KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Grace Killelea 

Author, The Confidence Effect and CEO of GKC Group

Grace passionately believes that everyone is the CEO of their own career and life. Through her unique storytelling, one-on-one executive coaching, group workshops and keynote presentations, Grace has helped thousands in their leadership skills, personal branding, and professional development. Drawing from her 35 years of corporate experience with a focus on developing individual and team leadership, Grace inspires people to move beyond barriers to achieve sustainable success, both professionally and in their personal lives. 

During her remarkable career working with managers, directors and executives on multiple levels, Grace identified four areas that play key roles in leadership and professional development that have become the cornerstone for her firm: Reputation, Relationships, Results and the critically important Resiliency.  Grace focuses on these four Rs in her trainings, presentations and speeches. 

Join us on Monday morning for an engaging conversation.

PLENARY SPEAKER

Valerie Smith

Author and President of Swarthmore College

Valerie Smith, a distinguished scholar of African American literature, is the 15th president of Swarthmore College, where her priorities have included creating a more diverse and inclusive community of students, faculty and staff, supporting curricular innovation, renewing facilities, and strengthening partnerships between the College and the region. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the boards of the American Council on Education, Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), the National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian), and the Sloan Foundation. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Bates College, she holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Virginia. Prior to her arrival at Swarthmore, she was a professor of English and African American Studies at UCLA, and the Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature, founding director of the Center for African-American Studies, and the dean of the college at Princeton University.

She is the author of three books on African American literature and culture and the editor or coeditor
of five others.

Join us on Tuesday morning for an engaging conversation.