Exec Talk

Steve is a leading authority of, and one of the first people to be certified at the master level, on the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®, the leadership methodology from the worldwide best–selling book, The Leadership Challenge.  He has been involved with this work and its authors, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, since 1987. Steve has worked with a wide range of clients, in a variety of industries, from household name, top 100 corporations to small family-owned businesses. He has also worked with universities, government, military, and nonprofit agencies. 

Lawandra Smith is a high recognized leader and certified master trainer with Kouzes & Posner's Leadership Challenge. For more than three decades Lawandra has been building her leadership legacy in the space of health and human services. She has developed countless leaders and continues to make impact in the world of leadership development.

Jeff Walton completed his undergrade studies in the field of Psychology at The Ohio State University. He completed his business coach credentialing and certification from Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. Jeff Walton is an experienced Human Resources Leader, and Certified Business Coach, who helps organizations improve employee engagement and optimize their culture, and coaches' employees to identify and reach their goals and aspirations. His coaching style focuses on helping people identify their strengths and leverage them to work towards positive, intentional change, to do their best work, and live their best life.

Chelsey Caldwell is a DEI and Talent Development Consultant at Perfeqta, a Talent Development Agency. In her role, Chelsey specializes in providing strategic planning and leadership development to design and enable sustainable new ways of working. With experience managing numerous complex transformations at Fortune 500s across industries, Chelsey excels at building communities and integrating diverse perspectives, while delivering impactful solutions. Her primary focus is collaborating with Perfeqta's clients to develop holistic DEI strategies and initiatives that create a greater sense of belonging for employees and ensure equitable practices and messages are embedded across the business. Her purpose is to embrace authenticity, lean into challenges, and tenaciously discover pathways through adversity so that we can create and live the future we envision for ourselves. Chelsey holds a Masters in Management with a concentration in Organizational Behavior and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing. She is a certified Career Coach and DEI practitioner. In her free time, you can find Chelsey huddled under a blanket reading a book or at a museum near you.

Valarie Willis addresses today's challenges with effective, uplifting solutions. As a facilitator, her mission is to guide and provoke organizations to optimize business results through leadership development. Valarie is known for her energy, passion, and down-to-earth style. With an innate ability to understand all levels of an organization, she creates meaningful, impactful conversations and results.Valarie brings a strong background in leadership development, team building, branding, innovation, and coaching. Her business experience crosses the areas of leadership, sales, customer service, information technology, and talent development. She has consulted with companies across many industries including health care, pharmaceuticals, education, construction, government, manufacturing, wholesale, retail, technology, non-profits, utilities, and finance.As Wholesale Business Director for Nine West Group, Inc., she implemented strategic plans supporting five major shoe divisions that resulted in a highly effective and productive service center. Valarie also served as Director of Client Services in the IT department. Valarie also designed and helped carry out numerous client initiatives and training programs with the Tom Peters Company.Valarie holds an MBA from Xavier University and a bachelor's degree from Wilmington College. She received the 2017 Star Player Award from Wiley's Certified Facilitator Network and the 2018 Leadership Excellence and Development (LEAD) Top Leadership Partner Award.

Jennifer J. Britton is on a mission to support 5 Million remote and hybrid workers in doing their best work decade. As the CEO and founder of Potentials Realized she's dedicated to supporting virtual, remote and hybrid teams, organizations around leadership, performance and teamwork. She's designed award-winning coaching skills training, with client list spanning tech, healthcare, financial services, and multilateral organizations. A former leader with the United Nations, Jennifer is equally comfortable leading conversations from corporate boardrooms, to South American jungles, Zoom rooms, to radio waves. To hear more from Jennifer tune into the Remote Pathways podcast where Jennifer explores the people, places and pathways to remote work.

Jennifer Britton is the found of Potential Realized, a Canadian-Based performance improvement company. An award-winning program designer, she works with groups, teams and organizations in the areas of leadership, teamwork and performance. Drawing on more that two decades of experience as an experiential educator and former manager with the UN and other humanitarian organizations, her global clients span government, corporate and nonprofit sectors, from financial services to education and healthcare.

Colette Colclough is an HR executive who currently serves as the Vice President of HR for Maryland Public Television. In this episode Colette shares the power and the importance of storytelling as she focuses on how to help women and people of color climb the corporate ladder. This podcast was a response to the racial unrest in 2020 after the George Floyd tragedy. Colette and I discuss the importance of cultural awareness and the inequity experienced in the workplace by women and many people of color.

Stephanie M. Kirkland is the CEO and founder of Identity Dynamics a corporate entity that was designed to help women in business, corporate and the non-profit space scale their personal leadership. Stephanie brings deep insight to the importance of leaders working from the inside-out. This power packed podcast is designed to help women in the area of leadership unpack their purpose.

A paralegal and former policy director specializing in criminal justice reform, Ken is a visionary self-starter with experience building meaningful relationships with individuals from diverse sectors and backgrounds.Ken brings more than 28 years of direct experience with the criminal justice system, leading and representing men in their quest to learn, manage, and restore their civil and human rights. He was a major catalyst for landmark litigation to end the use of solitary confinement as a status-based deprivation in California. As a result of his litigation efforts, Ken's life sentence was recalled, and he was released from prison early.Soon after his release, Ken was hired as a paralegal for a public interest law firm and quickly became the organization's policy director based on his work and strong advocacy efforts in service of criminal justice reform.

Join Dawn Moore from DeVry University as she shares the importance of continuing your education while scaling your personal career goals.

Welcome! To Exec. Talk with Paradigm 360º a podcast featuring c-suite executives,entrepreneurs, non-profit and government leaders expressing how they model leadership,integrity and authenticity in the Marketplace. So, sit back, relax and enjoy the collaborationwith thought leaders from across the globe sharing their best corporate and entrepreneurialpractices. Now let's welcome our host, Executive leadership Coach Christina Lee for anotheramazing conversation.