Member Webinar: Black History Month 2023

Responsibilities:

As the Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) officer at Alight Solutions, Xan is charged with delivering on Alight’s promise, and her passion for progress shines through every day. She brings energy, commitment and a focus on outcomes to make Alight better.

Xan is responsible for building an I&D strategy to foster an inclusive culture, drive inclusive behaviors, and improve diverse representation across Alight’s global organization. In doing so she collaborates with the Integrated Talent Teams to develop strategies that attract, rise and retain diverse talent. She works with Talent to develop and deliver learning opportunities that build and reinforce the inclusive behaviors. In partnership with business leaders, she develops I&D plans for their respective businesses as well to track results over time. She serves as the nexus to the diverse community’s Alight serves.

About Me:

Xan’s 19 year career at Alight and its predecessor organizations has spanned various roles across the business. Prior to her recent transition into the Global Inclusion and Diversity role she served as the test management global practice leader for Alight’s Professional Services business. While as a Practice Leader, Xan also Co-led the Global Inclusion Council. The Council advises and recommends I&D priorities to the Executive Leadership Team, helps to infuse I&D into Alight’s business and culture, as well as promotes cultural awareness.

Additionally, as the Council leader, she developed and led the strategy for our colleague led Employee Resource groups (CLCs) by outlining CLC expectations, launching six inaugural communities, and continuing to invest in Alights CLC leader capabilities to drive strategy. As a part of her CLC engagement she designed and facilitated cultural programming leveraging inclusion champions to assist with event planning and execution.

Ask Me About:

Ask me about neurodiversity, linguistic diversity and closing the health inequity gaps on the South and West sides of Chicago

Matt Deegan is Constellation’s Senior Vice President and Chief Sales Officer, reporting to Robert Hanson, Executive Vice President and President, Wine + Spirits.

In this role, Matt is responsible for overseeing the wine and spirits sales organization, inclusive of the U.S., the Americas, sales strategy and commercial planning.

Matt joined Constellation Brands in 2016 as senior vice president, sales for the company’s wine and spirits division, where he was responsible for managing 19 states.

Before joining Constellation Brands, Matt held a number of senior leadership roles in sales and marketing with increasing responsibility at Campari, Beam Suntory, and Southern Wine and Spirits.

Matt and his wife Jori reside in Elmhurst Illinois with their three daughters. Matt is an avid runner who enjoys playing golf, reading and spending time with his family.

Carmisha Foster is an experienced Director in Human Resources at Constellations Brands with over 8 years of experience as a strategic business partner to executive leaders. As a Director, she facilitates the execution and alignment of the organization’s business strategies and human resource strategies. Her experience consists of coaching and advising leaders and employees in the areas of people strategy, performance management, career development, complex employee relations issues and mediation/conflict resolution.

Carmisha also dedicates her time to partnering with the Diversity and Inclusion team at Constellation Brands to support the company’s initiative of increasing diversity, equity and inclusion. Her commitment to DEI is demonstrated through her work as co-founder and global co-lead of AASCEND (African Americans Strengthening Constellation’s Engagement, Networking and Development) at Constellation Brands.

Prior to Constellations Brands, Carmisha served as and HR Business Partner at Keyence Corporation of America. In this role, she partnered with senior executives and key stakeholders to develop and drive plans that optimize the business’ strategy and goals while identifying and promoting change across various business and HR functions.

Carmisha is passionate about empowering individuals to help themselves. As a licensed clinical therapist, she is dedicated to helping people work through daily life challenges, traumatic experiences and/or major life events, by empowering them with the skills, tools and resources to overcome challenges and obstacles.

Carmisha holds a MA in Counseling and Organizational Psychology from Adler School of Professional Psychology and a BA in Speech Communication from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Nicole Johnson is a Senior Director on the Advisory team at Seramount. She is a seasoned executive who brings over 30 years of a unique blend of corporate and nonprofit experience in finance, multicultural marketing, and DEI. Her strategic, customer-centered, mission-driven, and bottom-line-focused approach allows her to develop and implement strategies that help companies reach untapped markets, deliver culturally appropriate messages, increase inclusive behaviors in their leaders, and positively impact the company’s revenue stream.

Her most recent role was as the Senior Director of DEI at the American Red Cross, where she supported efforts related to Employee Resource Groups, Leadership Development, and Community Engagement. Nicole has built diversity departments for both ARAMARK and Wyndham Worldwide and is proud to see that both are thriving and award-winning. As a result, she has acquired critical knowledge and experience on how to build a diversity department from the ground up. Nicole has also led multicultural marketing efforts for Fortune 500 companies, including AT&T and the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Feeling compelled to share her lessons learned with her fellow DEI practitioners, she launched a boutique consulting firm and was soon dubbed “The Newbie Navigator” as she guided new leaders on their journey to establishing this critical function in their organizations as well as avoiding the pitfalls.

