Michelle P. King is a leading global expert in organizational culture, equality and gender. She is a keynote speaker, researcher, writer, and advocate. Michelle has significant international experience advancing women in innovation and technology, leading global diversity and inclusion programs and advocating for women at work. Michelle has been featured in The Economist, Harvard Business Review, CNN Business, Fortune, Financial Times, Bloomberg, Time, Business Insider, The Times, Daily Mail and LinkedIn Editors. 

Michelle is the former Director of Inclusion at Netflix, and former head of UN Women’s Global Innovation Coalition for Change, which includes managing over 30 private sector partnerships as well as three key initiatives focused on leveraging innovation and technology to accelerate the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment. These include the Gender Innovation Principles, the She Innovates Global Program and the 4Good Program in South Africa. In 2019 Women Tech Founders, a Chicago-based organization dedicated to advancing women in the tech industry, awarded Michelle with the 2019 Inspiring Innovator Award, for her outstanding achievements in the sector. 

In addition, Michelle is an advisory board member for Girl Up, the United Nations Foundation’s adolescent girl campaign and she is also an advocate for Dress for Success an organisation that works to economically empower women worldwide. 

As a thought leader, Michelle is the host of the weekly podcast, The Fix, which shares practical ways men and women can advance equality at work. On the show Michelle interviews a range of business leaders, advocates and thought leaders like Abby Wambach, Sarah Jessica Parker, Zoe Saldana, Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, Justin Baldoni, Kate Hudson, Wade Davis and Katty Kay to name a few. Michelle also produces a weekly newsletter, which provides practical ways men and women can take action to advance equality at work. 

As a speaker, Michelle is represented by the London Speakers Bureau and regularly speaks at numerous conferences and private sector events including Ellevate Network Conference, Amazon, EY, Nasdaq, She Summit, Ted X Bushwick, Texas Conference for Women, SXSW, The Female Quotient and the Pennsylvania Conference for Women. 

As a writer, Michelle currently contributes to Forbes and Thrive Global on the topic of women’s advancement at work and she been published in Harvard Business Review, Thrive Global, Evoke, Huffington Post, Scoop and TIME magazine. 

In addition, Michelle is the author of, THE FIX: Overcome the Invisible Barriers that Hold Women Back at Work, which provides insights into the challenges women face at work and how to build workplaces that work for women. THE FIX received a Silver medal in the 2020 Axiom Business Book Awards within the Women/Minorities in Business category. 

As a researcher, Michelle is a published, award winning academic with a post graduate qualification in Journalism, a Masters in Psychology and an MBA. In addition, she is pursuing a PhD through Cranfield University in the United Kingdom and she is due to graduate in 2020. 

Babankov has more than 20 years of experience building and managing global education and training programs for students and professionals. He has experience in teacher training, study abroad, cross-cultural training, and language acquisition, and has directed field operations in Russia, Central Asia, Middle East, and the Caucasus.

Prior to joining SHRM in 2019, Babankov managed several education and training programs sponsored by the federal government, including the Flagship Overseas Language Program (U.S. Department of Defense), Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program (U.S. Department of State), and the Open World Program (Library of Congress).

Babankov earned his J.D. degree from the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University, and a bachelor’s degree from the Lomonosov Moscow State University in Russia.

Babankov has lived in the United States since 1994 and currently resides in Fairfax, VA.

Nationally recognized autism expert, Shannon founded Autism Outfitters to build the village of support connecting autism and corporate communities. Over 25+ years, she has served community-based programs, clinics, public schools, and state agencies and presented on autism-related topics for local, state, and national audiences. Shannon is VP of Communication of the Missouri Speech-Language Hearing Association Executive Board and in 2018 was 1/10 selected to develop the American Speech-Language Hearing Association assessment for the Board Standard Certificate in ASD. Lover of nature, kayaking, skydiving, and her family, Shannon has the ambition, experience, and enthusiasm to capture audiences and incite growth.

Steve Phelps is President for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). 

Promoted to President in September 2018, Phelps became just the fifth person to hold the position in NASCAR history. Phelps is based at NASCAR headquarters in Daytona Beach, Florida.

In his current role, he oversees all day-to-day operations of the sanctioning body including competition, racing operations, commercial business, marketing, communications, broadcasting, productions, content, digital and international.

Under Phelps’ leadership, the sanctioning body has refocused its priorities to ensure the world’s best racing experience is delivered to NASCAR fans on a weekly basis at track, at home or on the go. Through increased collaboration and consensus-building with drivers, race teams, tracks and stakeholders, Phelps’ leadership has the entire industry focused on long-term growth through exciting on-track action and intense competition and innovation.   

Phelps joined NASCAR as Vice President of Corporate Marketing in July 2005. He was named Chief Marketing Officer in February 2006 and promoted to Senior Vice President in January 2010, Executive Vice President in December 2013 and COO in April of 2018.

During his time at NASCAR, Phelps has won Adweek’s prestigious Sports Marketing Executive of the Year and was named its Brand Genius Award winner in the “sports” category.  

Prior to joining NASCAR, Phelps was Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Wasserman Media Group. In 1990, Phelps began a 14-year tenure at the National Football League where he served as Vice President, Corporate Marketing.

A native of Vermont, he obtained a bachelor’s degree from the University of Vermont and an MBA from Boston College.  He resides in Daytona Beach, Florida.

As the CEO and Founder of D. Howze Solutions, LLC, a D&I consultancy, Delphia drives innovative strategies to cultivate inclusive workplaces. Mrs. Howze currently serves as Chief Inclusion Officer for a large-scale national organization, spearheading initiatives to promote diversity and foster belonging. With over two decades of distinguished leadership, Delphia possesses extensive expertise in optimizing human capital and D&I frameworks across diverse sectors including retail, banking, energy, logistics, government, and higher education. Her visionary outlook and dynamic leadership continue to shape inclusive environments that empower individuals and propel organizational success.  She has recently emerged as a new author with her new book, "Including You! Leading Inclusion From Where You Are."