ROSTER

Since her first National Keynote at age 14, Ashley Rhodes-Courter has shared her story with thousands in the United States and in over 7 countries.

Ashley Rhodes-Courter, MSW, is the quintessential American success story. Born in 1985 to a single teen mother, by the age of 3 she was in Florida’s foster care system where she spent almost ten years being shuttled between 14 homes—some quite abusive—before being adopted from a Children’s Home at the age of twelve.

Despite her ordeal, she excelled in school because she believed that, “my education was the one thing nobody could take from me.” Early in her life she felt compelled to advocate for herself and the other children she lived with, particularly in the abusive foster homes.

Her efforts and academic achievements landed her Eckerd College’s Trustee Scholarship where she graduated with honors and ahead of schedule earning a double major in Communications and Theater and a double minor in Political Science and Psychology. Ashley then went on to earn a Master’s Degree in Social Work from the University of Southern California.

During her undergraduate studies, she was one of 20 college students selected for the USA Today All-USA Academic Team and was named one of GLAMOUR Magazine’s Top Ten College Women. She was also selected as one of the four Golden BR!CK Award winners for outstanding advocacy for community change by DoSomething!. As part of their campaign, she was featured on 25 million bags of Cool Ranch Doritos.

By the age of 22, Ashley had become a New York Times Bestselling Author. Her first book, “Three Little Words” is now an International Bestseller and has been published in at least 4 countries. Her second book, “Three More Words” debuted at #1 on Amazon Bestseller’s List. Both books are used in classrooms across the country in various community and First Year Experience Collegiate programs.

Ashley has received State, local, and National awards for her speaking, advocacy, and philanthropy. She has spoken on Capitol Hill and has been invited to the White House twice. “Three Little Words” is now being made into a major motion picture.

A dynamic keynote speaker, Jason Lauritsen is a true thought leader in the world of work and employee engagement who is dedicated to revolutionizing the way we Lead With Relationship™. He fearlessly challenges traditional norms to reshape the employee experience by consistently placing authentic human connection at the heart of leadership.

A firm believer that leadership is most impactful when it’s built on genuine care, support, and respect, he helps organizations reimagine their role in helping people lead fuller, more meaningful lives.

As a corporate executive, Jason cracked the code to doubling company revenue per employee. But it wasn’t until he began working at a company responsible for Best Places to Work contests across North America that he discovered the key that unlocks employee engagement, no matter the organization: People experience work as a relationship.

He is the author of two books, Unlocking High Performance and Social Gravity: Harnessing The Natural Laws of Relationships. His thought leadership has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, Talent Management magazine, HR Executive magazine, and SHRM publications.

From “Anti” to “Ally”: A Story of Personal Transformation

For the past 15 years, joe gerstandt has been helping organizations of all shapes and sizes to find new clarity relative to diversity and inclusion, and to put new practices in place. But he did not take a very direct route into this work, in fact there was a time in his life when he likely would have rolled his eyes at what he now does for a living. The often-discomforting experience of becoming aware of and addressing his own privilege, denial, bias, and bigotry still informs his work today. This is a story of how one person’s heart, mind, and behavior changed and what we might learn from it. From his own story of growing up on a family farm in rural Iowa, serving in the United States Marine Corps, personal and professional successes and setbacks, and just being in the world with other human beings, joe distills insights applicable toward leadership, behavior change, culture change, and enlisting more allies in this work.

Inclusion by Design

What specifically do you mean when you use the word “inclusion?” It has become one of the most popular words relative to the modern workplace, yet in most organizations it remains a vague, ambiguous idea; and vague, ambiguous targets are incredibly hard to hit. If inclusion is the product you are trying to deliver, then you should be able to speak to its characteristics. This message brings a powerful new clarity to the concept of inclusion, what it is, why it matters and how it happens. The audience will leave this message with a strong foundation upon which to build impactful and sustainable diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Inclusive Leadership

Inclusive leadership requires more than a statement of commitment, it is an active practice. This session introduces you to that practice. Anchored in a practical model of what inclusion is, joe will introduce you to a set of competencies and commitments to ensure that your leadership is, in fact, inclusive. You will leave this session with work to do and tools to use, things that you can act on immediately.

