Keynote: 8:45am - 10:00am

Dr. Jeramine Davis

Leading and Working with Inclusive Lens

Is your organization’s climate inclusive or exclusive? Welcoming or unwelcoming? It is imperative that leaders and frontline employees learn how to communicate and work effectively across ALL dimensions of diversity. Leading and Working with an Inclusive Lens prepares employees at all levels to recognize personal and professional unconscious biases and how to effectively reduce and deal with them to cultivate a culture of inclusion, safety, and belonging

In this engaging and interactive presentation, Dr. Jermaine Davis will equip leaders and frontline employees with practical tips on how to work inclusively up, down, and across their organization. As a masterful storyteller and facilitator, Dr. Jermaine will share practical tips taken from his bestselling books, Leading and Working with an Inclusive Lens! and Leading with Greatness! 

This engaging and interactive presentation will teach participants how to:

• Lead and communicate across differences utilizing Visible and Invisible dimensions of diversity
• Resolve diversity-related disagreements utilizing Empathy and Cognitive Complexity
• Identify and manage unconscious BAPS (Biases, Assumptions, Prejudices, and Stereotypes)  
• Recognize how unconscious BAPS influence our communication, decision-making, and leadership 
• Rebuild trust after a DEI-related conflict utilizing the 4 S’s Approach of Courageous Conversations
• Build a high trust Diversity, Equity & Inclusion culture utilizing the Trust Equation
• Engage their colleagues’ Diversity of Thought to drive workplace creativity and innovation

About Dr. Jeramine Davis

Before receiving the prestigious College Instructor of the Year Award, Dr. Jermaine Davis worked in corporate America for IBM, Keebler Cookies, and Frito-Lay. Now, he’s an award-winning Professor of Communication Studies at Century College and Organizational Leadership at St. Kate’s University in Minnesota. Dr. Jermaine has authored 10 books including, Leading with Greatness and Leading and Working with an Inclusive Lens.

Dr. Jermaine holds a BA and an MA in Speech Communications, and a Doctorate in Organizational Leadership. He specializes in helping teams and organizations develop healthy work environments so ALL employees can thrive and succeed. Dr. Jermaine helps leaders and teams increase employee morale, motivation, and engagement utilizing his popular 3 C’s Approach: Communication, Cooperation, and Collaboration.

Dr. Jermaine is an international speaker and communication coach that engages audiences with his unique style of speaking and facilitating known as – EDUTAINMENT – a fun combination of education and entertainment. Prestigious organizations like 3M, Best Buy, Sam’s Club, Land O’ Lakes, Prudential, Wells Fargo, West Point Military Academy, Yale University, and Enterprise Rent-A-Car regularly seek out Dr. Jermaine’s expertise in the areas of thriving as a team, leading courageously, and leading and working with an inclusive lens.

Breakout sessions: 10:15 am - 12:15 pm

Session 1:
Building Our Capacity for Effective Allyship

As aspiring allies and change agents we are responsible for listening, learning, and taking informed action with those who are experiencing marginalization. But doing so requires relearning, self-reflection, and deep capacity building so that we can show up as engaged, humble, prepared allies for racial justice and not saviors. This 2 hour, interactive live session will walk participants through strategies for building our personal capacity to engage -- and stay engaged! -- as allies and change-makers for racial justice. You'll receive tools, tangible strategies, and build your community of fellow aspiring allies.

About Victoria Farris

Victoria is a native New Yorker on a mission to encourage a more inclusive world. She is a disrupter, a truth teller, a justice seeker, an educator, a mother, and an activist. Her research focuses on understanding, from the perspectives of folks of color, what White people can do to disrupt and dismantle systemic racism, and Victoria has developed a framework for effective allyship that outlines an action-based guide for disrupting racism. Victoria is a dedicated leader and a skilled problem solver with a knack for working strategically across teams to drive change. She launched Farris Consulting in 2017 with the goal of supporting work spaces to be more inclusive and engaging white folks, and those with white privilege, to disrupt racism and all forms of oppression. Victoria holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Marist College, a masters in higher education and student affairs from the University of Connecticut, and a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania.

