Khaliah O. Guillory
Founder of Nap Bar, Speaker, Coach & Innovator
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Khaliah O. Guillory (KOG) worked her way from banker to vice president at a Fortune 100 company that oversaw a $1 billion book of business and over 220 employees. While Vice President of Wachovia Bank, she served as one of the founding members of the Diversity Council, influencing positive change at the company. During this time, the organization saw a retention increase of approximately 35% due to her leadership. After leaving Corporate America, her phone started ringing off the hook and hasn’t stopped since. 

An avid napper and Forbes Featured Sleep Coach, Khaliah is obsessed with sleep so much, she founded Nap Bar™, the first-of-its-kind, white-glove, virtual reality wellness experience in the world. Nap Bar offers communities and companies onsite and en-suite rest sanctuaries to help reduce sleep deprivation and increase mindfulness and alertness. 

In 2015, Khaliah founded KOG & Co., a boutique firm that partners with corporations to transform human emotion through inclusion, equity, culture, wellness, and employee engagement experiences. Khaliah is an international speaker chosen to deliver the 2018 MBA Commencement Speech at the University of Houston-Downtown. She has been featured in a plethora of national media outlets, including Forbes, Huffington Post, Essence, Houston Business Journal, Fox News, ABC, and NBC. 

Khaliah’s thought leadership has inspired companies like Microsoft, Synchrony Bank, Shell, NASA, and LinkedIn, to name a few. As a dynamic professional speaker, she champions workplace well-being and belonging with electrifying energy and real-world insights. 

When she’s not revolutionizing the way we rest, you can find Khaliah chasing her next adventure — like skydiving from 10,000 feet out of a perfectly good plane. She’s a lover of ’80s music, a travel junkie, a vinyl collector, and has an undeniable obsession with socks, sunglasses, and watches. 

A member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Khaliah is also the recipient of the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award. Her impact runs deep, so much so that former Mayor Sylvester Turner and the City of Houston declared October 29 as Khaliah O. Guillory Day in recognition of her philanthropic work. 

SESSIONS:
Haben Girma
The First Deafblind Graduate of Harvard Law School & Bestselling Author
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The first Deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School, Haben Girma is an award-winning advocate, author, and keynote speaker. She earned the Helen Keller Achievement Award, reached Forbes 30 under 30, and President Obama named her a White House Champion of Change. She believes disability challenges are opportunities for innovation, sparking new technologies that move society forward. Haben travels the globe teaching organizations how to build stronger, resilient, and more connected communities.

Her bestselling book Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law takes readers on adventures around the world, including training with a guide dog in New Jersey, climbing an iceberg in Alaska, fighting for blind readers at a courthouse in Vermont, and talking with former presidents Biden and Obama at The White House. Warm, funny, thoughtful, and uplifting, this captivating book shows how we can resist isolation and find the keys to connection. The New York Times, Oprah Magazine, TODAY Show, and Stephen Curry have all praised the book.

A spellbinding speaker, her keynotes have touched the stages of Apple, Bottega Veneta, Disney, Gartner, Google, Microsoft, Oxford University, and many more. Her engaging presentations ignite audiences to make positive changes in their communities. TIME included her as a speaker in TIME100 Talks. 

In 2023 she became one of the first leaders appointed to serve as a Commissioner for the World Health Organization’s new Commission on Social Connection. Haben was born and raised in California, where she currently lives.

She travels with her Seeing Eye dog Mylo. He often falls asleep during her keynotes.

SESSIONS:
 

Ascend: Breakout Session

Tuesday, September 30, 2025 - 11:15am to 12:30pm
W. Brad Johnson, PhD
Best Selling Co-Author of Good Guys and Co-Founder of Workplace Allies
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W. Brad Johnson, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and the co-founder of Workplaceallies.com. For 30 years, he served Sailors and Marines in the U.S. Navy, first as a commissioned officer in the Navy’s Medical Service Corps and later as a tenured full professor at Annapolis in the U.S. Naval Academy's Department of Leadership, Ethics, and Law. For 20 years, he was also a clinical faculty associate at Johns Hopkins University. A clinical psychologist, Dr. Johnson is a mentoring expert specializing in developing gender-inclusive mentoring cultures for organizations around the globe. Dr. Johnson is the author of numerous publications, including 14 books, in the areas of mentoring, professional ethics, and gender inclusion. Recent Books include Good Guys: How Men Can Become Better Allies for Women in the Workplace (2020, October, with David Smith); On Being a Mentor: A Guide for Higher Education Faculty (3rd Ed.) (2025, with Kimberly Griffin); The Elements of Mentoring (3rd Ed.) (2018, with Charles Ridley); and Athena Rising: How and Why Men Should Mentor Women (2016, with David Smith).

