Monique Akanbi, SHRM-CP, is an HR professional with over 15 years of broad-based experience in the public school and private sector in various roles and disciplines. A Miami, Florida native, Monique earned her degree in Public Administration with a specialization in HR from Barry University. Monique is also a Master Examiner and Mentor with the Florida Sterling Council Board of Examiners, visiting organizations throughout the state across all industries to assess their leadership system and organizational performance through the National Malcolm Baldrige Performance Excellence model. In her volunteer role, Monique has been an active SHRM Chapter leader serving in various roles including Chapter President and District Director with HR Florida. In addition, she serves on various local non-profit boards. As a high energy, creative thinker, team builder, and problem-solver, Monique has a passion for service and assisting others in their purpose, potential, and professional development through meaningful connections.

Mike is one of the Marketing Audience Segment Managers at SHRM, who supports the HR Accountables segment (those who are not HR professionals, but have HR responsibilities). He and his team are responsible for growing this audience segment through a variety of marketing channels (direct mail, email, digital display, paid display/social/search, etc.). Mike started in SHRM's marketing department in April 2021.

He has worked in the publishing industry in the DC Metro area for more than 20 years and has a background in marketing (membership, product, content, and event), production (both digital and print), and project management. He is also an adjunct professor in the Master's of Publishing program at George Washington University, where he teaches Production and Project Management to more than 40 graduate students in person and online.

In addition, he is one of the founders and the Chief Marketing Officer of The Escape Room Guys, an escape room industry news and review blog and consulting company. Along with his business partner, he reviews escape rooms across the world, and designs escape room experiences for businesses as entertainment and corporate training activities in communication and teamwork. Mike is also one of the co-authors of "Sherlocked!: The Official Escape Room Puzzle Book," published by Studio Press in London, England.

What he likes best about marketing is finding the right story to tell to the right person at the right time and diving into data and analytics to see what he can learn about the campaigns he runs.

Mike lives in Springfield, Virginia with his wife and two cats.

Kennedy Barba serves as a senior specialist on SHRM’s Content Strategy & Brand Management team.

Cordell brings 20 years of experience to his leadership of the Aspen Institute Socrates Program, a global education forum for leaders and Expectant Advisory, a privately-held leadership consultancy. Previous to his current roles, Cordell held leadership roles with TechTown Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Business Roundtable, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and the IBM Corporation.

Honors include: an Eisenhower Fellowship to China; designation as a White House Champion of Change for Computer Science Education; designation as a “40 under 40” by business and civic organizations in Washington State and Tennessee; University of Notre Dame Law School alumni of the year awardee; selections as a Robert Bosch Foundation Fellow for Young American Leaders and a Broad Foundation Resident in Urban Education. Current board service includes the Alumni Council for Cultural Vistas, AIPAC National Council and the privately-held blockchain start-up Injii. He previously served on the Advisory Council for the Center for Democracy and Technology and the boards of the United Way of Greater Chattanooga, United Way of King County, Downtown Seattle YMCA and the Siskin Hospital for Physical Rehabilitation.

Cordell speaks at conferences, leads workshops and moderates panels and seminars all over the world. Recent appearances include: Congressional testimony before the US Congressional Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe (December 2019); 2019 Horasis Conference (Las Vegas, NV); 2019 SmartCity Expo (Atlanta, GA); 2019 Concordia Summit (Bogota, Colombia); 2019 Young Leaders Academy of Macedonia (Skopje, Macedonia); 2018 Blockchain Trends Summit (Seoul, South Korea); 2018 The Wright (Golden, CO); 2018 SXSW Festival (Austin, TX); 2017 YSEALI Summit (Manila, Philippines); Confluence ROME (Rome, GA); Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank District’s Reinventing Community Conference (Philadelphia, PA); US News STEM Solutions Leadership Summit (Dallas, TX); ACT Board of Directors Annual Meeting (Washington, DC); Council of Chief State Schools Officers Legislative Conference (Washington, DC); and the Association for Career and Technical Education’s National Policy Seminar (Washington, DC).

Cordell earned a J.D. from the University of Notre Dame Law School, a M.Sc. in Public Policy and Management Studies from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Washington.

Michael Towers is the C.E.O of Speaking of Your Success. He is a subject matter expert in the areas of leadership, mental health, and addiction. Michael’s mission is to utilize his knowledge to improve the lives of people that suffer. Michael wants to use his story to help anyone who wants to rewrite theirs. Hurting people hurt people, and Michael has a heart for helping hurting people.

Motivated by the desire to help others overcome their mental health challenges, Michael resolved to learn everything he could about mental illness. Michael earned degrees in substance abuse counseling and psychology and has been a mental health and addictions counselor for 20 years.

For two decades Michael has given talks to psychiatric hospitals, rehabs, jails, and youth detention centers about how to live with mental illness.

In 2020 The Society for Human Resource Management honored Michael with the opportunity of a lifetime and listed him on their speaker’s bureau. To become valuable to SHRM Michael began to research mental health in the workplace. The data is alarming.

• 9 in 10 employees report that their workplace stress affects their mental health.
• 60% of employees are not receiving adequate support from supervisors to manage stress.
• 4 in 5 employees feel emotionally drained from their work.
• 56% of employees spend time at work looking for a new job.
• Only 5% of employees strongly agreed that their employer provides a safe environment for employees who live with mental health.

Since most people spend their waking hours at work, Michael believes he can make the biggest impact helping organizations, leaders, human resource professionals, and employees improve mental health conditions in the workplace. Empowering leaders to lead better, has a cascading affect that can be exponentially powerful.

Michael’s topics are engineered to empower leaders to change company culture. Michael teaches leaders how to be transparent, listen attentively and without judgement, and make their people feel like they are understood.

Michael initiates leaders to be authentic, accepting, and understanding. The results are less employee burnout and improved mental health conditions. Employees will be healthier. Healthier people make the people they love, lead, and live near healthier.

Your employees will thrive, which will positively impact the bottom line.

Michael can assist companies delivering keynotes or workshops. Although Michael loves to communicate face to face, he excels speaking virtually. He incorporates state of the art technology, visuals, and educational materials. Michael is second to none at delivering entertaining programs in the virtual space.

Michael’s presentations are informative, engaging, and are designed to identify challenges and give practical ideas and solutions.

Michael lives in Baltimore, Md, is happily married and has 3 German Shepherds. Which by the way, are tremendously beneficial for his mental health!