Sean Hinton
Founder & CEO
SkyHive
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Sean is a recognized thought leader and innovator in labor economics and the Future of Work, having invented Quantum Labor Analysis that marries economic theory with artificial intelligence to produce the most advanced real-time knowledge graph of jobs, skills, training, and labor market intelligence in the world.

Sean is the Co-Chair of the Entrepreneurs Circle of the Canadian American Business Council (CABC) and a member of OECD's Future of Work Forum Engagement Group. In 2020, Sean was invited by the Government of Canada to join the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) and represent Canada as one of the 15 founding countries. GPAI is one of the most extensive collaborations on AI policy and the first international standard for AI.

Prior to founding SkyHive, Sean led a $250 million multinational company with 500 employees and 23 global offices.

SESSIONS:
Shon Burton
Personal Pronouns
He/Him/His
Founder
HiringSolved
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Shon Burton is the Founder and product visionary of HiringSolved, a leading Talent Intelligence company in the HR industry. Shon is the designer of RAI, HiringSolved’s AI-based recruiting assistant, which has been called “Siri for recruiting” by the media. He is also the co-founder of MLconf – The Machine Learning Conference and conference.ai, two of the top conferences in applied machine learning and artificial intelligence, respectively. Before starting HiringSolved, Shon founded several other companies, including Wildcog, Dataverse, and GetAnyGame.

SESSIONS:
Deborah Everhart, Ph.D.
Personal Pronouns
She/Her/Hers
Chief Strategy Officer
Credential Engine
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Dr. Deborah Everhart serves as Chief Strategy Officer at Credential Engine, leading credential and competency transparency initiatives that enable more effective connections between education and career opportunities. Deborah has pioneered open technology standards for competencies, learning and employment records, and open badges. She led nationally-recognized experts authoring the American Council on Education publications “Quality Dimensions for Connected Credentials” and “Communicating the Value of Competencies.” Her business expertise includes leadership roles in technology architecture and product strategy at Cengage and Blackboard. Deborah holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine. 

SESSIONS:
Etan Bernstein
Head of Ecosystem
Velocity Network Foundation
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Etan is the Co-Founder and Head of Ecosystem of Velocity Career Labs ™ and the Velocity Network Foundation®. These organizations co-exist to reinvent how career records and credentials are shared across the labour market, empowering individuals, businesses and educational institutions through transformational blockchain technology.
Prior to founding Velocity Etan served as Managing Partner of AKT Solutions, one of the largest HR advisory and technology system integrators in EMEA, working with prominent enterprises in the region to transform their HR infrastructure.

Etan began his 25+ year career in Organization Development and HR leadership roles at Intel and Applied Materials.

SESSIONS:
 

Coffee Break

Tuesday, March 29, 2022 - 2:30pm to 3:00pm
 

Break

Monday, March 28, 2022 - 3:15pm to 3:30pm
Doug Rand
Senior Advisor, Office of the Director
USCIS
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Doug Rand began serving as Senior Advisor to the Director of USCIS on Aug. 16, 2021.

Previously, he served as a Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), directing the Technology and Innovation Initiative that focuses on the intersection of immigration policy and artificial intelligence (AI) in advancing the nation’s national security and economic growth.

Rand served in the Executive Office of the President between 2010­-2017 as Assistant Director for Entrepreneurship in the Office of Science and Technology Policy, with a portfolio spanning inclusive high-growth entrepreneurship, access to capital, clean energy innovation, commercialization of federally funded research, and high-skill immigration. More recently, he advised the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.

As an entrepreneur, Rand was the co-founder and president of Boundless, and the co-founder and CEO of Playscripts, Inc.

He is a graduate of Yale Law School and the Yale School of Management, and received Master’s and undergraduate degrees from Harvard, where he studied evolutionary biology.

 

SESSIONS:
Neal Vermillion
Office Director, Visa Office, Field Operations, Bureau of Consular Affairs
U.S. Department of State
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Neal Vermillion is the Visa Office’s Director of Field Operations in the Bureau of Consular Affairs.  He served previously as a Regional Consular Officer based in Frankfurt, Germany providing coaching and guidance to consular sections in Europe, Africa, and Asia.  Prior to that, Neal worked at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, China, first as a senior manager in the nonimmigrant visa unit and then as the Special Assistant to the Minister Counselor for Consular Affairs.   Neal also served overseas in Perth, Antananarivo, and Sofia. Neal graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University with an undergraduate degree in political science and history.  He received a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin – Madison where his studies focused on the history of U.S. foreign policy.

SESSIONS:

21st Century Solutions: How the Federal Government is Working to Modernize Workplace Immigration

Monday, March 28, 2022 - 2:45pm to 3:15pm
 

Break

Monday, March 28, 2022 - 10:30am to 10:45am
Lynden Melmed
Partner
Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP
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Lynden Melmed is a partner with Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP and oversees the firm’s compliance and government affairs practices. He counsels corporate clients on complex immigration matters, assists businesses in establishing and managing global immigration programs, and represents businesses in connection with audits and investigations by the federal government. He has served as immigration counsel in connection with several of the largest immigration investigations ever pursued by the federal government.

