SHRM 2012 Diversity & Inclusion Conference & Exposition

2011 Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist, trained social worker and women’s rights advocate. She is Founder and President of the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa, head of the Liberia Reconciliation Initiative and Co-Founder and Executive Director of Women Peace and Security Network Africa (WIPSEN-A). She is also a founding member and former Liberia Coordinator of Women in Peacebuilding Network/West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WIPNET/WANEP). Gbowee’s leadership of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace – which brought together Christian and Muslim women in a nonviolent movement that played a pivotal role in ending Liberia’s civil war in 2003 – is chronicled in her memoir, "Mighty Be Our Powers," and in the documentary, "Pray the Devil Back to Hell." In addition, Gbowee is the Newsweek/Daily Beast's Africa columnist. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Gbowee Peace Foundation USA, Nobel Women’s Initiative and the PeaceJam Foundation, and she is a member of the African Women Leaders Network for Reproductive Health and Family Planning. She holds a M.A. in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University (Harrisonburg, VA). She is based in Monrovia, Liberia and is the mother of six.

Candi Castleberry-Singleton is the chief inclusion and diversity officer at UPMC, a $10 billion, 20-hospital global health system and health plan. She is responsible for developing UPMC’s inclusion strategy, including its Dignity & Respect Campaign and Cultural Competency Initiative, as well as for overseeing progress toward system-wide goals involving 55,000 employees. In 2008, she launched the UPMC Center for Inclusion.

An experienced strategist, Castleberry-Singleton created The Integrated Inclusion Model, a systems integration model that helps companies transition from compliance-driven processes led by human resources, to integrated activities that shift the responsibility for achieving an inclusive culture to every employee. The model is featured in Crossing the Divide: Intergroup Leadership in a World of Difference (Harvard Business School Press, August 2009). Her inclusion initiatives have been implemented at Motorola, where she was vice president of global inclusion and diversity, and at Sun Microsystems, where she led the Global Inclusion Center of Expertise.

Recently, Castleberry-Singleton was named a 2010 Top Woman of Substance in Healthcare by Heart & Soul Magazine, one of the 25 Influential Black Women by The Network Journal, Top 100 African Americans in Corporate America by Savoy Magazine and a Woman of Humility by Point Park University in Pittsburgh. In 2009, Castleberry-Singleton was named one of the 50 Women of Excellence by The New Pittsburgh Courier and recognized by Diversity MBA Magazine as a Top 50 under 50 Executive Leader.

Dr. John J. Medina, a developmental molecular biologist, has a lifelong fascination with how the mind reacts to and organizes information. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School—a provocative book that takes on the way our schools and work environments are designed. Medina is an affiliate professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He is also the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University.