Rosaria (Ria) Hawkins, Ph.D., President of Take Charge Consultants, has over 25 years of leadership development and consulting experience. She is a leading thinker on mindful leadership and organizations—focusing on strategies and techniques for sensing and responding to change in order to ensure long-term sustainability and success. Her research on mindful leaders and their approach to organizational change provides leaders with a flexible process for sense making and action taking in a turbulent and changing world. She has spoken about the skills and strategies involved with mindful leadership to groups that include coaches, business professionals, guidance counselors, and human resource executives.

D. Kevin Berchelmann, president, CEO and principal consultant at Triangle Performance, LLC, is a highly acclaimed strategist and thought leader in executive, management and organization performance.

Berchelmann believes that leadership is a learned skill, and management performance can successfully change the course of any organization. The key is in the “learning,” and contrary to the plethora of trainers in this business, few can actually “develop” leaders successfully. Simply put, it’s not as easy as it looks.

From executive team building, strategy development and compensation, to individualized coaching, performance improvement and retention, Berchelmann has been incredibly successful in delivering results and measurable value in this critical environment.

Cathy Missildine, SPHR has extensive experience in many areas of strategic human resources management. She has worked closely with executives in the areas of performance, productivity, retention, training, staffing and strategic implementation. Her experience in operations and sales management in the technical, insurance and hospitality industries has given her a broad understanding of business issues and a solid foundation for building performance-enhancing systems that support the business. Cathy received her MBA from Kennesaw State college and is currently is a professor at Kennesaw State and Emory Universities.

Jake Flaitz, Director of Benefits at Paychex, is responsible for managing the company’s comprehensive benefits programs, including the nationally recognized Active Health wellness initiative.

Jake is active in community health care issues in Rochester, New York and a member of the Rochester Business Alliance’s Health Care Planning Team and the Rochester Regional Health Information Organization’s (RHIO) Management Committee. He is also a member of the Community Technology Assessment Advisory Board (CTAAB) and the board of the National Business Group on Health’s Institute on Innovation in Workforce Well-being.