Session 2:
Tools for Nurturing Identity in a Racialized World

Are you wondering how to address the subject of race with children and families that you work with? How to approach the topic sensitively and appropriately, within our work? Join this session for a conversation on how to support nurturing racial identity positively in children and families, in spite of the polarized world that we live in. Session facilitator and author Farzana Nayani will share key tips and strategies for how to initiate and navigate race, culture, and identity in a way that is accessible, age-appropriate, and impactful at the same time.  

About Farzana Nayani

Farzana Nayani (she/hers) has been a recognized Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion specialist, coach, and speaker for over 20 years. She has worked with higher education institutions, school districts, corporations, public agencies, and non-profit organizations as a consultant and trainer on diversity, equity and inclusion, intercultural communication, anti-racism, and unconscious bias. She has contributed curriculum and program design for the Smithsonian and the East-West Center and has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Marie Claire, Parents, NPR, the Washington Post, and the LA Times. Of multiethnic background, she has written the book, Raising Multiracial Children: Tools for Nurturing Identity in a Racialized World released in 2020 by Penguin Random House. Farzana was born and raised in Canada and now is based in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. She founded the multiracial community on Instagram called @multiracialmatters. For more information visit: www.farzananayani.com and social media: @farzananayani on all platforms.

Keynote: 9:15am - 10:15am

The Change Enthusiasm® strategy presented in this keynote empowers the audience to self-assess their change emotions and redirect anxiety and fears into moments of opportunity.

The audience will leave with:

An inspired perspective that managing and championing significant shift is entirely possible and even enjoyable. Steps to cultivate a growth mindset to thrive in the face of stressful and frustrating change. The education, energy, and motivation to take the first step to be becoming a Change Enthusiast.

About Cassandra Worthy

Early on in my career, when my company was in the aftermath of a $5B acquisition, I almost quit. Fueled by frustration and stress, I found myself on the precipice of walking out of the office and never coming back. Had I done so, I would have become another statistic. Yet another Africa-American female departed from a STEM-driven industry. Top talent voluntarily resigning during a time of significant organizational shift. Another change victim. But I didn’t. Instead, I woke up one day and decided to view those feelings as a signal that I was sitting in a moment of opportunity. An opportunity to transform that chemistry, that feeling into something better. To choose every day to do something, say something, behave in some way that would move the needle of my work experience towards a better feeling. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was cultivating a teachable strategy to inspire anyone to become enthusiastic about change, to find their unique power of resilience during turbulent times. Today, I help organizations disrupt ‘change as usual’. Through a practical and repeatable framework, I show them how they can transform their culture from surviving change to growing through change.

Closing Keynote: 11:30am - 1:00pm

George Courous

The Innovator’s Mindset (Keynote/Workshop)

Description: Carol Dweck’s work has focused on the ideas of “fixed” and “growth” mindset, yet educators will need to go a step further with these notions to create the learning opportunities and that our students and schools deserve. We need to focus not only what we know, but what we do with what we know. In this talk, George will discuss the idea and characteristics of “The Innovator’s Mindset” (as discussed in the book of the same title) and share persuasive examples on why this is so crucial for all educators. George’s presentations are known to be emotional, humorous, all while pushing your thinking, and will connect to your heart first, in a way that will last with you long after this keynote.

About George Courous

George Couros is a worldwide leader in the area of innovative teaching, learning, and leading, and has a focus on innovation as a human endeavor. His belief that meaningful change happens when you first connect to people’s hearts, is modeled in his writing and speaking. In his 20 plus years in the field of education, he has worked at all levels of school, from K-12 as a teacher, technology facilitator, and school and district administrator, and is currently an Adjunct Instructor with the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. George is also the author of the books, The Innovator’s Mindset; Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity, Innovate Inside the Box, and his latest release, “Because of a Teacher.”