In-person Pass

Kevin M. Coleman is the Founder of KMC Empowerment, LLC where he provides executive coaching, empowering speeches, and professional development training to make individuals and organizations successful.  This is done through inspiring leaders to define clear vision, mission, and value systems that leads to exponential personal, professional, and business growth.  Kevin has vast experience in leading training for Entrepreneurs, Executives, Division Chiefs, Branch Chiefs, Mid-Level Managers, Supervisors, and Team Leads for over 35 years.  Kevin has demonstrated experience speaking for all audiences from three (4) to three thousand (4,000).  In addition, Kevin is a United States Army disabled veteran.

Cindi Cooper is accountable for the global growth and expansion of Gap International. Working across all facets of the business, she is responsible for ensuring the execution of the company's strategic objectives.

Over the course of her career, Ms. Cooper has been instrumental in both the sales and marketing of Gap International, providing the creative spark behind the ongoing expansion of the company's brand identity.

She co-leads the development of Gap International's leading-edge work in the Leveraging Genius Institute, as well as the delivery of The Leveraging Genius Conference. In addition, she leads the development of Gap International's work in the area of organizational alignment and is instrumental in the delivery of The Alignment Intensive, one of the company's premier programs for senior executives and their teams.

Ms. Cooper works closely with CEOs and executive teams of many Global 1000 companies in delivering breakthroughs in growth and performance. She has over 20 years of experience working with the pharmaceutical, retail, telecommunications, utilities, and financial services industries.

Ms. Cooper received a BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art and completed the Tuck Executive Program at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Prior to joining Gap International in 1989, Ms. Cooper was the co-founder and president of a corporate graphic design and marketing firm.

Julius Cox is Executive Vice President, People, Shared Services and Supply Chain of Pacific Gas and Electric Company and PG&E Corporation.

Cox started with PG&E in February 2021 and is responsible for ensuring the company has the people, skills, resources and tools to meet its customers' expectations. He leads the Human Resources, Supply Chain and Shared Services teams.

Cox has 20 years of energy industry experience, most recently serving as Chief Human Resources Officer at American Electric Power (AEP) from October 2019 to January 2021. Cox had responsibility for strategically aligning human resources functions and processes in support of AEP's overall business strategy including oversight of employee relations, leadership and organization development, culture and diversity, benefits and compensation, operations, wellness and productivity for AEP's 18,000 employees.

Prior to AEP, Cox was Chief Transformation Officer at Dynegy, a Houston-based power producer that is now part of Vistra Energy, where he and his team championed a culture of performance and process improvements across the company. Prior to that role, Cox served as the Chief Administration Officer and was responsible for human resources, information technology, business services, investor relations, regulatory and governmental affairs and communications. Cox joined Dynegy in 2001 as a human resources director and held progressive leadership roles in human resources.

Before joining Dynegy, Cox was a consultant at Arthur Andersen and worked in human resources roles at Shell Oil and Neiman Marcus.

A native of Houston, Texas, Cox earned a bachelor's degree in business management and a master's degree in human resource management from Texas A&M University. He also completed the Wharton Advanced Management Program at the University of Pennsylvania and previously served as an Independent Director for the Midwest Reliability Organization.

Ryan Gottfredson, Ph.D. is a cutting-edge leadership development author, researcher, and consultant. He helps organizations vertically develop their leaders primarily through a focus on mindsets. Ryan is the Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-selling author of Success Mindsets: The Key to Unlocking Greater Success in Your Life, Work, & Leadership. And, he is the author of the upcoming book, The Elevated Leader: Leveling Up Your Leadership Through Vertical Development. He is also a leadership professor at the College of Business and Economics at California State University-Fullerton.

Kimberly Janson, PhD, is the CEO of Janson Associates, a firm dedicated to “unleashing people’s potential globally”. As a former senior executive at Bank of Boston, Bank of America, Hasbro, and H. J. Heinz, Kim is a 25+ year talent and organizational development expert working in 40+ countries, with 300+ companies. She has been named a Top 10 Thought Leader and Top 10 Executive Coach in 2020. Working with C-suite leaders, teams, businesses, and individuals, Kim enables individual and organizational change to achieve stellar business results. Kim is the author of Demystifying Talent Management and co-author of Determining Leadership Potential.

