In our efforts to promote and strengthen the GLBT business community, Echelon Magazine provides you with a list of innovative speakers to enhance your GLBT meetings. Please contact these speakers directly for logistics. For information about being added to the list; see our rates page or email advertising@echelonmagazine.com
The Speakers
Marketing
Bob Witeck - Witeck-Combs Communications Inc.
Thomas Roth - Community Marketing Inc.
Dawn Meifert - MergeMedia Group
Matt Skallerud - Pink Banana Media
Stephanie Blackwood - Double Platinum
Workplace/Diversity
Selisse Berry - Out and Equal Workplace Advocates
Liz Winfeld - Common Ground
C. MIchael Woodward
Tomas Bell
Leadership and Communications
David Grossman - dg&a
Mickey Parsons - The Workplace Coach
MARKETING
Bob Witeck
Chief Executive Officer
Witeck-Combs Communications Inc.
Bob Witeck is Chief Executive Officer and with Wesley Combs, co-founder of Washington, DC-based WITECK · COMBS COMMUNICATIONS, Inc. the nation`s premier public relations and marketing firm specializing in developing strategies for companies reaching the GLBT consumer market. Their clients include Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover, American Airlines, MTV Networks, Wachovia, the Human Rights Campaign and Out & Equal. Witeck has over three decades of professional communications experience in the private sector and in public service.
In April 2003, in their 25th anniversary issue, the editors of American Demographics magazine selected Witeck and Combs as two of 25 leaders who have made significant contributions to the worlds of demographics, market research, media and trend spotting for their pioneering work on America`s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender population.
bwiteck@witeckcombs.com and 202-887-0500 ext. 19
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 Thomas Roth
Community Marketing, Inc.
Thomas Roth, President and Founder, launched Community Marketing in 1992, and has served as its President for 15 years. Tom and his team have developed a spectrum of products and services to skillfully lead the company’s clients to their goals. Tom is now primarily dedicating his industry-leading expertise to head up Community Marketing’s “Gay Market Research + Development Lab” division, which produces the Gay Consumer Index™ and the Lesbian Consumer Index™. Tom engages in strategic consulting to industry-leading clients and conducts educational seminars for corporations and organizations.
Tom earned his MBA at Maharishi University of Management in 1985. He volunteers time and marketing support to the AIDS/HIV Nightline in the development and promotion of its successful “World Travel Raffle” fundraiser; provides pro-bono consulting and marketing services to non-profits; serves on the board of the Commercial Closet Association; and has served as an officer on the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) board of directors. He also volunteers with Little Brothers, Friends of the Elderly, and is a long-time instructor of the Transcendental Meditation program, currently volunteering at high-stress schools in San Francisco.
Email: tom@communitymarketinginc.com
Tel 415/437-3800 ext. 103
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Dawn Meifert
CEO
MergeMedia Group
Dawn Meifert is CEO & Founder_of MergeMedia Group, a full service marketing and advertising agency dedicated to proving return-on-investment for American brands among gay consumers. Demonstrating the value of the LGBT market is what drives MergeMedia.
Known for her wit, humor and outgoing style, Dawn’s tenacious message to Fortune 500 marketing directors is simple: Treat LGBT like a business segment, and it will perform like one. The principles of multicultural marketing absolutely apply with LGBT. Marketing discipline can drive sales, share and profit among gay consumers.
Dawn helped Coors Brewing Company reverse a decades-long LGBT boycott with the innovative “Straight Talk” campaign, which restarted a conversation with the gay community. Coors has since enjoyed double-digit share growth and achieved a 100 Score from HRC five years running.
A former commercial director and celebrity photographer, Dawn has worked with Jeff Bridges, Brad Pitt, Jeremy Piven and Julia Roberts, shooting for brands ranging from American Airlines, Disney, Esquire, GQ, Keebler, People, and Pepsi.
Dawn is a national board member of GLAAD and is an Executive Producer of the 2009 Media Awards. She also supports the good works of the Matthew Shepard Foundation and HRC.
P. 214.329.4870 dmeifert@mergemediagroup.com
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Matthew Skallerud
President
Pink Banana Media
Matthew Skallerud, President of Pink Banana Media, began his career in the gay & lesbian marketplace when he founded GayWired.com in May of 1995. He successfully led GayWired.com into one of the premiere and dominant gay websites worldwide, translating that success to LesbiaNation.com and QTMagazine.com (gay travel site). In 2001, he expanded this online reach by launching a company focused on both developing niche-oriented websites for the gay & lesbian community and helping companies large and small reach these gay & lesbian consumers through this expanded network of websites, which included GayMonkey.com, GaySports.com, Navigaytion.com, PrideParenting.com and GayBusinessWorld.com, just to name a few.
Having sold these sites, his focus is now on the latest in advertising and marketing utilizing social networks and tailoring their opportunities to the GLBT community. Skallerud starts with the basics of banner ads and e-mail, but expands into the more advanced world of blogs, social networking and online video, and how those components can tie into an overall online marketing campaign including banner ads for some of the best performance for his clients.
