Melissa Adams is Executive Vice President of Human Resources of Duarte, Inc., responsible for the company’s culture and talent strategies to enable all our people to thrive. As a leader in HR for over two decades, Melissa brings a wealth of best practices for creating engaged, diverse, and inclusive work environments where people and business results excel. Through her experience in a range of industries, across businesses of all sizes in the U.S. and Europe, Melissa has developed proven strategies for cultivating employees and strengthening culture to support and sustain business growth. She’s particularly passionate about creating innovative training experiences that build empathy and inclusion, underpinned by her deep expertise in psychometric and relationship awareness tools. As a result of Melissa’s leadership, Duarte’s employee engagement measures have skyrocketed, with scores well above benchmarks for similar companies. She has received several accolades for her work, including National Employer of the Year and Outstanding Contribution award. In addition to multiple coaching and psychometric accreditations, Melissa has an International Human Resources Management Degree with honors from Southampton Solent University, UK.

Laura Lewers is a Director of Strategic Accounts at Linkage. As a DSA, Laura’s role is to both deepen and widen important client relationships, while also expanding Linkage’s footprint on the West Coast. This includes engaging current and prospective clients in discussions around how they will achieve business goals through an inclusive leadership mindset, while also enabling their women leaders to advance organically within the organization.

Laura also represents Linkage at local events on the West Coast, such as the annual TechWomen conference held in the San Francisco Bay Area every fall.

A Bay Area native, Laura lives in San Francisco with her husband and beloved black Labrador, Sutter.

Prior to joining Linkage, Laura was with Vantage Partners, a boutique consultancy born out of the Harvard Law School Negotiation Project. While there, Laura worked with Fortune 1000 clients to further explore, identify and deploy leadership and management skills development.

In addition, Laura spent several years in business development and client delivery for various sales, management, and leadership development skill-building organizations. Some of her key clients have included The Walt Disney Company, Johnson & Johnson, eBay, Oracle, and Wells Fargo.

Laura earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of San Diego. She also had the fun and unique opportunity to engage in study on Semester at Sea, traveling to 11 countries around the world while working and studying on the S.S. Universe.

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.

Sue Pelbath was appointed Deputy Director of the Specialized Services Division at the California Department of Rehabilitation (DOR) by Governor Gavin Newsom in June 2022. In this role, Pelbath oversees all of DOR’s employment and independent living services for blind and deaf Californians. Prior to her current appointment, Pelbath held multiple other positions at DOR, including Administrator of DOR’s Orientation Center for the Blind, Manager of the Programs and Services Division, Senior Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor, Qualified Rehabilitation Professional and Service Coordinator. She was a Paraprofessional in Special Education at the Oceanside Unified School District from 1990 to 2004. Pelbath earned a Master of Science degree in Rehabilitation Counseling from San Diego State University. She acquired blindness as an adult and brings valuable lived experience to the work she does.