2019 Lead Together Conference Speakers

Keynote Speakers

Conference Keynote Ted Childs.

Ted Childs, Workplace Diversity Expert and Retired IBM Vice President

The Link Between Diversity and Global Competitiveness

As a leading corporate diversity expert, Ted Childs understands the importance of embracing diversity and the advantage it provides in the war for talent and an increasingly competitive global marketplace. To achieve maximum potential, we must pay attention to changing demographics and emerging issues, and embrace them as opportunities for growth. Childs will clarify the definitions associated with diversity and inclusion, explore the global environment, including the marketplace, look at external recognition as a subject matter influence, share his diversity and inclusion “global mega-trends,” and close with commentary about leadership as a tool for integrating diversity and inclusion into the DNA of today’s business leader.

Conference Keynote Barb Stegemann with her 7 Virtues Perfume.

Barb Stegemann, The 7 Virtues

Doing Well by Doing Good

Best-selling author and social business innovator, named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women.

Learn how Stegemann launched her company, The 7 Virtues Peace Perfumes, out of her garage and on her Visa card—and built a brand that is now not only competing with other luxury perfumes, but has created a new movement of clean and conscious beauty at Sephora, the fastest-growing beauty retailer in the world.

Stegemann will shine light on her approach to business and explain how social enterprise can be used to help reverse global issues such as war and poverty. She will show that the return on investment and the return on love are not mutually exclusive—we can (and must) have both together.

Keynote Speaker Geoffrey Leonardelli, PhD.

Geoffrey Leonardelli, PhD, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

Becoming a Better “Us”: Inclusiveness in the Age of Tribalism

Can we gain the benefits of an “us” without being threatened by a “them?” Geoff’s research shows how focusing on self-insight can increase human effectiveness and uses a psychological lens to analyze whether and how the psychology of “us” can lead to a better us.

Learning Track Speakers