His goal is to work with companies wishing to increase the efficiency and performance of their online marketing endeavors, using some of the &;tried and tested&; of the past few years and merging with some of the new, since &;new&; is where the eyeballs are continually migrating to on a daily basis.
matt@pinkbananamedia.com
www.PinkBananaMedia.com
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Stephanie K. Blackwood
Co-Founder
double platinum
In September 2001, Stephanie and Arthur Korant co-founded Double Platinum, a full-service marketing communications agency that specializes in the gay and lesbian market and is affiliated with the Publicis Groupe, a global network of nearly 1,000 marketing agencies. As the client services director, Stephanie has managed the agency’s relationships with a roster of Fortune 500 clients, including Allstate, IBM, ING (Netherlands and North America), Lexus, Procter & Gamble Pernod Ricard USA, Nationwide, Kessler Financial and PricewaterhouseCoopers, among others, and highly respected nonprofits such as The Gill Foundation, GLSEN, Lambda Legal, SAGE and the Ali Forney Center.
Stephanie had previously started or partnered in three other GLBT-focused businesses: Spare Parts (1995), an LGBT-focused promotions agency; Blackwood and Friends Public Relations (1991) with a specialty in LGBT media outreach; and the New York office of The Advocate, where she was associate publisher and vice president directing plans to reposition the nation’s oldest LGBT magazine. Prior to moving to New York, Stephanie worked at The Ohio State University, holding communications and management-related positions in women’s athletics, central administration and the University Galleries of Fine Art.
Involved with many LGBT community nonprofits, Stephanie is on the board of directors of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, a global lesbian foundation; Commercial Closet Association and Streb USA. She speaks frequently at conferences and universities on GLBT marketing best practices, including the ANA Multicultural Marketing Conference, Out and Equal Workplace Summit, NGLCC and IGLCC and Pride Company Conference.
Contact: 212.653.9152
www.doubleplatinum.biz
WORKPLACE/DIVERSITY
Selisse Berry
Executive Director
Out and Equal Workplace Advocates
Selisse Berry is the executive director of Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, a national nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California. Out & Equal champions safe and equitable workplaces for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Out & Equal sponsors the annual Out & Equal Workplace Summit for LGBT employees and HR professionals from around the country. The Out & Equal`s Building Bridges program offers LGBT diversity training for all workplace settings.
Prior to her tenure at Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, Selisse served several nonprofit agencies as executive director, including Building Bridges and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. She earned master`s degrees in Special Education and Theology. She also worked as a special education teacher and a guidance counselor for nearly ten years. Selisse has extensive experience as a diversity trainer around LGBT issues, including broader diversity issues in the workplace.
Selisse has worked for the ordination of out LGBT people in various denominations and is co-editor of the book, Called Out: Voices and Gifts of LGBT Presbyterians. Selisse is a member of the United Way of the Bay Area`s LGBT employee association and the business council of the Human Rights Campaign. She serves on the board of the LGBT Center at the Pacific School of Religion and lives with her female companion, Cynthia Martin, and her feline companion, Avalon, in Berkeley, California.
Out & Equal offers a wealth of resource and training opportunities in addition to individual speakers. Visit Out & Equal today to build workplace equality tomorrow.
www.outandequal.org
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Liz Winfeld
Common Ground
Liz Winfeld, President of Common Ground, is a nationally recognized expert in diversity education for adults in the workplace. Her areas of expertise are sexual orientation, transgender people at work, the development and maintenance of employee resource groups, and domestic partner benefits.
Liz is author of the award-winning Straight Talk About Gays in the Workplace. She has consulted to and built diversity education programs for dozens of organizations in the US and Canada including Ford Motor Company, DePaul University, Duke University, Shell Oil, MasterCard, McDonald’s, Kaiser Permanente, State Farm Financial Companies, the NSA, American Express, JP Morgan-Chase, BestBuy Corporation, Sodexho, Food Lion, LLC, Chevron, Hewlett Packard, The Conference Board and many others. Liz is also co-author and editor of A Trainer’s Guide to Training Tough Topics.
www.common-grnd.com
lwinfeld@common-grnd.com
(303) 941-2991
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C. Michael Woodward
C. Michael Woodward is a writer, musician, speaker, consultant, political advisor, peer counselor, and social justice advocate—in no particular order. He led the Southern Arizona Gender Alliance (SAGA) for more than five years and worked in variety of roles at Wingspan, southern Arizona’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community center.
Woodward currently serves as Co-Chair of the City of Tucson Commission on GLBT Issues and Chair of The University of Arizona President's LGBTQ Advisory Council. He is a former Board member of Female to Male International (FTMI) and is profiled on Lynn Conway's Successful Transmen, a prestigious Web site recognizing leaders in the international transgender community. Michael was a keynote speaker at the 2008 Southern Comfort Conference.
Since 2003, Michael has presented training and information about LGBTQ and allied concerns to thousands of people across the country. In 2009, he formed lgbtQ&A Diversity & Inclusion Consulting, providing sexual orientation and gender identity cultural competency, best practices, and transition planning services to organizations and individuals nationwide. For booking information, contact michael@lgbtqa.com.
