Concurrent Session

David Lindgren is a Senior Manager with Flexible Benefit Service Corporation (Flex), a fullservice wholesale insurance firm and administrator of tax-advantaged benefit plans based in Rosemont, Illinois. David oversees the Compliance and Public Affairs departments at Flex and brings fifteen years of experience to his role.

He is a subject matter expert in the areas of ERISA, HIPAA, Cafeteria Plans, Healthcare Reform and various Employee Benefit Programs, including consumer-driven plans that incorporate Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs), Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and wellness programs.

Global Speaker Sonia Aranza has presented on the international stage from Spain to Singapore.  She brings 27+ years of experience in Diversity, Inclusion & Global Leadership. Her clients include Boeing, CIA, McDonald’s and more. The U.S. Department of Labor describes her work as “Outstanding” and was selected to execute programs for landmark cases. SHRM featured her as a Diversity & Inclusion Expert in HR Magazine and she is a LinkedIn Top Voice in Leadership. She serves on the Faculty of Howard University’s Executive Diversity Program; named “100 Most Influential Filipina Americans in the United States” and honored “100 Most Influential Filipina Women in the World.”

Inga Fong, SPHR, GPHR, is an HR Content Manager for the HR Certification Institute. Inga is responsible for HR content management and directing the development of the GPHR, HRMP and HRBP exams. She has more than 15 years of specialized and generalist human resource experience in across multiple industries including, IT consulting, media, software development and publishing. She holds an B.S. in Management from New York University, a MBA degree with a concentration in International Business from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and both the SPHR and GPHR certifications.

Cliff Godiner, Co-Chair of the Firm’s Labor and Employment Law Section, has over twenty-five years of experience representing employers in labor and employment matters throughout the United States. His practice is divided into three categories. First, he represents carriers in union-management relations under the Railway Labor Act. Mr. Godiner represents several of the nation’s largest carriers in collective bargaining, grievance handling, arbitration review actions, and strike injunction cases. Second, he represents employers under the National Labor Relations Act, including the handling of unfair labor practice charges, grievance arbitrations, and related litigation. Finally, Mr. Godiner spends considerable time on employment litigation, such as employment discrimination, wage and hour, wrongful discharge, and non-compete actions tried before judges and juries in both federal and state courts. Mr. Godiner is included in The Best Lawyers in America® (Copyright 2012 by Woodward/White, Inc., of Aiken, S.C.), Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers®, and Chambers USA 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 Editions – Leading Lawyers For Business.

Jay Forte, a former financial executive and corporate educator, now business and motivational speaker, greatness coach and author, is a nationally ranked Thought Leader and President of Humanetrics. Jay guides organizations – their leaders and managers – in how to attract, hire and retain today’s best talent. He coaches individuals in how to reconnect to their talents and passions to achieve extraordinary personal and professional performance.

Jay is the author of Fire Up! Your Employees and Smoke Your Competition (March 2009), The Greatness Zone - Know Yourself, Find Your Fit, Transform The World (October 2010).

Jay is a member of SHRM, ASTD, the National Speakers Association and the Florida Speakers Association. Originally from New England, Jay now lives in Fort Lauderdale, FL.

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.

Stephanie R. Thomas is the CEO of Thomas Econometrics Inc. She provides economic and statistical consulting services to Fortune 500 companies, major law firms, and government agencies such as the Department of Justice and the FBI. Stephanie has testified as an expert on gender, race and age discrimination claims in compensation, hiring, promotion, termination and other employment practices in federal and state courts throughout the U.S. She is a noted authority on internal pay equity, and is the author of Compensating Your Employees Fairly: A Guide to Internal Pay Equity, published by Apress in April 2013.

Bill Schiemann is founder and CEO of Metrus Group, specializing in performance measurement and organizational change. He has consulted extensively with corporations on the development and implementation of business and people strategies; HR measurement; strategic employee surveys and internal value assessments; and creating high performance cultures. He also founded the Metrus Institute, which supports research and publications, many in the human capital arena.  

Bill is a thought leader in the human resources field, having written scores of articles and six books in the human capital area, most recently the SHRM-published book, Hidden Drivers of Success:  Leveraging Employee Insights for Strategic Advantage (2013). 

He is the Past Chair of the SHRM Foundation Board of Directors and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the HR Certification Institute.  He has been named a Fellow and Scholar by the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. 

Follow Bill on Twitter @wschiemann.

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.

 

 

Jathan Janove, a former state bar Employment Lawyer of the Year and now Executive Coach and Organization Development consultant, writes SHRM’s “Putting Humanity into HR Compliance” column, and is a Master Coach and Practice Leader with the Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching organization, including writing its Ask the Coach column. He’s the author, most recently, of “Hard-Won Wisdom: True Stories From The Management Trenches” (HarperCollins 2017). He’s currently working on his next book, “From Compliance Cop to Culture Coach: Transforming the HR Profession.”