Dr. Ashley Dugger started her career in higher education over 14 years ago in admissions/enrollment management. She has focused her professional career in operational leadership and human resources management, and holds a Doctorate of Business Administration, as well as her SHRM-CP certification.  In 2018 she was selected as one of twelve participants from a nationwide search for higher ed HR professionals to participate in CUPA-HR’s Wildfire program. She joined WGU as the Program Chair for the HR Management degree in February of 2019.

Margaret Simonis serves as the director of undergraduate programs for the College of Business at Western Governors University. This includes leadership for 500+ faculty and over 40 leaders. Margaret joined Western Governors University in 2008 and has worked in the higher education field for 16 years. Before joining WGU, Margaret held roles in wellness & health education and in student services.  Hiring, training, and change management are all areas that Margaret has extensive experience with. Margaret earned her master’s degree from Ball State University and resides in Pittsburgh, PA.

Psychologist and humorist, Bruce Christopher, is America's foremost "Enter---Trainer" today. He has earned this distinction because of his high-energy style and humorous presentation of his material. He is a licensed psychologist holding degrees in Professional Psychology and Interpersonal Communications. Bruce has Enter-Trained audiences internationally because of his humorous approach to today's hot topics which impact our personal and professional lives. He combines excellent content with loads of laughter and contagious comedy.  He has earned the Certified Speaking Professional designation (CSP), which is the speaking profession's highest merited international measure of professional platform competence.Psychologist and humorist, Bruce Christopher, is America's foremost "Enter---Trainer" today. He has earned this distinction because of his high-energy style and humorous presentation of his material. He is a licensed psychologist holding degrees in Professional Psychology and Interpersonal Communications. Bruce has Enter-Trained audiences internationally because of his humorous approach to today's hot topics which impact our personal and professional lives. He combines excellent content with loads of laughter and contagious comedy.  He has earned the Certified Speaking Professional designation (CSP), which is the speaking profession's highest merited international measure of professional platform competence.

 Joe is a leading thinker in managing and motivating people. He’s passionate about helping organizations achieve their vision through effective performance management.

 He’s a top-rated SHRM speaker and serves as Chief Value Officer for Delphia Consulting, a national HR and Payroll software consulting firm based in Columbus, Ohio. Joe is the co-creator of miviva, a continuous performance management application.

 Joe has over 30 years of experience and serves as VP of Professional Development on the Human Resources Association of Central Ohio (HRACO) Board of Directors. Joe is a cited contributor to the SHRM Learning System.

Kelly Bunting, Co-Chair of the Greenberg Traurig, LLP's Labor & Employment Practice's Workplace Compliance & Counseling Group, and member of its Artificial Intelligence Law Group, has considerable experience defending class and collective wage and hour litigation and misclassification claims, having defended employers in Title III ADA access litigation and litigation alleging race, sex, pregnancy, age, disability discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. She is deeply experienced in virtually all aspects of employment litigation, including wage and hour, labor, Title VII, harassment, discrimination, wrongful termination, non-competition and non-solicitation, trade secrets, SOX and Dodd Frank whistleblower claims, CEPA, ADEA, FMLA, NJLAD, and failure to accommodate issues. She has identified and managed employment issues in M&A deals and appeared before the EEOC, NLRB, and DOL in many states, as well as state agencies in DE, NY, NJ and PA. Kelly has represented many clients in mediation and settlement negotiations, and created HR and compliance training modules. She is regularly sought after as a workforce trainer for issues related to harassment and discrimination, FCPA compliance, good management techniques, and union awareness.

Kelly focuses much of her practice on international L&E issues, including employment/secondment contracts, data privacy, and global anti-corruption compliance. She advises clients on national and international handbook policies, procedures, and strategic HR issues, and provides day-to-day counsel in hiring, employee relations, employee discipline, and termination. She also conducts and advises on internal investigations.

Karl Ahlrichs specializes in helping professionals make order from chaos. He is a national speaker, author, and consultant, presenting on the people issues in all industries, and is often quoted in the local and national media. 

Karl’s experience is ideally suited to times of organizational change as he pulls on risk management and organizational development theories to replace “best practices” with “next practices”. He owes much of his communications mastery to working as a writer and editor in daily media, to on-the-job writing experience and to the process of becoming a published author.

