Virtual Pass

Discover the extraordinary journey of Dethra U. Giles, the visionary force behind ExecuPrep, pioneering leadership development and organizational transformation. Rooted in education, performance optimization, and HR, Dethra empowers individuals, teams, and organizations to surpass their expectations. With degrees in English, Spanish, Business and Conflict Management, she blends communication and cultural understanding seamlessly. As a respected faculty member and TEDx speaker, her influence resonates globally, shaping inclusive cultures in corporate giants like LVMH and the EPA. Dethra's compassion fuels her advocacy for social justice, while her writings and media presence inspire resilience and growth. With her, the future promises boundless opportunity and transformation.

Todd Lemmis is an author, organizational architect, musician, lawyer, and impact investor/developer. His diverse background in human resources, music, law, and business leadership affords him a creative, whole-brain perspective and approach to all the adventures he undertakes. 

His seminal work involves transforming organizational design with a simple, natural approach that unlocks the keys to career development and employee retention through his novel, common model. It simplifies organizational architecture, job competencies, career pathing, job descriptions, job families and succession planning, resulting in happier, more stable, productive organizations.

Todd’s current work with Pacific6, Enterprises, a Long Beach, California based investment/development firm involves impact investment and development of hotels, multi-family properties, aquaculture, and HR consulting. Within Pacific6, Todd focuses on human resources, public and government relations, development, consulting and design.

Todd holds a BA in philosophy from UCLA and a JD from Southwestern University School of Law. For fun, he loves writing, music, reading, cooking, entertaining, and designing leather goods and ceramics. In addition to his proprietary works on organizational architecture and human development, he invented a punctuation mark and developed a couple of colognes.

Todd lives in Long Beach, California with his awesome, patient wife and three children. He’s a member of the Society for Human Resource Management, the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, the US Navy Musician’s Association, and Costco. He also likes cats.

Azizi Marshall, a leading mental health and workplace wellness expert, guides global businesses in cultivating their healthiest, most successful selves. As the Founder & CEO of the Center for Creative Arts Therapy in Chicago, she's a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, Board Certified Trainer in Creative Arts Therapy, international speaker, and published author. Featured in Oprah Magazine, CNN, NBC News, Thrive Global, Bustle, Reader’s Digest, and The Huffington Post, Azizi's expertise extends to podcasts and international news articles, focusing on workplace wellness and creativity. Through interactive wellness trainings and programs, she actively engages corporations worldwide, shaping healthier work environments for all.

WHAT CAROL BRINGS TO THE TABLE
Carol has 25+ years of Organization, Leadership, and Team Effectiveness experience. She led organization transformation efforts inside telecommunication and pharmaceutical companies, and then took that experience to clients across industries when she transitioned to external consulting. Carol led consulting teams at Andersen, Deloitte, and Capital H Group before starting HighBar Consulting, a firm that is now part of TiER1 Performance. In all her work, she brings a unique blend of deep subject-matter expertise, curiosity, objectivity, systems thinking, and pragmatism. Carol cares deeply about her clients and supporting them on their journey to success. As a result, she has many long-standing client relationships.

WHAT SHE’S PASSIONATE ABOUT
Carol is passionate about helping clients find innovative solutions to organizational challenges. She has a knack for developing practical, systems-focused solutions that are rooted in an understanding of the unique characteristics of each client’s situation. Her approach helps clients simultaneously build organizational performance and people engagement.

FUN FACT
One of Carol’s ancestors was a pirate in the 1500s. He worked on behalf of his country, the Netherlands, raiding the ships of enemy countries. Ahoy, Matey!

WHAT CAROL BRINGS TO THE TABLE
Carol has 25+ years of Organization, Leadership, and Team Effectiveness experience. She led organization transformation efforts inside telecommunication and pharmaceutical companies, and then took that experience to clients across industries when she transitioned to external consulting. Carol led consulting teams at Andersen, Deloitte, and Capital H Group before starting HighBar Consulting, a firm that is now part of TiER1 Performance. In all her work, she brings a unique blend of deep subject-matter expertise, curiosity, objectivity, systems thinking, and pragmatism. Carol cares deeply about her clients and supporting them on their journey to success. As a result, she has many long-standing client relationships.

WHAT SHE’S PASSIONATE ABOUT
Carol is passionate about helping clients find innovative solutions to organizational challenges. She has a knack for developing practical, systems-focused solutions that are rooted in an understanding of the unique characteristics of each client’s situation. Her approach helps clients simultaneously build organizational performance and people engagement.

