Advanced (Elevating I&D)

Kathleen has over 20 years of experience in designing and implementing wellbeing, fitness, occupational health, EAP, benefits, work/life and organizational development initiatives.  Prior to Gallagher, Kathleen spent nineteen year’s leading award winning occupational health and wellness programs at Campbell Soup Company.  Her experience lies in designing integrated approaches to organizational wellbeing by connecting culture, employee behavior, risk, and outcomes.  Kathleen has an MS in Organizational Development from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and a BS in Cardiovascular Health from Northeastern University in Boston.  In 2022 Kathleen was named a Luminary by BenefitsPRO Magazine for transforming and humanizing the benefits business.

Dr. Katie Brown has spent nearly three decades leveraging the science behind high-impact language instruction to create scalable, sustainable English learning solutions for immigrants, refugees, and speakers of other languages. As founder and chief education officer of EnGen, a Certified B Corporation, she is pioneering a personalized, career-aligned, mobile-first approach to English upskilling and is engaging cross-sector partners – Fortune 500 companies, regional employers, higher education institutions, apprenticeship programs, and government institutions – to advance economic mobility, workforce inclusion, and talent pipeline development across the U.S.  An expert in adult learning, education technology, and instructional design, Katie has crafted numerous award-winning language courses and authored multiple technology patents to deliver empowering, effective language training to millions of learners. Katie holds a PhD in second language acquisition from the University of Maryland, and is a frequent speaker, author, and panel moderator.

Valerie Wasielewksi is the Director of the People Team at the New York production facility of Chobani, located in New Berlin, NY.   She has spent the last 30 years in the field of Human Resources with the majority of her time spent in manufacturing industries.  Valerie started with Chobani during the early years of 2011. 

The People Team at Chobani is dedicated to partnering with business units to maximize the potential of our greatest asset – our employees.  She is focused on partnering with business units and committed to recruit, develop, reward and retain Chobani’s global workforce of over 1,000 employees. 

Kevin M. Coleman is the Founder of KMC Empowerment, LLC where he provides executive coaching, empowering speeches, and professional development training to make individuals and organizations successful.  This is done through inspiring leaders to define clear vision, mission, and value systems that leads to exponential personal, professional, and business growth.  Kevin has vast experience in leading training for Entrepreneurs, Executives, Division Chiefs, Branch Chiefs, Mid-Level Managers, Supervisors, and Team Leads for over 35 years.  Kevin has demonstrated experience speaking for all audiences from three (4) to three thousand (4,000).  In addition, Kevin is a United States Army disabled veteran.

Alaysia Black Hackett is the Chief Diversity and Equity Officer in the Office of the Secretary at the United States Department of Labor. Appointed in the summer of 2022, she leads and provides strategic insight for the Department’s internal and external initiatives for interagency diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) programs. She serves as the principal advisor and subject matter expert on promoting DEIA into systems that guide the labor market, diversifying the workforce, dismantling historically exclusive systems that perpetuate discrimination in the workplace and embedding equity in the labor field so that all people may feel seen, heard and included.   

Prior to joining the Department of Labor, Chief Hackett provided executive-level diversity leadership in both the public and private sectors, and she dedicated her career to effectively building diverse and equitable infrastructures. She served as the inaugural Deputy Chief Diversity Officer, a cabinet level role, to Governor Ralph S. Northam in the Commonwealth of Virginia. In this historic position, she managed the overall operations of the Governor’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) office.  Most notably, she co-created the ONE Virginia plan, a DEI strategic plan for inclusive excellence across 100+ state agencies in Virginia, working with leaders to champion the most robust equity agenda in Virginia.  Before her gubernatorial appointment, Chief Hackett served as the DEI consultant for the Virginia Department of Human Resource Management where she oversaw the reviewing and removal of bias policies and inequitable hiring practices and was an Equal Employment Opportunity investigator. Prior to her tenure in government, Chief Hackett spent 18 years in administration and diversity officer roles in higher education, including: University of North Carolina-Asheville (a state institution), Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College (a large community college), Virginia Union University (a historically black college/university), and Mars Hill University (a private institution), where she established the diversity office and advocated for inclusive excellence.

Chief Hackett received the 2020 Governor’s Diversity, Inclusion, and Outreach Award for leadership in prioritizing equity in the Commonwealth of Virginia’s COVID-19 pandemic response by helping improve access to historically marginalized communities.  Those efforts led the multi-agency Unified Command response and recovery, which leveraged the Equity Leadership Taskforce to integrate equity into each decision made on behalf of the Commonwealth.