Nicole has a passion for giving and has served on various boards and advisory committees, including the Multicultural Foodservice and Hospitality Alliance, Dress for Success, the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Barnes Foundation, the American Red Cross, and others. She has been a featured speaker at numerous conferences, including Odyssey Network Business Retreat, Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference, The Pennsylvania Diversity Council, and The Forum on Workplace Diversity, to name a few. She’s also shared her knowledge as a visiting professor at Temple University and Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Nicole has a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Rutgers University. She is an avid furniture up-cycler, will gladly loom knit you a hat in your favorite color, and is an advocate for everyone to grow their own food. Her first real job and real love is her role as a proud mother and life coach to her two children, Social Justice Advocate Sierra and Lacrosse All-American Bryce.

Kerri Joy joined Constellation Brands over 5 years ago as the Director, Learning & Development. She has over 15 years of people development experience. In her current role Kerri is responsible for the onboarding, continued education, and marketing enablement to the beer sales organization. As a Director, she partners with business leaders to create engaging learning courses that meet the needs of leadership priorities.
Prior to joining Constellation Brands, Kerri created learning and coaching programs as the Director, Learning & Development at Tribune Publishing for 10 years. She worked to build out new business process and partnered with senior stakeholders to advise on career development, performance management, and people strategy.
Kerri is passionate about the development of people and creating space for individuals to meet their career goals. She is dedicated to increasing diversity both professionally and personally. She is driven by the belief that diverse teams and environments are contributing factors for success of any kind. Kerri is one of the founding members and current global co-lead of AASCEND (African Americans Strengthening Constellation’s Engagement, Networking and Development) business resource group at Constellation Brands.

Responsibilities

As a Sr. Project Manager within Global PMO at Alight Solutions, Chris is responsible for leading and directing both internal and external client team’s high priority and complete projects. She specializes in projects with payroll, timekeeping, year-end/begin, application enhancement, Mergers and Acquisitions and inter-domain connectivity managing all aspects of the project life cycle (initiate, plan, execute, control and close).

About Me

Chris has been with Alight Solutions for 19 years and started out on implementing 2 large financial institutions and managing their BAU Operations teams as the WFA/HCM Manager for 10 years prior to moving to Global PMO.

Chris has a passion for mentoring and is a mentor with the Gwinnett County Schools in Georgia.  She’s also currently leading the BPN mentoring pilot for Alight.

Chris is a graduate of Northeaster Illinois University with a degree in Human Resource Development and holds an MBA from Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. Chris has a Six Sigma Green Belt, a Professional Human Resources and Diversity Equity and Inclusion in the workplace certifications.

Ask Me About

Ask me about mentoring, M&A, Operations and Process Improvements and the work we are doing within our Colleague Led Communities.

Favorite Quote

If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you.  If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you. (Zig Ziglar)

Lonette K. Merriman joined Constellation in July 2016 as Vice President, Associate General Counsel. In her role, Lonette is responsible for global intellectual property (trademarks, copyrights, and patents) portfolio management and enforcement for Constellation’s portfolio of beer, wine, and spirits brands.  Preceding her tenure at Constellation Brands, Lonette held the position of Alcohol Regulatory Specialist at McDermott Will & Emery, a law firm in Washington, DC, where she counseled beer, wine and spirits manufacturers on alcohol beverage matters, including federal and state laws and regulations, licensing, permitting, labeling, formulas, advertising, trade practice and intellectual property matters.

Lonette is also passionate about advancing a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Constellation Brands.  For her, this means supporting employees in their ability to show up authentically while contributing to the organization’s success.  Lonette is a founding member and global co-lead of AASCEND (African Americans Strengthening Constellation’s Engagement, Networking and Development), Constellation’s Black/African American ERG.  As an ERG leader, she is committed to facilitating meaningful and purposeful change that positively impacts Constellation Brands’ workplace culture.

In addition to Lonette’s work at Constellation Brands, she joined the Board of Trustees for Exploration Elementary Charter School for Science and Technology in Rochester, NY in 2018.  She became Treasurer of the Board in 2020.  And she also serves on the Monroe Community College (MCC) Foundation Board as a Foundation Director.  The MCC Board connects private and corporate philanthropy with opportunities to support MCC students in their educational goals and success.