{"id":454,"date":"2019-10-14T16:02:08","date_gmt":"2019-10-14T16:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/conferences.cupahr.org\/annual2020\/?page_id=454"},"modified":"2026-04-14T14:35:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T14:35:51","slug":"featured-speakers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/conferences.cupahr.org\/annual2026\/featured-speakers\/","title":{"rendered":"Featured Speakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Featured Speakers<\/span><\/h1>\n

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Jenn Lim<\/h2>\n

Sunday, October 4 | 5:00-6:15 p.m.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Jenn Lim<\/strong> will open the conference with a real-talk reset for leaders navigating nonstop change. With humor, honesty and practical reflection, she’ll show us how to move beyond surface-level fixes and reconnect with what strengthens engagement, trust and care at work. You’ll leave with simple, usable shifts and a fresh lens for how to show up and lead in ways that support culture, resilience and impact.<\/span><\/p>\n

About Jenn Lim:<\/strong>
Jenn Lim is the bestselling author of “Beyond Happiness” and a Top 50 global keynote speaker known for her work on modern leadership, well-being and connection. Long before “company culture” became a buzzword, she helped pioneer purpose, profit and people at Zappos, and as CEO led Delivering Happiness \u2014 cofounded with the late Tony Hsieh \u2014 from a bestselling book into an Inc. 5000 company and global movement. She has worked with hundreds of organizations, from Fortune 500s and Best Places to Work to startups and governments, helping them build workplaces rooted in happiness, humanity and sustainable success. She served on the Global Happiness Council for Work and Wellbeing, helping shape conversations around workplace culture and employee experience.<\/p>\n

Sponsored by\u00a0 \u00a0 \"\"<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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Colin M. Fisher<\/span><\/h2>\n

Monday, October 5 | 10:45 a.m.-12:00 p.m.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Why are groups so hard? From boring work meetings to dysfunctional families to warring <\/text>nations, group dynamics shape every aspect of our lives. How can we avoid the common <\/text>pitfalls of living and working together and get the most from our groups? The solut<\/text>ion isn<\/text>\u2019<\/text>t <\/text>to change individuals <\/text>\u2014 <\/text>it<\/text>\u2019<\/text>s to understand the world from a collective perspective. In this keynote, <\/text>Colin M. Fisher<\/strong> will distill decades of research into practical strategies <\/text>to structure, launch and coach your groups for more effective <\/text>collectives.\u00a0<\/text><\/p>\n

About Colin M. Fisher:<\/strong>
Colin M. Fisher, Ph.D.<\/text>, is <\/text>a professor at University College London and author of “The <\/text>Collective Edge: Unlocking the Secret Power of Groups.” He received his Ph.D. from Harvard <\/text>University. Building on his research and background as a professional jazz musician, he <\/text>helps people impro<\/text>ve their teamwork, creativity and leadership.<\/text><\/p>\n

Sponsored by\u00a0 \u00a0 \"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

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Marc Brackett<\/span><\/h2>\n

Tuesday, October 6 | 2:30-3:45 p.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Details to come.<\/p>\n

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Featured SpeakersJenn Lim Sunday, October 4 | 5:00-6:15 p.m.\u00a0 Jenn Lim will open the conference with a real-talk reset for leaders navigating nonstop change. With humor, honesty and practical reflection, she’ll show us how to move beyond surface-level fixes and reconnect with what strengthens engagement, trust and care at work. You’ll leave with simple, usable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"

Dr. Michael J. Sorrell<\/a><\/h2>\r\nSunday, October 20 | 5:00-6:15 p.m.\u00a0<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\nDr. Michael J. Sorrell\u00a0<\/b>is the longest-serving president in the 146-year history of Paul Quinn College. During his 11 years of leadership, Paul Quinn College has become a small, private, minority-serving institution that, by focusing on the most persistent, prevalent and pressing problems of our society, is remaking higher education and becoming a movement.\r\n\r\nDuring President Sorrell\u2019s tenure, Paul Quinn College has won the HBCU of the Year, the HBCU Student Government Association of the Year and the HBCU Business Program of the Year. Additional achievements include the college being recognized as a member of the President\u2019s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, the creation of the New Urban College Model, achievement of full-accreditation\r\n\r\n\u00a0\r\n\r\n\u00a0\r\n\r\n\u00a0\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n

