DE&I Roundtable

2023 Topic Schedule

JANUARY

Creating More Diverse & Inclusive Environments

Andrea Dalzell
Disability Rights Advocate
The Axis Project

Nursing can seem intimidating or unattainable to someone who uses a wheelchair because of the physical demands, but that doesn't mean they are out of reach. Change perceptions, fight some battles, and commit to being your own best advocate, and you can succeed. Andrea Dalzell is the people’s disability rights advocate. As someone who has used a wheelchair full-time since the age of twelve, she understands what it’s like to constantly come up against barriers because life is built for the non-disabled. She challenges this narrative daily as “The Seated Nurse” – the first and only registered nurse in a wheelchair in all of New York State. Andrea’s advocacy has won her national recognition over the years, including being named “New Mobility’s Person of the Year” in 2021. She has also been featured in publications such as Unite Spinal, HomeCare, and Forbes.

FEBRUARY

Strategic Thinking: The DE&I Imperative

Julia Sloan
Strategic Thinking Expert
Sloan International

As businesses invest in developing leaders who can responsibly set an innovative and sustainable path for the future, the traditional approach to strategy development is no longer sufficient. The basic tenet of this session supports the notion that organizations will remain competitive provided leaders challenge and increase their understanding beyond conventional approaches. Being competitive in today’s chaotic and complex global environment requires strategists to leverage DE&I to strengthen the development of strategic thinking — to move beyond familiar notions of strategic planning to expanding their cognitive fluency and repertoire, for the sake of innovation and sustainability. Leaders will be encouraged to critically assess their own and their organizations’ strategy development habits and to consider the breadth and depth of their strategic thinking baseline.

MARCH

Is Your Company Truly Accessible to those Abled Differently?

Angela Fowler
Co-Founder and CEO
Pure Access

Angela Fowler is the Co-Founder and CEO of Pure Access, an accessibility consultancy. Angela is an experienced access technology instructor and A11Y consultant who is knowledgeable in WCAG and experienced in accessibility testing from a UX perspective. Come learn what it takes to ensure that your company is truly accessible to everyone – even those who are abled differently. Angela will explain what you need to know to ensure that you are able to effectively reach and connect with communities of people who may be abled differently – like those who are blind, deaf or mute. Ensure that you are creating a inclusive organization that reaches all the kind of customers, advocates, influencers and clients you want to serve!

APRIL

Using Appreciative Inquiry to Build Bridges Across Culture

Joann Wortham
Organizational Culture Consultant
UCLA Health

Organizational culture consultants assist companies in achieving their financial, strategic, social, and market goals by creating a desired workplace culture that attracts and retains the most innovative and diverse talent. Ms. Wortham specializes in cultural risk assessments, grounded in appreciative inquiry, that pinpoint opportunities for improvement and positive cultural advancement.

MAY

Stop Being Busy: 3 Must-dos to Increase Productivity

Sabrina Runbeck
Executive Director of People and Clinical Outcomes
Medical Resource Group Inc.

In our “always-on” culture, stress, depression, and anxiety are, unfortunately, part of the modern human condition. 83% of the US workers suffer from work-related stress. It is causing one million workers to miss work every day. Physical and mental exhaustion leads to more medical mistakes from slower reaction time, unable to pay attention to details, and being easily frustrated with others. As healthcare professionals, we don’t mind working hard, but we do mind when we are not being able to perform to our top potential, do not receive appreciation for our work, and do not feel that we are moving forward in life. In fact, fatigued workers lose 5.6 hours of productive time per week. Can you afford to lose 5.6 hours per week? The good news is, that busy business owners, like you, can live and function in your Desire zone instead of the Distraction, Disinterest, or Discouragement zone. Join us in this interactive workshop to create endless momentum, ditch willpower, and boost mental immunity so you can enjoy a double win in your career and life.

JUNE

Being a Consciously Inclusive Leader

Dr. Steve Yacovelli
Speaker and Author
Top Dog Learning, LLC

There’s a greater focus on inclusion and creating that sense of belonging within our workplaces, but what specifically can we Leaders do to foster that sense for all team members? In this discussion, Dr. Steve Yacovelli (a.k.a. “The Gay Leadership Dude®”) will help us explore strategies to THINK IN about our own potential biases that could get in the way of being inclusive, how to SPEAK UP when we hear exclusive comments being said about any group, and how to ACT OUT within our greater workplace culture to foster that sense of belonging for us all.

Your Facilitators

Michelle Beauchamp

CEO and Founder
The Champ Group

Michelle is a leadership and management trainer, a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant, a workplace communication specialist and a certified public speaker. For over 25 years, Michelle has been passionate about helping companies create inclusive cultures and build winning teams. Michelle delivers customized training programs to teams, and conducts one-on-one coaching to reinforce learning and growth.

Denise Cooper, MBA

CHRO at Custom Health
CEO of Remarkable Leadership Lessons

Denise Cooper is the Founder and CEO of Remarkable Leadership Lessons, a company founded over 15 years ago to teach C-suite, and senior-level executives the adaptive skills necessary to lead others through change. Her proven process for grooming diverse candidates for succession through one-on-one customized coaching, professional assessments, time-proven case studies as created a pipeline of talent within organizations. Able to draw on over 25 years working inside corporations of all sizes, union companies, government offices, and agencies, Denise shares her experiences in her thought book, Remarkable Leadership Lessons: Change Results One Conversation at a Time. It’s designed to let you see the power and potential within you, and if you show up, step up, and speak up, you can get the results you really want.

Luz Gonzalez

Founder
EQ Refined Business Consultants

Luz Gonzalez is the founder of EQ Refined. Luz works as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Consultant in her business, EQ Refined, as an Emotional Intelligence Expert. Luz’s passion is to support communication through providing Professional Development Training, Emotional Intelligence, and Leadership Training.

Gaile Gwynn

Global Head of Employee Experience
Kennametal

Gaile is a global equity enthusiast, a pragmatic disrupter, a DE&I change champion and employee experience leader. Gaile is a Certified Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) practitioner and experienced senior manager, as well as an enterprise strategist focused on diffusing equity through a transformative mindset, resulting in subsequent behavior change.

Susan Younger

Certified and Licensed B.A.N.K. Trainer and Coach
B.A.N.K.

Susan is a certified and licensed B.A.N.K.™ trainer and coach, providing reverse-engineered personality profiling system designed to dramatically improve your communication, accelerate your negotiations, and close more sales! Susan’s goal is to bring world class training and methodology to the global marketplace by building world class teams, systems technology, curriculum, and trainers who operate at the highest level of professionalism.

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