Member Conference: Corporate ESG & DEI in Action

Kaela (she/they pronouns) is currently the Associate Director of Advisory at Seramount, focused on the Employee Resource Group (ERG) advisory offerings, providing advice and resources to organizations executing ERG strategies.

Before coming to Seramount, Kaela drove diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices at various organizations, including Assured Partners, Wawa, and Aramark, which included ERG strategy-building, ERG leadership upskilling, aligning objectives to the business, and executive leadership engagement. Prior to specializing in DE&I, Kaela’s background centered around critical HR functions, such as talent management, organizational development/change, HR systems/analytics, communications, and employee engagement. They also served as an ERG leader during their time in HR roles.

Kaela has a master’s degree in Organizational Leadership with a focus in Human Resources from Northeastern University and is an alum of Temple University with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology. They hold a Senior Certified Professional (SCP) certification from the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM). Kaela is also an active member of the local Philadelphia community and holds board and operational leadership roles with Philly SHRM, Making Worlds Bookstore and Social Center, and cinéSPEAK. Kaela is also an active thought leader and frequently contributes their insights on panel discussions, workshops, and conferences.

They were nominated as an HR Rising Star in 2020 by the Delaware Valley HR Person of the Year Awards and named one of Philadelphia’s Top 40 Connectors and Keepers by Leadership Philadelphia in their 2021 class. True to their passion, Kaela loves to travel to new cities and explore new foodie dishes to learn more about the cultures of others. They also geek out on sci-fi and space travel and can easily get lost in a good book, movie, or TV show.

Karmetria Dunham Burton is Sr Director- Global Supplier Diversity for McDonald’s Corporation. In this position, she is responsible for developing and executing a global Supplier Diversity program while enhancing the processes to assist McDonalds’s achieve its vision of being an industry leader of making minority and women owned businesses (MWBEs) a natural and integral part of the way the company does business. Karmetria has worked in strategic sourcing in various national and international corporate settings, including Delta Air Lines, Xerox, AT&T, and Union Pacific Railroad. A rising star in her field, Karmetria was the 2005 recipient of the Trailblazer Award presented by the Black Business Professionals and Entrepreneurs organization and was recognized as Who’s Who of Black Atlanta in 2010. In 2012 and 2013, Dr. Burton was honored as one of the Top 25 Women Impacting Diversity by Diversity Inc. Magazine. A well-respected authority in supplier diversity, she is a contributing writer for MBE Magazine which focuses on minority business development. Also in 2013, she was honored by Kentucky State University with the Thorobred Award. And in 2014, she was noted as a Woman of Excellence by the Atlanta Daily World Magazine. Her work and her passion have gained her notoriety in several publications: Black Enterprise, AMOI and Diversity Inc. In 2015 she was awarded the InfluenceHER Award and was featured in the June issue of Black Enterprise Magazine for her work at Delta Air Lines in supplier diversity, along with being awarded as one of the Top 25 Women of Atlanta. She has an honorary doctorate degree from Global Oved Dei Seminary and University. In 2016, she was awarded the Women of Vision Award by Atlanta Business League and awarded, for the third time in a row, a 2016 Woman Impacting Diversity. Karmetria has also been awarded one of the top women in diversity for 3 years.  

Karmetria holds a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing from Southern University-Baton Rouge, La., and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Nebraska. She also has a doctorate degree in business from Argosy University. Dr. Burton has instructed business, procurement, and diversity related courses at Kennesaw State University as well as Shorter College, Strayer University, Georgia State University and Monroe Community College in Rochester, N.Y. Dr. Burton is a sought out speaker of women’s organizations, youth empowerment groups, and entrepreneur forums. 

An international speaker coined as the “Transformational Leader”, Dr. Burton is an advocate of servant leadership with the ability to transform and motivate executives and entrepreneurs to become fearless, impactful, resourceful, and engaged leaders. Dr. Burton’s 7-step system develops inner power through transformation.  

Karmetria is also the founder of “Paint Your Lips Red” movement, a global non profit platform to encourage, motivate, and empower women to level up their lives as mothers, wives, leaders, and entrepreneurs through the power of a red lip. She started the 5by20 pledge, a commitment to have 5000 women sign the pledge by the year 2020. Karmetria volunteers locally and globally with organizations who serve women who were victims of sex trafficking. Dr. Burton is also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated and a board member of Southern University- College of Business. She is also the founder of Women Connecting Through Christ. A prayer group of women across that globe. A native of Houston, Texas, Karmetria is married to Horace A. Burton, and resides in Atlanta. Her philosophy is: “Show up!” 

