Speaker Series

Jen Psaki

Jen Psaki is the New York Times Bestselling author of “Say More: Lessons from Work, the White House, and the World” and the host of Inside with Jen Psaki on MSNBC. She served as the thirty-fourth White House Press Secretary under President Biden until May 2022.

She has also served as White House Communications Director under President Obama, the spokesperson for the State Department under then Secretary of State John Kerry and worked on three presidential campaigns.

Delegate David Reid

David is a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, representing the 32nd district. David grew up in Rockbridge County, Virginia. In 1972, he moved to Shineforth, which was then known as the Virginia Methodist Children’s Home. He left Shineforth six years later, moving to Oklahoma with his foster parents.

David became the first person in his family to graduate from college and went on to serve as a Naval Intelligence Officer for 23 years in the US Navy Reserve. In 2014, David founded Rockbridge Consulting. In his first year as a delegate, David sponsored HB1219, legislation which allows foster children ages 14 years and up to request that their birth parents regain custody. Delegate Reid invited Governor Northam to the Shineforth Richmond campus to sign the bill into law in May 2018.

Chris Heeter

Featured on National Geographic Today and recognized with national speaking awards, Chris also shares a team of 26 Alaskan Huskies with her mushing partner. With stories from 30+ years of wilderness leadership experience and 20+ years of speaking all across North America, the abundant parallels between these adventures and the world of work make up the core of her presentations. Chris brings Wild to the workplace to help free us from the trappings of ‘how we’ve always done it, and to support organizations, leaders, and teams in pulling to their potential.

Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina began her career as a secretary for a nine-person real estate firm. She climbed the corporate ladder at AT&T and Lucent Technologies through a willingness to tackle tough problems, a relentless focus on producing results and accepting accountability, and a passion for leveraging the talents of others and building high-performance teams.
She was recruited to Hewlett-Packard with a mission to transform the company from a laggard to a leader, becoming the first woman to lead a Fortune 50 company. During her tenure as Chair and CEO, Hewlett-Packard became the largest technology company in the world, innovation tripled, cash flow quadrupled, and revenue and profit growth accelerated.

Both government and the private sector have sought out her vast problem-solving, team-building, and leadership experience. She has advised the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security. She founded Carly Fiorina Enterprises to bring her expertise to private sector teams, and the Unlocking Potential Foundation to allow those in the social sector to benefit from her experience. She is the author of three best-selling books on leadership for general audiences, as well as a weekly LinkedIn newsletter with over 500,000 subscribers. She is a frequent speaker to teams and executives of many industries all over the world.

Noah Scalin

Noah Scalin is the creator of the Webby Award winning project Skull-A-Day and the collaborative science fiction universe & performance art project League of Space Pirates. He was the Grand Prize winner of Artfields 2022 and his collaboration with Old Navy was one of the most viewed commercials of 2020. Noah’s art has been exhibited internationally, including installations in Times Square, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Mütter Museum and multiple solo exhibitions in Krause Gallery in NYC. His work has been commissioned by the Martin Agency, Capital One, and Goodwill; and has been featured in dozens of publications including Fast Company, Hi-Fructose, Juxtapoz, USA Today, The Telegraph, and the New York Times. Noah is the author of six books, a sought after public speaker on creativity and has inaugurated the artist-in-residence role at both Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Business and Old Dominion University’s Strome College of Business. He is also the founder of Another Limited Rebellion an art & innovation consulting firm which he co-runs with his sister.

Ethan Kross

Ethan Kross is one of the world’s leading experts on emotion regulation. An award-winning professor and bestselling author in the University of Michigan’s top ranked Psychology Department and its Ross School of Business, he studies how the conversations people have with themselves impact their health, performance, decisions and relationships.

Scott Shigeoka

Scott Shigeoka is an internationally recognized curiosity expert, TED speaker, and the award-winning author of Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World. His work focuses on how we can strengthen our well-being and relationships, including at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. He is also a playwright and artist, and was born and raised in Hawaii but now lives in California.