Rick Beer

Rick Beer's career focus has been on corporate and financial management. At various times during his career, he has been responsible for finance and operations, including vendor relations, compliance, human resources, sales, facilities and call center for both sales and customer service.

He is Key Performance Indicator (KPI) driven using KPIs to illustrate and diagnose not only financial and production performance, but also to represent the information that the various operating teams need at their fingertips, information that doesn't fall directly from the accounting system. He is an advocate of frequent employee reviews against goals such as training, projects and day-to-day activities to increase employee - manager engagement and improve overall effectiveness.

As an investor, a Grant Thornton consultant, and as a senior executive with operating companies, he understands the efficiencies that can be gained by marrying finance and operations to provide real time information tailored for the viewer.

Brent Brightwell

CMO | CEO | CPO | Advisor | Consultant

Brent Brightwell is a global innovator, strategist, entrepreneur, leader, possibilitarian with extensive startup, SMB, mid-market, large enterprise, and government experience.

He has worked with innovative companies to enable their marketing, product management, engineering, sales, operations, R&D, engineering, business development, alliances, fundraising and strategy. Whether helping innovators like ThisWay Global, Vela, MediaZoom, Genwise, IYA.AI, HT Cares!, Tech Ranch, Digi-UX, Phunware, Keychain Venture Capital, kaZlNG, BEST, CyberDefenses, Krystallize, iQuate and DoubleHorn as CMO, CEO or SVP of Strategy & Products; he brings 20 years of technology and industry experience to drive positive outcomes quickly. He was recently head of global marketing for a publicly traded technology company, Phunware. Previously he was CEO of kaZlNG, BEST Healthcare, and CMO of Phunware, iQuate and Neverfail, VP of Products for Gravitant, and Product Marketing Executive at HPE where he launched the HP Helion Cloud offerings. Brent has also led global marketing and Technical Pre-Sales for HP. Prior to Sales, he led R&D and Product Management for HP's strategic Solutions spending six years in strategic executive leadership positions for Hewlett Packard before being a competitive hire from BMC. He has led projects for M&A, HP Garage Incubator, Competitive Analysis, Market Intelligence, Talent Assessment and Retention, Leadership and Career Development Training.

Before HP, Brent was the SVP of Product Management and Marketing for ASG. Prior, he spent four years at BMC Software leading both Global Product Marketing and Management for the Atrium Product Line, bringing to market the first commercial I TIL CMDB, leading Discovery & Orchestration/RBA technology establishing BMC as the market leader in integration and data management technologies. He has also successfully spearheaded marketing and product management for Cesura (formerly Vieo) and EMC Smarts. He Co-Founded nVision Software in 2001 and was head of Products and Business Development. Before founding nVision, he was the Director of Product Marketing with Matrix NetSystems. Before Matrix, Brent was a Senior Product Manager with Marimba, Inc. His background also includes marketing and engineering positions at Comwerx, Inc. and ITRW, Inc., both Internet Service Hosting Providers.

He studied business and marketing at Panola College and Texas A&M University, earning a BSB in Information Systems degree from the University of Phoenix in 2002 and an MBA from Regis University in 2004. He is AWS Certified, IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and Level 6 Pragmatic Marketing Certified. He is a certified Facilitator and often asked to lead and speak at various panels, boards, events, and conferences.

Brent was a founding member and was on the Board of Directors for an Austin Children's Museum and is a regular WatchDOGS volunteer at his kiddo's schools. Brent is also a Board Advisor for several companies and mentor's executives, MBA & Engineering students, marketers, strategists, and innovators. He lives in Georgetown, Texas with his wife and two sons.

C. Ron Cheeley

Fortune 200 Global Human Capital Officer

Executive Compensation Consultant

Executive Compensation - Succession Planning - Board Experience

Ron is a senior level human resources executive with deep expertise in large, complex corporate cultures and has led all aspects of Global Human Resources including:

Compensation and Benefits, Staffing and Diversity, Learning and Development, Succession Planning, Performance Management, Health and Wellness, HRIT and the management of a payroll and benefits based shared services organization. During his career in the consumer products, pharmaceutical and energy sectors, he gained extensive experience with large scale corporate turnarounds, mergers, acquisitions and divestments and consistently assumed leadership roles in aggressive growth strategies.

In his current position as President of The Cheeley Consulting Group, Ron provides high level human capital consulting services to both public and private companies. His practice is focused on working with CEO's, Chief Human Resources Officers and Boards of Directors to establish performance-based compensation plans and performance management systems for executive teams.

Prior to his current consulting work, Ron was Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for Schering-Plough Corporation. In this position, he served as a member of the Company's Executive Management Team, reported to the CEO and provided advice and counsel to the Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors on executive compensation and other human resources matters. Several key initiatives included recruiting a new executive management team as part of Schering-Plough'sturnaround initiative, developing a new people strategy designed to attract and develop top-tier talent, designing succession plans based on behavioral leadership and technical competencies, designing a new performance-driven executive compensation program and improving the Company's image in the community through a more robust community and public affairs program. During his career at Schering-Plough, Ron played a key role as part of the senior management team in the acquisition of Organon Biosciences and the ultimate sale of Schering-Plough to Merck.

Before joining Schering Plough, Mr. Cheeley had been Group Vice President, Global Compensation and Benefits, for Pharmacia Corporation. Previously, he served as Director, Global Compensation and Benefits, for The Coca-Cola Company. During his career at The Coca-Cola Company, he also served as Director, Human Resources, for Coca-Cola India.

Earlier in his career, Ron was with The Coca-Cola Company progressively holding positions of greater responsibility in the human resource function and ultimately assuming the role of Director Global Compensation, Benefits and HRIT. In this role, he provided ongoing strategic compensation and benefits consulting to corporate headquarters, operating units and joint venture business partners. He developed global performance-sensitive incentive compensation programs linked to EVA and shareowner wealth creation.

Delta Emerson

Delta Emerson is recognized as a global thought leader in corporate culture and employee engagement. She has spoken at the White House about workplace flexibility, and has been featured in Southwest Airlines Spirit Magazine, Huffington Post, Inc. Magazine, Recruiter.com, and numerous other international publications and books. Recruiter.com named Delta to their 2016 “Top 10 Company Culture Experts” list, and in 2015 she was named to the Dallas Business Journal’s “Top 25 Women in Business” list.

During her career as a corporate executive and board member based in Dallas, Delta led world-wide transformational organizational initiatives focused on workplace flexibility, corporate culture, community outreach, and leadership development. She was the inaugural recipient of the “Chairman’s Award” at Ryan LLC, where she served as President of Global Shared Services. She is currently based in Denver and is the founder and CEO of canyouhearus.com, helping organizations build cultures that attract and retain top talent. She serves on several professional and non-profit boards, including McKinsey & Company’s Implementation and Change Management Advisory Board.

Among Delta’s areas of focus are: change management, talent selection, leadership development, strategy, corporate culture, problem-solving, conflict management, and corporate awards. She holds numerous certifications in leading programs and is expert at applying her knowledge and experience to customize solutions for her clients.

Delta holds a B.A. in English and Journalism from Angelo State University, and a M.A. in Dispute Resolution from Southern Methodist University. She is a certified mediator and holds SPHR and SHRM-SCP Human Resources certifications.

Michael Francis

Founder & CHRO

BEAM Executive Advisors, LLC

As Corporate Controller, I have led an FP&A team that strategically managed a $500M annual operating expense budget. As a senior HR Leader, I have served as HR Chief of Staff at two different Fortune 500 companies reporting directly to the HR SVP & CHRO; led several corporate career development, organizational restructurings and talent management initiatives; led a diverse HRBP team, served as global HR Lead and simultaneously supported two GMs responsible for major business segments generating $16.4B in revenue with a client base of 36K full-time staff.

I have led and been a key contributing member on several highly confidential and transformative corporate projects and initiatives at four Fortune 500 companies in four different business industries. Throughout my career, I have built and leveraged strong cross-functional relationships with senior leaders in Corporate, Finance, Operations and Legal. As Executive Advisor, I consulted in a CHRO capacity for a top-rated US eCommerce company building out the entire HR operating model and platform.