SESSIONS:
David G. Smith, PhD
Best Selling Co-Author of Good Guys and Co-Founder of Workplace Allies
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David Smith, PhD, is co-author of the book Good Guys: How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace, an Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Gender & Work Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. He also serves as a member on the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS). A former Navy pilot, Dr. Smith led diverse organizations of women and men, culminating in command of a squadron in combat, and flew more than 3,000 hours over 30 years including combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a sociologist, his research focuses on gender, work, and family issues including allyship, inclusive mentorship and sponsorship, gender bias in performance evaluations, and dual-career families. He is the co-author of the book Athena Rising: How and Why Men Should Mentor Women and numerous journal articles and book chapters focused on gender and the workplace.  

SESSIONS:

Optimize: Advancing Together: Gender Collaboration in Action

Tuesday, September 30, 2025 - 11:15am to 12:30pm
W. Brad Johnson, PhD
Best Selling Co-Author of Good Guys and Co-Founder of Workplace Allies
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W. Brad Johnson, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and the co-founder of Workplaceallies.com. For 30 years, he served Sailors and Marines in the U.S. Navy, first as a commissioned officer in the Navy’s Medical Service Corps and later as a tenured full professor at Annapolis in the U.S. Naval Academy's Department of Leadership, Ethics, and Law. For 20 years, he was also a clinical faculty associate at Johns Hopkins University. A clinical psychologist, Dr. Johnson is a mentoring expert specializing in developing gender-inclusive mentoring cultures for organizations around the globe. Dr. Johnson is the author of numerous publications, including 14 books, in the areas of mentoring, professional ethics, and gender inclusion. Recent Books include Good Guys: How Men Can Become Better Allies for Women in the Workplace (2020, October, with David Smith); On Being a Mentor: A Guide for Higher Education Faculty (3rd Ed.) (2025, with Kimberly Griffin); The Elements of Mentoring (3rd Ed.) (2018, with Charles Ridley); and Athena Rising: How and Why Men Should Mentor Women (2016, with David Smith).

SESSIONS:
David G. Smith, PhD
Best Selling Co-Author of Good Guys and Co-Founder of Workplace Allies
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David Smith, PhD, is co-author of the book Good Guys: How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace, an Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Gender & Work Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. He also serves as a member on the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS). A former Navy pilot, Dr. Smith led diverse organizations of women and men, culminating in command of a squadron in combat, and flew more than 3,000 hours over 30 years including combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a sociologist, his research focuses on gender, work, and family issues including allyship, inclusive mentorship and sponsorship, gender bias in performance evaluations, and dual-career families. He is the co-author of the book Athena Rising: How and Why Men Should Mentor Women and numerous journal articles and book chapters focused on gender and the workplace.  

SESSIONS:

Optimize: Putting Gender Partnership to Work

Tuesday, September 30, 2025 - 1:30pm to 4:00pm
 

Registration Open

Sunday, September 28, 2025 - 10:00am to 7:30pm
Stephen Shapiro
Innovation Instigator
FAST Innovation
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Stephen Shapiro began his journey in innovation 25 years ago, founding and leading a 20,000-person innovation practice at Accenture. 

Today, as the author of seven books, including his latest, PIVOTAL: Creating Stability in an Uncertain World, he continues to challenge the status quo and inspire creative breakthroughs.

His Personality Poker® card game has been played by over 250,000 people, helping organizations create high-performing innovation teams. 

Stephen’s expertise has been featured on major television networks like CNBC, USA Network, and TLC, making his work as dynamic on-screen as it is on stage. 

Offstage, he channels his passion for innovation into magic, blending creativity with the art of making the impossible possible. 

With presentations in over 50 countries, a 2015 induction into the Speaker Hall of Fame, and his role as a Senior Research Fellow with The Conference Board, Stephen’s impact is as far-reaching as it is transformative

SESSIONS:

Keynote: Personality Poker®: Creating High-Performing Innovation Teams

Monday, September 29, 2025 - 8:30am to 9:30am
 

Ascend: Breakout Session

Monday, September 29, 2025 - 1:15pm to 2:30pm
 

Networking Break

Tuesday, September 30, 2025 - 11:00am to 11:15am
Ruth Hickin
Vice President, Workforce Innovation & Transformation
Salesforce
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Ruth Hickin is Vice President of Workforce Innovation & Transformation at Salesforce, where she leads strategies for workforce adaptation in response to AI, skills development, and talent redeployment. She oversees the Career Connect internal mobility platform and drives transformation to meet future business needs.

Before joining Salesforce, Ruth was with the World Economic Forum, where she led strategy and thought leadership on the future of technology and global tech governance, publishing influential reports. She has also held leadership positions at Virgin Unite, focusing on strategic partnerships and impact investments.

Ruth holds an MBA in Design Strategy from California College of the Arts, an Executive Master of Arts (MA) in Global Leadership from the World Economic Forum, and a Master of Arts (Honors) in English Literature from the University of Glasgow.

SESSIONS: