FRONTIERS

Speakers

 

DeLisa Alexander

Executive Coach and Board Director, Qlik, Sophos, and Synechron

DeLisa Alexander served as the executive vice president and chief people officer of Red Hat, leading the organization responsible for global human resources including Red Hat University, from 2011 to 2021. The organization’s mission is to be a strategic partner to the business in acquiring, developing, and retaining talent and to enhance the Red Hat culture and talent brand. During Alexander’s tenure, Red Hat grew from 1,100 to 8,000+ associates and was recognized as one of the best places to work in multiple publications around the globe.

The founder of the Women’s Leadership Community at Red Hat, Alexander received a 2015 Stevie Silver Women in Business award in recognition of her leadership in advancing opportunities for women in technology. She serves on the executive committee for the Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED); the board of directors for Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and Innovate Raleigh; and the board of advisors for the Bull City Ventures, NC State University Poole College of Management and SoarTriangle

Alexander joined Red Hat in 2001 and served in the office of general counsel until mid 2006, most recently as assistant general counsel and assistant secretary. She received her JD degree from the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.

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David Autor

Daniel (1972) and Gail Rubinfeld Professor, Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, MIT, and 2024 Kenan Institute Distinguished Fellow

David Autor is Ford Professor in the MIT Department of Economics. His scholarship explores the labor-market impacts of technological change and globalization on job polarization, skill demands, earnings levels and inequality, and electoral outcomes.

Autor has received numerous awards for both his scholarship—the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the Sherwin Rosen Prize for outstanding contributions in the field of Labor Economics, the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship—and for his teaching, including the MIT MacVicar Faculty Fellowship.

In 2017, Autor was recognized by Bloomberg as one of the 50 people who defined global business. In March of 2019, he was christened “Twerpy MIT Economist, David Autor” by John Oliver, host of Last Week Tonight, during a segment on automation and employment. Autor is currently determining how to merchandise this title.

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Bernard Bell

Executive Director, UNC Shuford Program

Bernard Bell is currently the Executive Director of the Shuford Program in Entrepreneurship at the University of NC at Chapel Hill. He has spent the majority of his career as both a Corporate Sales and Marketing Executive and an Entrepreneur, and most recently, an Academic. At UNC, Bell has been part of the team that shepherded the newly endowed Shuford Entrepreneurship Program from a 200-student minor to over 600 students while gaining national recognition as US News and World Reports #4th ranked entrepreneurship program in the country in 2022. Bernard also serves as a professor in the program, teaching almost 200+ plus students annually in his Shuford Capstone Class while leading an extremely talented team of Entrepreneurs-in-Residents (EIRs), tenured professors, and admin and support personnel. Bernard most recently was instrumental in raising $11.5 mm in alumni and corporate support bringing the Shuford Programs’ total endowment to over $35 mm under his leadership.

Bell is also CEO of Urban Media Solutions, a consulting firm that he launched in 2009. In this role, Bell advises start-up founders and seasoned executives on leadership and culture with an intentional focus on the Gen X, Y, and Z consumer. Bell also works with Corporate CEO’s on Communication Strategy with an emphasis on EQ and not IQ.

Bell was most recently Senior Vice President for Urban One, the largest distributor of radio, television, and digital media urban content in the country, where he was part of the founding team, and the 2nd hire for the 70 mm subscriber network TV One. Prior to this Csuite role, Bernard held senior sales and marketing positions at Tribune Media based in Chicago; ICTV based in Palo Alto, CA; Home and Garden TV (HGTV) based in Knoxville and NYC; and Discovery Channel based in Bethesda, MD. He started his sales career at IBM in Winston Salem, NC.

Originally from Greensboro, NC, Bernard holds both a BA and an MBA from UNC Chapel Hill. He is a former independent director for ICLUB, a for-profit investment software company based in Detroit, MI, and was on the board of the American Film Institute (AFI) based in Los Angeles. Bell currently serves on the board of the American Dance Festival based in Durham, NC. ADF is the premier dance company on the east coast. He is also a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Incorporated, where he invests his one-on-one time working with young men on professional, corporate and life skills.

Bernard is married to the former Stacy Cole, an attorney-turned government relations lobbyist for NBC Universal Comcast. His sister, Dr. Benita Bell, is a UNC alum with a BS in Chemistry, and is an astrobiologist at NASA. His brother, Dr. Calvin Bell, is a double Tar Heel with a BS in Biology and an MD from UNC ‘s Medical School. His 97-yr old dad is a proud graduate of NC A&T State university, and his late mom was a graduate of Bennett College.

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Sekou Bermiss

Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School

Sekou Bermiss’ research is in the area of strategic management and organizational theory.

Specifically, he investigates how institutional factors shape the perception of firms by critical stakeholders. His research also explores the antecedents and consequences of human capital mobility and how different forms of employee movement impact a firm’s ability to compete with rivals.

Dr. Bermiss teaches courses in people analytics, managing human capital, leading for impact and organizational theory and design

He is a Fellow at the Filene Institute where he leads the research efforts of the “War for Talent” Center of Excellence.

His award-winning research has been published in the Academy of Management JournalAdministrative Science QuarterlyOrganization ScienceStrategic Management Journal and Research in Organizational Behavior. His research has been highlighted by Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio.

He was honored as a Poets & Quants 2018 Top Undergraduate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where he served on the faculty before joining UNC Kenan-Flagler.

Before entering academia, Dr. Bermiss worked for Deloitte Consulting in New York City.

He received his PhD and MS management and organizations from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and his BS in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

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Adam Brown

Founder, ABIG Health

Adam began as a frontline emergency physician and progressed to clinical and administrative roles throughout the mid-Atlantic and Midwest before becoming president of Envision Healthcare’s Emergency Medicine practice, which is the nation's largest EM practice.

During the COVID19 pandemic, he continued to serve as president of Emergency Medicine and was named chair of the COVID Task Force for Envision. Envision’s CEO also appointed him to the role of executive sponsor of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). In 2021, Adam became Envision’s Chief Impact Officer while continuing his pandemic response and DEI roles. Adam frequently serves as a medical contributor in print media and on national television. He has been featured on CBS News, CNN, BBC, BNC News, and Yahoo Finance. In 2022, Adam left Envision to start ABIG, a healthcare strategic advisory firm and is a Professor of Practice at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in the school of business.

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Brooke Capps-Yaroni

Director of External Affairs, Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise

Driven by a desire to find economic strategies and tools to help markets of all sizes thrive, Brooke leads communications and marketing for the institute, including strategic planning, media relations, branding and events.

She previously served as the chief of staff to the former CEO of Mastercard after several years leading strategic engagement, thought leadership and executive communications for that company. She also ran her own strategy consultancy and was an adjunct associate professor at the NYU Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service, a vice president of global communications and creative services at several marketing agencies, and a reporter for Advertising Age.

Brooke holds a Master of Arts in media studies from the Schools of Public Engagement at The New School and a Bachelor of Arts in sociology and anthropology from Middlebury College.

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Gerald Cohen

Chief Economist, Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise

Gerald provides strategic vision and leadership of the translational economic research and policy initiatives at the Institute.

He has worked in both the public and private sectors focusing on the intersection between financial markets and economic fundamentals. During the Obama Administration Gerald was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Macroeconomic Analysis at the U.S. Department of Treasury where he helped formulate and evaluate the impact of policy proposals on the U.S. economy. Prior to Treasury, he co-managed a global macro fund at Ziff Brothers Investments.

Gerald holds a bachelor’s of science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University and is a contributing author to 30-Second Money as well as a co-author of Political Cycles and the Macroeconomy.

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Léa Dulin Grandbois

Vice President of Risk, Albemarle

Lea is a proven risk and strategy leader, creating resiliency in the face of uncertainty. She uses supportive team leadership, dynamic facilitation, econometrics modeling, and scenario planning to drive financial and strategic results within her teams.

As Albemarle’s VP or Risk, Lea leads Operational Risk, Enterprise Risk, and Insurance programs. In addition to the traditional risk role, she launched and provides strategic oversight for LiBrA, Albemarle’s Captive Insurance Company.

Lea has over 15 years of experience in risk and strategy, across several industries including Energy, Healthcare, and Defense. She has a passion for diversity and inclusion initiatives and for encouraging mental wellbeing in the workplace.

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Kristen Fanarakis

Associate Director, Small Business Policy, Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Milken Institute

Kristen Fanarakis is an associate director of MI Finance, leading the small business policy and innovation initiative, which analyzes the macroeconomic trends and policies affecting small businesses and offers policy recommendations and solutions aimed at fostering an environment of inclusive prosperity. Her work engages and educates policy stakeholders to address the challenges small businesses face.

Prior to joining the Milken Institute, Fanarakis helped co-lead the University of Maryland’s Center for Financial Policy, a think tank focused on topics at the intersection of financial markets and regulatory policy. While in this role, she also launched her own small business, Senza Tempo, a Los Angeles-made, sustainably-minded women’s luxury apparel brand. As a founder, she regularly wrote, spoke, was quoted in the press on a variety of policy issues facing the apparel industry, advocated for domestic manufacturing, and testified to the California State Senate on behalf of other domestic apparel brands. Prior to this, she spent over a decade working on Wall Street in foreign exchange trading and investment management for such firms as Merrill Lynch and Citibank. She holds a BA in economics and political science from the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill and an MBA from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business. She also holds an MS in international economics from Suffolk University.

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Mary Margaret Frank

Dean, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School

The academic interests of Mary Margaret Frank include the integration of business principles and public policy objectives, cross-sector collaboration and leadership, and sustainable investing. These interests stem from her research on the effects of regulation – specifically tax, financial accounting, and patent reporting – on the strategy of corporate management, investors and entrepreneurs.