Whitney Johnson<\/a><\/h2>\r\nMonday, October 21 | 8:30-10:15 a.m.\u00a0<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\"\"Whitney Johnson<\/strong>, CEO of WLJ Advisors, is an innovation and disruption theorist, best-selling author, sought-after executive and performance coach, and management consultant. She is recognized as one of the world\u2019s most influential management thinkers by\u00a0Thinkers50<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Fortune<\/em>. Johnson specializes in helping leaders grow their awareness, building the skills needed to achieve maximum success in their organizations. Senior executives seek out Johnson\u2019s coaching and consulting expertise because she understands that productive workplace cultures begin with the leader. She excels at helping leaders break through to new levels of personal and organizational effectiveness. Johnson\u2019s services utilize her exclusive proprietary tools, such as her S-Curve coaching framework and team disruption diagnostics, which were first developed after co-founding the Disruptive Innovation Fund with Harvard Business School\u2019s Clayton Christensen. At WLJ Advisors, she has mastered her formula for helping executives and organizations harness the unpredictability of change so they can thrive in today\u2019s volatile business environment.\r\n\r\nJohnson\u2019s best-selling book,\u00a0Build An A-Team: Play to Their Strengths and Lead Them Up the Learning Curve,\u00a0<\/em>is being used by leaders globally to build the culture and attract the talent they need to reach their big goals. This follow-up to her critically acclaimed\u00a0Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work (2015),\u00a0<\/em>outlines the key strategy to having an engaged, productive and innovative workforce, which is having a plan for developing all employees \u2014 no matter where they are on their personal learning curves. Using her book\u2019s frameworks, Johnson works with leaders to shape how their organizations embrace and manage disruption by leading individuals and teams up the S-curve of change.\r\n\r\nPrior to WLJ Advisors, Johnson was an award-winning Wall Street analyst. She is one of Marshall Goldsmith\u2019s original cohort of 25 for the #100 Coaches Project, is a coach for the Harvard Business School\u2019s Executive Education program, frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, a LinkedIn influencer and hosts the Disrupt Yourself Podcast.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n

Michele Norris<\/a><\/h2>\r\nTuesday, October 22 | 8:00-10:15 a.m.<\/strong>\r\n

\"\"<\/h2>\r\nMichele Norris<\/strong>\u00a0is a Peabody Award-winning journalist, founder of The Race Card Project and executive director of The Bridge, The Aspen Institute\u2019s new program on race, identity, connectivity and inclusion.\r\n\r\nFor more than a decade Norris served as a host of NPR\u2019s\u00a0All Things Considered\u00a0<\/em>where she interviewed world leaders, American presidents, Nobel laureates, leading thinkers and groundbreaking artists. She has also produced in-depth profiles, interviews and series for NPR News programs as well as special reports for\u00a0National Geographic<\/em>,\u00a0Time Magazine,\u00a0<\/em>ABC News and Lifetime Television. Norris created The Race Card Project, an initiative to foster a wider conversation about race in America, after the publication of her family memoir,\u00a0The Grace of Silence<\/em>.\r\n\r\nBefore joining NPR in 2002, Norris spent almost 10 years as a reporter for ABC News in the Washington Bureau. She has also worked as a staff writer for\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>,\u00a0Chicago Tribune\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0The Los Angeles Times<\/em>. In 2014, Norris earned a Peabody award and the Distinguished Dialogue Award for her work on the Race Card Project.\r\n\r\nIn 2009, she was named \u201cJournalist of the Year\u201d by the National Association of Black Journalists. The NABJ recognized Norris for her coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign \u2014 when she co-hosted NPR\u2019s Democratic presidential candidates\u2019 debate, covered both conventions, anchored multi-hour election and inauguration live broadcasts and moderated a series of candid conversations with voters on the intersection of race and politics. That series earned Norris and\u00a0Morning Edition\u00a0<\/em>Host Steve Inskeep an Alfred I. DuPont -Columbia University Award for excellence in broadcasting.\r\n\r\nNorris was honored with NABJ\u2019s Salute to Excellence Award, for her cove","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-454","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conferences.cupahr.org\/annual2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conferences.cupahr.org\/annual2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conferences.cupahr.org\/annual2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conferences.cupahr.org\/annual2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conferences.cupahr.org\/annual2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454"}],"version-history":[{"count":110,"href":"https:\/\/conferences.cupahr.org\/annual2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5729,"href":"https:\/\/conferences.cupahr.org\/annual2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/454\/revisions\/5729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conferences.cupahr.org\/annual2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}