Member Conference: Learning & Development – The Foundation for DEI

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.

Joan Sheridan LaBarge is the Managing Director, Relationships at Seramount. Since joining in 2005, Joan has been a leader in expanding the company’s scope on initiatives that focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, the advancement of women, and work/life integration. She leads the Sales and Relationships team and is responsible for all revenue generation across Seramount. With over 30 years of sales and marketing experience, Joan is a strategic thinker, customer focused and a consultative seller.

Joan is a core member of the executive leadership team and brings a revenue producing mindset to our work. She identifies market opportunities and helps shape new services. In her early years at Seramount, Joan took the lead in expanding the company’s multicultural women’s initiative and helped to bring its advancement of women work around the globe. Most recently, she was instrumental in developing and executing the company’s successful selling strategy during the 2020 pandemic. Prior to joining the company, Joan was a highly regarded Publisher at Gruner & Jahr, Weider Publications and Hachette Filipacchi Magazines leading national titles Shape and Men’s Fitness among others. Joan received her B.S. in Communication Arts from St. John’s University and was honored as an outstanding alumni in 2008 and a Woman of Distinction in 2012.

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.