Concurrent Session

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.

 Joe is a leading thinker in managing and motivating people. He’s passionate about helping organizations achieve their vision through effective performance management.

 He’s a top-rated SHRM speaker and serves as Chief Value Officer for Delphia Consulting, a national HR and Payroll software consulting firm based in Columbus, Ohio. Joe is the co-creator of miviva, a continuous performance management application.

 Joe has over 30 years of experience and serves as VP of Professional Development on the Human Resources Association of Central Ohio (HRACO) Board of Directors. Joe is a cited contributor to the SHRM Learning System.

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.

Conrad is an accomplished and passionate Senior Talent Acquisition strategist and thought leader who possesses over fifteen years of results focused experience in the recruiting arena. He has a demonstrated history of directing, designing and implementing enterprise wide employment branding, recruitment and staffing initiatives for large organizations. Conrad has deep experience collaborating with various levels of corporate and operations lines of businesses to meet hiring objectives. He is adept at executing strategic and operational workforce planning analysis to identify skill gaps and future talent needs. Conrad is a recognized leader in the Talent Acquisition community who has served in leadership roles on boards, professional associations, industry benchmarking groups and task forces.

Follow Conrad on Twitter @ConradSamuels.

Kevin Cope is the #1 Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestselling author of Seeing the Big Picture: Business Acumen to Build Your Credibility, Career, and Company. A renowned trainer and speaker, Kevin has spent the last 25 years working with top organizations including 30 Fortune 50 companies. His 5 Business Drivers model and ideas, shared with millions through his book, articles, and courses, have been praised for being relevant and actionable; they help you come to the table prepared.

Steve Browne, SHRM-SCP is the Chief People Officer for LaRosa's, Inc., a regional Pizzeria chain. He has 35+ years working as an HR professional in a variety of industries. He has a globally recognized HR blog and author of three books, HR on Purpose !!, HR Rising !! and HR Unleashed !! He is a past member of the SHRM Board of Directors. Steve also runs a global HR network called the HR Net which reaches 15,000+ HR and business professionals weekly.

Sandy Michelet is the Senior HR Director at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center and the current President for Greater Baton Rouge SHRM. She is proficient as a top multi-project manager and team builder in program implementation, requirement identification, performance reviews and executive relationship building. She has experience in the creative design and execution of successful, high-impact training initiatives and performance metrics plans; formation and administration of employee evaluation surveys, infrastructure support and skills assessments. As the Director of HR Corporate Services for the Shaw Group, a global 27,000 employee Fortune 500 Company, she led the HR Operations, Learning and Development, Compliance and Leaves of Absence teams. She led the development and launch of new programs, policies and processes, led the company wide initiative to become I-9/e-verify compliant (she shares your love of the I-9) and launched the Shaw Group’s first orientation program. As a self-professed “paper hater”, she initiated the paperless initiative to transition paper personnel files to OCR electronic files for 28,000 employees and led the effort to create standardized hiring processes and new hire packets across business units.

Follow Sandy on Twitter @SandyMichelet.

In her new role as SHRM’s Senior Speechwriter for the SHRM’s Speaker’s Bureau, Aliah is responsible for managing the speaking program for SHRM executives and Board Members totaling more than 200 presentations annually. In addition, she writes and edits many of the speeches given by SHRM senior executives and vice presidents.

A subject matter expert on social media engagement and social strategy, HR technology and global human resources Aliah, a journalist for more than 15 years, began working in SHRM’s editorial division in March of 2008. She has written for SHRM Online and HR Magazine.

She is the author of the best-selling SHRM-published book, A Necessary Evil: Managing Employees' Activity on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn … and the Hundreds of Other Social Media Sites, which encourages HR professionals to embrace social media as a tool for increased employee engagement. It also shows HR professionals how to effectively promote, protect, and defend their firm’s brands and reputations on social media platforms encouraging them to manage employee activity with legal social media policies.

She has delivered keynote addresses and speeches across the United States, Canada and Europe, where she attended and moderated conferences—including the SHRM Annual Conference on a variety of HR topics, including social media engagement, recruiting and HR technology selection.

After receiving a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from Temple University in her hometown of Philadelphia, she worked as a Reporter and Editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Philadelphia Daily News, The Greenville (S.C) News and as a Political Correspondent for the nation’s largest news organization, The Associated Press. She left there to work at USA Today where, as the Entertainment Editor for Gannett News Service, she managed a team of entertainment reporters nationwide for all of Gannett’s papers, including the nation’s largest daily newspaper — USA Today.

She is a frequent speaker on various social media topics and has been featured in a number of publications, blogs and podcasts, among them The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Forbes, American Express Business Blog, HR Magazine, Small Business Digest, Talent Management Blog, JumpStartHR Blog, and the Business Life & Coffee and National Press Club podcasts.

She is the proud mom of an aspiring psychologist who’s studying abroad in Australia next year. You can follow her tweets @1SHRMScribe and read her articles published on SHRM.org and LinkedIn.

Erika Tedesco describes herself as culture champion in her role as Vice President of (HR) People & Culture at Diversified Automation, responsible for the culture, engagement, retention, and recruitment of professional talent at the company. Erika also teaches at the Gordon Ford School of Business at Western Kentucky University on International HR Business, leveraging her practical experiences with multinational entities to train the HR professionals of the future. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication from the University of Louisville and a Master’s degree in Communication from the University of Illinois.

Michelle Ray is a highly sought-after international business keynote speaker, consultant, author and educator who demonstrates a deep understanding of importance of self-leadership in business and in life. Born in Australia, Michelle began her career in the media industry during the recession of the early 80′s. She was once told by management that she “didn’t have what it takes” to succeed in the business world. Despite a lack of mentors, Michelle was inspired to move up the management ladder to self-employment; creating her own successful international business. She believes that leadership is a state of mind and helps individuals at any stage of their career to master personal leadership…the ability to take charge of oneself first in any situation. Michelle speaks passionately about self – actualization, the importance of outstanding leadership in the workplace and the responsibility of positive communication and influence.

Follow Michelle on Twitter @michelleraycsp.