FUN FACT
One of Carol’s ancestors was a pirate in the 1500s. He worked on behalf of his country, the Netherlands, raiding the ships of enemy countries. Ahoy, Matey!

As founder of WorkJoy, Tina builds on 20 years of operations, technology consulting, and HR leadership experience to provide facilitation and coaching solutions to organizations ready to unleash the potential of their people. She co-creates talent programs that drive business outcomes and deliver human results, partnering with leaders from prominent organizations including Fabletics, FOX Sports, National Wildlife Federation, SAP, Savage X Fenty, and Spotify. Tina graduated from the University of Virginia (BA), University of Michigan (MBA), and Coactive Training Institute coaching program, and is adjunct faculty at Loyola Marymount University. She lives in Los Angeles with her writer husband and two pet parrots.

Sara Taylor, President and Founder of deepSEE Consulting, has 35 years of extensive experience, nationally recognized as in the practice of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion serving local, national and global clients. While her areas of specialty are in both Diversity and Leadership Development, Sara has become a thought leader particularly in the field of Cultural Competence. Her bestselling book, Filter Shift: How Effective People SEE the World, is used by numerous individuals and organizations to increase success and create greater effectiveness. Sara holds a Master's degree in Diversity and Organizational Development and, prior to founding deepSEE, held positions such as Chief Diversity Officer and Leadership and Diversity Specialist.

Jennifer Carlson serves as Executive Director of the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) Workforce Institute. The Institute is the workforce development arm of the WTIA focused on addressing the tech industry’s workforce and diversity needs through building a nationally registered technology apprenticeship program called Apprenti. Additionally, she serves on the Tech Councils of North America (TECNA) workforce board and as an Adjunct Professor in Graduate Studies at Seattle University. Previously, she successfully ran a $260MM P&L in 12 states, developed web based policy management systems and ran national branding initiatives for AIG Agency Auto, a billion-dollar insurance division of AIG, and managed U.S. sports and event marketing for Progressive Insurance. While Jennifer began as pre-law in college, she completed her BA in technical journalism with a concentration in public relations, a minor in sociology, and has an MBA from Ohio University.

Desiree Johnson serves as the Head of Strategic Talent Pipelines at DRW.  After successfully pioneering the Leadership Rotation Network (LRN) program, she enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to also oversee the Apprenticeship and Code Platoon pipelines. Desiree is honored to work alongside other DRW leaders committed to championing a purposeful culture of inclusion, firmly believing in the abundant yet often untapped potential of underrepresented populations and is energized by the work to be done in this space.

Prior to DRW, Desiree earned her Master’s Degree in Human Resources from Ohio State and spent a decade in the oil industry as an HR practitioner and global leader.  As a first-generation student herself, she actively volunteers with organizations dedicated to supporting first-generation initiatives and currently serves on the Emerging Leaders Council for Bottom Line. Desiree also enjoys travel and her fun fact is that she has visited 70+ countries thus far!

Phill Haig leads Early Career Programs at Visa. This includes Apprenticeships, Internship and Rotation Programs and more. Phill initially joined Visa in 2019 leading their European Early Careers team from London, before moving to into his current global role based in San Francisco in 2022. He has been responsible for launching Visa’s flagship Apprenticeship program in the US and as well as establishing global frameworks for Visa’s legacy internship and rotation programs. Prior to working at Visa, Phill has long career in the Early Career space working for large corporates such as Cisco and Johnson and Johnson.

Terri L. Dougherty, SHRM-CP, is an editor on the human resources content team at J. J. Keller & Associates, Inc. It’s rare to find someone who specializes in labor law posting compliance, but that’s Terri’s world. She has worked with posting compliance for more than 10 years and answers hundreds of questions on the topic annually. Always happy to talk about posters, she also delivers posting webcasts and has spoken at national SHRM conferences. Her other areas of specialization include marijuana regulations and drug testing laws.

John Fay is an attorney and technologist with a deep applied knowledge of business immigration, I-9 compliance and E-Verify rules and procedures.  During his twenty-plus year career, John has advised corporations, educational institutions, and individuals on a variety of U.S. immigration and I-9 issues.  At the same time, he has also been uniquely involved in information technology, having designed several immigration and I-9 management software applications.

As Director of Product Strategy at Equifax, John provides strategic leadership and direction in the development and support of Form I-9, E-Verify, and immigration case management software solutions.