Justin Roche is the Associate Director of the Insight Analytics Team at Seramount, supporting the administration, analysis, and reporting efforts for Seramount’s DEI initiatives and indexes. This work provides benchmarking and insights that help companies assess their areas of strength and opportunities for improvement to create a more inclusive workplace for their employees.
Before joining Seramount, Justin was the Associate Director of Strategic Analysis at EAB, where he helped support undergraduate admissions teams by using partner data to inform marketing strategy and audience selection. In this role, he also helped improve team processes and efficiencies while using his prior experiences as an educator to support and train new team members.
Prior to his tenure with EAB, Justin spent fourteen+ years as an educator in three different Virginia public school districts. There, Justin rediscovered his own passion for learning and mathematics by working with elementary and high school students with disabilities. He ended his career as the department chair of a mathematics department at the high school level after helping thousands of young people learn and find inspiration in the world around them.
Justin earned his BS degree in Special Education from State University of New York, College at Geneseo, and his Master of Business Administration from The College of William & Mary. He currently lives in the Richmond, Virginia, area and enjoys spending time with his spouse and their two cats and small dog. In his free time, he enjoys the outdoors, doing yard work, gardening, and relaxing at home with his family.
Ana Guevara is the Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Markets for WEConnect International. In this role, she is responsible for creating innovative global strategies that will accelerate the organization’s mission, leading to increased awareness and impact. Ana oversees the Region Teams across the globe, the member buyer and women-owned business development and engagement teams, as well as leading marketing and technology initiatives. Ana focuses on growing WEConnect International’s growth and on delivering high-quality services to attract, retain and connect member buyers and women-owned suppliers.
Ana is recognized as an innovative, bridge-building executive with significant expertise in international trade and finance, business expansion and market development, public policy and economic development, corporate social responsibility, and thought leadership. She has managed multimillion-dollar budgets and projects, leading successful multicultural teams around the world.
Ana’s distinguished career spans business, government and economic development. She is a former board member of the World Bank representing the United States, and Senior Advisor for Trade and Entrepreneurship at USAID. She served at the International Trade Administration as head of the U.S. Export Assistant Centers of the International Trade Administration, head of the U.S. National Tourism Office and Ex-Officio Board Member of the Export-Import Bank. In the private sector, Ana started her own international trade consulting firm, and was previously a Vice President for Corporate and Public Affairs for UPS and Walmart.
Ana earned her B.A. in Public and International Affairs from the Elliott School at The George Washington University. She is multi-cultural and multilingual with language skills in English, Spanish and French. She has received several certificates for post-graduate work, including most recently Negotiation Mastery from Harvard Business School.
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.
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.
As the Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer for NTT DATA Services, Terri Hatcher leads the organization’s implementation of a focused diversity, equity and inclusion strategy as a business imperative, supporting world class innovation while fostering inclusion, advancement and retention at every level. In her current role, she leverages her more than 20 years of experience in HR, driving HR programs and initiatives that support business objectives in leadership development, performance management and workplace violence awareness and safety. Hatcher has a B.A. in Business Administration from Clark Atlanta University, an M.A. in Management from Indiana Wesleyan University and a Senior Human Resource Professional (SPHR) certification.
Karla oversees GDIS external affairs in more than 50 countries working to accelerate Intel’s strategy to become the most inclusive and responsible company on the planet. A 25-year Intel veteran, advanced her career into different management and leadership positions. She is a best-selling author of Unleash Your Career Potential, a speaker, coach, and trainer certified through John Maxwell’s leadership training. Karla has received numerous leadership recognitions, including “El Financiero,” top 40 under 40 country leader, PBWC industry leader award, recognized as woman of excellence by the Women Economic Forum and women leader in Latin America by the Continental University in Mexico. Aspen Institute Fellow, member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Karla completed her undergraduate studies in customs administration at the University of Costa Rica and pursued an advanced MBA in international business. Connect with her on LinkedIn.
A Human Resource Leader with 29 years of work experience spanning across multiple facets of HR. Currently leading a multidimensional global portfolio encompassing, Diversity & Inclusion, Talent Development, Employee Experience & Engagement.
The charter of Diversity and Inclusion is based on the premise that an increased degree of diversity, inclusion and a ‘sense of belonging’ in an organization translates into smarter, more creative, innovative and empathetic workforce. This in turn empowers the organization to achieve competitive business advantage. The focus is on creating a culture of Inclusion and mitigating bias.
As a Talent Development leader, her forte lies in designing and developing a Business Context based Talent Development Strategy to strengthen the organizational Culture and Capability, showcasing a clear business impact.
The third dimension to the role includes the entire spectrum of Employee Experience & engagement where the focus is to deploy effective strategies for improving performance and productivity.
Tara Grammy is an actress, writer, and producer with a uniquely global perspective. Bornin Iran, raised mostly in Toronto, with some time in Germany, and now living in Los Angeles, she has experienced life as an immigrant in many different forms. Since choosing to speak out against the authoritarian regime currently in power in Iran, Tara has not been able to return to her beloved homeland. She has used her artistic voice to create various projects related to the Iranian diaspora— her mission is to help the rest of the world become familiar with Iranian culture and to help Iranian immigrants feel seen. From her award-winning one-woman show Mahmoud, starring in the cult-classic romantic comedy A Simple Wedding, hosting the extremely popular Persia’s Got Talent, and her plethora of viral sketches on Youtube and Instagram, Tara has devoted her career to her love for her culture.
Recently, Tara has turned her attention to the protests in Iran and amplifying the voices of the voiceless within the country. She has dedicated her platform to bringing attention to the burgeoning woman-led revolution, educating and encouraging others to use their platforms to raise awareness for the human rights atrocities happening in Iran and the world. Tara is an engaging speaker whose talent lies in getting to the hearts of listeners on matters related to human rights, compassion, and the power we hold as members of a free society. She aims to wake people up to the incredible resources they have at the palm of their hands that can make a great impact in the world and to see the social responsibilities we have as one human race to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. She believes that compassion is the overlooked superpower of all human beings and that in an individualist society such as this one, we need to be reminded of the importance of exercising it often.
Dr. Cindy Pace is Vice President, Global Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer at MetLife. In this role, Dr. Pace leads the global D&I strategy for an enterprise wide employee base of ~47,000 in more than 40 countries. Aligned to the company’s business imperative, Dr. Pace drives and promotes DEI as critical success factors to fuel innovation, cross-cultural collaboration and business success. Dr. Pace is also a leadership scholar practitioner who frequently provides thought leadership at global conferences and academic institutions where she presents on global diversity, inclusive leadership, purpose and women’s leadership. Her insights have been featured in Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Fortune Magazine and the book Women’s Leadership Journeys: Stories, Research, and Novel Perspectives.