Thomas L. Garrett, Jr

TLGarrett Consulting & Coaching

Tom Garrett is a dynamic senior financial executive and executive coach, with extensive experience including roles as CFO and Treasurer of Fortune 500 companies LTV Steel, Service Merchandise and Magma Copper. Having spent most of his early career at Goodyear in Treasury and corporate finance, Garrett went on to be recruited by both public companies and private equity to a series of increasingly complex assignments, whose objectives ranged from healthy-company growth strategies to the challenges of financial crisis and even megabankruptcy. Garrett’s career has spanned a variety of industries including media, retail, mining, health care services, manufacturing, business process outsourcing, and financial services in companies sized from middle-market to Fortune 100. He quickly adds value to every CEO, senior management team and coaching client he advises.

Having enjoyed a great career as a CFO where his proudest accomplishments are the people he developed and the teams he built, Garrett can boast that seven of his former teams have become CFOs themselves. Through TLGarrett Consulting and Coaching, Tom provides strategic business advisory and executive coaching, and is a John Maxwell Certified Coach. His consulting and coaching services tap his years of real world experience to benefit executives who wish to advance their companies’ and their personal performance. Those who get to know Tom quickly come to value his experience, wisdom and advice.

Garrett most recently served as VP Finance & CFO of University Federal Credit Union. From 2014-2019 Garrett served as Global EVP & CFO of Mood Media, where he had responsibility for all finance, accounting, FP&A, tax, treasury, and capital structure worldwide. Garrett partnered with the CEO and senior management to execute a strategic transformation that culminated in the successful acquisition of Mood Media by private equity.

The foundation for Garrett’s success was built during his 16-year career with Goodyear. During his tenure there he progressed through accounting, treasury, corporate finance, and M&A activities in the environment of a $9 billion multinational Fortune 100 company. By the time Garrett was recruited by Warburg Pincus as Magma Copper’s Treasurer, he had completed $20 billion of corporate financings and was responsible for over 75 banking and investment banking relationships worldwide.

At NYSE-listed Magma Copper, Garrett took on additional responsibilities of investor relations, risk management and government relations. In the M&A transaction that put Magma on the world mining landscape, Garrett was instrumental in winning the international bidding competition of $251 million for Peru’s Tintaya mine. Then recruited as Treasurer by Service Merchandise, Garrett was promoted to CFO as the company pursued a Chapter 11 reorganization.

Given Garrett’s bankruptcy and metals experience, he was chosen by LTV Steel as CFO to lead their Chapter 11 process. After LTV Garrett was recruited as EVP & COO by Churchill Mortgage to transition the company from mortgage broker to full-scale mortgage banker.

Moving back into a CFO role, Garrett joined Portrait Corp of America to lead their Chapter 11 reorganization, where he was one of 3 key management responsible for the successful sale of the company for $130 million. At PRC, a $250m multinational business process outsourcing company, Garrett took the financial reins of the freshly emerged bankrupt company, refinanced it in early 2009 during one of the most difficult credit markets in memory and was one of three key senior management involved in engineering a successful sale of the company to a strategic buyer.

Garrett earned a B.S. in Accounting, summa cum laude, from The University of Akron, and started his career with Arthur Andersen. He has also completed the program at the Center for Creative Leadership. In his free time he enjoys spending time with his family, reading, movies, riding his motorcycle on country roads and driving his convertible. You may reach Tom on his cell at 615-294-5586 or at [email protected].

Thomas J. McCoy

Thomas J. McCoy is Director of The Employee Engagement Institute and Managing Partner of the consulting firm T.J. McCoy & Associates, LLC. He helps companies establish employee engagement as a line item in the business strategy. Since 1978 he has been a thought leader in the field of engagement and has developed high-involvement / high-performance company cultures in the United States, Europe and South America.

Mr. McCoy has over 25 years of experience developing profitable growth by engaging employees to improve performance and increase process efficiency. He has worked with over 40 companies to enhance their value. His approach is to understand client goals and then design build and deliver the appropriate engagement initiatives to achieve them. He is skilled at developing performance ScoreCards and incentive pay systems that drive performance and deliver a strong ROI. As a certified LEAN practitioner he is experienced in educating employees how to use process mapping to improve workflow, eliminate waste & lost time, reduce inventory and increase quality. He developed a proprietary engagement survey that is used to create a culture of partnership…where each employee thinks and acts like a business partner.

He is the author of four books on the topic of company culture, employee engagement and performance improvement: "Compensation and Motivation" (a textbook at Florida State), "Creating An Open-Book Organization" (nominated for SHRM book-of-the-year), "Employee Engagement", a guide for implementing a proven employee engagement system and "The Employee Engagement Toolbox".

