Concurrent Session

Sheldon Blumling is a Partner in the Irvine, California office of Fisher & Phillips LLP, a national labor and employment law firm. He is a member of the firm’s Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Practice Group. He advises clients with respect to all aspects of employee benefits and executive compensation, including retirement plans, health and welfare benefit plans and equity-based compensation plans.

Follow Sheldon on Twitter  @labor_attorneys.

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.      

Keith Epstein (SPHR, GPHR, and SHRM-SCP) is a Legal Investigator in the Employment, Labor, and Benefits Legal Group at Intel Corporation.  He has a Master’s Degree in Organizational Development and has worked for Intel for 20 years including training, organizational development, human resources generalist, and for the last 10 years, as an investigator for human resources-related charges and lawsuits.  Mr. Epstein is involved in global labor relations particularly in Asia and in setting Intel’s global employment guidelines.  Keith is also considered one of Intel’s subject matter experts on gender transition matters.

Sarah Noll Wilson, Inc. is on a mission to help leaders build and rebuild teams. Our goal is to empower leaders to understand and honor the beautiful complexity of the humans they serve. We create a safe, honest environment, preparing people to deal with real-world conflict, have more meaningful conversations, and create purposeful relationships. Working with organizations that care deeply about their teams and understand the connection between staff development and organizational success, Sarah Noll Wilson, Inc. specializes in transforming relationships from good to great. 

With 15+ years in leadership development, Sarah Noll Wilson earned a Master's Degree from Drake University in Leadership Development and a BA from the University of Northern Iowa in Theatre Performance and Theatre Education. Through her work as an Executive Coach, an in-demand Keynote Speaker, Researcher, Contributor to Harvard Business Review, and Bestselling Author of “Don’t Feed the Elephants”, Sarah helps leaders close the gap between what they intend to do and the actual impact they make. She hosts the podcast “Conversations on Conversations”, is certified in Co-Active Coaching, Conversational Intelligence, and is a frequent guest lecturer at universities. In addition to her work with organizations, Sarah is a passionate advocate for mental health.   

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Founder of The Brave Initiative, Carol empowers audiences globally, and works with numerous Fortune 500 companies, International Associations, and individual leaders to get their brave on! She is committed to building braver workplaces - where every person brings all they are to all they do.

A dedicated mental health advocate, she’s the creator of the Brave Beyond Diagnosis community, and author of The Brave Healing Journal, a guided journey to find your brave and empower your life, one day at a time.

She’s lived in 16 countries, completed marathons and triathlons, bungee jumped in her birthday suit, and is a serious carpool karaoke-er!

David Brennan brings more than 25 years of financial, operations, and human resource experience to his role as general manager at Achievers. He has held senior management positions at large financial and technology organizations such as Coopers & Lybrand (now PriceWaterhouseCoopers) and Bank of Montreal, as well as high-growth companies like PixStream Incorporated (acquired by Cisco Systems). Brennan graduated from the University of Prince Edward Island with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree.

Giselle is the Practice Lead in Optimus SBR’s Learning & Development Group with over 25 years experience as a sought after resource to industry leaders across the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors dedicated to building strategies and programs that help clients target, motivate and engage employees in order to increase performance and productivity.

Giselle has devoted more than 20 years to researching the impact that generational differences have on organizational performance, creating solutions and programs in four areas – leadership, high performance teams, early career talent, and reinforcement & sustainment of learning. Giselle has co-authored two books and completed her Master of Arts Degree in Communications Studies at the University of Windsor.

She is Chair of the Board at The Institute for Performance and Learning (I4PL), co-chair of the Cross Academy Association and Advisory Council member at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Matt Verdecchia, MS, CEAP, is Senior Trainer/Organizational Development with Health Advocate’s EAP+Work/Life division. Matt specializes in the development and delivery of customized training programs at all organizational levels, as well as risk assessment, consultation, and mediation.

Matt has more than 30 years of experience in the behavioral health field, including clinical, consulting and administrative duties in various settings. Previously, Matt worked as Senior Clinical Manager and Account/Marketing Executive for several different hospitals’ and facilities’ Employee Assistance Programs.

Matt received his BS in Psychology from St. Francis College and his Masters of Science in Organizational Science/Human Resources from Villanova.

Steven is the human resources coordinator at the Health & Hospital Corporation of Marion County (Indianapolis, Indiana).  His experience includes all areas of human resources, with specific focus on compliance, employee relations and training and development.  He holds an MBA from Western Governors University and a bachelor’s degree in theatre from Indiana State University.  His experience ranges from human resources positions in healthcare and manufacturing companies to directing and producing theatrical productions.  Perhaps most surprisingly, the skills used to direct plays and musicals transfer very well to human resources.  Investigating and advising on employee matters and corralling actors are remarkably comparable – following policies or following scripts, doing them the right way builds an efficient workforce and gets a standing ovation!