Rosie is an accomplished speaker, writer and consultant. She has spent more than 20 years in worksite health promotion and organizational development. In addition to her bachelor’s degrees in Kinesiology and Public Health, and a doctorate in Organization and Management, Rosie is also a Certified Intrinsic Coach® Mentor, Certified Judgment Index Consultant, a Certified Valuations Specialist, and a Board Certified Coach. Rosie uses this unique combination to work with executive and leadership teams to create comprehensive development strategies centered on shifting thinking patterns. She is a contributing author to the book, “Organization Development in Healthcare — High Impact Practices for a Complex and Changing Environment.” She leverages these principles to help organizations develop and implement strategies to create a thriving workplace culture that values and supports wellbeing and the unique, intrinsic needs of employees.

Karl Ahlrichs specializes in helping professionals make order from chaos. He is a national speaker, author, and consultant, presenting on the people issues in all industries, and is often quoted in the local and national media. 

Karl’s experience is ideally suited to times of organizational change as he pulls on risk management and organizational development theories to replace “best practices” with “next practices”. He owes much of his communications mastery to working as a writer and editor in daily media, to on-the-job writing experience and to the process of becoming a published author.

He joined Gregory & Appel in 2010 after serving as a founding partner of ExactHire, bringing his HR, operations, diversity & belonging, and learning & development skills with him. Karl’s affinity for design, composition and learning started at a very young age, by taking and examining thousands of boring pictures with the goal of improving his craft. He loves deploying that practice-to-improve approach with all manner of hobbies including writing haiku, mastering cutting-edge technology and learning Spanish.

In 2003, he was named the SHRM Human Resource Professional of the Year for the State of Indiana. He is on the Boards of several organizations, including the Maryland CPA Society.  He has lived in Scotland and Spain and lives to explore new experiences with his wife and family.

Dr. Shonna Waters is the Vice President of HR Innovations and Insights (formerly known as “Research”) at the Society for Human Resource Management, where she leads the team that provides evidence-based insights, recommendations, and innovations at the intersection of people and work to improve the employee experience and business performance. Prior to joining SHRM, Dr. Waters spent over 15 years helping organizations make evidence-based decisions as an external and internal consultant. Most recently, she was the Technical Director of Human Resources Strategy and Program Design at the National Security Agency where she led the transformation of NSA’s promotion, performance management, and awards and recognition systems, the design and validation of the Agency’s analyst hiring assessments, and a variety of other evaluation and organizational performance projects. Dr. Waters holds a PhD in Industrial-Organizational (I-O) Psychology and Statistics, a certificate in Leadership Coaching from Georgetown University's Leadership Coaching Program in the Institute for Transformational Leadership, and is an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) through the International Coach Federation (ICF). Her work has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals, the Handbook of Employee Selection, and she has published over 50 technical reports and presented at over 25 professional conferences.

Bettina A. Deynes, SHRM-SCP,  IPMA-CP , is Vice President, Human Resources at SHRM. She has more than 20 years of experience in HR.  Prior to joining SHRM, Bettina was Director of Human Resources for the City of Alexandria, Va., where she was responsible to the city manager for the effective and efficient management of all human resource responsibilities, programs and projects. Prior to that role, she was director of human resources for the National Association of Social Workers in Washington, D.C.

For two decades, Polly LaBarre has used her writing and speaking to help make organizations more resilient, innovative and inspiring - and to embolden and equip leaders at every level to make a meaningful impact. LaBarre’s work is driven by three core questions: How can organizations change the way they change in order to become endlessly adaptable and gain an advantage over time? How do you embed innovation as a DNA level capability inside an organization? How do we unleash and organize human potential in ever more powerful ways? With her partners (including Gary Hamel) at the Management Lab (MLab), LaBarre works with leading organizations to make real progress on those ideas and accelerate the development and adoption of a post-bureaucratic, 21st century management model.

LaBarre began this exploration as a founding member at Fast Company magazine where she helped shape the remarkable success of a magazine that changed the way leaders at all levels think about working and winning. She also co-authored the bestselling book Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win which has been published in 16 languages. LaBarre is currently at work on a book about the future of management and large-scale change with Gary Hamel.

LaBarre is also the co-founder of MIX (Management Innovation eXchange), a pioneering open innovation platform launched by the MLab. Dedicated to making progress on the big challenge of reinventing management for the 21st century, the MIX is: a discovery engine for the most progressive management practices and ideas; an active community of in-the-trenches management innovators and change agents from around the world; and an experimental laboratory for developing and testing bold new ideas and equipping management practitioners with new principles, methods and models. The MIX hosts the world’s leading idea contest in the field of management (the M-Prize) and an annual gathering of the vanguard of management innovators, the MIX Mashup, which LaBarre designs and hosts.

LaBarre’s writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Fast Company, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review online and the McKinsey Quarterly. Her widely syndicated blog, Fresh MIX, delivers agenda-setting ideas about 21st-century organizations. She has also been a frequent guest on radio and television programs far and wide.

A popular keynote speaker, moderator/interviewer, LaBarre has addressed hundreds of audiences around the world – from large corporate and association gatherings to intimate top-management retreats. A brilliant storyteller, LaBarre takes audiences on an inspiring journey – bringing to life the people, organizations and ideas on the fringe that are creating the future. She reveals the most practical and high-impact ways to innovate, adapt and succeed -- redefining how leadership, change, innovation, collaboration, employee engagement, organizational culture, accountability, disruptive strategy are done.

LaBarre is currently at work on a book about the future of management and large-scale change with Gary Hamel. She is on the board of advisors of TakingITGlobal, the leading online community for connecting and empowering young people to make a difference in the world. She is a graduate of Yale University.