Concurrent Session

Kathleen is currently the President of The HeaRt Group, a human resource consulting firm, with expertise in organizational development, talent acquisition and management, employee engagement, performance leadership, compensation and benefits. She is the former Assistant Vice Chancellor of Human Resources at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, Arkansas. Prior to that, she was Corporate Vice President of Human Resources at Edgewater Technology in Fayetteville, AR for five years, helping with the acquisition of 44 companies to form Staffmark Inc., later becoming Edgewater. Prior to this position she held various executive human resources positions at Acxiom Corporation, Express Human Resources and M.M. Cohn. In her last position, she was responsible for the human resource function in the UAMS Medical Center, which has over 6500 employees, as well as campus responsibility for the operation functions that includes compensation, HR analytics, recruitment, organizational development, employee relations, affirmative action, immigration, compliance, benefits, employee services, and performance management for 11,000 employees. The HeaRt Group’s focus is to work with small to mid-sized business owners and executives to develop Human Resource practices best aligned with their business objectives and strategic plans. The HeaRt Group provides common sense human resource advice by solving Human Resource challenges, handling Human Resource issues and partnering with clients to enhance their organization. Ms. McComber has over 40 years’ experience in the human resource profession and has done extensive work in the areas of compensation, benefits, employee relations, performance leadership, diversity and organizational development 30 of those at the senior level. She is a member of the Central Arkansas Human Resource Association (CAHRA) and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) for many years. She has served on the CAHRA board of directors twice serving as Chair. She has also served on the SHRM Board of Directors for seven years and held the top volunteer position as Chair in 1998. She served four years on the Human Resource Certification Board and six years on the SHRM Foundation Board serving as chair in 2006. She holds a B.S. in Education from the University of Arkansas and a M.A. in Management from Webster University. She is on the faculty of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in the College of Public Health and Webster University teaching leadership and human resource classes at the graduate level.

Brian is an experienced Human Resources Executive with a proven track record in managing and developing a wide variety of human resource functions for both public and private organizations. Brian is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the Human Resources Department including recruitment and retention of top internal talent, ensuring compliance with all state and federal regulations, developing competitive compensation and benefits plans, and ensuring improved process efficiencies through the implementation and utilization of the Human Resources Information System (HRIS). Lastly, and most importantly, Brian’s team works to develop and foster a workplace culture that allows our employees to achieve their professional goals in an environment where our staff understands that “delivering the Plus” is what makes us a success. 

Prior to joining Staffing Plus, Brian served as Vice President of Human Resources at PointRoll, a Gannett Company, Director of Human Resources for Alliance Consulting and as a Sr. Human Resources Associate at Right Management Consultants.

Keri Gasiorowski is Senior Director of Talent Management for Digital Risk, the largest global independent provider of risk, compliance, and transaction management solutions. She has over 10 years of experience in Talent Management, including having worked for Robert Half International and United Stationers Supply Company. In her role at Digital Risk, she leads the Talent Acquisition, Learning & Development, and Internal Communications functions. Keri has her Bachelor’s Degree in Organizational Behavior and her Masters in Human Resource Management, both from Rollins College in Winter Park, FL. Aside from working at Digital Risk, Keri is lead faculty member for Human Resource courses at Rollins College and has been published in many industry periodicals including the Encyclopedia for Human Resource Management.

Follow Keri on Twitter @KeriGasiorowski.

Joe Gerstandt brings greater clarity, action, and impact to organizational diversity and inclusion efforts.

Joe has worked with Fortune 100 corporations, small non-profits, and everything in between. He speaks at numerous conferences and summits, and blogs at joegerstandt.com. He is a featured contributor for the Workforce Diversity Network Expert Forum and his insights have been published in Diversity Executive, HR Executive, and numerous other print and on-line journals.

A strong advocate for resetting the diversity and inclusion conversation, Joe sees these issues as poorly understood and often misunderstood.

John Hom is currently Vice President and Head of the Talent Consulting team, which is part of the Prudential’s Talent Organization.  The team is focused on enhancing results by working with senior leaders on large-scale transformation projects from across the US and International Businesses and Corporate Functions.  Previously, he was the Senior Vice President of Talent Management at Merrill Lynch /Bank of America where he was responsible for talent management for multiple functions including Global Risk Management, Global Research, Global Operations and the Chief Financial Office representing 11,000 employees globally. 

Prior to Merrill Lynch, John was a senior consultant at the Hay Group, a global human resources consulting firm.  At Hay, he specialized in improving sales force effectiveness.  In this capacity, he consulted to sales organizations at Fortune 500 companies across multiple industries including pharmaceuticals, financial services and telecommunications. 

John also worked at Salomon Brothers in both its Strategy Consulting team and Mergers and Acquisition group.  In these roles, he worked extensively with different business unites on revenue-generating projects including developing the company’s pan-Latin American strategy and identifying long-term equity investments.  He also held various operational roles at Lehman Brothers and Chase Manhattan Bank. 

John graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics.  He also holds a Masters in Business Administration in Finance and International Business Management from New York University.  He currently serves on the National Board of Directors of the Girl Scouts of the USA and is also the Chair of its Executive Compensation Committee.  John lives in South Orange, New Jersey with his wife, Linda, and two children, Sydnie and Matthew.

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.

 

 

Catherine Mattice, MA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, is the founder/CEO of Civility Partners, a strategic organizational development firm focused on helping organizations create respectful workplace cultures and specializing in turning around toxic cultures. Civility Partners’ clients range from Fortune 500's to small businesses across many industries. Catherine is a TEDx speaker and an HR thought-leader who has appeared in such venues as USA Today, Bloomberg, CNN, NPR, and many other national news outlets as an expert. She’s an award-winning speaker and blogger, author of three books, and she has 50+ courses reaching global audiences on LinkedIn Learning.

 

Joseph (“Joe”) Beachboard is a nationally recognized employment lawyer who also closely tracks the most important developments at the U.S. Supreme Court impacting the business community. He has more than 30 years of experience representing management in a wide variety of employment and labor matters in perhaps the most challenging state in the nation for employers – California.  Mr. Beachboard speaks regularly before human resource and employer groups on cutting edge employment law topics.  He is a member of SHRM and has been an annual presenter at both the SHRM Annual Conference and the Employment Law and Compliance Conference for two decades.  Mr. Beachboard is frequently quoted in such leading publications as HR Magazine, National Law Journal, Los Angeles Times, NY Times, HR Executive and Workforce, and has been published in dozens of legal and business journals. Throughout his career in Los Angeles, Mr. Beachboard has represented dozens of studios and entertainment properties.  He cites his most interesting project as working with the cast and crew of the television show The Office, from its pilot through the final season.

 

 

Nicole Butts is an accomplished Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion executive, strategist, and coach who specializes in transforming executives into inclusive and equitable organizational leaders.

During her 20-year career, she has built multiple inaugural DEI offices; served as a chief diversity officer; a director of employee diversity, inclusion, and climate; and a director of equal employment.

Nicole is the founder of NLYB Solutions, a DEI consulting firm helping executives, executive teams, and organizations courageously and effectively navigate personal, professional, and organizational DEI journeys. She is the creator of SHIFT, a transformational five-step framework for creating systemic, effective, measurable, and sustainable DEI cultures.

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.