Hackett earned a Bachelor of Science in Sociology with a concentration in Race, Ethnicity, and Gender Relations and has a master’s degree in Public Affairs with a concentration in Organizational Development from Western Carolina University. She received her Juris Doctor from Concord Law School.   

Constance (Conny) Mayer is the U.S. State Department’s Acting Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer and serves as the Secretary of State’s principal advisor on how to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) in the Department and at U.S. embassies and consulates around the world.  Conny leads a DEIA data working group for the White House-run Chief Diversity Officers’ Executive Council which coordinates DEIA efforts across the federal government as departments and agencies implement Executive Order 14035 on advancing DEIA in the Federal Workforce. 

Charmaine Davis is an experienced policy strategist, facilitator and organizer that has built diverse coalitions of labor, community and government organizations, trained grassroots leaders, and directed legislative campaigns using a racial and gender lens to end employment discrimination against justice impacted people, expand access to job protected leave and advance pay equity.

Charmaine began her career as a community organizer for the national organization Project Vote. After moving to Atlanta, GA Charmaine became the State Director for the Georgia chapter of 9to5, The National Association of Working Women. As State Director, she led all chapter organizing, legislative work and membership-building activities. In her role with 9to5 she worked with Georgia state legislators to draft the Family Care Act, a bill to expand job protected leave to Georgia workers. She successfully led lobbying efforts that resulted in the Family Care Act being signed into law by Georgia Governor Nathan Deal in May of 2017. 

While serving as the State Director for 9to5 Charmaine launched Atlanta’s “Ban the Box” campaign. Ban the Box is a campaign to reduce employment discrimination against the formerly incarcerated by removing questions from employment applications inquiring about an individual’s criminal record. In January of 2013, in response to Charmaine’s organizing efforts, the city of Atlanta made history by becoming the first city in Georgia to remove all questions regarding an applicant’s criminal background from city employment applications. This policy change has expanded employment opportunities to thousands of people across the state of Georgia.

Charmaine has received various forms of recognition and awards for her work including being inducted into the YWCA’s Women of Achievement Academy, being named one of Georgia’s 40 under 40 Rising Stars by Georgia Trend Magazine, being awarded Political Organizer of the Year by Project Vote and being named one of Marquis Who's Who in America in 2019.

Charmaine continues to promote the welfare of wage earning women by serving as the Director of Regional Programs and Operations for the US Department of Labor’s Women's Bureau.

Aleta Howell currently leads Global Inclusive Recruiting and Business Strategy for Cisco Systems.  In this role she works to align corporate diversity, equity and inclusion strategies that drive diverse and inclusive hiring.   

Prior to her current role, Aleta led Inclusive Recruiting Strategy for University recruiting, where she worked with leaders and HR Partners to drive hiring strategies and program development to attract diverse university talent.  She also served as a Program Manager with Cisco’s Office of Inclusion and Collaboration where she helped to create new processes to drive diversity metrics review discussions with senior leaders.

Before joining Cisco, Aleta spent more than a decade as a senior branding consultant, working with senior leaders and executives to develop and guide branding and business strategy.   Her experience includes leading brand marketing teams, strategic consulting, education recruiting and talent acquisition strategy for numerous Fortune 500 companies.

Aleta began her career as a brand manager with Nabisco Foods.  Upon leaving Nabisco, she returned to Kenan-Flagler Business School as Assoc. Director of Admissions for Minority Recruitment and later became MBA Admissions director, where she led all recruiting and admissions for the full-time MBA program. 

Aleta is an alumnus of NC State University where she earned a BA in Economics and Business Management.  She also earned an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at UNC Chapel Hill.  Aleta resides in Raleigh, NC with her husband Kevin.  She is the mother of two college-aged daughters.  In her spare time she loves to sing, cook, write and travel.

Caz is Director of Inclusive Hiring, where she leads RBIJ’s first and second chance hiring programs, including Unlock Potential (UP). In addition to leading the Inclusive Hiring team, her responsibilities also include collaborating with community-based organizations, advocacy leaders, and social services providers.

Previously, Caz worked at various nonprofits, including as the program manager at the Vera Institute of Justice’s Redefining Public Safety team, the Director of Employment Services for Westhab’s NYC and Westchester County shelter and community-based employment programs, and as Director of Fathers Count - Family Services of Westchester’s federally-funded Responsible Fatherhood Program. She received a Citation from Mayor Mike Spano for her contribution to Westchester County and the City of Yonkers and a Certificate of Recognition from the Senate of the State of New York for Exemplary Service to the community. While in the UK, Caz also worked as a probation officer for HM Prison & Probation Service and as a youth social worker with Camden Children & Family Services.