An award-winning teacher and researcher and academic leader, Dr. Frank was named dean of UNC Kenan-Flagler effective Aug. 15, 2023.

She is a Triple Tar Heel, an academic fellow at the UNC Tax Center and has taught in the Master of Accounting Program.

Dr. Frank returns to UNC Kenan-Flagler from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, where she was senior associate dean for faculty development, John Tyler Professor of Business Administration.

She also was co-founder and academic director of the Institute for Business in Society. In that role she led the development of the P3 Impact Award, which recognizes leading cross-sector collaboration to improve communities around the world, in partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Global Partnerships and Concordia. Her passion for cross-sector collaboration also led her to establish the Tri-Sector Leadership Fellows program, which brings together graduate students from business, law and public policy.

She also served on the faculty of University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where she received its Phoenix Award in recognition of the faculty who, in addition to classroom responsibilities, has greatly enriched the learning experience of campus students.

Dr. Frank served as a board director and chairperson of the audit committee of a small publicly traded company, The Female Health Company, for 14 years, which merged with a biotech company in 2016 to become Veru Inc. The medical device company’s mission was to empower women, most of whom were from developing economies, to protect themselves against HIV and AIDS.

She practiced as a CPA and senior tax consultant for Arthur Andersen in Washington, D.C, before she returned to UNC Kenan-Flagler to enroll in the PhD Program in accounting.

She received her PhD, Master of Accounting and BSBA from UNC Kenan-Flagler.

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Lisa Grabert

Research Professor, Georgetown University and Visiting Research Professor, Marquette University

Lisa Grabert is currently research faculty at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI. In addition to teaching a graduate health policy course, Lisa is an interdisciplinary PhD student and her dissertation is focused on Medicare reimbursement and COVID-19 policy changes.

Prior to her role as faculty, Lisa was a senior aide for the U.S. Representatives House Ways and Means Committee for Chairman Kevin Brady, Paul Ryan and Dave Camp. In her capacity on Ways and Means Lisa had responsibility over the Medicare Part A portfolio.

Prior to Ways and Means, Lisa was a senior associate director of policy at the American Hospital Association (AHA). At AHA Lisa worked with hospitals on quality and reimbursement issues.

Prior to the AHA, Lisa was a policy analyst at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Lisa was with CMS for five years. At CMS, Lisa implemented national performance-based payment programs.

Lisa earned a Master’s in Public Health, with an emphasis in Health Policy and Management from Emory University in Atlanta, GA and a Bachelor’s of Science degree with an emphasis in biochemistry and communication arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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David Hofmann

Hugh L. McColl, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior and Senior Associate Dean of UNC Executive Development, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School

Dave Hofmann’s research focuses on organizational climate, leadership, and organizational change, organizational design and decision-making.

He teaches courses in organizational behavior, leadership and the complexities of middle management.

Dr. Hofmann served as associate dean for the full-time MBA Program, area chair of organizational behavior and senior associate dean of academic affairs.

A specific focus of his research is the impact of leadership and organizational culture on safety and errors in organizations that operate in high-risk environments. He has edited two scholarly books on these topics, including “Errors in Organizations” with Michael Frese.

In recognition of his work’s applied implications, he received the American Psychological Association’s Decade of Behavior Research Award in 2006.

He received a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award to study errors and safety issues in organizations at the University of Giessen in Germany, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant to investigate error management and organizational learning on nursing units.

He has served on two National Research Council/National Academy of Engineering committees. The first investigated the causes of the BP Deepwater Horizon accident, and the second focused on how to improve safety culture in the offshore industry.

Dr. Hofmann has presented his research or conducted executive development sessions in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, UAE and the U.K.

He earned his PhD in industrial and organizational psychology from Pennsylvania State University, his master’s degree in industrial and organizational psychology from the University of Central Florida, and his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Furman University.

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Senator David W. Craven, Jr.

North Carolina General Assembly

Senator Dave Craven represents Randolph, Richmond, Montgomery, Anson, and a portion of Union counties in District 29. He was elected in 2020 and is the youngest serving Republican member of the North Carolina Senate. He currently serves as Chairman of Appropriations on Agriculture, Natural, and Economic Resources, Commerce and Insurance, and the Joint Legislative Economic Development and Global Engagement Oversight Committees. He serves as a member of Agriculture, Energy, and Environment, Education/Higher Education, Finance, and Transportation Committees. He is also a member of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Information Technology, Joint Legislative Commission on Energy Policy, Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations and Environmental Review Commission.

A native of Randolph County, Senator Craven serves as the Senior Vice President at Fidelity Bank focusing on business development. He attended the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where he was elected Student Body President and served on the Board of Trustees. He graduated with degrees in Accounting, Finance, and Political Science.

