Concurrent Session

Bethany Adams has more than 15 years of experience in HR and education.  She began her career working in learning & development and human resources in the restaurant and retail industries. She has experience in both small, privately-owned businesses and large, Fortune 500 organizations. Bethany holds a BA in Psychology, MA in Organizational Management, the SHRM-SCP certification, and is a Certified Genos International Emotional Intelligence Practitioner. She currently teaches at Villanova University in the Graduate Programs in HR Development.  Bethany has spoken at a variety of conferences throughout the country and leads corporate training on topics including emotional intelligence, DEI, and strategic HR.  Bethany hosts an HR podcast called HR Tea.

Todd Corley is Carhartt’s SVP of Inclusion, Sustainability and Community. In this role, he leads the 135-year-old global workwear brand’s strategy on environmental and social impact.

His research on What Has (Hasn’t) Changed About Being A Chief Diversity Officer published by Harvard Business Review, traces the journey of more than 40 diversity officers.

A life-long learner, he has supported the next generation of inclusive leaders by co-creating two DE&I strategy graduate programs. His pioneering work as Abercrombie & Fitch’s chief diversity officer is the subject of the Netflix documentary, White Hot: The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch.

Bethany Adams has more than 15 years of experience in HR and education.  She began her career working in learning & development and human resources in the restaurant and retail industries. She has experience in both small, privately-owned businesses and large, Fortune 500 organizations. Bethany holds a BA in Psychology, MA in Organizational Management, the SHRM-SCP certification, and is a Certified Genos International Emotional Intelligence Practitioner. She currently teaches at Villanova University in the Graduate Programs in HR Development.  Bethany has spoken at a variety of conferences throughout the country and leads corporate training on topics including emotional intelligence, DEI, and strategic HR.  Bethany hosts an HR podcast called HR Tea.

Sinikka Waugh, President of Your Clear Next Step, spends her days helping people have better workdays. Sinikka is known for consistently helping people improve their emotional intelligence and find innovative ways to solve problems and get things done at work. Putting her 20+ year background in languages, literature, and project management to good use, Sinikka has provided compassionate leadership in transformation initiatives and helped over 50,000 people have better workdays since 2008. Her clients value how her results-driven professionalism blends seamlessly with her down-to-earth, “try this now” approach and her relentless passion for helping others achieve even better.

As a DEI practitioner and organizational consultant, Judy leads strategic culture and diversity, equity, and inclusion transformations to build organizations where all employees thrive. For over 20 years, she has designed and delivered solutions for corporate, nonprofit and educational clients.

Judy leads the global DEI consulting practice of AMS (Alexander Mann Solutions), a Talent Acquisition and Workforce Solutions firm. She has designed diagnostic tools of end-to-end recruitment processes to foster inclusivity that she’s delivered for organizations including Barclays and Bristol Myers Squibb. She’s also developed DEI strategy, communication plans, career development frameworks and global training initiatives on Inclusive Leadership, Conscious Inclusion in Hiring, and Unconscious Bias for companies including Delta Airlines and MUFG. Prior to joining AMS, Judy led a certified Woman- and Minority-owned DEI consulting firm, Think People.

​Judy serves as an Adjunct Instructor in Workforce Diversity at the University of Cincinnati ‘s Master’s in Applied Psychology Program. She has a B.S. in Management & Organizations from Indiana University's Kelly School of Business. She holds certificates in Diversity & Inclusion from Cornell University, and Coaching with the International Coaching Federation; she is a Qualified Administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory®. She has been named a “Top Diversity Officer” by the National Diversity Council. Her expertise in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has been featured in Forbes, DiversityQ magazine, the Recruiting Daily podcast and on numerous conference platforms, including SHRM’s Inclusion Conference.

