Concurrent Session

Karl Ahlrichs specializes in helping professionals make order from chaos. He is a national speaker, author, and consultant, presenting on the people issues in all industries, and is often quoted in the local and national media. 

Karl’s experience is ideally suited to times of organizational change as he pulls on risk management and organizational development theories to replace “best practices” with “next practices”. He owes much of his communications mastery to working as a writer and editor in daily media, to on-the-job writing experience and to the process of becoming a published author.

He joined Gregory & Appel in 2010 after serving as a founding partner of ExactHire, bringing his HR, operations, diversity & belonging, and learning & development skills with him. Karl’s affinity for design, composition and learning started at a very young age, by taking and examining thousands of boring pictures with the goal of improving his craft. He loves deploying that practice-to-improve approach with all manner of hobbies including writing haiku, mastering cutting-edge technology and learning Spanish.

In 2003, he was named the SHRM Human Resource Professional of the Year for the State of Indiana. He is on the Boards of several organizations, including the Maryland CPA Society.  He has lived in Scotland and Spain and lives to explore new experiences with his wife and family.

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

Ilyse Schuman is a shareholder at Littler and Co-Chair of its Workplace Policy Institute, Washington DC’s premier labor and employment legislative and regulatory advocacy group. With a deep understanding of employment and labor policy and the legislative and regulatory process, Ilyse W. Schuman provides strategic counsel and representation to clients on a broad array of workplace issues and developments in Congress and executive branch federal agencies. Ilyse worked on the Senate HELP Committee from 2001 to 2008, serving as minority staff director and chief counsel. She also worked as chief labor counsel on the Subcommittee on Employment, Safety and Training.

As Littler’s global director of data analytics, Dr. Zev J. Eigen guides HR departments to strategically tap employee and applicant information when making business-critical decisions. He combines a data scientist’s mindset with a shrewd knowledge of labor and employment law in the delivery of precise and practical workplace-related counseling. A frequent speaker on machine learning algorithms and statistical analysis, Zev has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Forbes and by NBC, CBS and Fox, among others. He has taught at a number of universities, including Northwestern School of Law, Yale Law School and Kellogg School of Management.      

Corinn Jackson is a Knowledge Management Counsel in the Los Angeles office of Littler Mendelson P.C, where she creates and manages legal and electronic resources to assist in counseling employers in all areas of labor and employment law. Corinn is particularly focused on the use of Big Data in employment practices, and she is currently a member of Littler’s Big Data initiative and its efforts to help develop policies around the use of Big Data.  She is a primary co-author of the Littler Report on Big Data, The Big Move Toward Big Data in Employment (August 2015).

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.

Mykkah Herner is the Modern Compensation Evangelist at PayScale, the leader in modern compensation data and software. PayScale’s products help employees and employers understand market-based pay and have more open and mutually beneficial conversations about compensation. He has more than a decade of experience developing strategic compensation programs for more than 400 companies to ensure they retain and attract the right talent. Mykkah specializes in linking performance with compensation in order to drive better business results. He delivers a monthly accredited webinar series at PayScale, breaking complex compensation concepts into actionable steps. Mykkah is also a regular contributor to TLNT. Mykkah holds a Master’s Degree in Organizational Development from Antioch University, and is a Certified Compensation Professional.

Internationally recognized as an expert in the field, Mr. Kushner is one of the nation's most sought after speakers on HR strategy and employee benefits. He has advised four U.S. Presidents on health care and has testified before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee and the U.S. House Small Business Committee on employee benefit issues.

A frequent resource to the media, Mr. Kushner contributes to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, AP, Knight-Ridder, the Kiplinger Washington Newsletter, CNN News, Fortune, MSNBC and Good Morning America among others. More importantly, he and his wife Tamis have five children and four wonderful (and amazing!) grandchildren.