Concurrent Session

Dima is Middle-Eastern in her genes and global citizen in her spirit. She ignites the untapped potential in individuals across the globe, empowering them to shatter limitations and become courageous, purpose driven leaders.

Through keynote speeches, workshops, and executive coaching, Dima shares her unique leadership transformation journey with one goal in mind: motivate those around her to reimagine their potential and grow into leaders.

Dima has worked across the United States, Europe, Asia, Middle East, and Africa for several Fortune 100 companies and has honed a keen expertise in developing leaders to meet the demands of the global workforce.

Alex envisions a world where work is effortless and teams are drama-free.

Standing side by side since 2015 with New York Times best-selling author and thought leader Cy Wakeman, Alex collaborates with organizations and leaders globally to help them ditch the drama from the workplace, hardwire accountability in their teams and turn excuses into results.

Everything he does is designed to help people understand that success and happiness is their natural state as a human being—once the drama is gone. With this core belief, Alex’s passion is revealing to those he works with that once people carve away drama from their lives, the same job they found themselves upset with today becomes the job they look forward to and love tomorrow.

As a keynote speaker and trainer, he helps organizations exchange the endless argument for a DIFFERENT workplace reality for a shifted perspective that enables them to start achieving more success and fulfillment in their CURRENT workplace reality.

In addition to sharing the reality-based philosophy from the stage, Alex is also a quintessential part of Cy Wakeman’s content creation and media team, spreading the ditch-the-drama message online. Over the last three years, his expertise, insights and execution have helped to balloon her  online community of raving fans from 15,000 to 150,000 followers across multiple platforms.

As the host of The Carvery Podcast with Alex Dorr (available on Apple iOS, Google Play and Simplecast), he shares his journey, stories and insights as a reality-based speaker and practicing drama defuser to help others carve away their own drama and start calling those they lead to greatness.

Although Alex stands at 6’6” tall and is commonly told at events, “you look a lot taller up close,” he prides himself on being down-to-earth or, better yet, grounded in reality.

An advocate for mental minimalism and a former professional basketball player, Alex holds a MSc in international business from the University of Derby (England) and his client list includes the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Adobe, Carnival Cruise Lines, Ely Lilly, Kohler, Emory Healthcare, Methodist Healthcare (San Antonio), Nationwide, the U.S. Department of Commerce, NetJets, Allina Health, Delaware North, AMC Theatres, Washington Department of Transportation, Our Lady of the Lake Medical Center, Providence Medical Center, the University of Oregon, Baton Rouge General Medical Center, CH Robinson, Intact Insurance, National Association of Credit Management and Credit Institute of Canada, among others.

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.

Kim Ades is the Founder of Frame of Mind Coaching™ and The Journal That Talks Back™. Recognized as a pioneer in the field of leadership coaching and thought mastery, Kim uses her unique philosophy and quirky coaching style to help leaders identify their blind spots and direct their thinking to achieve extraordinary results. Author, speaker, entrepreneur, coach, and mom of five, Kim’s claim to fame is teaching her powerful coaching process to leaders, executives, and entrepreneurs worldwide. Kim has been featured in a variety of online publications including Forbes and Inc. and has spoken for organizations including Microsoft and SHRM. 

Bianca is the President of Social Intelligence where she drives the vision to support organizations in protecting workplace culture and preventing harassment. Bianca obtained an MBA from Pepperdine University with a concentration in Dispute Resolution and is a LinkedIn Learning Instructor.

Bernadette Jones is a trailblazing HR leader with over 20 years of experience crafting "Culture-First" solutions across diverse organizations. As Human Resource Committee Chair at Richmond Art Center and Professional Development Chair for SHRM Northern California, she champions intentional inclusion and culture-first practices. Bernadette's innovative "Respect in the Workplace Starts With Me®" workshop series addresses crucial compliance and cultural issues. With SPHR and SHRM-SCP certifications, she brings deep HR expertise to her roles. Bernadette's leadership in Visionova's participation in SHRM's National HR Registered Apprenticeship Program demonstrates her commitment to nurturing HR talent and enhancing workplace environments. Her work connects over 27,000 HR professionals across 16 SHRM chapters in Northern California.

Christopher “CJ” Gross is the author of the best-selling book What's Your Zip Code Story? Understanding and Overcoming Class Bias in the Workplace and the highly acclaimed Harvard Business Review article, A Better Approach to Mentorship. He is a TEDx Speaker and founder of Ascension Worldwide, a firm dedicated to DEI and cultural transformation consulting based in the Washington, D.C. area. CJ has 20-years of experience as an international organizational development consultant specializing in leadership development, and DEI transformation. CJ is a certified Social + Emotional Intelligence coach, trainer, Keirsey Temperament professional, and Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) Administrator.