In addition to more than a dozen how-to books on computer software, Woodward has published magazine articles, blogs, op-eds, and other writings on a variety of non-fiction topics. His latest book, Little Boy Lost: True Adventures of Men without Boyhoods is currently in progress.
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 Tomas Bell
President, Tomasian Entertainment, LLC
Tomas Bell’s well-seasoned presentation style provides audiences with a powerfully moving and memorable educational experience. Much more than a public speaker, Tomas is a performer, facilitator, radio personality and keynote presenter with over 13 years experience presenting diversity, leadership, team building presentations to collegiate and corporate audiences across the US and Canada.
For his collegiate engagements, Tomas marries an interactive presentation style with well-researched material. His light-hearted and humorous approach eases his audience and helps them to open up and share parts of themselves that they normally would not. As one attendee of the “ISIM” workshop once said, “…this was more like a town hall meeting. I didn’t expect to come here and be so deeply affected. I’m like so connected to everyone right now. It’s like not even funny.”
The ideal corporate speaker, Tomas connects his workshop goals to a business’s bottom line. He states, “A business that invests in its employees and client base is a business that will continue to see exponential growth, even in tough economic times.”
Through Tomasian Entertainment LLC, Tomas offers a diverse range of options including 2 hour presentations and one man performances up to full day seminars. By combining his background in business, theatre, music and dance, Tomas creates multi-cultural presentations, workshops and performances that are unique, innovative, well researched and always well received.
His personal experience and professional expertise enhances his ability to relate to his audience, as he incorporates diversity, multiculturalism, identity development, leadership development, social justice, coalition building and team development into his performances, workshops and keynote presentations.
Whether you seek a traditional keynote address, an innovative workshop or an interactive one-man performance, Tomas’ wealth of experience makes him the clear choice when considering your organizations next keynote, diversity, leadership or team building presenter.
www.tomasianent.com
Press Kits
www.sonicbids.com/allabouttomas (Musical Performances)
www.soncibids.com/tomasbell (Collegiate Presentations)
www.speakermatch.com/profile/tomasbell (Corporate Presentations)
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LEADERSHIP AND COMMUNICATIONS
 David Grossman
President
dg&a
David Grossman is president and founder of dg&a (www.yourthoughtpartner.com), an award-winning communications consultancy based in Chicago. Named 2007’s Boutique Agency of the Year by PRWeek, dg&a focuses on organizational consulting, strategic leadership development and internal communications.
A highly rated speaker of international conferences, David addresses both the importance of effective internal communications and the critical organizational need for face-to-face managerial/employee communications in the surge of electronic mediums. David also facilitates training programs developed exclusively for senior leadership teams at Fortune 500 companies.
David, a recognized expert for his proprietary work in helping organizations succeed by developing clear messaging strategies for employees in direct alignment with their corporate goals is featured in, “The Practitioner’s Guide to Essential Techniques for Employee Engagement”. He is also published in numerous industry journals and reports and sits on the Editorial Board of Strategic Communication Management, Internal Comms Hub and Best Practices in Public Relations and Communications Management. David also enjoys the prestige of teaching the only graduate-level course in internal communications in the U.S. at Columbia University in New York City.
p. 312.850.8200, dgrossman@yourthoughtpartner.com
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Mickey Parsons
Founder
The Workplace Coach
The Workplace Coach is a division of Parsons Associates Coaching, LLC. This executive coaching division was created to focus and better serve the needs of corporate and executive clients. Our goal is to provide tools that will help managers, leaders and their companies thrive in an ever-evolving marketplace.
Mickey Parsons is the past president of AGLCC (Atlanta Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce) and founder of The Workplace Coach, where he and his colleagues provide coaching services for professionals, business leaders and entrepreneurs. Mickey's background includes extensive experience in employee assistance (EAP) leadership, corporate education and human resources, and more than 15 years' experience managing and leading business organizations. He holds a master's degree in educational psychology and numerous professional credentials, including: Master Certified Coach and Certified Employee Assistance Professional.
Mickey has served as coach, consultant and workshop facilitator for more than 60 Fortune 500 companies, including Atlanta Journal Constitution, American Express, AXA Financial Advisors, Bowne, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Catlin, Cox Newspapers, Olan Mills Studios, Brach Candy Company, Unum, Bank of America, Lennar/USA Homes, McKee Foods - The "Little Debbie" Corporation, McDonalds Corporation, Home Shopping Network, Turner Broadcasting, WellStar Health Systems, Marriott and the New York Times.
We recently unveiled Leadership Essentials®, Supervisor Essentials® and Certified Leader Coach™ eLearning programs which leverage their ability to work virtually while helping leaders across the globe inspire excellence, develop talent and align individual performance with business objectives.
We work with our partners to:
· Sharpen leadership and communication skills of high potential individuals
· Ensure the success of newly promoted managers, and
· Correct management behavior problems
Contact us to discuss how working with The Workplace Coach can help you thrive in today’s marketplace.
770-451-0505; 877-306-5292
www.theWorkplaceCoach.com
mickey@theworkplacecoach.com
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