René leads Prudential’s global employee community engagement strategy and a portfolio of grants and programs that strengthen the capacity of nonprofit organizations. This includes volunteer activities under the PruCARES brand, a board service program to place Prudential leaders on boards of nonprofit organizations, pro-bono consulting projects and the company’s disaster relief and recovery efforts. He is also leading an evaluation and learning process to measure the social and business impact of Prudential’s philanthropic endeavors. Rene also manages a portfolio of grants to promote inclusive communities and improve pathways to quality jobs for individuals facing multiple barriers. Rene developed and launched a unique nonprofit board service program focusing on emerging leaders of diverse background as part of Prudential’s diversity & inclusion and talent management strategies.  Prior to this role, René was a Relationship Manager working with business units and corporate functions to develop strategies that bring the full power of Prudential to address social needs and meet business objectives.  René started his career at Prudential almost 21 years ago as a program officer with The Prudential Foundation where he managed the youth development, civic leadership, capacity building and business alignment portfolios. During this time, he developed the company’s first international philanthropic strategy, developed a disaster relief framework and co-created and implemented a board service program targeting leaders of diverse background.  

Before joining Prudential, René worked in his native Puerto Rico in a community development initiative working in public housing projects. He was also the executive director of a multi-service nonprofit organization in Newark.  René has served in a number of nonprofit boards and advisory councils, and currently represents Prudential on the Council of NJ Grantmakers board. 

Rene holds a BA and MPA from Rutgers University in Newark and is currently a Part Time Lecturer at Rutgers School of Public Affairs and Administration. 

Katie Oertli Mooney is a Managing Director at Seramount. She is an accomplished DEI leader and thought partner with expertise in driving strategy and growth of diversity and inclusion change management, planning and programs. Prior to joining Seramount, she was responsible for overseeing the client delivery, staffing, operations and growth as Vice President of Jennifer Brown Consulting. She was accountable for the firm’s successful consulting project delivery to clients from the Fortune 1000, government agencies, startups, to nonprofits.

Prior to that, she managed the DEI enterprise learning and development strategy at Capital One specializing in differential investment programming to support historically underrepresented talent and communities of color. She is currently on the Board of Directors for the GSBA; the largest LGBTQ and allied chamber of commerce in North America and is supporting the organization in 2020, by advancing diversity, equity and inclusion for the Board of Directors, for the benefit of GSBA staff, members, partners and the LGBTQ+ and allied community of Washington State. Katie has a Master’s degree in Human Resource Management with a concentration on Diversity and Inclusion Management from Georgetown University. She is based in Seattle, WA.

Megan Pierouchakos is a senior director and membership relationship advisor at Seramount. In her role at Seramount, Megan advises Fortune 100 & 500 companies on their talent and DEI initiatives. Prior to Seramount, Megan spent 15 years in corporate roles as a Talent & DEI practitioner spanning the entire talent lifecycle. Most recently, she was Vice President of Human Resources at the American Bankers Association (ABA) where she set the strategic direction for learning and development, talent management, and succession planning. Prior to that, Megan was the Workforce Diversity Manager in the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at Freddie Mac.

She was recently a part-time adjunct faculty member with the Georgetown HRM program, served a two-year term on the Georgetown HRM Advisory Board, and was a strategic plan task force member with the Centre for Global Inclusion. Megan holds a SPHR certification from HRCI and a Prosci ADKAR Change Management Certification.

Megan received her undergraduate degree from Mount Holyoke College with a dual major in International Relations and Spanish and has a graduate degree from Georgetown University in HR Management. She resides in Northern Virginia with her family and actively volunteers with the Girl Scouts of America and other youth organizations her children participate in.

Mollie Teitelbaum (she/her) is an Associate Director on the Learning team at Seramount. She is a DEI Strategist and Instructional Designer who integrates research and storytelling to bring transformational culture change to organizations. She currently serves as an Associate Director on the Learning team at Seramount, where she has developed dozens of new trainings on a wide range of DEI and career development topics. Mollie has created content and facilitated trainings for Seramount conferences and partner events for clients across a wide variety of industries, with audiences ranging from the entry level through the C-suite.