As an active member of his community and state, Senator Craven was appointed to the board of directors for the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina in 2016 by the Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives. In addition, he has served as the treasurer, vice chairman, and chairman of the Randolph County Economic Development Corporation. He has also served on the boards of Randolph Friends of the Zoo, Habitat for Humanity of Randolph County, Communities in Schools, Randolph County United Way, and most recently as President of the Asheboro Rotary Club. Senator Craven currently serves as a member of the North Carolina Travel and Tourism Board.

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David Knowles

Managing Director, Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise

David is responsible for oversight and management of the internal operations, administration, finance, and human resources of the Kenan Institute.

He previously served as the institute’s director of business development and finance. Prior to joining the institute, David was director of economic development and engagement for UNC’s Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), where he led the formation of two public-private partnerships: the National Consortium for Data Science and the iRODS Consortium.

David has a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Virginia, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

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Kevin Lavender

Executive Vice President, Head of Commercial Banking, Fifth Third Bank

Kevin Lavender is executive vice president and head of Commercial Banking for Fifth Third Bancorp. He is responsible for overseeing the Company’s vertically integrated commercial sales teams, Capital Markets, Specialty Lending and Treasury Management businesses. He also is a member of the Enterprise committee.

Kevin joined Fifth Third in 2005 as senior vice president and head of national corporate health care lending. In January 2009, he was named senior vice president and managing director of large corporate and specialized lending, a role in which he oversaw international and large corporate finance in addition to national health care finance. He most recently served as head of corporate banking.

Before joining Fifth Third, Kevin served as commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Financial Institutions, responsible for overseeing all Tennessee-chartered depository and non-depository
financial institutions. Before that, he was co-founder and executive vice president of MediSphere Health Partners Inc., a private specialty physician practice management company. He began his career as group vice president for health care lending with SunTrust Bank Inc.

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Josh Lerner

Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking, Harvard Business School, and 2024 Kenan Institute Distinguished Fellow

Josh Lerner graduated from Yale College with a special divisional major. He worked for several years on issues concerning technological innovation and public policy at the Brookings Institution, for a public-private task force in Chicago, and on Capitol Hill. He then earned a Ph.D. from Harvard’s Economics Department.

Much of his research focuses on venture capital and private equity organizations. (This research is summarized in Boulevard of Broken Dreams, The Money of Invention, Patent Capital, and The Venture Capital Cycle.) He also examines policies on innovation and how they impact firm strategies. (That research is discussed in the books The Architecture of Innovation, The Comingled Code, and Innovation and Its Discontents.) He co-directs the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Program and serves as co-editor of their publication, Innovation Policy and the Economy. He founded and runs the Private Capital Research Institute, a nonprofit devoted to encouraging access to data and research, and has been a frequent leader of and participant in the World Economic Forum projects and events.

In the 1993-1994 academic year, he introduced an elective course for second-year MBAs. Over the past two decades, “Venture Capital and Private Equity” has consistently been one of the largest elective courses at Harvard Business School. (The course materials are collected in Venture Capital and Private Equity: A Casebook, now in its fifth edition, and the textbook Venture Capital, Private Equity, and the Financing of Entrepreneurship.) He also established and teaches doctoral courses on entrepreneurship, teaches in the Owners-Presidents-Managers Program, and leads executive courses on private equity. He is the Jacob H. Schiff Professor.

Among other recognitions, he is the winner of the Swedish government’s Global Entrepreneurship Research Award and Cheng Siwei Award for Venture Capital Research. For information on Josh’s compensated outside activities, please see www.bella-pm.com.

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Christian Lundblad

Richard "Dick" Levin Distinguished Professor of Finance and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School

Christian Lundblad’s research spans asset pricing, investment management, and international finance, with a specialization in emerging market development.

He teaches courses on macroeconomics for managers, investment management, including mutual and hedge fund analysis, and global financial markets, including emerging market finance and development.

Dr. Lundblad serves as area chair of finance, associate dean of the PhD Program, director of research at the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise and director of the Center for Excellence in Investment Management. He holds a courtesy appointment as a special-term professor at the People’s Bank of China School of Finance at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

His research has been published in top academic journals such as the Journal of FinanceReview of Financial Studies and Journal of Financial Economics. He is associate editor at the Journal of Banking and Finance and Financial Management and previously served as an associate editor for the Journal of Finance.

He served as a financial economist at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C., where he advised the Board of Governors on international financial market developments.

Dr. Lundblad is the recipient of  Executive MBA and OneMBA Teaching Excellence awards.

He served as associate dean of the PhD Program, area chair of finance and director of research for the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise.

He received a PhD in financial economics and a master’s degree in economics from Duke University. He earned his BA in economics and English literature with highest honors from Washington University in St. Louis.

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Steve Malik

Chairman and Owner, NC Courage

A visionary entrepreneur with three decades of health information technology experience, Steve Malik has served as the chairman and owner of North Carolina Football Club since 2015. Since joining the club, Malik has ushered in a new era for soccer in North Carolina.

