Concurrent Session

Angelina Darrisaw Cheeks is a business and career coach, who firmly believes that career advancement is a social justice issue. As the founder and CEO of C-Suite Coach, a career-coaching platform that provides accessible professional development resources to diverse working professionals, Angelina collaborates with employers to create business solutions that empower and educate teams, as well as retain and engage diverse employees. She also facilitates transformative career workshops and experiences that have reached over 6,000 working and aspiring
professionals in person, through outlets like outlets including: TEDx, Brown University, West Point, Bank of America, the 2016 Democratic National Convention, WICT, Ebony Magazine’s WomenUp Series, and The NYC BAR Association. She has also appeared as a career expert on Univision and Fox 5.

A 1st prize winner of Uber’s NYC Pitch Competition, C-Suite Coach has a growing global client footprint with companies like BLKTechCLT, TIAA, and individual entrepreneurs and across the United States, Israel, Australia, Canada, and more. C-Suite Coach has been featured in
numerous media outlets, including Business Insider, Fast Company, Forbes, Black Enterprise, Thrive Global, Essence, and career sites such as Levo.com, Recruiter.com and Monster.com. Angelina covered Google’s Thrive magazine, highlighting women business owners who
partner with Google, and services small businesses as a Google Digital Coach. She joins Google in bridging the digital divide, by offering free coaching and resources to over 2500 NY-based small businesses. She’s helped these businesses strategically revamp their digital
outreach strategies through over 70 in-person programs. C-Suite Coach now runs the program, nationally, supporting coaches for 8 major markets in this same work. She has also mentored entrepreneurs through General Assembly’s inaugural mentoring program and teaches related
content as an adjunct professor at New York University. These efforts helped her earn “Program of The Year” by Black Googlers and Walker’s Legacy Power25 award in 2017.

Prior to C-Suite Coach, Angelina was the Senior Manager of Digital Business Development at Viacom, developing strategic business partnerships with social media platforms like Twitter, Snapchat, Tumblr and more. She did similar digital strategy work at ESPN. As a My Black is Beautiful and Pantene brand ambassador, Angelina was featured in national ads in Oprah, Ebony and Essence magazines and profiled in Buzzfeed, Huffington Post and on BET. She has also appeared in ad campaigns for 23andMe, Hairfinity and more.

Angelina holds an M.A. in Management from Wake Forest University, a Certificate of Coaching from New York University and a B.A. in Political Science from Davidson College. Angelina serves on the board of Youth Communication and the steering committee for the Alvin Ailey’s Young Patrons Circle and was a founding member of the Wake Forest School of Business’ Development Council. She is a two-time Top 20 finalist for Miss New York USA, a marathoner, and a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

As an HR Visionary, Samm has spent the last decade passionately pursuing the missing elements for employee engagement within organizations. 

This path led her to studies in Classical Oriental Medicine, and now as a certified Medical Qigong Therapist (pronounced “chee-gong”), Samm brings both Western and Eastern perspectives on wellness into workplaces to heal burnout.  She’s discovered that energetic health is key to building thriving workplaces. 

Samm founded a workplace wellness center called the HRart Center (pronounced “heart”). Also the author of four books, her most recent book Workplace Healers dives into her latest work.

Karlyn Borysenko, PhD is the force behind Zen Workplace. An organizational psychologist and executive/performance coach, she is a leader in integrating mindfulness strategies at work to increase productivity and creativity, reduce stress, and create better work experiences. Her practice is based in the greater Boston area and serves clients all over the world. She holds an MBA and a PhD in Psychology, is an experienced trainer and facilitator, coach, and award-winning speaker. She is the author of Zen Your Work: Create your ideal work experience through mindful self-mastery.

Suz works with executives pressured to implement strategic growth and innovation initiatives. She helps them identify the best solutions, mobilize employees, engage customers, implement technology, and improve business results. The executives she works with benefit from success on the initiative at hand, as well as, enhanced personal capability to lead future success.

Suz has an extensive background in leading strategic initiatives that transform business success. She helps leaders maximize their personal, team, and organizational success. She is a big proponent of programs that leverage analytics, technology, and employee engagement to drive customer experiences that optimize profitable corporate results. This is a win-win-win approach for employees, customers, and shareholders/owners.

Michael Lyons is a professional member of the National Speakers Association, and an author, actor, and former business executive for 40+ years in the hospitality industry.

Mike delivers talks in the U.S. and abroad on numerous topics, with a focus on leadership development and personal branding. His book “Set Yourself Free: Daydream it… Believe it… Achieve it!” was released in 2017 to widespread acclaim. 

A professional actor since 1990, Mike has dozens of credits in major films, TV shows, and commercials including speaking parts in “The Sixth Sense”, “All My Children”, “Veep”, “What Would You Do”, “Outsiders” and “House of Cards”, among others.

