Mary V. L. Wright leads one of the SHRM Foundation’s four pillars of work: Skill Building - Preparing People for Today’s and Tomorrow’s Workplaces.  A critical part of that effort is leading the implementation of the US DOL funded HR Registered Apprenticeship Program, the first national HR apprenticeship program. As such, she is responsible for all parts of the program – development, marketing, sales, budget and evaluation.  In addition, she leads the Foundation’s work on the role of credentials in achieving an organization’s diversity, equity and inclusion goals and is an integral part of the team in promoting the inclusion of untapped talent in the workforce.

Ms. Wright has many years of experience connecting the public and private sectors in municipal finance, government affairs, and workforce development as a project leader, facilitator and subject matter expert.

Previously, Ms. Wright was a director at Jobs for the Future (JFF) where she designed and supervised the completion of foundation, government and employer-funded projects on topics including: expanding employability skills, developing apprenticeship and work-based learning strategies, utilizing labor market information to determine educational focus, better hiring and training practices for people with disabilities, improving entry level jobs for the retail sector, determining the correct educational focus for specific geographic areas including the state of Florida and Columbus Ohio, and an in-depth analysis of green infrastructure jobs.

Prior to joining JFF, she served as director at The Conference Board in New York City, driving its work in workforce readiness, business, and education partnerships. She also focused on improving the employment outcomes for people with disabilities through research and convenings. Ms. Wright co-authored or acted as project director on several key Conference Board reports regarding workforce readiness skills, including Are They Really Ready to Work? and The Ill-Prepared Workforce.

She serves on the Board of Directors of the Institute for Work & the Economy and the Fort Myers Beach Community Foundation.

Ms. Wright received a Master of Business Administration in public/nonprofit management from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Affairs from Connecticut College.

Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar proudly represents Florida’s 27th Congressional District, passionately serving the people of South Florida. She currently serves on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs as well as the House Committee on Small Business. 

Congresswoman Salazar is committed to acting tirelessly in defense of individual rights and liberties, spearheading economic development & job training efforts, and promoting environmental resiliency in her community. She is well-known for her advocacy for Human Rights and democracy around the world, especially for the people of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, as well as for her unabashed support of our global & regional partners such as Israel, Colombia, and Taiwan.

Congresswoman Salazar is a five-time Emmy Award-winning journalist— she has spent her career holding the corrupt and powerful accountable. Congresswoman Salazar has gone toe-to-toe with Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, and most notably Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, being the only US Spanish-language journalist to ever interview the tyrant one-on-one. Starting at the age of 22, she has worked for every major US Spanish-language broadcasting network: Telemundo, Univision, AmericaTeve, MegaTV, and CNN en Español. 

Salazar was born in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, the daughter of Cuban exiles. She studied at the Deerborne School of Coral Gables and graduated from Miami Dade College. Salazar holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from the University of Miami and a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Congresswoman Salazar currently resides in Coral Gables with her two daughters, Nicoletta and Martina.

Julie Myers Wood has more than 25 years of experience in the public and private sector working on regulatory and enforcement issues from many perspectives, including as defense counsel, consultant, government investigator, federal prosecutor, and compliance consultant.  Ms. Wood is currently the Chief Executive Officer at Guidepost Solutions, a leading investigations, compliance and security firm with offices throughout the United States, as well as England, Colombia and Singapore. 

At Guidepost, Ms. Wood focuses on regulatory compliance and investigative work. Ms. Wood regularly serves as an Independent Monitor/Consultant appointed by the U.S. government. Most recently, she served as the Third-Party auditor for a global security firm and was responsible for evaluating the firm’s compliance with EAR and OFAC for the Department of Commerce. Ms. Wood also served as the Department of Justice-appointed Independent Consultant for a global energy services firm relating to OFAC issues and the company’s compliance culture.  Additional monitoring assignments included serving as Independent Consultant relating to a global bank’s AML, OFAC, and KYC remediation, and as Monitoring Trustee responsible for evaluating divestiture of various business units for a global security firm.