He oversaw a full rebrand of the club in 2016 before securing the arrival of the North Carolina Courage and the birth of an historic partnership with North Carolina FC Youth in 2017, creating the largest youth-to-pro club in the country. Under Malik’s guidance, the Courage have been the National Women’s Soccer League’s most successful club since arriving in North Carolina, winning consecutive NWSL titles in 2018-19. Additionally, Malik has helped North Carolina FC develop a reputation as one of the most ambitious clubs in the nation, having played English Premier League clubs West Ham United and Swansea City while also bringing in former U.S. National Team manager Dave Sarachan as head coach.

Touted for his business acumen and leadership ability, Malik serves on the U.S. Soccer Federation Board of Directors and is Chairman of the NWSL  Executive Committee, where he helps shape the future of both men’s and women’s soccer in the U.S.

Currently, Malik heads Greenlight Health Data Solutions, a patient-initiated health data retrieval company. The founder of the Cary, N.C.-based Medfusion, Malik began the company in 1996 and re-acquired it in 2013 before selling again in November 2019. A 2010 finalist for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Malik helped Medfusion grow from a medical website development company to the leading provider of enhanced healthcare communication solutions.

The son of a chemical engineer, Malik was born in Swansea, Wales, and moved to Kinston, N.C., at the age of four, where he grew up before attending the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Malik graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration with honors from UNC-Chapel Hill. Malik resides in Raleigh with his wife, Kathleen, and their four children. In his free time, Malik enjoys soccer, fishing and sailing.

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Kevin McGahren

President and General Manager, Greyston Bakery

Kevin McGahren is currently the President & General Manager of Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, NY. Since 1982, Greyston Bakery (www.greystonbakery.com) has helped individuals facing barriers to employment in an economically challenged area just north of NYC secure jobs and become self-sufficient. Greyston hires entry level bakery apprentices through a no-questions-asked process called Open Hiring® and then provides wraparound social services to unlock full human potential. For over 30 years, Greyston has been the primary supplier of baked inclusions for Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and now also offers its brownies through leading retailers such as Whole Foods and via its direct-to-consumer E-Commerce and Corporate Gifting website.

Kevin has led Greyston the past 3 years and has over 30 years of experience managing a variety of businesses. He attended the College of William and Mary and started his business career as a branch manager for M&T Bank. He joined Kraft Foods after earning his MBA at Northwestern University and then spent 15 years managing brands such as Jell-O, Philadelphia Cream Cheese, and Oreo cookies. Kevin has since spent nearly 20 years since as the leader of a variety of smaller packaged food companies such as American Beverage Corporation, PANOS brands, Dancing Deer Baking Company, and now Greyston.

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Heather Miller

Vice President, Digital Transformation, Smurfit Westrock

Heather Miller, VP Digital Transformation Office at Smurfit Westrock, is a global technology executive with strong business acumen adept at planning and executing complex, innovative, secure, cloud based digital transformations. She has served in CTO/CIO/SVP leadership roles for several Fortune 100 companies including McKesson, Coca-Cola, Bank of America, and GE. Heather uses her unique ability to influence and drive alignment across highly matrixed business, technology and finance organizations to quantify, prioritize and steward investments across the enterprise to define and execute the technology vision and roadmap.

Heather Miller is VP, Digital Transformation Office at Smurfit Westrock; a $30B industry leading paper and packaging manufacturer. She is responsible for the enterprise IT&D strategy, annual plan and budget, execution of the portfolio, digital business growth, strategic supplier partnerships, and people change enablement. She leads eco-system partnership efforts to leverage internal development teams and external technology providers to support the creation of scalable, disruptive digital technology solutions to enable higher margin revenue streams and to provide annual business benefits in excess of $400 million year.

Prior to WestRock, Heather served as Chief Transformation Officer at ServiceNow, where she advised C-Suite level customers on digital transformation roadmaps. She served as CTO of Marketing and led the transformation of the marketing function to support the plans to scale from $4B in revenue to $15B; inclusive of a new GTM framework and operating model.

She has led mergers and acquisitions, outsourcing initiatives, technology innovation, venture capital partnerships and numerous systems implementations including ERP, finance, customer sales, employee engagement and collaboration, and manufacturing. Heather has extensive experience modernizing legacy tech stacks with large scale cloud and SaaS solutions, leading agile and delivery teams, leveraging start-ups, and supporting security remediation efforts for corporate breaches.

Her military upbringing included traversing over a dozen domestic and international relocations. This experience helped foster characteristics of accountability, authenticity, empathy, curiosity and provides her with the ability to lead teams through ambiguity. Heather is a front runner on building inclusive and diverse teams and is passionate about supporting women in business and technology.

Heather graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and minor in German from North Carolina State University and she holds an MBA from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is a certified Black Belt. Outside of the office, Heather enjoys cooking, cycling, exercising and spending time with her husband and two teenage children.

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Frances Nahas

Chief Strategy & Administrative Officer, RedSail Technologies

Frances Nahas is Chief Strategy & Administrative Office of RedSail Technologies, a leading provider of software to retail and long-term care pharmacies. In this role, she is responsible for Strategy, M&A, and administrative functions.

