Speakers

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4th Annual Leadership Summit 2024

Friday, September 13, 2024

 

2023 Speakers List

Teena Piccione

Teena Piccione, C-Suite Executive, Global Transformation & Operations Executive at Google

Keynote: Leveraging Technology to Enhance Competitiveness and Profitability

9:00 am Ballroom B

Renowned as a strategic visionary, Teena Piccione has a distinguished history of transforming industry titans by determining a roadmap and path to optimize operational success and ensure greater velocity.

Teena is currently functioning as Chief Operating Officer of Google’s Core PMO Division, where she developed and launched Google’s first project portfolio database to optimize resources and financial investments. Originally recruited by Google Cloud’s President, Teena built and stood up a separate organization to support Google Cloud’s 55 highest-value, multimillion-dollar accounts. Teena proudly serves as a Google DEI Executive Sponsor and Ambassador and is an ESG Designated Representative.

Recruited by the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) International, Teena was Executive Vice President and Global Chief Information Officer, where she served on the Government Digital Transformation Committee and Pentagon Non-Profit Cyber Security Team. She conceived and launched Lab58, an emerging technology and disruptive innovation, enabling RTI to become EBITA positive.

Hand-picked by Fidelity Investments Board of Directors, Teena drove application rationalization and modernization to prepare the firm for Cloud technology. As Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of IT, she was designated Technical Lifecycle Management Owner and Thought Leader on the firm’s capability modeling strategy and strategic roadmap redefinition.

Earlier, Teena was Assistant Vice President and Head of Big Data COE (Center of Excellence) for AT&T, where she launched and led AT&T’s big data business operations. In prior roles as Executive Director, Chief of Staff/Director, and Senior Technical Director, she piloted a billion-dollar restructuring initiative to align their technology with business goals.

Teena completed a Master’s Degree in Information Technology Project Management through George Washington University and a Bachelor’s in Journalism & Speech Communications from Georgia State University. She also completed an Executive Program at Harvard University.

Paul Levering

Paul Levering | Certified EOS Implementer 

EOS – an Operating System to Help your Business Succeed

Tools to Structure and Simplify Your Business so that Even AI Can Understand it

10:00 am Ballroom A

Paul Levering is a serial entrepreneur with firsthand experience starting, growing, buying, and selling a variety of businesses.

A natural, insatiable, and lifelong curiosity about everything has given Paul the ability to see connections and patterns in organizations resulting in unique perspectives and problem-solving abilities. From working as a McDonald’s manager through college to positions in the financial services, medical services, telecommunications, and commercial contracting industries, Paul has worked with a variety of people and personalities. In 2002, after 12 years in the corporate world, Paul founded a Hosted VoIP telephone company – eventually creating the largest independent VoIP provider in the southeast. During that time, he joined the Raleigh-Durham chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization – ultimately serving as a 9-year board member and President.

After a successful exit and a one-year sabbatical, he and a partner bought two commercial HVAC and refrigeration businesses in 2013. Applying the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) from the book Traction, they grew revenues by 4x in the first 5 years. Having exited the HVAC business in 2022, Paul is focused on the part of business he loves most – leading teams to clarify, simplify, and achieve their vision as a trained Certified EOS Implementer, Meeting Facilitator, and Speaker.

Kat Spradley

Dr. Katherine Spradley | Partner, K. Cradley & Co.

Powering Your Business with ChatGPT

10:00 am Ballroom B

Dr. Katherine Spradley owns K. Cradley and Company, a boutique full-service marketing firm that helps businesses grow and scale through strategy, engagement, design, and paid and organic marketing. She started the company as a solopreneur in 2007 and began growing her team while pursuing her doctorate in business at Georgia State University. Along with her team, she personally builds strong relationships with her clients to help them scale their businesses using strategic differentiators.

Kat enjoys crafting and painting while sipping margaritas in her free time. She is also passionate about powerlifting and empowering women in business offering free educational opportunities on various topics valuing collaboration over competition in her community.  Her expertise has been used to propel national power brands, local service-oriented businesses, and small mom and pops across the US.

 

Aaron LympanyAaron Lympany | Owner, Rhymes Video

How to Attract Raving Fans with Digital Marketing – Part I – Strategies

10:00 am Ballroom C

Aaron Lympany is a video marketing expert and owner of Rhymes Video. More importantly, Aaron holds the firm belief that no video should ever be boring.

Aaron and his team have used off-the-wall strategies to generate millions of dollars for businesses across industries from home services and fitness to dentistry and biotechnology. And they’ve made a lot of people laugh along the way. Before founding Rhymes, Aaron co-launched a marketing agency and scaled the business to 7 figures within just 6 months.

He led a rebranding project at a global pharmaceutical company. He served as an Infantryman in the US Army. He suited up as a firefighter. And now, he and his team help businesses find and form lasting connections with their customers through content and distribution channels that stand head and shoulders above the crowd.

 

 

Michael Rodriguez

Dr. Michael Rodriguez | Associate Professor of Marketing

The Data Analytics Advantage

11:00 am Ballroom A

Leveraging Technology – An Interactive Panel Discussion

12:00 pm Ballroom B

Dr. Michael Rodriguez serves as an Associate Professor at Campbell University’s Lundy-Fetterman School of Business teaching Business Analytics, Sales, and Digital Marketing. Dr. Rodriguez earned his PhD in Technology Management at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken NJ where he won “Outstanding Dissertation Award” for his research on CRM.

For the past decade Dr. Michael Rodriguez has helped students develop into global customer engagement leaders by focusing on sales process, professionalism, international negotiations and utilization of technology. He has also helped customer-focused organizations improve their sales process and achieve business goals by leveraging technology in the form of CRM, Social and Mobile solutions.

Dr. Rodriguez has coached over 1,000 sales professionals in B2B, complex sales and written over 20 articles focused on the impact technology has on sales performance.

His work has been published in the Journal of Business Research, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing and Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing. Dr. Rodriguez also worked on Wall Street for over a decade selling market data and trading platforms to investment banks, asset managers, and hedge funds.

 

Lisa BamfordLisa Bamford | Director of Global Marketing and Sales, Sciencix

How to Attract Raving Fans with Digital Marketing – Part II – Results

11:00 am Ballroom C

Lisa Bamford serves as the Director of Global Marketing and Business Development at

Sciencix. She was born and grew up in Raleigh, NC and holds a Bachelor of Music double major in Classical Piano Performance and Music Theory from Meredith College, Post-Graduate studies in Pedagogy at Belmont University, and a Master of Science from Grand Canyon University.

In 1995, Lisa won the title of Miss North Carolina and represented her home state at the Miss America Pageant, winning the talent competition with her classical piano performance. After college, she moved to Nashville, TN and became a professional musician, including performances at the Grand Ole Opry and concert tours across the U.S. The entertainment business then took her to Dallas, TX and into broadcast journalism as an on-air host of a daily FM radio show.

It was family that brought Lisa back to NC and inspired what she calls “a career 180” change and a newfound passion to support medical research. This new path would lead her to a serendipitous introduction to Raj Bhandari, the president of Sciencix, where she now combines her creative and strategic skills to serve alongside of her colleagues and support laboratories in over 100 countries. She is also a board member of the NCWTA Triangle Chapter.

If you really want to see Lisa light up, start talking about coffee – she is a self-proclaimed coffee enthusiast.

Amanda ParkerDr. Amanda Parker | Associate Professor of Homeland Security and Cybersecurity

Leveraging Technology – An Interactive Panel Discussion

12:00 pm Ballroom B

Amanda Parker is an Associate Professor of Homeland Security and Cybersecurity and Chair of the Security and Computing Department at Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina. She obtained her Ph.D. in Criminology from the University of South Florida. Dr. Parker has been studying cyberthreats and transnational terrorism threats since 2005. She has presented nationally and internationally (England, Spain, Poland, Northern Ireland, and Wales) on many aspects of cybercrime and cybersecurity, including cyberterrorism.

Sherri Yerk-Zwickl

Dr. Sherri Yerk-Zwickl | Vice President of Information Technology, CIO at Campbell University

Leveraging Technology – An Interactive Panel Discussion

12:00 pm Ballroom B

Sherri Yerk-Zwickl is the Vice President for Information Technology and inaugural Chief Information Officer at Campbell University. In this role she is designing and implementing the University’s first comprehensive strategy for leveraging information, data, and technology across eight schools and multiple geographic campuses.

A member of the Campbell University executive leadership team, Yerk-Zwickl oversees the technological infrastructure of the University, including information security, academic and enterprise technology, client support services, infrastructure and operations, and the strategic direction of an institution dedicated to helping prepare students for lives of purpose and meaning.

Sherri has supported and advanced the goals and aspirations of higher education students for over 35 years at various institutions and organizations including currently serving on the EDUCAUSE Board of Directors and the Leadership North Carolina Alumni Council.  Her speaking and presentation experience includes national and regional EDUCAUSE conferences, Ellucian Live, ACM SIGUCCS, and the American Society for Training and Development, among others.

An advocate of inclusion, diversity, and equity in all areas, Sherri and her family have raised Seeing Eye puppies who are trained for guide dog work and are active personally and professionally in advancing the goals of inclusion for all people and across the technology industry.

2022 Speakers List

  • Jenny Hofler  | Recruiting Manager, Amazon
  • Doug Stewart | Author of 5 1/2 MENTORS, TEDx Speaker and certified Dale Carnegie Coach
  • Chris Deshazor | Director of Talent and Organizational Development, Harness.io
  • Dr. Michelle Osborne | Chair of Business Administration and
    Economics, Campbell University
  • Lindsay Wrege | Co-founder and CEO of 321 Coffee
  • Dr. Patricia J. Carter | CEO of Breakpoint Coaching, LLC
  • Rebecca Brock | Senior Vice President and Fiduciary Director, Truist Wealth