Jess isn’t a chef by any stretch of the imagination, but similar in that a true chef has a secret ingredient that they often leave out of a recipe on purpose and add a dash when no one is looking that pulls from past experiences and is exactly what is needed to really elevate a dish. By pulling from a variety of consulting clients, direct crisis management experiences, multitudes of different jobs along the way, and experience on stage as a stand-up comic, trainer, and now keynote speaker, Jess can elevate conversations.

As a Social Justice Training Institute Alumna, Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, and a Certified Speaking Professional, Jessica has taken the typical diversity talks to the next level of social justice conversations examining privilege, oppression, entitlement, and our collective responsibility to make change while connecting difficult topics with employee retention, crisis management, and increasing innovation and profits.

Jessica blends politics, humor, identity, and local flair with big city passion and energy through direct, individualized, and interactive conversations. Her workshops, seminars, and keynotes don’t just leave participants invigorated but inspired and motivated to follow through with action to create change.

With her attention now turning to larger associations and corporate leadership, Jessica is pulling from the past 15 years of direct experience to lead teams to try instead of avoiding a stretch.

It is in this trying that clients uncover a deeper sense of belonging, resourceful collaboration opportunities, and reignite their creativity and innovative ideation. Learning, feeling, and being Good Enough Now allows for teams to do the best they can with what they have and persist long into the future no matter the crisis, topic, or challenge. 

Meet Joel, the Chief Visionary Officer of Pneumos LLC (“Pneumos”). Joel works strategically with a variety of organizations, including non-profit organizations, Fortune 500 companies, churches, and institutions of higher learning to build consciousness, capacity, community, and collective esteem. His work spans 5 continents and his mission is to facilitate liberation for every global citizen. Joel is viewed as a master communicator and is best known for his critical analysis, creativity, humor, and his ability to build consensus.

Joel is a member of several international think tanks, including D2K, the Diversity Collegium, SIETAR, SIETAR Europa, Young SIETAR, and the Global Community Dialogue. He is an expert panelist with the Global Diversity & Inclusion Benchmarks and uses Cultural Detective suite of intercultural tools when facilitating. He is an adjunct professor at the IESEG Management school in Lille and Paris, France, where he teaches executive MBA courses on emotional intelligence, strategic storytelling, and story listening. He is an expert panelist with the Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Benchmarks tool, and is certified in a variety of intercultural tools and assessments.

Joel has also spearheaded programs that focus on Dialogue, Community-building and Healing, LGBTQ+ inclusion, Cultural Design for Start-Ups, Storytelling for Leaders, and Men’s Leadership. Additionally, Joel is a certified leadership coach and a member of the Forbes Coaches Council.

In his spare time, Joel is also a nationally-known spoken word poet and storytelling.

Joel has traveled to over 40+ countries, is conversational in Spanish, and has studied abroad in Costa Rica. Joel is a huge NBA and WNBA fan and proudly supports teams in Wisconsin and Northern California. According to rumors, Joel is really famous overseas and is a proud “nerd, jock, geek, and muse”.

Minal Bopaiah is an author and strategic consultant with nearly 20 years of professional experience. Her areas of expertise include human-centered design, behavior change psychology, and the principles of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA) as they relate to media, marketing, communications and organizational design.

As the Founder of Brevity & Wit, Minal is passionate about designing for equity. Her work includes working with NPR’s news managers to design a system for diversifying news sources. She is also the creator and facilitator for the DEI Executive Forum, a six-month cohort learning experience for general managers in public media that helps them become more equitable leaders and develop a strategic plan to accomplish their IDEA goals.

Minal’s previous work includes being an educational content specialist for Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind Sesame Street and its international co-productions, where she was first exposed to the power of media to promote social and cultural change. She also served as a press intern for Doctors Without Borders and the Executive Editor of a B2B subscription website.

Minal is a sought-after speaker, and has delivered memorable talks at numerous conferences and companies, including Salesforce, NPR, and SXSW. Her thought leadership has been published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review and TheHill.com, and she has been a guest on several podcasts and radio shows. Her first book Equity: How to Design Organizations Where Everyone Thrives (Berrett-Koehler, 2021) was hailed as “a succinct jewel” by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams and won the 2022 Terry McAdam Book Award. Minal is also collaborating with Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole to publish a non-fiction book on leadership and social justice.