Frances has over 20 years of experience spanning strategy, technology, and healthcare and is passionate about building market-leading companies. She has spent the last decade working for and advising mid-sized healthcare IT companies, including past executive roles at Connecture, a market leader in online health plan enrollment software, and Aesynt, a leading hospital pharmacy automation company. In between executive roles, Frances consults independently on strategy, market, and M&A.

Frances began her healthcare focus as part of McKesson’s Corporate Strategy and Business Development Group. Prior to McKesson, Frances was a management consultant at Bain & Company and CGI.

Frances graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government and International Studies from the University of Notre Dame and was a Forte Fellow and Dean’s Scholar at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, where she earned a Master of Business Administration degree.

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Paige Ouimet

Executive Director, Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, and Professor of Finance, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School

Paige Ouimet became executive director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise in August 2023 after a year as the institute’s research director.

She has several research projects looking at income inequality and the role of firms. She also has researched ESOP (employee share ownership plans) and employee stock options and their impact on labor productivity, wages and turnover.

Her research agenda is concentrated at the juncture of finance and labor economics. She is interested in how decisions studied in finance impact employee stakeholders – specifically how those effects are reflected in firm performance and, hence, corporate finance decisions.

Her work has been published in the American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies and Journal of Financial Economics.

Paige worked at The Center for Clean Air Policy, an independent, nonprofit think tank working on climate and air quality policy at the local, U.S. national and international levels.

She received her Ph.D. and MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and her B.A. from Dartmouth College.

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The Honorable Sarah Bloom Raskin

Partner, Kaya Partners; Colin W. Brown Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Law, Duke University; Former Deputy Secretary, US Department of the Treasury

Sarah Bloom Raskin is currently a partner at Kaya Partners and the Colin W. Brown Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Law at Duke Law School.

An experienced economic policymaker, Sarah has had a unique career serving at the highest levels of the U.S. Government and American financial sector.  Sarah was formerly the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Treasury where she was the “highest ranking woman in the history of the Treasury Department” (New York Times) and the only person ever to have served in that position who had also been a Governor of the Federal Reserve Board.  A graduate of Harvard Law School, Sarah has throughout her career worked across public and private sectors in both legal and regulatory capacities. Her work has centered on financial institutions, financial market utilities, consumer protection issues, the adaptation of financial regulatory tools as they pertain to climate risk, bolstered prudential standards, and resolution planning.

 

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Lee H. Roberts

Chancellor, UNC-Chapel Hill

Lee H. Roberts became interim chancellor for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Jan. 12, 2024. A dedicated public servant and a strong believer in the importance of a liberal arts education, Interim Chancellor Roberts is focused on initiatives that set graduates up for success and provide support to researchers, faculty, and staff.

Roberts is a longtime advocate for higher education and for the state of North Carolina. He served as a member of the UNC System Board of Governors and as the chair of its budget committee. He has held positions on the State Board of Community Colleges, North Carolina’s Banking Commission and the Board of Visitors at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, where, for the last five years he taught public budgeting to graduate students. Roberts has also served as a board member at the Golden LEAF Foundation, which invests in educational and economic opportunities for North Carolina’s rural communities. He was honored to serve as state budget director under Gov. Pat McCrory from 2014 to 2016.

Before serving as interim chancellor, he was the co-founder and managing partner of SharpVue Capital, a North Carolina investment firm that specializes in stewarding institutional funds and growing local economies.

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Representative Stephen M. Ross

North Carolina General Assembly

Stephen Ross began his career in financial services in 1980 spending most of his career with Merrill Lynch. He later joined Morgan Stanley until leaving to help start TradeWinds, LLC which is an independent financial services firm in Raleigh.

Prior to his General Assembly service, Ross was Mayor of the City of Burlington where he worked extensively on Economic Development. In the General Assembly he chairs both the Commerce Committee and the Finance Committee and continues to work on Economic Development.

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Tammy Samuels

Associate Dean of Talent and Administration, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School

Tammy is the Associate Dean of Talent and Administration at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill.  Serving on the Dean’s Leadership Team, she provides strategic direction and oversight of talent management including, the HR Unit, and management of administrative affairs for the Dean’s Office.

She joined Kenan-Flagler in the fall of 2019 as the Executive Director of Career & Leadership for MBA and Alumni Programs providing strategic oversight and management for the largest strategic business unit of MBA. Tammy optimized operations, strengthened career management and employer engagement functions that supported all MBA programs across the portfolio as well as all UNC Kenan-Flagler alumni.  She served on the Board for The Consortium Graduate Study for Management and a nomination for the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Human Relations.