Zaheen Nanji is a resilience champion and a business owner in Alberta, Canada.  Embracing change and fear is Zaheen’s trademark because she overcame her speech impediment in her twenties, learned to live in a new country, at the age of 15, without her parents and is a recent breast cancer survivor. Her book, The Resilience Reflex - 8 Keys to Transforming Barriers into Success in Life and Business, became an International Best-Seller on Amazon Kindle. Zaheen teaches people how to make resilience their first reflex using her 3-step system: Release, Re-program and Resolve.

Angelina Darrisaw Cheeks is a business and career coach, who firmly believes that career advancement is a social justice issue. As the founder and CEO of C-Suite Coach, a career-coaching platform that provides accessible professional development resources to diverse working professionals, Angelina collaborates with employers to create business solutions that empower and educate teams, as well as retain and engage diverse employees. She also facilitates transformative career workshops and experiences that have reached over 6,000 working and aspiring
professionals in person, through outlets like outlets including: TEDx, Brown University, West Point, Bank of America, the 2016 Democratic National Convention, WICT, Ebony Magazine’s WomenUp Series, and The NYC BAR Association. She has also appeared as a career expert on Univision and Fox 5.

A 1st prize winner of Uber’s NYC Pitch Competition, C-Suite Coach has a growing global client footprint with companies like BLKTechCLT, TIAA, and individual entrepreneurs and across the United States, Israel, Australia, Canada, and more. C-Suite Coach has been featured in
numerous media outlets, including Business Insider, Fast Company, Forbes, Black Enterprise, Thrive Global, Essence, and career sites such as Levo.com, Recruiter.com and Monster.com. Angelina covered Google’s Thrive magazine, highlighting women business owners who
partner with Google, and services small businesses as a Google Digital Coach. She joins Google in bridging the digital divide, by offering free coaching and resources to over 2500 NY-based small businesses. She’s helped these businesses strategically revamp their digital
outreach strategies through over 70 in-person programs. C-Suite Coach now runs the program, nationally, supporting coaches for 8 major markets in this same work. She has also mentored entrepreneurs through General Assembly’s inaugural mentoring program and teaches related
content as an adjunct professor at New York University. These efforts helped her earn “Program of The Year” by Black Googlers and Walker’s Legacy Power25 award in 2017.

Prior to C-Suite Coach, Angelina was the Senior Manager of Digital Business Development at Viacom, developing strategic business partnerships with social media platforms like Twitter, Snapchat, Tumblr and more. She did similar digital strategy work at ESPN. As a My Black is Beautiful and Pantene brand ambassador, Angelina was featured in national ads in Oprah, Ebony and Essence magazines and profiled in Buzzfeed, Huffington Post and on BET. She has also appeared in ad campaigns for 23andMe, Hairfinity and more.

Angelina holds an M.A. in Management from Wake Forest University, a Certificate of Coaching from New York University and a B.A. in Political Science from Davidson College. Angelina serves on the board of Youth Communication and the steering committee for the Alvin Ailey’s Young Patrons Circle and was a founding member of the Wake Forest School of Business’ Development Council. She is a two-time Top 20 finalist for Miss New York USA, a marathoner, and a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

Valerie helps companies improve their bottom line by elevating employees from tactical thinkers to strategic leaders.

She served in senior leadership roles at RollsRoyce Aircraft before helping to found InterActiveCorp, parent company to Expedia, Home Shopping Network and TicketMaster. She then went to work for Oprah Winfrey, helping to found the Oxygen channel which was later sold to NBC Universal.

Valerie obtained her mechanical engineering degree from Kettering University and her MBA from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. Val’s book, Clash of the Generations: Managing the New Workplace Reality, helps leaders manage multiple generations in the office.

As Owner of Evolve Global, she works primarily with Senior Leaders, High Potentials and Teams on: Leadership Development & Team Building. Heather is a Professional Member of the National Speakers Association and serves
on the Board of Directors as President-Elect for the Florida Speakers Association.

Using her expertise in behavioral analysis and executive alignment, Heather helps leaders grow their influence by developing others. As a professional speaker, she has mastered a practical and entertaining delivery methodology –
all of her program material is designed to inspire and motivate change. She gives each audience practical and actionable steps to apply each concept that she shares.

Heather’s guiding principle is to increase employee engagement and bottom line results through leadership development. She works with her clients to build their self-leadership; anticipate and embrace change; and to understand and adapt their behavioral style to improve communications and influence others to increase results.

Heather is also a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP). The CSP designation is the highest earned specification that can be achieved by a member of the National Speakers Association or Global Speakers Federation Member
Associations.

Gerry Valentine inspires people to build resilience—to overcome setbacks, to look at challenges in new ways, and to understand that adversity can become a source of resilience. Gerry’s a public speaker, executive coach, and business advisor with more than 25 years of Fortune 100 leadership experience. As the founder of Vision Executive Coaching, he is a trusted advisor to corporate executives, entrepreneurs, and entire companies.

Gerry is a TEDx speaker, is a contributor to Forbes.com, and has taught executive leadership at Colorado State University. Gerry earned a BS from Cornell University and an MBA from New York University.