Melissa is a Founder and CEO of Youth Empowerment Project (YEP).  Melissa received her B.A. from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec and her M. Ed from the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE).  Melissa first came to New Orleans through Teach for America (TFA) and she returned to the city after receiving her Master’s Degree in order to help reform the state’s juvenile justice system. In 2004, Melissa and two other juvenile justice advocates founded YEP as the first program of its kind in Louisiana to support formerly incarcerated youth transition back into their families and communities.  Over the past 17 years, YEP has expanded to provide mentoring, high school equivalency preparation, employment readiness, and out-of-school time programming to young people across the Greater New Orleans region.  Among the significant recognition she has received for her leadership at YEP, Melissa was recognized by the Times-Picayune as one of the 300 people “who have made New Orleans, New Orleans” (2018) and Gambit Weekly selected her as New Orleanian of the Year (2016).  

Stacey has 20 years of public relations, ​internal communications, ​brand reputation, crisis communications, culture development and corporate social responsibility experience. She’s adept at strategy and creation of key messaging to all stakeholders, from the boardroom to the break room.

She’s held CorpComm leadership positions managing all social and traditional media for Brinker International (parent company of Chili’s Grill & Bar and Maggiano’s Little Italy), FedEx Office and At Home. She built internal and external communications strategies and led a culture shift for At Home’s $20 million, nationwide rebrand. Additionally, she served on the core team and led communication for the company’s 2016 IPO. As an SVP at a NYC-based PR agency, she was deeply involved in supporting Peloton’s September 2019 IPO. In 2020, she joined the Peloton organization as an employee.

Rob Grubka is chief executive officer (CEO) of Health Solutions for Voya Financial, Inc., which helps Americans plan, invest and protect their savings — to get ready to retire better.

In this role, Grubka is responsible for driving Voya’s customer experience and profitable growth — delivering planning, investing and protection solutions to and through the workplace to help individuals and employers from “hire through retire.” As part of the company’s focus on health and wealth solutions, Grubka leads product development and management, as well as the end-to-end customer experience. Grubka also serves on Voya’s Executive Committee.

Grubka brings nearly 30 years of actuarial, product management and leadership experience to the role. Most recently, he served as president, Employee Benefits for Voya — and prior to that was the chief risk officer (CRO) for Voya’s Retirement and Annuity businesses. In the latter role, he partnered with Voya’s businesses in developing strategies that balanced risk with opportunities to achieve their goals.

Prior to joining Voya, Grubka led the Group Protection business at Lincoln Financial and held leadership roles in the retirement and annuity businesses. Previously, he held a variety of actuarial roles at Nationwide Financial. 

Grubka earned a bachelor’s degree in actuarial science from The Ohio State University. He holds FINRA Series 6 and 26 licenses and is a fellow in the Society of Actuaries. Grubka also serves on the board of Junior Achievement North and is the Executive Sponsor of Voya’s Volunteerism employee-led council.

Serving the financial needs of approximately 14.3 million individual customers, workplace participants and institutions in the United States, Voya is a Fortune 500 company that had $4.2 billion in revenue in 2021. The company had more than $707 billion in total assets under management and administration as of March 31, 2022.

Margaret Dondero is a Senior Manager of Global Benefits at Globalization Partners whose passion about holistic wellbeing and employee benefits has been making a difference in employee’s lives for more than thirty years.

She joined Globalization Partners in 2021 following nine years with Novanta where she managed Global Benefits. Margaret has always approached solutions to employee benefits inclusively of overall wellbeing; physical, financial, emotional and social.

Margaret lives in Massachusetts with her husband and children and their dogs on a family farm. When she is not working, she likes to spend time on the farm with her family and assorted farm animals.