Ms. Wood also regularly assists companies in a proactive matter, assisting with culture and process changes across a wide range of organizations and industries. She has conducted trade compliance reviews for several consulting/technology companies with a worldwide footprint, assisting with classification, recordkeeping, technology, denied party screening and monitoring of activities. 

Before joining Guidepost, Ms. Wood started a consulting and software firm, ICS Consulting.  ICS Consulting built software products to assist the private sector in meeting regulatory requirements for immigration and trade compliance.  ICS Consulting also provided specialized immigration and customs consulting services.  Guidepost Solutions acquired ICS Consulting in 2010.

Prior to joining the private sector, Ms. Wood held several high-level positions with the U.S. government including at the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, Treasury, and Commerce, as well as at the White House. She has significant experience with compliance culture, internal controls and anti-fraud measures across a wide range of industries. In one of her most significant government roles, Ms. Wood served as Head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for the Department of Homeland Security, the largest investigative component and the second largest investigative agency in the federal government. ICE prosecutes violations of trade compliance and customs laws, among other laws and regulations. While at ICE, Ms. Wood led the creation of Trade Transparency Units focused on combatting trade-based money laundering, including under and over-invoicing.

Ms. Wood also served as the Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement at the Department of Commerce, where she oversaw all Export Enforcement Special Agents enforcing criminal and civil violations of export enforcement laws, including violations involving telecommunications companies and encryption issues. In this role, she also assisted in policy development relating to enhancements to the EAR and export control reform and supervised the Office of Enforcement Analysis. Ms. Wood also served as the Chief of Staff for the Criminal Division and a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Department of Treasury where she had policy supervision relating to customs enforcement matters.  Ms. Wood also prosecuted cases as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, including customs fraud and money laundering. 

Ms. Wood began her legal career at the law firm of Mayer, Brown & Platt in Chicago, Illinois.  She is a graduate of Baylor University and Cornell Law School.

Sharvari (Shev) Dalal-Dheini is the Director of Government Relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), a voluntary nonpartisan bar association of more than 15,000 attorneys and law professors practicing, researching, and teaching in the field of immigration and nationality law. In her role, Ms. Dalal-Dheini directs the association’s administrative and congressional advocacy efforts with a focus on employment-based immigration, immigration benefits, and the legal immigration system to develop practice resources for members, review policy developments, regulations, and legislative proposals. 

Prior to joining AILA in May 2019, Ms. Dalal-Dheini worked for eleven years with the Office of the Chief Counsel at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) headquarters in Washington, D.C. Most recently with USCIS, she served as Special Counsel and was responsible for coordinating the legal review of various policy and regulatory initiatives and providing subject matter expertise and advice to senior agency leaders on employment-based immigration adjudication matters. Prior to this, she served as Deputy Chief, where she delivered on key Presidential objectives and initiatives, advised senior leadership at USCIS, DHS and the White House to guide decision making on important legal issues, projects and policies, and optimized operational efficiency by providing guidance to clients for process improvement and the reduction of litigation risk. Other roles she held at USCIS include Special Counsel to the Chief Counsel, a role in which she developed and spearheaded USCIS implementation of President Obama’s Executive Actions to support high-skilled immigration.  In addition, she served as Associate Counsel on the Adjudications Law Division and the Litigation Coordination Division where she advised on adjudication and litigation matters. As a college student, she interned with legacy Immigration and Naturalization Services Office of International Affairs for multiple summers. She received numerous awards during her service with USCIS, including the USCIS Director’s Award (2016), Secretary’s Award for Excellence (2015), and Manager of the Year Award (2015).  

Prior to joining government service, Ms. Dalal-Dheini worked for several years at Whiteford, Taylor & Preston, LLP, in Baltimore, MD as a Labor and Employment and Immigration Associate representing employers, individuals, families and asylum applicants on a wide variety of immigration matters. Ms. Dalal-Dheini holds a J.D. from the American University, Washington College of Law, in Washington, DC, as well as a M.A. in International Relations from American University and a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Richmond. Prior to law school, she served in the Peace Corps in Benin, West Africa.