Alexander Alonso, PhD, SHRM-SCP is the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM's) Chief Data & Insights Officer leading operations for SHRM's Certified Professional and Senior Certified Professional certifications, research functions, and the SHRM Knowledge Advisor service. He is responsible for all research activities, including the development of the SHRM Competency Model and SHRM credentials.

During his career, he has worked with numerous subject matter experts worldwide with the aim of identifying performance standards, developing competency models, designing organizational assessments, and conducting job analyses. He was also responsible for working on contract task orders involving the development of measurement tools for content areas such as job knowledge (like teacher knowledge of instructional processes) and organizational climates (like organizational climate forecasting in military health care).

Dr. Alonso received his doctorate in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Florida International University in 2003. His works have been recognized for their contribution to real-world issues. They include being recognized by the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology (Division 14 of the APA; SIOP) with the 2007 M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace for the development of the federal standard for medical team training, TeamSTEPPS; being awarded a 2009 Presidential Citation for Innovative Practice by the American Psychological Association for supporting the development of competency model for team triage in emergency medicine; and receiving the 2013 SIOP Distinguished Early Career Contributions for Practice Award.

Throughout his career, he has published works in peer-reviewed journals such as Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, Journal of Applied Psychology, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, People and Strategy, Personality and Individual Differences, Quality and Safety in Health Care, and Human Resources Management Review. He has also authored several chapters on community-based change initiatives in workforce readiness, as well as co-authoring Defining HR Success: A Guide to the SHRM Competency Model in Practice.

Dr. Alonso also served as a columnist analyzing major trends in the workforce for The Industrial Psychologist and HR Magazine. In addition, he has served on several professional society boards including the SIOP and the Personnel Testing Council of Metropolitan Washington.

Damien Howard is the Chief Enterprise Solutions Officer at Per Scholas, responsible for driving revenue across multiple verticals by aligning and optimizing the national nonprofit’s employer engagement and business strategy. He focuses on accelerating growth across multiple markets while providing leadership for many Per Scholas teams. In 2016, Damien co-founded Diverse by Design with the goal of moving conversation into action in the industry Per Scholas knows best: technology. Earlier this year, Damien was welcomed as a Forbes Business Development Council Member and Contributor, sharing his perspective about talent development, business strategy, technology, diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and more.

Michelle spent 10 years at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, supporting employers to close their pay gaps through writing guidance reports and running workshops. This was until 2014, when Michelle took voluntary redundancy whilst on maternity leave and Equality Pays was born.

Michelle set up Equality Pays to provide the business coaching, strategy, support, and confidence that organisations want and need.

Michelle is on a mission to educate and share what organisations should be focusing on when it comes to addressing the root causes of their pay gaps in order to create more inclusive, equitable workplaces.

Michelle's role is to support organisations in identifying what changes need to be made to close both gender and ethnicity pay gaps so that people choose to work for those organisations and go on to build their careers with them. No matter their gender, ethnicity, or workplace needs.

Kelly Bunting, Co-Chair of the Greenberg Traurig, LLP's Labor & Employment Practice's Workplace Compliance & Counseling Group, and member of its Artificial Intelligence Law Group, has considerable experience defending class and collective wage and hour litigation and misclassification claims, having defended employers in Title III ADA access litigation and litigation alleging race, sex, pregnancy, age, disability discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. She is deeply experienced in virtually all aspects of employment litigation, including wage and hour, labor, Title VII, harassment, discrimination, wrongful termination, non-competition and non-solicitation, trade secrets, SOX and Dodd Frank whistleblower claims, CEPA, ADEA, FMLA, NJLAD, and failure to accommodate issues. She has identified and managed employment issues in M&A deals and appeared before the EEOC, NLRB, and DOL in many states, as well as state agencies in DE, NY, NJ and PA. Kelly has represented many clients in mediation and settlement negotiations, and created HR and compliance training modules. She is regularly sought after as a workforce trainer for issues related to harassment and discrimination, FCPA compliance, good management techniques, and union awareness.

Kelly focuses much of her practice on international L&E issues, including employment/secondment contracts, data privacy, and global anti-corruption compliance. She advises clients on national and international handbook policies, procedures, and strategic HR issues, and provides day-to-day counsel in hiring, employee relations, employee discipline, and termination. She also conducts and advises on internal investigations.