Prior to joining UNC, she served as the Assistant Vice President for the Office of Career and Internship Services at LIM College, Where Business Meets Fashion, in NYC.  With 25 years of diverse experience in higher education leadership and career coaching, Tammy’s background includes Montclair State University, where she served as the Assistant Dean of Student Services and Administrative Affairs for the College of Education and Human Services. Throughout her professional tenure she’s held several leadership positions in both academic affairs and student affairs.  Tammy has worked for private, public and proprietary institutions including Duke University, Rutgers University, and Wilson College to name a few.

Tammy is a certified HR professional by the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM-CP) and received her Master’s degree from Montclair State University, and a Bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University. She’s currently enrolled at the University of Southern California (USC) Rossier School of Education in pursuit of her doctoral degree in Organizational Change and Leadership.  Tammy resides in Cary, NC with her husband, three daughters, and their dog, Champ.

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Kristin Sjoholm

Managing Director, FTI Consulting

Kristin Sjoholm is a Managing Director in the Global Supply Chain Solutions practice, specializing in leading clients through supply chain transformations and end-to-end operational improvements, with a focus on risk management.

With more than 20 years of experience as an operator and consultant, Ms. Sjoholm identifies, develops and implements creative solutions to overcome the most complex business challenges across supply planning, inventory management, sales and operations planning (“S&OP”), procurement, budgeting and strategic sourcing. A strategic thinker with deep retail industry knowledge, she drives change and performance improvement as an advisor to clients.

Notable client engagements include leading a mission-critical COVID-19 project for the State of Rhode Island, with ownership of the program’s organizational structure including supply chain, inventory management, modeling and more than 40 resources. Ms. Sjoholm built a complex network of vaccine administration locations and scaled solutions ranging from high-volume “mass vax” sites to bespoke clinics for home-bound residents. She established a program that ranked top three nationally in all metrics by age. Ms. Sjoholm also served as a trusted consultant and strategic advisor to a global consumer products manufacturing company, aligning three business units on a single set of S&OP processes, Key Performance Indicators (“KPIs”) and delivery requirements.

Prior to joining FTI Consulting, Ms. Sjoholm was the Head of Global Operations for Marmot Mountain and ExOfficio at Newell, a $250 million apparel company. One of her most notable achievements was developing and implementing an organizational restructuring, which included an offshore transition to China and re-direction of resources to resolve bottlenecks and mitigate business risk while simultaneously reducing costs. She created a roadmap of key actions and critical milestones required to improve on-time delivery, achieving 500 basis points improvement in year one and setting strategic initiatives to achieve an additional 1,500 basis points improvement over three years.

Prior to Marmot Mountain, Ms. Sjoholm held key supply chain leadership roles at both Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn. While at Restoration Hardware, she led a vendor collaboration program across 10 strategic vendors for the $2 billion home-furnishings company. The efforts resulted in a 26% reduction in receipts, $500,000 savings in invoice discrepancies and headcount reductions.

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Bradley Staats

Senior Associate Dean for Strategy and Academics and Ellison Distinguished Professor of Operations; Faculty Director, Center for the Business of Health, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School

Brad Staats examines how individuals and organizations learn and improve in order to stay relevant, innovate and succeed on an ongoing basis. His teaching focuses on learning and analytics. He also works with companies around the world on their learning and analytics strategies.

Dr. Staats integrates work in operations management and human behavior to understand how and under what conditions individuals, teams and organizations can perform their best. His field-based research in such settings as healthcare and software services, consulting, call centers and retail, uses archival data and field experiments to provide an interdisciplinary perspective to improve both operations’ theory and practice.

He is the author of the award-winning book “Never Stop Learning: Stay Relevant, Reinvent Yourself and Thrive” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2018). He shares original research, outlines why success demands continuous learning and provides a practical framework for becoming a dynamic learner.

Dr. Staats leads the Center for the Business of Health, a cross-disciplinary initiative targeting some of the biggest healthcare challenges of our time. UNC Kenan-Flagler is leading efforts to grow this initiative, which is by design a pan-university effort that draws upon the wide health sciences strengths across campus, including our top-ranked schools of pharmacy, public health, nursing, dentistry, arts and sciences, medicine and business. By building on this collaborative powerhouse of resources and talent through the Center for the Business of Health, UNC Kenan-Flagler seeks to distinguish both itself and the University as leading national voices in education, research and thought leadership in the business of healthcare.

He received the 2016 Warren Bennis Prize for his article “Why Organizations Don’t Learn” in Harvard Business Review. The award honors the previous year’s best article on leadership. He publishes frequently in leading academic journals and practitioner-focused journals. He is an associate editor at Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management and Production and Operations Management.

He received his DBA in technology and operations management and MBA from Harvard Business School, and his BS with honors in electrical engineering and BA with high honors in Plan II and Spanish from The University of Texas at Austin.

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Kathleen M. Sutcliffe

Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, Johns Hopkins University, and 2024 Kenan Institute Distinguished Fellow

Kathleen M. Sutcliffe (Ph.D. University of Texas – Austin) is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Business and Medicine at Johns Hopkins University with appointments in the Carey Business School, the School of Medicine (Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine), the Bloomberg School of Public Health, the School of Nursing, and the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality.