Before joining BAL, Lynden served as Chief Counsel of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), where he was a key advisor to senior leadership within USCIS, DHS, the White House, and other federal agencies on all aspects of immigration law. Lynden also served as Special Counsel to Senator John Cornyn, who was Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship; in that role, Lynden played a leading role in drafting and managing comprehensive immigration legislation.

SESSIONS:
Christopher Richardson
General Counsel and COO
BDV Solutions
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Christopher Richardson is an immigration attorney, consultant, and former U.S. Diplomat. As a U.S. diplomat, Richardson served in Nigeria, Nicaragua, Pakistan, and Spain. He won numerous State Department awards including Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards. He is a native of Charleston, South Carolina.

Richardson is currently the General Counsel and COO of BDV Solutions, a Greenville-based consulting company specializing in legal immigration solutions to help resolve labor shortages in industries across the United States. His company works with hundreds of companies including Chick-Fil-A, McDonalds, Wendy’s, and thousands of foreign nationals from around the world. He also the founder of Argo, LLC, a consulting firm of former U.S. diplomats who provide advice on the immigration process. Richardson also manages his own immigration law practice - Cooper Richardson, PA.

Richardson is a thought leader on race and immigration. He has been featured in Mother Jones, Slate Magazine, Reuters, NPR,  Embedded, All Things Considered, SCOTUS Blog, BBC, Georgia Public Radio, ProPublica, Intercept, and the Atlanta Constitution Journal.  He has also been interviewed on MSNBC, CNN and CBS.  Richardson has written several well-received opinion columns for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Slate Magazine, Chicago Sun-Times, The Hill, and the Nation about immigration policy and race under Presidents Trump and Obama. His New York Times op-ed on diversity at the State Department spurred a Congressional bill on diversity which Richardson helped write. In addition, the Biden Administration, based on that op-ed, created the first ever Chief Diversity Officer for the State Department.

He has advised U.S. Senators and House members on a wide range of immigration and State Department issues including the Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act, the various travel bans, and diversity. He chaired the team that Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s immigration policy proposals and worked on immigration policy for Joe Biden’s campaign.

He is a graduate of Duke University School of Law and graduated summa cum laude from Emory University in 2003. He is also the co-author of the Historical Dictionary of the Civil Rights Movement (2014).  

 

SESSIONS:
Moderator: 
Leon Rodriguez
Partner, Labor and Employment Department
Seyfarth Shaw LLP
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As former federal prosecutor and leader of multiple federal and local agencies, clients look to Leon to give them direct advice on the risks related to investigations, to give them guidance on responding to investigations, to advocate for an optimal resolution, or to aggressively litigate their matters to positive outcomes.

Leon is a founding member of the firm's Immigration and Compliance specialty team. He has helped clients understand this rapidly changing and increasingly risk-laden area. Leon has assisted a number of clients with I-9 audits, training on best I-9 practices, and negotiating with government authorities when enforcement events arise. When clients have difficulties obtaining visas to travel to or remain in the US, he assists them either by negotiating with government authorities or by bringing litigation to secure a positive outcome to their case.

In his practice, Leon draws upon his foundational training and experience as a litigator and investigator, primarily gained as a federal and state prosecutor, along with his wide variety of substantive experiences secured through high-level government leaderships posts. From 2014 to 2017, Leon served as the Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), following a more than two decade career as a prosecutor, law firm partner, and government agency leader. From 2011 to 2014, Leon served as the Director of the US Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights. This diverse range of experiences make him most effective for multidisciplinary matters involving multiple and serious risk vectors for clients.

Leon serves as chair of Seyfarth Government Relations Policy Group and works with clients to develop multifaceted strategies to achieve desired public policy outcomes. A veteran of many congressional hearings, he also assists clients who either have been summoned to testify or provide documents before congressional committees. Leon has also handled interdisciplinary problems requiring an attorney with extensive and diverse experience in litigation and investigations, in interacting with the government at all levels, and interacting with media and external stakeholders.

Leon is also chair of the firm's Health Care Regulatory and Compliance group, and a co-chair of the Health Care Privacy, Security and HIPAA group. He assists firm clients with complex and novel HIPAA questions. Leon also counsels and assists clients who have experienced data breaches or otherwise under investigation by the Department of Health and Human Service Office for Civil Rights.

Leon enjoys Seyfarth's collegial environment across its international services, and the firm's commitment to using innovative delivery and pricing approaches to deliver consistently positive outcomes for clients.

SESSIONS:

How Immigration Can Solve Talent Shortages

Monday, March 28, 2022 - 9:45am to 10:30am
Thomas Brunskill
Personal Pronouns
He/Him/His
CEO
Forage
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Tom Brunskill is the co-founder and CEO of Forage, a job simulation platform that helps students bridge the gap between education and work opportunities. On a mission to make education-to-workforce pathway more equitable, Tom co-founded Forage in 2017 to provide the ability to preskill through virtual job simulations produced by the world’s top companies, including J.P. Morgan, Lyft and Walmart, to name a few. By breaking down barriers to gaining workplace-specific skills, Tom hopes to level the opportunity playing field and empower anyone to pursue their dream career. Tom started his career as a corporate lawyer at a multinational law firm in Australia before moving to San Francisco and has been featured in Business Insider, Financial Times and TechCrunch, among others.

SESSIONS:

Train, then Hire: Flipping the Early- Career Talent Recruiting Model

Tuesday, April 12, 2022 - 4:30pm to 5:30pm