Harnessing the Power of Biology Drives Us

Lisa Slavid is an Associate at Brain Aware Training. She is a highly sought after expert in the realms of change, teams, strategic planning, positive psychology, strengths building, motivation, and innovation. She has over 25 years of experience designing powerful learning workshops, programs, and keynotes speeches, working with adiverse range of organizations from corporations, universities, and non-profits. Lisa is certified in all of the Brain Aware™ learning solutions including Change Quest®, Brain Aware Manager, and Four Gates to Peak Team Performance®.

Lisa is an organizational consultant, an executive coach, a Semester at Sea Trustee member, and was the Director of Organizational and Performance at UC Santa Barbara for ten years before launching out on her own. She designs and facilitates programs on leadership, motivation, creativity and innovation, as well as change, teams, strategic planning and visioning. She coined the term “learned hopefulness” in relation to expanding our own sense of creativity and agency. She’s invested in helping people and organizations reach their highest potential through the framework of positive psychology and appreciative inquiry.

Al is a speaker, author, and researcher on talent development and workplace trends. He is the founder of Betterwork Labs, a talent development advisory firm, and the author of the Amazon Bestseller MBA Insider: How to Make the Most of Your MBA Experience. Al helps organizations attract, retain and develop diverse talent and build growth-oriented, diverse and inclusive organizations. He is passionate about helping individuals and organizations flourish in the changing world of work and unlocking purpose and potential for each individual to contribute to exceptional organizational performance.

Al draws on his experience advising Fortune 500 organizations on transformation, employee engagement and work culture, his coaching and career development work with thousands of high-performing employees, and his own career as a management consultant and product marketer at world-class organizations such as Deloitte and Salesforce. He combines research, storytelling, expertise, and actionable tactics to inspire audiences to take action.

Al is an expert in career development, business relationships, and communication, and his thinking and insights have been published in outlets such as Business Insider, The World Economic Forum, and Time Magazine. Al previously worked as a management consultant at Deloitte Consulting LLP, where he, in addition to advising Fortune 500 companies on developing and executing digital transformation, helped train and advise thousands of new hires on career management and leadership development. Al also worked at Salesforce, where, in addition to launching products that touched hundreds of thousands of users, Al led new-hire training and mentoring programs for hundreds of employees. Al received his Bachelor’s Degree in Business and Theology from Boston College and his Master’s in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina Chapel-Hill.

Justin Reinert is an experienced Talent Leader with nearly 20 years of corporate learning experience. He holds an MA in Educating Adults from DePaul University along with multiple industry leading certifications including the CPTD and SPHR. He has led learning at organizations as large as HSBC and Oralce, and built award winning learning functions at smaller high-growth firms including BigMachines, Specialist Staffing Group, and Amobee. He is currently Principal & Founder of Performance Accelerated Learning, providing executive coaching and training delivery across multiple industries. Justin recently published a book titled Creating Belonging: A Practical Guide to Accelerate Belonging in Organizations and Communities with an accompanying workshop.

Justin has spoken at various industry leading conferences and organizaitons on learning measurement, diversity, culture transformation, and leadership. He is often praised for his fluid and friendly facilitaiton style, and enjoys inspiring others to be more effective.

Angeli Mancuso, RN, MPH is an accomplished community and occupational health nurse leader in both the domestic and international arenas. Certified in occupational health and case management, she has extensive experience in disaster response, safety, and clinic operations. After working for a provider-based occupational health clinic, Angeli joined Cottage Health in 2011 and led their Employee Health & Safety department for 8 years.

In 2019, she moved to Bocas del Toro, Panama to serve as Executive Director of Floating Doctors, providing medical, dental, and veterinary services to remote populations of the Ngobe Bugle tribe. Early in the pandemic, she returned to Cottage Health to develop and lead both their emergency labor pool program and drive-thru community vaccination clinic, providing 110,000+ COVID-19 vaccines in 6 months. Between these disaster response roles, she supported the opening of 9 urgent care clinics by training the clinical teams in everything from point-of-care testing, medication administration, customer service, and end-to-end documentation in the Epic electronic health record which included patient registration, insurance verification, clinical documentation, and follow-up work-queues.

Currently, Angeli is building the Workforce Development Department for Cottage Health, partnering with academic institutions and executive leadership to create career pipelines to grow the next generation of the healthcare workforce.

I am a professional certified coach (PCC) that specializes in empowering my clients to find the freedom to go after their dreams and live the life they truly crave. I love experiencing the transformations that happen with my clients and feel fortunate to witness their new lives and ways of being unfold.

As a Pilipina, Asian American, and woman of color with immigrant parents, I know the challenges of navigating between worlds. I'm passionate about the intersections of leadership, cultural upbringing, gender and other identities that play into one’s career and life journey. What learning edges do we need to push on to create the biggest impact for ourselves?

I've been through many life transitions and challenges myself. I've fought my way through my own “rubble”--when the world feels like it’s crashing down with no way out. I am a testament that there is a way through; you can rebuild the parts of your life that you truly want and deserve. I'll help get you there.

Steve Caputo, MA is a dynamic and creative management professional with over twenty five years’ experience offering organizational development, corporate training, team building, and facilitation, and workplace coaching. Steve also brings knowledge and experience in strategic planning, project management, supervision, and problem solving using an open systems approach.