Inclusive Leadership Bootcamp

Level up! This is an intense and highly interactive deep dive into inclusive leadership, that includes pre- and post-work. joe gerstandt will guide participants through an exploration of inclusive leadership competencies and commitments in four distinct areas; Awareness & Authenticity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Leadership; each with their own exercises, questions for personal reflection, and opportunities for practical application.

Hacking Inclusion

An internal hackathon is a high-energy, interactive way to model inclusion, invite greater diversity of thought and perspective into your inclusion efforts, generate creative new solutions, and build new relationships. Once participants are grounded in a common framework of inclusion, a basic process for “hacking,” a target and deliverables, they set to work competing against other teams with very real time constraints to solve an inclusion challenge within your organization.

Team Genius

Most leaders and organizations already care greatly about talent, but are we having the right conversation about talent? More and more of our work is today being done at the group or team level, yet our talent efforts remain laser focused on the individual level. We seem to be operating on the belief that if we group talented individuals together, we will naturally end up with talented groups. But it does not work that way, at the group level there are a bunch of other variables involved. This message provides research driven insights into what makes a talented team (cognitive diversity & psychological safety), as well as practices and behaviors for getting there.

The Authenticity Advantage

While the word “authenticity,” gets casually thrown around as if it is a simple, safe, and common thing, the truth is a bit more complicated. Authenticity, properly understood, is hard fought and often involves a fair amount of real and / or perceived risk. As a result, authenticity is often lacking in our places of work, in our personal and professional lives. Which is unfortunate, because authenticity is a pretty righteous thing. This session explores authenticity, what it matters on the individual and organizational level, and how to put authenticity to work for you.

Brave Spaces

On a fundamental level, inclusion is about creating spaces and places where people who are naturally different from each other can tell the truth to each other. Truth-telling also has consequences toward safety, and learning, and ethics, and our ability to solve problems. While we may want to tell the truth to each other at work, there are often risks (real and perceived) involved. One study suggests that as many as 75% of executive in Europe and North America have at least one business related issues they are not comfortable bringing up with their peers. And that is executives! Psychological safety makes it safer to tell the truth to your peers, and in this message, joe prepare you to take psychological safety back to your team. The audience will be grounded in the research behind psychological safety, what it is, and how it is established. Participants will also receive a slide deck to help them introduce the concept to their team, assess psychological safety and develop an action plan.

Make Your Business Human

The 4 Human Truths that Drive Personal, Professional, and Organizational Success

In the not-so-distant past, business success was defined entirely by money.  The bigger you were, the better; the more profitable you were, the more successful your business.  End of story. Today, though, society is increasingly interested in how that success happens.  Employees are no longer willing to work for companies whose ideals they don’t support or whose profits come by any means necessary, and customers are quick to abandon businesses that are insensitive or self-absorbed.  In the past, one bad advertisement was an embarrassment; today, one inflammatory tweet can be fatal. The businesses that will succeed in the future will not be the ones that spend all their time thinking about how to sell more products and services at higher margins.  Rather, they will be the businesses that recognize the common human needs and motivations that govern employee and customer behavior.  Make Your Business Human is a transformative keynote that focuses not on the differences that so many of us seem fixated on (Boomer vs. Millennial, Leadership vs. Workforce), but on four profound similarities we all share.  Organizations which understand, honor, and harness the qualities that make us human will outperform their peers in creating memorable customer experiences and true workforce engagement. This shift in perspective is not theoretical.  It’s already happening.  If you want to be on the leading edge of tomorrow’s success, then you need to be leading The Human Way. 

Stop Acting Your Age!

