Event Speakers

Kee Meng leads Amway’s Global Talent Management function. He is responsible for performance management, leadership development, leadership succession management, new hires, and learning and development, including the Learning Center and Career Resources Center. He also oversees the Global Employee Opinion Survey (EOS), global mobility and expatriate matters, as well as Diversity & Inclusion.

Kee Meng joined Amway in February 2008, and has more than 25 years of human resource and talent development experience with both domestic and non-US global corporations. His areas of expertise are in strategic organizational change, talent development, and global cross-cultural business communications.

Kee Meng held previous positions at both Unilever and with Johnson & Johnson, as well as with Pharmacia, Monsanto, and Dow Chemicals. At Johnson and Johnson, he conceptualized and established the company’s first virtual corporate university, stressing collaborative learning worldwide.

Kee Meng has co-authored numerous papers in peer reviewed journals, including The Patterns of Successful Dialogue and Cultural Transcendence as Strategic Advantage and most recently in the Sloan-C’s Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks. He has also written Measuring Organizational Learning: Going Beyond Measuring Individual Training Programs and Global Succession Management: Moving Beyond Another Replacement Planning HR Bureaucracy.

Kee Meng is an executive committee member with the Grand Rapids Southeast YMCA’s board of directors. He also serves on the advisory boards of the Stevens Institute’s WebCampus as well as the Maine School of Business at Davenport University. In addition, he is on the editorial board of Training Industry Quarterly.

About Amway

Amway is one of the world’s largest direct selling businesses. Founded in 1959 and headquartered in Ada, Michigan, USA, Amway offers consumer products and business opportunities in more than 80 countries and territories worldwide. The company also provides product development, manufacturing and logistics services through its Access Business Group and Alticor Corporate Enterprises divisions. In its most recent fiscal year, the Amway family of companies reported annual sales of $8.4 billion. For more information, please contact Amway’s media information staff at 616.787.7565, or via e-mail at: [email protected].

Diana Bentz is VP, Manager of Talent Development at Commerce Bancshares, Inc. She has over 20 years of experience in organizational development and talent management. Her primary areas of focus are in leadership development, succession management, development planning, change management, facilitation, consulting, retention, diversity, and recruitment. A favorite part of Diana’s role is being a thought partner with leadership throughout the organization on strategy and/or identifying solutions to problems.

Diana has her BSBA in Marketing from Rockhurst University and is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in Management and Leadership through Webster University. She also has certificates in Business Leadership, Change Management, and Finance from Cornell University/e-Cornell. And Diana holds a Human Capital Strategist (HCS) designation and several certifications in her field.

As someone who likes to be involved in her field and community, Diana is a member of Human Resources People and Strategy (HRPS), the St. Louis OD Network, and the Human Capital Institute (HCI). Diana also serves on the program committee for FOCUS St. Louis, the United Way Allocations Committee, and volunteers at the Ronald McDonald House. Previously, Diana served on the board and various committees for Coro St. Louis and was an advisory board member for Washington University Olin Partners Program.

Diana lives in St. Louis, Missouri with her husband and two sons and will be an empty nester next year. She enjoys spending time with her friends and family, cooking, reading, and anything that has to do with a body of water.

Wendy Greeson is an innovative and results driven talent management professional with a successful record of leading large scale initiatives and creating development programs that focus on building leadership bench strength.   With over 20 years of experience, she has consistently managed high profile projects with tight deadlines, defined budgets and competing agendas.

Wendy has a master’s degree in Training and Development and a BA in Communications from Eastern Illinois University.   She was also selected to participate in a 2-year study on Emotional Intelligence through the University of Illinois in Chicago and has traveled as far as Hong Kong to facilitate leadership development programs.

In her current role as the Global Director of Learning and Organizational Development at Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., she has been recognized for her extensive work with Harvard Business Review.  Additionally, Gallagher’s development program for mid to senior level leaders was awarded the 2015 Leadership 500 Excellence Award – Best In Class.

Throughout the course of her career, she has consistently demonstrated the ability to think strategically and execute with impact, while pursuing her life-long passion to help others learn, lead and grow.

David has worked in human resources for 25 years; originally with a major subsidiary of NatWest Bank in the UK before moving to Luxembourg in 2000 to take up the role of HR Director for John Deere Credit’s international operations. He moved to the US in 2008 to co-lead a project to reorganize John Deere’s global HR Operations until 2010. He subsequentlyled the team responsible for the development and deployment of the global leadership development and succession planning processes.Following a brief period with HR Strategy researching and developing the leadership development aspects of John Deere’s global HR strategy he took up his current role leading the succession planning process.  David is a Chartered Fellow of the UK’s Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Shannon has a successful history of defining and executing high-impact human capital initiatives which have improved business performance and employee engagement and satisfaction. She uses a proprietary method of employing holistic diagnosis to create and manage talent interventions tailored to the unique set of business circumstances. A sweet spot of Shannon’s 30 year career has been in helping leaders at all levels unleash the very best from their own talent and teams. Her work has concentrated on executives, high-potentials, General Managers, and emerging leaders, employing cutting edge development techniques.

