Michele Hester is Senior Manager of Client Services at Berkshire Associates. In her position, Michele is responsible for overseeing, developing, and implementing training and consulting services related to affirmative action and human resources management.

With more than 20 years in the human resource industry, Michele is an expert in HR practices and procedures. This experience allows her to develop and present training sessions to educate clients on the latest affirmative action, applicant management, compensation, and workforce analysis topics and trends. She has a true passion for educating fellow HR professionals, which is why she has been an active speaker throughout the country at conferences and meetings including the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) Talent Management and Annual Conferences.

Michele has a Masters of Business Administration in Human Resource Management and Management Skills from New York State University at Buffalo. Michele holds both SPHR and SHRM_SCP Certification and is a member of the national Society for Human Resource Management. 

In his global labor and employment practice, Mike assists clients with policy drafting, internal investigations, compliance advice, restructuring, management training, representation before administrative agencies, and, when necessary, litigation. For the past year, Mike has been imbedded with the legal department of a large international company providing global L&E support and leading internal investigations. He also spent six years in executive roles as Senior L&E Counsel and Director for a large public company. In those roles, he oversaw litigation, selected and managed outside counsel, and oversaw part of the company’s compliance function. Additionally, Mike conducted internal investigations and audit responses, trained management, managed a team of HR professionals, served as lead negotiator in collective bargaining, led the diversity and inclusion program, and represented the company before federal administrative agencies including the NLRB, EEOC, DOL, OFCCP, OSHA, and NRC.

Michael Elkon is a partner in the Atlanta office of Fisher Phillips. He helps companies with all manner of employment issues, both by providing advice and also by handling litigation from start to finish. Michael has a number of sub-specialties, including: (1) non-compete and trade secret issues; (2) advice regarding employment agreements; and (3) handling retaliation lawsuits, including under specific whistleblower laws. Michael has been included in Georgia Super Lawyers - Rising Stars or Georgia Super Lawyers every year since 2010. He also worked with the Georgia Legislature regarding the Georgia non-compete statute (HB 173) in the 2009 Legislative Session.

You know that scientist in the action movie who has all the right answers if only the government would just pay attention? Eric B. Meyer, Esq. gets companies HR-compliant before the action sequence. Serving clients nationwide, Eric is a Partner in the Employment Group at FisherBroyles, LLP. FisherBroyles is the first and world’s largest cloud-based law firm partnership, which has grown to over 220 attorneys in 21 offices nationwide. Eric is also a volunteer EEOC mediator, a paid private mediator, and publisher of The Employer Handbook (www.TheEmployerHandbook.com), which is pretty much the best employment law blog ever. That, and he's been quoted in the British tabloids. #Bucketlist.

Kevin Fudge is the Director of Consumer Advocacy at ASA.  He works with policy makers, states and non-profit organizations to improve college completion rates and successful student loan management through raising public awareness about the intricacies of the college financing process.  Kevin resolves complex loan situations for members of government and their constituents, and provides research and analysis of student loans to elected officials, secondary school administrators, higher education professionals and employees in the public and private sector.  Kevin is frequently quoted in various media formats on student debt, and he graduated from the University of Virginia and Harvard University.