Donna Joseph is the CEO and co-founder of Rhodes-Joseph & Tobiason Advisors, an independent employee benefits coaching and consulting company helping employers and employee benefits professionals as well as brokers, vendors and service providers, www.rjtadvisors.com. Her company’s unique Rent-A-Benefits Director™ services accelerate clients’ achievement of business and benefits goals. Donna also leads her company’s Grow Your Benefits Career™ coaching practice, www.GrowYourBenefitsCareer.com. As former Benefits Director at a major global company, Donna brings her wide experience and depth of knowledge to her clients. She frequently speaks at national employee benefits conferences and has authored and been quoted in many articles on benefits.

Larry is an experienced counselor and trial lawyer. He is Board Certified in Labor and Employment Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and represents clients in all types of labor and employment matters, including wrongful termination and employee disloyalty litigation, development of personnel policies, implementation of workforce reductions, negotiation and drafting of employment agreements and compensation packages, union avoidance and collective bargaining, and investigations and administrative proceedings. Larry has tried cases to verdict, judgment and decision in state and federal court, before administrative agencies, and in arbitration.

Larry was named a Texas “Super Lawyer” seven times in Texas Super Lawyers by Thomson Reuters (2003-2005 and 2008-2011) and was recognized as a “Leading Labour Lawyer of the World” by Euromoney in 2003. Larry served as President and General Counsel of HR Houston, as an instructor for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Technical Assistance Program, and is an Adjunct Professor in Management in the Jones Graduate School of Business. Larry is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors, the Society for Human Resource Management and other professional organizations and currently serves as President of Jones Partners. He is a regular speaker at national and regional human resources conferences and has authored numerous articles on employment law topics. Before founding the firm, Larry was a partner at Baker & McKenzie and co-director of the labor and employment practice at Legge Farrow.

Greg Madsen is Co-CEO of Innovative Rx Strategies. Greg possesses first-hand knowledge of PBM pricing models and is an expert in MAC programs, generic pricing and PBM operations. He also has expert knowledge of claims adjudication processes and benefit design administration, along with years of negotiating and auditing experience. Greg is a registered pharmacist with an MBA and prior to founding Innovative Rx Strategies, Greg was Senior Vice President of Retail Services for CVS Caremark. He was responsible for expanding the company’s retail programs, developing client pricing initiatives and was a key contributor to the client underwriting process.

As executive vice president of Corporate Services for Aflac Incorporated, Ms. Tillman is responsible for all aspects of human resource management for Aflac’s more than 4,400 employees. She also oversees operations of the Facilities, Corporate Learning, and Strategic Sourcing & Procurement divisions as well as the Travel & Meetings division and Communicorp, Aflac’s for-profit printing company. 

During her tenure, Aflac has received multiple honors including Training magazine’s Training Top 125, FORTUNE magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For and Working Mother magazine’s 100 Best Places for Working Mothers, as well as being recognized by Black Enterprise magazine as one of its Best Companies for Diversity for six consecutive years. Aflac has also appeared in LATINA Style magazine’s annual list of The 50 Best Companies for Latinas to Work for 13 years and was named to BusinessWeek’s Best Places to Launch a Career in 2008 and 2009. 

Ms. Tillman is a member of the State Bar of Georgia, the North Carolina State Bar and the Bar of the District of Columbia and is a past chair of the corporate law section of the National Bar Association.  She has also served as a director-at-large for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

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.

 

Cecile Alper-Leroux is an economic anthropologist with over 20 year of experience as an HR leader and HR technology product and implementation strategist in the United States, Latin America, and Europe. Passionate about people and technology in the workplace, Cecile has dedicated her life's work to helping organizations design the best possible experience for people at work and in life, so they can achieve great things. She has been featured in Forbes, HuffPost, HR Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. Cecile is the Vice President of human capital management (HCM) innovation at Ultimate Software.

Lynn Sutton is the managing principal with Kairos Consulting Worldwide. An accomplished business & technology strategist, her experience in process engineering spans more than 22 years assisting regional, national and international high-performing firms in achieving their operational and financial goals. Ms. Sutton founded Kairos Worldwide in 2004, building a team of seasoned professionals who share her same dedication to operational efficiencies. Consummate professionals with diverse backgrounds, they bring deep insight and valued expertise to each client engagement. The Kairos Team includes among its accomplishments providing change management services for the US Navy / Department of Defense helping them to realize $23M in savings, increasing productivity by 40% within Hospira Worldwide, Inc, working with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, demonstrating opportunities for return on investment following major technology initiatives, and implementing a lean six sigma environment for Lufthansa Technik Philippines realizing $14M in savings and improving productivity by more than 25%.

Internationally recognized as an expert in the field, Mr. Kushner is one of the nation's most sought after speakers on HR strategy and employee benefits. He has advised four U.S. Presidents on health care and has testified before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee and the U.S. House Small Business Committee on employee benefit issues.

A frequent resource to the media, Mr. Kushner contributes to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, AP, Knight-Ridder, the Kiplinger Washington Newsletter, CNN News, Fortune, MSNBC and Good Morning America among others. More importantly, he and his wife Tamis have five children and four wonderful (and amazing!) grandchildren.

 

 Joe is a leading thinker in managing and motivating people. He’s passionate about helping organizations achieve their vision through effective performance management.

 He’s a top-rated SHRM speaker and serves as Chief Value Officer for Delphia Consulting, a national HR and Payroll software consulting firm based in Columbus, Ohio. Joe is the co-creator of miviva, a continuous performance management application.

 Joe has over 30 years of experience and serves as VP of Professional Development on the Human Resources Association of Central Ohio (HRACO) Board of Directors. Joe is a cited contributor to the SHRM Learning System.

 

 

 

 

 

As Director of Operations for the Human Capital Practice, Jennifer Barton oversees all aspects of the North American Human Capital Practice field operations, including the logistical deployment of subject matter experts and operational reporting. Ms Barton joined Willis 10 years ago to establish and lead the HR Consulting Practice of Willis North America, and was responsible for the development of tools and resources to take work off clients’ desks and keep them aligned with HR best practices and trends. She also has extensive experience with developing human capital strategies to enhance employee attraction, retention and engagement, designing talent management strategies, as well as creating and implementing HR strategic plans based on business strategy and HR capabilities. Jennifer previously served as Director of Human Resources for a large multi-state long term care management firm. With over 15 years of experience, Ms Barton’s career in human resources has encompassed work both nationally and internationally.