Mollie began her career as a researcher and speaker on topics that lie at the intersection of philosophy and psychology, with a focus on building accountability, mitigating bias, and leveraging habit science. Her skills center on translating cutting-edge research into education and trainings for adult learners.

Mollie has wide experience applying her research and storytelling skills to craft blogs, white papers, e-courses, and insight papers for organizations in mental health care and DEI spaces and has also given a TEDx talk on mitigating harmful social biases.

To mitigate bias, she has leveraged social media to disseminate original as well as curated resources, which have been adopted by educational and corporate institutions. Her popular 2020 Mindful magazine article, “5 Mindful Habits to Fight Bias Every Day,” draws largely from her graduate research grounded in scientific literatures on mindfulness, emotional management, and behavior change. Additional publications include a thought piece in Psychology Today and a co-authored philosophical article in Springer.

Mollie is a graduate of Binghamton University and received her MA in Bioethics at the NYU College of Global Public Health. Mollie resides in Brooklyn, where she enjoys queer community-building, bouldering at her neighborhood climbing gym, and supporting local artists and musicians. Her proudest role is as an auntie to her seven nieces and nephews.

Dr. Shyama Venkateswar is currently the Senior Director, Learning, at Seramount, where she heads up the development and design of tailored DEI curriculum and workshops based on client needs to tackle complex workplace culture and talent challenges.

In 2021, she was appointed to the NYC Commission on Gender Equity by the Mayor of New York. She has more than 20 years of experience in addressing social and policy issues, and has built her career in the higher-education and nonprofit space.

Most recently, Shyama served as director of the Public Policy Program at Roosevelt House and as a faculty member at Hunter College, City University of New York, a position that she held for eight years. There, she led the expansion and governance of the program, crafted new and innovative curriculum, taught the Capstone curriculum, and played an instrumental role in implementing initiatives for student and faculty development, with a focus on providing opportunities for first-generation learners, immigrants, undocumented and other underrepresented students through comprehensive mentoring programs.

Before arriving at Hunter College Public Policy Program, Shyama was director of Research and Programs at the National Council for Research on Women (now merged with the International Center for Research on Women). In this role, she helped provide the vision and strategic direction of the council’s policy agenda on economic security and women’s leadership, and received grants from foundations and corporate philanthropy. Shyama has also served as the founding director of Mercy Corps’ Action Center to End World Hunger, and as director of the Asian Social Issues Program at the Asia Society.

Shyama is a graduate of Smith College and received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in political science.

Nichelle Wash is an Associate Director on the Advisory team at Seramount. She is a results-focused DEI leader who specializes in supporting key areas of DEI strategy. She has been the chair of DEI councils and quasi-government boards, building support for the senior leadership team to integrate DEI throughout their lines of business. This work resulted in culture and change management for employees across the enterprise that was focused on sustainability and scale. She has also overseen diversity recruitment and outreach efforts for organizations, providing real solutions to attract and retain employees with a focus on diverse hiring strategies. Nichelle is a sought-after facilitator who has delivered workshops around DEI for over a decade. She was recently recognized as Woman of the Year for her role in designing and delivering DEI education; hosting a precollege camp to increase the number of girls interested in coding and entrepreneurship; and she sourced projects to address homelessness and support pathways to housing security across her home state of Indiana.

Nichelle is an alumna of Indiana University Bloomington, where she started her career in health care and biomedical research before pivoting to a career in higher education. In her self-healing time, Nichelle enjoys listening to audiobooks, playing basketball, dancing to live music, and traveling.

Kamina Young is a Senior Director on the Advisory team at Seramount. Kamina leads the Employee Resource Group (ERG) advisory offerings, providing advice and resources to organizations executing ERG strategies. She joined Seramount after serving more than 10 years at Wells Fargo. There, as part of the Enterprise Recognition team, she designed and executed the company’s nonmonetary rewards and recognition strategy and programs. In her prior role at the bank, Kamina was a diversity, equity, and inclusion leader, managing the enterprise Employee Resource Group program and providing strategic thought leadership and consulting for other corporate DE&I initiatives.

She also spent 16 years at MetLife in various technical and management roles in Information Technology.
Kamina holds a BS in Computer Science from Stony Brook University and an MBA in Management from Adelphi University, and she is a proud INROADS alumna. She lives in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area and likes to leave it every now and then—some of her interests include kayaking, exploring wineries, skiing, and traveling.