Meribeth Germino is a Principal Executive Development Head in Learning and Organization Development at Genentech/Roche. An 18-year veteran at Genentech, her responsibilities include designing, facilitating, implementing and evaluating executive and leadership development programs as well as executive coaching leaders in their roles. She also facilitates, coaches, and speaks at conferences about developing the  “whole leader", with attention on “the leadership (aka Hero’s) journey” as a way to transform how leaders lead their people and organizations. Meribeth has over 25 years of experience in the field of leadership development in both non-profit and global organizations.

Meribeth has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University and a Masters of International Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, a joint graduate program at Tufts and Harvard universities. She is a certified integral executive coach, as well as certified in leadership assessments such as CCL’s 360 Assessment, Social Styles, Hogan and Enneagram.

She has been featured on PM Magazine television program and Palo Alto Times newspaper for her accomplishments as a young oral-deaf woman while at Stanford University.

Her passions include her family, diverse and meaningful friendships, the great outdoors, reading novels and going to movies.

 

Wade Thomas has significant experience in the area of succession and leadership development, most recently as Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Meritage Homes Corporation, the 9^th largest homebuilder in the United States.  In this role he led the company’s Human Resources function including Talent Acquisition and Strategy, Training and Education, Leadership Development, Compensation and Benefits, HR Technology and Employee Relations.  In addition to his time at Meritage Homes, Wade held leadership positions with KB Home and Amcast Industrial Corporation, an automotive parts manufacturer.

Wade holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Stetson University, and an MBA from Indiana University.

Jamie Hinely is head of Talent Development for Valvoline Instant Oil Change, the nation's second largest quick-lube franchise. He provides strategy and leadership for the training, development, and succession planning functions. Prior to Valvoline, he was Director of Training and Technical Communication at Nielsen Claritas, and a lecturer at American University's Kogod School of Business. Valvoline Instant Oil Change has been recognized by the ATD BEST and the Training Top 125 award programs for multiple years.  The company's bench planning (succession planning) process received both the Brandon Hall gold award for Excellence in Talent Management and Training Top 125 Best Practice award.

In this role, Kathy is responsible to lead the philosophy, process and tools for enterprise talent planning, performance management, career and development planning and recognition. In addition, she leads efforts to accelerate development of enterprise executives and critical talent pools through assessment, coaching, mentoring, learning, developmental assignments and planned moves.
Kathy previously served as Associate Vice President IT Human Resources where she led a team of HR consultants in talent management, workforce planning, change management, team effectiveness and engagement efforts for IT Infrastructure & Operations, Enterprise Applications and IT Workforce Effectiveness.
Prior to Nationwide, Kathy primarily held HR business partner roles and also gained experience as a leader in workforce diversity and inclusion, talent acquisition and consumer-packaged goods marketing.
She is active in the community and currently serves on the board of the Mentoring Center of Central Ohio.
Kathy graduated from The University of Toledo with a bachelor's in communication and The Ohio State University with both a master's degree in education and an MBA.

Abbie Bejrowski is a Manager of Organization Development & HR Technology at Zimmer Biomet, a global musculoskeletal healthcare company with 19,000 employees worldwide. Abbie is the business process owner of corporate succession planning and performance management. She brings ten years of experience transforming talent management strategies and leading HR technology implementations for global corporations, including performance, succession, LMS, SharePoint, HRIS and onboarding platforms. Abbie has a BA in Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Texas State University.

Rhonda Holler, Vice President of Global Talent Management, has been with Covance, a contract research organization, for 13 years and leads a global team to ensure that Talent in in every conversation.  Her team leads the Employee Engagement and the Diversity & Inclusion efforts of the organization supporting the aspiration of building an environment where employees thrive.  With the aim of building a stronger talent pipeline, her team also manages the critical talent processes of Performance Management, Talent Review & Succession Planning, Leadership Development, and University Relations.   Prior to Covance, Rhonda worked in the wireless industry in a variety of roles of increasing responsibilities primarily focused on employee and leadership development.

Lori Bober has held a variety of positions with TRW/Experian since 1977.  She currently leads initiatives to deliver high impact solutions to develop leaders at all levels globally.  Participant selection is a key process that identifies participants based upon succession plans and other integrated Talent Management practices.  There is a special focus on leading in a global matrix structure and increasing capabilities of leaders to step into C-Suite opportunities.  All formal learning programs have supporting activities that take place both prior to and after attending the formal learning event.  These activities engage both the participant and their manager to help support the transfer of the knowledge back to the work environment.

As the leader of McLean & Company, James is responsible for all aspects of operations to ensure that we meet the high standards of service in delivering value to our members. James has been both an entrepreneur and an executive in the information industry over the past 25 years. He has been an entrepreneur for information and systems organizations including CTI Solutions Group, EduConnect, Telesolutions Inc., The Stone Soup Software Co, and Metafore, and has also held a senior management position at Microsoft Canada.

Since 2002, James has been helping C-level executives by providing research and advice to help them make better business decisions. He held leadership roles first with IDC’s global Software Business Strategies Group, and for the past decade with Info-Tech Research Group and McLean& Company.

James was twice named to Channel Business Magazine’s “Who’s Who” listing as well as being a Newsmaker of the Year in CDN. He is quoted on business issues in both the business and trade press and is a frequent speaker at events and conferences.