He has been quoted in Newsweek, featured in the Wall Street Journal and nominated for SHRM's Michael J. Losey research award for his forward looking work in the field of Human Resources. He designed and taught a High Performance Workplace seminar at George Washington University and is a frequent conference speaker.

He holds a Lean Six Sigma Certification from Villanova University, a Coaching by Design Certification from the Johnston Institute and a Bachelors of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Minnesota. He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Executive Service Corps of Greater Kansas City.

Doris Sims Spies

Doris Sims Spies, SPHR provides talent and succession management services that pertain to all phases of the talent management process - defining the strategy and processes, succession planning, onboarding new employees, talent assessment, facilitating talent review meetings, and leadership development services.

Her primary services include training and coaching to prepare HR teams to plan and lead talent review meetings, and creating business leader communication materials for an organization's talent and succession planning strategies.

She works with business executives to create succession plans, using a process that includes working with incumbent leaders to identify success competencies for the position and to identify potential successor candidates. The process includes identifying competency strengths and gaps for potential successors and creating leadership transition and development action plans.

In addition to being a frequent speaker at conferences both in the U.S. and internationally, Doris is the author of The 30-Minute Guide to Talent and Succession Management, The Talent Review Meeting Facilitator's Guide, and Creative Onboarding Programs, which are all available on Amazon.com. Doris is also the co-author of Building Tomorrow's Talent: A Practitioner's Guide to Talent Management and Succession Planning. These books together are top sellers on Amazon on the topics of talent bench strength.

Doris has many certifications including Approved Provider of the HR Certification Institute; Certified 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Facilitator (Franklin Covey Leadership Center); Certified Novations 360-Degree Feedback Facilitator (Novations); Certified Talent Development Facilitator (Novations); Certified PDI 360-Degree Survey Facilitator (Personnel Decisions International); Certified Quality Action Teams Facilitator • Certified Social Styles-Building Relationship Versatility Facilitator (Wilson Learning); Certified Countdown - Project Management Facilitator (Paradigm Learning); Qualified Strong Career Interest Inventory Assessment Facilitator; and Qualified Meyers-Briggs Type Inventory Coach.

More information about Doris's services and workshops is available at

www.successionconsultant.com

Linda Wegner

Linda is a Director in our Global Implementation & Advisory Services practice, specializing in HR and Payroll Technologies. She has more than thirty-five years' experience in the management and implementation of complex human capital solutions, including large multi-country ERP implementations using major vendor applications.

Linda previously worked at Merck and Schering-Plough before starting her own consulting organization in a senior position. She has extensive global experience with HR/Benefits and payroll systems, as well as performance management, compensation planning, succession planning, learning, benefits recruitment and portal solutions. Linda has managed and led both technical and functional project teams for numerous clients, and has led the vendor selection process including development of RFI/RFP, down selection of vendors, contract and statement of work formulation for multi-country HR and Payroll projects. Linda has a degree from Pace University.

Francene Young

The Rev. Francene Young is the current Pastor (Rector) at St. Luke the Evangelist Episcopal Church, Houston, Texas.

Prior to becoming an ordained minister, Francene was a Vice President in Human Resources (HR) for a global energy company.

During her career in the energy industry, she provided HR leadership in Policy and Benefits, Sales and Marketing, a unionized chemical plant and refinery and in offshore operations. She also held assignments in Learning and Development and Strategic Planning. At the time of her retirement, Francene was Vice President for Talent and Development and the Vice President for Diversity in the Americas. She retired after 22 years. Prior to her career in the energy section, she spent 13 years as HR manager in healthcare.

Francene graduated from the Episcopal Diocese of Texas Iona School for Ministry. After successfully completing the three-year program, she was ordained a priest in January 2012. Remaining active in the Diocese. She currently chairs the Commission on Ministry which oversees the process of interviewing and selecting candidates for ordained ministry.

Growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, she was the eldest of six children. At age 15, she when received a scholarship through the A Better Chance program which led to her attending and graduating from Westover School in Middlebury, CT (an all-girls private boarding school) where she served as President of the Board of Trustees for six years. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Piney Wood School, Piney Woods, MS.

Francene has a Master's Degree in Public Health (MPH) from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and an undergraduate in Social Services from Cleveland State University. She is married to Kenneth Jones.