She is also Professor Emeritus of Management and Organization at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Her research program has been devoted to investigating how organizations and their members cope with uncertainty and how organizations can be designed to be more reliable and resilient. She has investigated organizational safety, high reliability and resilience practices in oil exploration and production, wildland firefighting, and in healthcare. She has been awarded multiple research awards and her research has appeared widely in management and healthcare journals. A recent book co-authored with the late Dr. Robert Wears is titled Still Not Safe: Patient Safety and the Middle Managing of American Medicine (Oxford University Press, 2020). She is currently serving as a member of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine Transportation Research Board Committee on Emerging Trends in Aviation Safety.

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Jayashankar Swaminathan

GlaxoSmithKline Distinguished Professor of Operations, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, and 2024 Kenan Institute Distinguished Fellow

Jayashankar (Jay) Swaminathan is the GlaxoSmithKline Distinguished Professor of Operations. He is an internationally recognized thought leader in productivity and innovation in operations related to retail, healthcare, customization, sustainability, agriculture, e-commerce and emerging markets.

He teaches courses in global operations, global execution models and global supply chain strategy and management. Dr. Swaminathan has published more than 100 articles on these topics and is the author of “Indian Economic Superpower: Fiction or Future?”

He has received numerous awards, including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, George Nicholson Prize, Schwabacher Fellowship and Weatherspoon Distinguished Research and Excellence in Teaching awards.

He has been a principal investigator on grants from the National Science Foundation, Obama-Singh Knowledge Initiative and U.S. Department of Education.

He is an inducted fellow of the three prominent professional organizations: INFORMS (The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences), POMS (The Production and Operations Management Society) and MSOM (Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society), a recognition of his lifetime intellectual contributions.

A fellow of the Academic Leadership Program in the Institute of Arts and Humanities at UNC, Dr. Swaminathan has served UNC Kenan-Flagler in many leadership roles including senior associate dean for academic affairs, associate dean for the Global OneMBA Program and UNC-Tsinghua Dual Degree EMBA Program, director of the Global Business Center and chair of the operations area.

He has also served as vice president of INFORMS and MSOM society and as president of POMS College of Supply Chain Management. He currently serves as a department editor for Management Science and Production and Operations Management journals.

Dr. Swaminathan has consulted with numerous firms over the last two decades, including AGCO, Agilent, CEMEX, Cisco, IBM, Kaiser, McKinsey, Nokia, Public Health Institute, Railinc, Samsung, Sara Lee, Schaeffler Group, TVS Motors, UNICEF and the U.S. Navy.

His work with UNICEF led to major changes in the global supply chain planning and execution for Plumpy’Nut (RUTF) into Africa. His work to configure-to-order assembly using vanilla boxes impacted the electronics industry in the 1990s.

He received his PhD and master’s in industrial administration from GSIA (now Tepper) at Carnegie Mellon University and his bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

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Derek Thompson

Staff Writer, The Atlantic

Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is also a contributor to CBS News and a news analyst for NPR’s national afternoon show, “Here and Now.”

He is the recipient of several honors, including the 2016 Best in Business award for Columns and Commentary from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. He is the author of the national bestselling book Hit Makers: How to Succeed in an Age of Distraction, which has been translated into a dozen languages.

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William Toole

Deputy, North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State

Bruce Van Saun

Chairman and CEO, Citizens Financial Group

Bruce Van Saun is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Citizens Financial Group, Inc. Van Saun joined Citizens in October 2013 after serving as Group Finance Director at the Royal Bank of Scotland and as an executive director on the RBS Board from 2009 to 2013.

Following a successful initial public offering of Citizens in September 2014, Van Saun has led the bank through a dramatic transformation journey, including the build out of the Commercial Bank, the launch of Citizens Private Bank, and the expansion into New York Metro through the strategic acquisition of HSBC’s east coast branches and Investors Bancorp.

From 1997 to 2008, Van Saun held a number of senior positions with Bank of New York and later Bank of New York Mellon, including Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer. Earlier in his career, he held senior positions with Deutsche Bank, Wasserstein Perella Group and Kidder Peabody & Co.

Van Saun has served on several boards in both the U.S. and the U.K. He is currently a director of Moody’s Corporation, a member of The Clearing House Supervisory Board and serves on the board of the Partnership for Rhode Island.

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Martin Vilsøe

Chief Executive Officer, Implement Consulting Group
 
 

Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise

Leveraging the Private Sector for the Public Good

Established in 1985 by Frank Hawkins Kenan, the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise is a nonpartisan business policy think tank affiliated with the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. The nonprofit institute and its affiliated centers convene leaders from business, academia and government to better understand how the private sector can work for the public good. The institute leverages best-in-class research to develop market-based solutions to today’s most complex economic challenges. In doing so, the institute aims to support businesses and policies that better the lives of people in North Carolina, across the country and around the world.

www.kenaninstitute.unc.edu

A Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise Event