Bridging the Gap: Emerging Leaders to Professionals
Building relationships and partnerships are paramount to the success of any individual and group. There is strength in numbers and sometimes, it truly does “take a village.” In this session, we will explore the different opportunities between students and our professional members, at the state and local levels, in order to build a sustainable student chapter model and properly transition to engagement within the professional membership.
- Generate effective communication required for building stronger working relationships within the student ecosystem
- Identify all of the key stakeholders involved in the student ecosystem to maximize overall collaboration
- Manage the transition from one governing board to the succeeding governing board
- Leverage past successes, ideas, plans, and strengths to ensure sustainability
Christopher Lopez
Christopher Lopez is the Director of the CEO Academy, a SHRM company, the Society for Human Resource Management.
The CEO Academy has emerged as the best refresher course in the United States for long serving CEOs as well as the perfect “war room” training ground for new CEOs and next-generation CEOs. The Academy is led by a faculty of some of the best, recently retired and successful CEOs and top academic at the prestigious, Wharton School.
SHRM drives social and economic change in the workplace and fosters mutually beneficial work environments that serve both business and employees. In his previous roles, Mr. Lopez served as a key leader for developing the next generation of HR leaders, through SHRM programming, and played a critical, strategic role in building relationships within SHRM and with affiliates to drive SHRM goals and objectives with these key stakeholders. Prior to this role at SHRM, Mr. Lopez was the Manager of Executive Office Operations and the Special Assistant to SHRM’s CEO, Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.
Over the years, Mr. Lopez amassed a wealth of experience in both the for-profit and not-for-profit space. He served as the Operations Manager for TM2 Executive Search, an organization dedicated to capacity building at higher education institutions by identifying, preparing, and building the next generation of educational leaders. Immediately prior to joining TM2, Mr. Lopez joined the Fox Entertainment Group and the 20th Century Fox Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) team, where he served and contributed to the foundational build of the company’s D&I initiatives.
Prior to his time at Fox Entertainment Group, Mr. Lopez served as the Program Manager and Executive Assistant to the President & CEO at the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), a national organization supporting and representing nearly 300,000 students attending the country’s 47 publicly-supported Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs), medical schools, and law schools. He joined TMCF as the Education Policy Specialist and Executive Assistant to the President.
Mr. Lopez earned his Master of Business Administration, with honors, from the University of Miami, and his Bachelor of Business Administration, in Management, with honors, from North Carolina Central University.
Find Sessions by Day