Rich Jacquet is Coursera’s Chief People Officer. Prior to joining Coursera in 2019, Rich was the Chief People Officer at Gigamon, a network security company with approximately $350 million in revenues. While shaping Gigamon’s culture and employee experiences, he helped take the company public and scale the team to over 800+ people. Rich has also held significant leadership positions at Yahoo!, eBay, Packeteer, and Bay Networks. He has an M.B.A. in Organizational Studies from Notre Dame de Namur University and earned his B.S. in Business from California State University at Chico.

Jodi Brandstetter is a Brand Positioning Coach specializing in human design and design thinking, empowering HR business consultants to define their business uniquely. With two decades of HR and business experience, Jodi offers tailored strategies for HR consultants to authentically connect with their ideal customers. As an 8-time Amazon Bestselling Author, Jodi lives outside Cincinnati, Ohio, with her family.

Jennifer Currence is a Senior Partner of HR Soul consultancy firm in Tampa, Florida, where she delivers results through strategic HR solutions, customized training, and coaching programs for organizational and HR leaders. She is the creator of The SOTO Approach to Leadership and the content architect for the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) international People Manager Qualification (PMQ).

Jennifer is regularly published and featured in industry magazines, webinars, and podcasts, and is the author of three HR books on behavioral business competencies.

Jennifer was named one of the top 100 Influential HR professionals in Leadership and Development in 2023 and Tampa Bay’s HR Consultant of the Year in 2017.  She is a faculty member for SHRM and a former management professor at the University of Tampa.

Nanci Appleman-Vassil is a highly sought after Certified Speaking Professional® (CSP) and accomplished business professional with more than 25 years' experience in training, organization development, and corporate consulting with focus on coaching and developing managers and building high-performing teams.She is the Founder and CEO of APLS Group, a firm that specializes in facilitating individuals, groups and organizations toward better solutions for increased effectiveness.Known for her dynamic style that touches hearts, engages minds and gets an audience smiling, Nanci infuses her presentations with real-life examples that are relatable to the audience and bring teams to a new level of understanding. From keynotes to webinars to workshops and everything in between, Nanci will get you excited about discovering, learning and transforming your behavior to increase your influence in the workplace.As part of her commitment to helping others increase their confidence and competence, Nanci devotes her off work time to supporting non-profits and aspiring entrepreneurs. 
 

Rae Vann is Head of Employment Law and Labor Relations for Wayfair. She and her team are responsible for guiding and counseling cross-functional Talent teams and business leaders on ensuring compliance with a wide range of labor and employment laws and requirements, supporting and executing practical strategies for proactively preventing and mitigating legal risk, and responding to, and coordinating the defense of,  employee disputes and contested proceedings.

Prior to joining Wayfair in January 2022, Rae spent more than two decades in private practice, where she represented and advised corporate clients on a variety of workplace compliance and DEI matters. She previously served as the senior vice president and general counsel of the Center for Workplace Compliance (formerly the Equal Employment Advisory Council (EEAC)). There, she advocated for the development of sound workplace policy in the courts and before federal regulatory agencies, including authoring numerous amicus curiae briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts of appeals. Rae also authored comments and testified before the U.S. Congress and the EEOC on a range of equal employment opportunity and workplace compliance matters.

Having begun her career in enforcement, Rae is well-versed in recognizing and mitigating individual and systemic discrimination risks, establishing effective alternative dispute resolution procedures, conducting thorough and effective workplace harassment and other misconduct investigations, and other labor and employment matters. As a member of the EEOC’s Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace, Rae helped guide development of a detailed set of recommendations to help employers prevent workplace harassment. The recommendations were released in June 2016, ahead of the international #MeToo movement.

Rae is a nationally recognized speaker and author on labor and employment issues. Her thought leadership has been featured in media including the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Law, Law360, National Law Journal, National Public Radio, PBS NewsHour, Politico, and Reuters. She is a Faculty member for the Institute for Workplace Equality and is on the Board of Directors for the American Employment Law Council (AELC), the nation’s premier, invitation-only organization of high level labor and employment attorneys practicing on the management side.