Concurrent Session

Cindy Joseph is the founder and chief executive officer of The Cee Suite LLC. For nearly two decades, the core of Cindy’s career has been finding and developing diverse talent. Prior to launching The Cee Suite, she managed human capital programs for two of the world’s leading financial services and consulting companies, Goldman Sachs and Accenture. Her key areas of competency include recruiting, diversity and inclusion, and performance management.

Regardless of her role, title or mandate, Cindy has always felt a strong connection to personal and professional growth, mentorship, and inclusion efforts, and has passionately used her platforms to support and inspire high-performing teams.

Today, Cindy advises organizations in varying stages of their talent management and diversity, equity and inclusion journeys and helps teams transform their critical “people” practices. She also works with individuals one-on-one as they seek to elevate their professional brands and careers.

When Cindy is not at home in Brooklyn, N.Y., she spends much of her personal time traveling the world. She is a graduate of Howard University, where she earned a degree in psychology, and a Certified Professional Diversity Coach.

Kelly Charles-Collins, CEO of HR Legally Speaking, LLC, has the unique ability to make difficult and sensitive topics more approachable.

She’s a powerhouse attorney and expert on disrupting unconscious bias, bystander intervention, and workplace investigations. Kelly empower leaders to stay on the right side of the next #hashtag movement.

She’s the author of ACE Your Workplace Investigations, Speak: Silence is Not an Option!, and Conversations Change Things: The “PER”fect Framework for Courageous Conversations. Kelly is also known for her award-winning TEDx Talk – The Bystander Effect: Why Some People Act and Others Don’t.

She’s been featured on/in ABC, NBC, Forbes, and Fast Company.

Global Speaker Sonia Aranza has presented on the international stage from Spain to Singapore.  She brings 27+ years of experience in Diversity, Inclusion & Global Leadership. Her clients include Boeing, CIA, McDonald’s and more. The U.S. Department of Labor describes her work as “Outstanding” and was selected to execute programs for landmark cases. SHRM featured her as a Diversity & Inclusion Expert in HR Magazine and she is a LinkedIn Top Voice in Leadership. She serves on the Faculty of Howard University’s Executive Diversity Program; named “100 Most Influential Filipina Americans in the United States” and honored “100 Most Influential Filipina Women in the World.”

Willie Jackson is a keynote speaker, consultant, and facilitator who helps leaders and organizations advance vital conversations that unlock connections across differences. His belief in the transformative power of media to change narratives led him to found Abernathy, a magazine for black men backed by companies like Mailchimp, Atlassian, and WeWork. In its four year run, Abernathy published 400+ articles and produced a series of curated events for diverse professionals across the nation.

Willie served as Founding Technical Lead of Seth Godin’s altMBA program for high-performing individuals who want to level up and lead, and CTO of The Domino Project, an award-winning (The Thomas A. Edison Marketing Award and Eric Hoffer Book Award) publishing company founded by business luminary Seth Godin and powered by Amazon.com. He's been featured in documentaries (I’m Fine, Thanks), on HGTV (House Hunters International), and in print (Icarus Deception). Willie is an avid houseplant aficionado and loves to spread the gospel of self-watering planters whenever possible.

Josh Miller is the foremost authority on all things regarding the Gen Z workforce. As the 18-year-old founder and CEO of Deciding Edge, a research consultancy helping organizations define and adapt to the next generation, he is frequently called upon by trade associations and Fortune 500 companies to offer nuanced and authentic insights into the next-generation workforce.

Josh was formerly director of Gen Z studies at XYZ University, a generational research firm, where he co-authored two groundbreaking research papers and helped conduct an international research study. In addition to his role as CEO of Deciding Edge, Josh is a student at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where he studies journalism and economics.

As a global digital transformation leader with IKEA, Tie Wang-Jones works to build out the digital organization within the company across the world. She has a dual Ph.D. in business psychology and clinical psychology, and loves to nerd out on applied statistics research to help the business make data-informed decisions. Tie has 10+ years of experience in diversity and inclusion (D&I), including in program development, primary research, clinical practice, consulting and enterprise strategic planning. For five years she was a global D&I leader at IKEA, building the function from scratch and creating its companywide D&I strategy and matrix network of 40+ country leaders. She is passionate about using the power of organizations to move the equity agenda forward in order to make meaningful change across communities.

For over 20 years, Allison West has used her employment law background in delivering customized workplace training, conducting investigations, coaching executives/managers, serving as an expert witness, and specializing in conflict resolution and facilitated discussions to create more collaborative work environments. 

Allison is a top-rated speaker at the SHRM Annual Conference as well as other HR/diversity conferences, and is a national expert on harassment, discrimination and investigations. She has appeared on PBS, CBS This Morning and in O Magazine discussing workplace harassment issues. 

She is a member of the State Bar of California and holds her SHRM-SCP certification and AWI-CH (investigation) certificate.

Regina Petty is a partner in the San Diego and Los Angeles offices of Fisher Phillips. She practices in state and federal courts at the trial and appellate levels and is experienced in multi-district and class-action litigation. Regina advises employers and public agency boards and handles litigation for private and public employers. She successfully argued Jones v. The Lodge at Torrey Pines Partnership, (2008) 42 Cal.4th 1158, before the California Supreme Court, a case noted on Bender's California Labor & Employment Bulletin's top 10 list of most significant cases and trends for the Fair Employment and Housing Act's 50th anniversary.

Regina is a past president of the San Diego County Bar Association and a former member of the board of directors of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association. She is "AV" peer-review rated by Martindale-Hubbell and has been listed in San Diego Super Lawyers every year since its inaugural issue. She has been named one of the Los Angeles Daily Journal's Top 75 Women Litigators in California and one of the San Diego Daily Transcript's Top Ten Attorneys in both the labor and employment and business litigation categories.

Regina is also a recipient of the San Diego Business Journal's Women Who Mean Business Award, and she was honored by the Stanford University Black Community Services Center with its Legacy Award.

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.

Edie Goldberg, Ph.D., is the president of E.L. Goldberg & Associates in Menlo Park, Calif. She is a nationally recognized expert in HR and talent management strategy and organizational effectiveness. She is the co-author of The Inside Gig: How Sharing Untapped Talent Across Boundaries Unleashes Organizational Capacity. Edie earned her Ph.D. in industrial/organizational psychology from the University of Albany, SUNY, and she earned a B.S. and M.S. in psychology from San Diego State University. She serves on the board of the SHRM Foundation, is past chair of HR People + Strategy (HRPS), and is  a fellow of the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology. She is the recipient of the HRPS Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions made to the HR profession.