If you’ve listened to any other discussion about generational issues at work, then you’ve undoubtedly been told there are four distinct generations operating side-by-side in today’s working world. You’ve then been told the differences between those four generations, and then you’ve been told (although probably not in these exact words) that you need to just deal with all these different people, because they’re not going away and they’re not going to change how they operate. If that advice suits you, fantastic. However, if you’ve ever been frustrated by how impossible it seems to employ four different strategies to manage four distinct generations, and if you’ve ever felt like you’re the only one who’s being asked to make any changes, then Stop Acting Your Age! is exactly what you need.  Because it turns out that there really aren’t four generations. In this hysterical keynote, you’ll learn a simpler way of looking at your own generational picture, and you’ll also learn how to understand, recognize, and resolve every generational issue facing today’s workforce.  That’s no exaggeration; by the end of Stop Acting Your Age!, you and your colleagues will walk away with all of the knowledge you’ll need to address 100% of the generational issues you’ll face for the rest of your career.  Other generational presentations focus on what people want, but Stop Acting Your Age! will tell you why everyone wants the different things they do.  It’s an important distinction, and it will make implementing new solutions easier than you ever thought possible. So get ready to laugh more and learn more than you ever thought possible.  Because improving your generational issues doesn’t have to be boring.

You’re Not an Acronym:

A Practical Approach to Leadership

If you’ve been a leader for a while or are being groomed to become one, then you’ve probably taken your fair share of personality tests. Perhaps you know your Woo strength, or maybe you’ve recently discovered that you’re a purple triangle when you’re stressed. If this kind of information is all you need in order to be the kind of leader your people are excited to follow, then you probably don’t need to keep reading this. But if you’ve ever suspected that leadership may be about more than just you, then You’re Not an Acronym is the kind of leadership presentation you’ll truly appreciate. Matt Havens has spent over a decade in various leadership positions at a Fortune 25 company. He’s taken dozens of personality assessments, and he’s recognized a fundamental flaw in the way that all of them attempt to help people become better leaders. By addressing and then correcting this oversight, You’re Not An Acronym will help you expand your understanding of leadership exponentially – and you’ll do it while laughing all the while. Because not only is this one of the most insightful leadership keynotes you’ll ever sit through, it’s also one of the funniest. After all, boring isn’t a business requirement. So get ready to enjoy the process of becoming a more effective leader more than you ever thought possible!

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VISION. MINDSET. GRIT.

Success Strategies to Help You Stand Up To Any Challenge

We’re in a time when change is a constant challenge. More than ever, we must embrace an unstoppable mindset if we want to overcome adversity and create the kind of breakthrough opportunities that lead to unprecedented results. Scott Burrows is a renowned inspirational speaker and bestselling author who is living proof that you can defy the odds to turn your most audacious goals into a reality. A devastating car accident at 19 turned his life upside down and taught him a lesson of a lifetime: How to summon the willpower to carry on when the odds feel stacked against us. As audiences worldwide have discovered in this life-changing presentation, Scott’s riveting story of overcoming adversity through relentless perseverance, determination, and adaptability will inspire you and every member of your team to reach new heights. Whatever challenges you’re currently facing, Scott’s personal story and business insights will inspire you to overcome fear, push yourself further than you thought possible, and exceed expectations. The Vision. Mindset. Grit. framework will inspire you to think differently, envision complete success, and achieve extraordinary results.

Build Great Teams

How do you Build Great Teams?  How do you build trust inside your organization?  How do you grow every person within your enterprise?  In today’s work environment it has never been more important to have a deliberate and methodical plan for every person on your team.   Every single working human wants to be part of a super successful team and wants to be pushed to become the best version of themselves.

Build Great Leaders

Studies estimate that new managers that have ZERO leadership training in the United States and Canada ranges between 42% and a staggering 85%.  Building Great Leaders is the number one missing skill set in today’s work environment.  Simon talks about the leadership lessons he has developed over 25 years consulting with the finest leaders in business, sport, and life. Simon will absolutely challenge everyone in almost every room to evaluate and think about how to become a better leader. 

Moments of Truth

In our lives, all of our lives, we tend to define ourselves by MOMENTS. These moments shape who we are and how we view ourselves. The birth of a child, getting married, a big promotion are all moments that many of us celebrate. But what if the moments in your life are not always expected. How do you prepare for moments when you don’t know when or how they will come? Why do some people seem to ‘execute’ their moments better than others? What if your moment seems bigger than what you can handle? Simon talks about the Moments in his life and how “being flat on your back at age 21, and about to have your heart taken out of your chest” certainly qualifies as a Moment. How Simon moved forward from that potentially crippling event and was able to live an incredible heart stopping life.