Rick Grimaldi is the author of “Flex” and a partner at Fisher Phillips, one of America’s preeminent labor and employment law firms representing employers, where he works with companies both large and small on solving their most complex workplace challenges. Rick has served employers and employees in Pennsylvania in high-ranking public service positions, worked as a human resources professional, and spent years in private practice partnering with companies to help them adapt to the ever-changing business environment, achieve their workplace goals and become better employers that are ultimately rewarded by the market.

Been there – done that!  With 30 years of HR and business experience – Lori has walked in your shoes.  A recovered HR Generalist, she built a consulting company that she sold to Arthur J Gallagher after 7 years and then reinvented her current business – HR Topics -  training, speaking and developing content for HR professionals.  Lori delivers facts, tips, tricks and best practices in a way that appeals to human resource and business leaders: with a sense of humor, a bias toward actions that improve their operations right away, and practical resources and tools to support their progress.  As an annual speaker at the National SHRM conference, she has leveraged her masters in HR, SPHR and SHRM-SCP background to elevate the position of all HR professionals!

Award-winning author Ed Muzio is one of very few practitioners worldwide doing systems-level intervention with CEO and staff simultaneously, shifting culture quickly and significantly enough to improve how the company is run at executive and subordinate levels.  To accomplish this, he pulls from over 70 years of research and experience spanning multiple academic disciplines and industries.  Leaders and managers – especially those overseeing complex work constrained by competing requirements and influenced by unpredictable external forces – consistently endorse Muzio’s latest bestseller, “Iterate,” in which he lays out a methodology for making organizations of all kinds more agile and adaptable in real life.

Shari Harley, author of How to Say Anything to Anyone, is known globally as an engaging, funny, content-rich business speaker. Her international training firm, Candid Culture, is making it easier to tell the truth at work. Shari is bringing candor back to the workplace. A former HR practitioner and operations leader, Shari’s practical approach has led her to speak and train in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Dubai and Australia. From “Making Meetings Work” and “Delegating Better” to “Managing Your Career” and “Saying Anything to Anyone,” Shari’s tips are sure to delight and inform in a real, direct and very funny way. Watch videos and learn more about Shari at www.candidculture.com.

Lester S. Rosen is an attorney and Founder  of Employment Screening Resources (ESR) a service offering of ClearStar.   He is the author of, “The Safe Hiring Manual,”  (3d Edition 2017), the first comprehensive book on employment screening.  He is also a consultant, writer, expert witness and frequent presenter nationwide on safe hiring and due diligence.  He is both a former prosecutor and criminal defense attorney.  Mr. Rosen was the chairperson of the steering committee that founded the Professional Background Screening Association (PBSA) and served as the first co-chairman in 2004. He  received the  PBSA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019.

Ms. Walters has more than 30 years’ combined experience in management, HR administration, employment law practice, and teaching.

She has presented at conferences across the country, been engaged as an expert witness, and testified before U.S. Congressional and state legislative committees on employment issues.

Her book, “From Hello to Goodbye: Proactive Tips for Maintaining Positive Employee Relations” is in its 2nd edition and was one of the SHRMStore’s “Great 8” best-sellers for eight consecutive years.

Today, Ms. Walters works as an independent consultant doing business as FiveL Company, “Helping Leaders Limit their Liability by Learning the Law.”SM

Jennifer Currence is a Senior Partner of HR Soul consultancy firm in Tampa, Florida, where she delivers results through strategic HR solutions, customized training, and coaching programs for organizational and HR leaders. She is the creator of The SOTO Approach to Leadership and the content architect for the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) international People Manager Qualification (PMQ).

Jennifer is regularly published and featured in industry magazines, webinars, and podcasts, and is the author of three HR books on behavioral business competencies.

Jennifer was named one of the top 100 Influential HR professionals in Leadership and Development in 2023 and Tampa Bay’s HR Consultant of the Year in 2017.  She is a faculty member for SHRM and a former management professor at the University of Tampa.