He joined Gregory & Appel in 2010 after serving as a founding partner of ExactHire, bringing his HR, operations, diversity & belonging, and learning & development skills with him. Karl’s affinity for design, composition and learning started at a very young age, by taking and examining thousands of boring pictures with the goal of improving his craft. He loves deploying that practice-to-improve approach with all manner of hobbies including writing haiku, mastering cutting-edge technology and learning Spanish.

In 2003, he was named the SHRM Human Resource Professional of the Year for the State of Indiana. He is on the Boards of several organizations, including the Maryland CPA Society.  He has lived in Scotland and Spain and lives to explore new experiences with his wife and family.

Connecting Talent - Mofota Sefali is a Human Resources Practitioner with a blended knowledge of HR; Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and Talent Acquisition Management as well as Employer Branding and Employee Value Proposition.

Enthusiastic and outgoing, she is an innovator who is continuously aware of new possibilities with a penchant for discovering different but effective ways of doing things. She gains motivation from the ability to not only generate but implement ideas. A visionary with a positive mindset which often carries others with her. Forever interested in seeing the possibilities, particularly in people, within and beyond the present moment.

Her key strengths lie in consulting with business to understand how HR activities can contribute to business strategy execution. Mofota holds the belief that healthy organisation culture is a competitive game changer, and strives to help shape companies to attract and retain the best people to meet their mission and grow their vision.

As an experienced Talent Acquisition Manager with a documented history of working in HR across various industries in South Africa, as well as other countries on the continent including Kenya and Nigeria, she believes that Africa has incredible talent, and is excited to play a role in unleashing the best in people across the corporate world.

Simply put...

she loves what she does.

 

Attorney James P. (“Jim”) Reidy is a management-side labor and employment lawyer. He is a partner in the New England based law firm, Sheehan Phinney Bass & Green, PA, where he is the Chair of the firm’s Labor and Employment group. His practice focuses on prevention, training and compliance but he also handles matters when claims arise.

He has more than 35 years of experience in the field and been a media resource on workplace law for media outlets including CNN, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Business Magazine, Bloomberg, NPR, The Associated Press, NPR Market Place, Buzz Feed, Law 360, Inc. Magazine, The HR Power Hour, HR Breakroom, SKI Magazine and HR Magazine as well as several local/regional publications.

In 2020 Jim was inducted as a Fellow in the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. 

Chambers USA and New England Super Lawyers have ranked Jim in the Top Tier of management-side employment lawyers for each year of the last 15 years. Best Lawyers USA named Jim the 2022 Lawyer of the Year for Labor and Employment Law (Manchester, NH) and the NH Business Review named him one of the top 200 most influential business leaders in New Hampshire.

Jim has been a presenter regularly at SHRM’s Legal and Legislative Conference in Washington, DC as well as SHRM’s annual conferences.

Chris Dyer inspires audiences with a straightforward delivery, insightful candor, and engaging humor. His talks leave audiences permanently transformed, offering innovative perspectives on leadership to improve company culture, and empower organizations to create a people centric approach.

As a highly sought-after keynote speaker, consultant, and advisor he brings a unique perspective from his expertise in building, leading, and exiting successful organizations. Through his research from two best-selling books, he is always engaged with leading companies to help transform their culture, leadership, and flexible work strategies. He is also the host of a popular radio show TalentTalk where he has had hundreds of conversations with the world’s best leaders for his audience of over 3 million annual listeners. Currently he is the Founder of PeopleG2, an Accusource company, with a fully remote organization. PeopleG2 is routinely ranked one of the best places to work and has been listed as one of Inc.'s 5000 Fastest Growing Companies five times.

Chris enjoys contributing to the leadership conversation and has been featured by leading media outlets such as the BBC, Fox Business, NBC, Telegraph, The Sun, INC, and Forbes. He has also delivered keynotes and worked as a consultant for top brands like Johnson & Johnson, Citi, IKEA, Kelly Services, the United States Patent Office, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service and their Ministry of Defense, as well other top firms like Farmer’s Insurance and Cornerstone OnDemand. He is listed a Top 50 Global Thought Leader by PeopleHum, and as a top leadership voice on LeaderHum. Most importantly he married his high school sweetheart and has three adopted children who have finally left the house, and one grandson.