in the Health & Welfare Branch. 
 

 

SESSIONS: