Session Presenters
Kenneth Pruitt
As Director of Diversity Training, Kenneth is responsible for the Diversity Awareness Partnership’s training and consultation for a variety of organizations on topics of diversity and inclusion. Additionally, he oversees DAP’s education efforts via its interfaith work, as well as an assortment of panels, forums, and discussions. After receiving his master’s in education from St. John’s University, Kenneth became a classroom teacher for several years before taking this passion into nonprofit settings. Just previous to his work with DAP, he developed a model for contextualizing the group volunteer experience with education and advocacy on issues of poverty, diversity, and religion.
Jaimie Hileman
Originally from Southern Illinois, relocated to the St. Louis area in 1995 as part of a career move. Living with spouse and three cats of various degrees of affection and casual malice in Alton, IL (the cats are a mix, beloved spouse is affectionate). Very happy to say that after being together for 23 years, our marriage is now recognized in all 50 states-again.
Became Board President of the Metro Trans Umbrella Group in 2015 after serving on the board since 2013, following the transit in ‘15 from a 24 year career in the wine and spirits business. Found out that the skills of sales management, business management, presentation and public speaking translate well to the nonprofit world. I routinely facilitate our own MTUG Trans 101-103, speak at conferences in plenaries, panel discussions, and workshops regarding the intersection of Trans identities, lived experiences, and human rights, as well as advocate through intersectional Trans activism for equality.
My spouse and I enjoy travel, hiking, cooking, wine appreciation, and intense discourse about minute points of interest in literature and music, almost always civil. Scared of clowns and grown men who desperately need an AK-47 to go to the Mega Mart to buy the 100pk of Lil Debbie Double Stuffed Oatmeal Cream Pies.
We also like haggis, but even more, inflicting it upon unsuspecting friends with eclectic single malt Scotches.
Passionate about Trans/LGBTQIA+ equality, racial justice, and empowering & intersectional feminism.
Susan Stith
Susan is responsible for leading diversity, inclusion and corporate giving initiatives across the enterprise. Her responsibilities include developing and implementing the organization’s diversity and inclusion strategy including programs, processes and metrics to attract and retain a diverse talent workforce. Susan has been recognized by Diversity Woman and the NAACP for her work and is a recipient of the St. Louis Business Journal’s Diverse Leader Award, Diversity Plus magazine’s Top 25 Women Impacting Diversity and Diversity Woman’s Top 50 Diversity Champions. Susan has also been the featured speaker at diversity events for Boeing, University of Missouri-St. Louis, Lawrence Medical Center, and the Girls Scouts and received a patent in 2013 for her diversity awareness campaign.
Megan Meier
On October 16, 2006, Tina Meier’s life took a devastating turn when her 13 year old daughter, Megan Taylor Meier, took her own life after being cyberbullied by an adult neighbor. In December of 2007, Tina Meier founded the Megan Meier Foundation, a non-profit organization that proactively addresses issues of bullying, cyberbullying, and suicide in today’s world. Since its inception, Tina and Foundation staff have reached nearly 240,000 students, parents, and educators in 32 different states.
Tina worked closely with Senator Scott Rupp and Governor Matt Blunt’s Internet Task Force for the State of Missouri to help pass Senate Bill 818, which went into law on August 28, 2008. Representing the mission of the Foundation, she has appeared nationally and internationally on many network television stations, news magazines, and syndicated talk shows speaking about the issues of bullying, cyberbullying, and suicide. She was a consultant for the 2011 ABC Family movie, “Cyberbu//y”, and appeared in several documentaries, two of which two were in 2015, Discovery ID’s “Web of Lies,” and the story of Lizzie Velasquez “A Brave Heart.”
Tina has received numerous recognitions and awards on behalf of the Foundation for her bullying prevention efforts, from being selected as Teen Line’s Humanitarian of the Year for 2009, to her acceptance of a presidential invitation to attend the White House Anti-Bullying Conference in 2011, being honored by the Missouri Commission on Human Rights with the Judge Arnold Krekel Trailblazer Award in 2013, and being a Women in Leadership honoree in 2015 by Tribute to Success.
Today, Tina continues to travel throughout the country educating youth, parents, educators, and professionals on the consequences associated with the harmful effects of bullying and cyberbullying with hopes to inspire others to “Be Megan’s Voice… Be the Change!”
Leslie Heberlie
Leslie Heberlie is co-Executive Director of Interfaith Partnership of Greater St. Louis, where she supports the building of relationships between the metro area’s many diverse religious communities. With a background in storytelling and communications, she focuses on individuals and the lived experience of religion.
Kimberly Norwood
Kimberly Jade Norwood is a Professor of Law at Washington University School of Law. She completed her undergraduate work at Fordham University. She graduated from law school at the University of Missouri-Columbia where she also became the first Black person in the school’s history to become a member of the prestigious Missouri Law Review. She clerked for Federal District Court Judge after law school and practiced with Bryan Cave, LLP, before joining the faculty at the School of Law in 1990. Six years later, she became the first Black female to receive tenure in Washington University’s history.
At the law school, she has taught a range of courses from personal injury classes to education law and policy based courses. She recently created and now teaches a course titled: Implicit Bias in the Law and in the Legal Profession. One of her seminars, entitled Race, Class & Education, involves a combination of judges, lawyers, law students, and high school students working together under a high school to law school pipeline program model. The program has won both local and national awards. She has also taught in China, Japan, and the Netherlands and has supervised public interest externships in Ghana and Kenya. She also conducts implicit bias workshops around the country with law firms, lawmakers, judges and educators.
Susan Balk
Susan Balk is the founding director of HateBrakers in St. Louis, an organization that provides tools to interrupt the cycle of hate-breeds-hate in our community and around the country by providing school programs, holding events, and working with organizations like Diversity Awareness Partnership in an effort to spotlight and promote hatebraking in schools, homes, and communities. Their educational resource, “Meet a Hero, Be a Hero,” provides role models for moral courage in video interviews Balk conducts with perpetrators, victims, and witnesses of acts of hate who aim to prevent specific acts of hate from being repeated. Balk spent her career interviewing, teaching, and writing. She has written for Rolling Stone, The New York Times and Vogue, and is the author of “Fame.” “Vienna’s Conscience: Close-ups and Conversations after Hitler,” was published in 2007, followed by an international exhibit on permanent display at the UN in Vienna. She consulted for TimeWarner, NewsCorp, Disney, Daishinsha (Tokyo) and Groupe L’Express (Paris). She taught at The Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University.
Anise Wiley-Little
Anise D. Wiley-Little brings over twenty -five years of diverse business experience in the discipline of Human Resources. She has spent more than 20 years on business advisory and non-profit boards and more than 5 years in officer roles from chair of Business Finance, Treasurer to President of the Board. Wiley-Little has established expertise in a broad range of HR disciplines, including Compensation, Policy and Compliance, Talent Acquisition, Business Outsourcing, Organizational Development and Design, Employee Communications and Technology Optimization. Wiley-Little is currently serving as Chief Human Capital and Diversity Officer of Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Wiley-Little also serves as a Lecturer on Leadership in the Kellogg Architectures of Collaboration Initiative. and President and CEO of Wiley and Little Global Holdings.
Previously as Managing Partner, member of the board with MEGA-K Enterprises LLC. Wiley-Little advised diverse suppliers, businesses and select executives on HR strategy, all aspects of diversity, supplier diversity and worklife. Also, Author of recently released book “Profitable Diversity”. Wiley-Little engages in confidential executive coaching and personal strategy development for CEO’s, CDO’s, CHRO’s and other C-suite executives.
Wiley-Little is currently on the Editorial Board of Insight into Diversity Magazine, serves on SHRM’s task force for defining competencies for the top diversity professional and is a sought after speaker on HR, Diversity, Inclusion and Worklife.
Danny Gladden
Danny Gladden, MBA, MSW, LCSW, is a community social worker and leader with Behavioral Health Response, BHR. Danny oversees Business Development at BHR, working to expand real time access to mental health services throughout the United States. Additionally, Danny is an Adjunct Assistant Clinical Professor of Social Work at St. Louis University. Danny has been a human services and social work educator since 2010. Danny’s areas of clinical practice include crisis intervention, suicide prevention & adolescent sexual health.
Danny presents regularly on suicide assessment & prevention, anti-oppression & trauma and LGBTQ sexual health. Danny serves on the board of the Missouri Teen Pregnancy and Prevention Partnership. Danny received his BS from the University of Missouri -Columbia, MBA from the University of Texas and his Masters in Social Work from the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University.
Sharon Harvey Davis
Sharon Harvey Davis is the Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer for Ameren. She is the first Vice President for Diversity at Ameren and is responsible for diversity training, Employee Resource Groups, community partnerships, diversity communications and the Corporate Diversity Council. Sharon joined Ameren in September 2002 as Diversity Manager and was promoted to Diversity Director prior to her current position. Ameren’s diversity programs have received several awards including the number one ranking on the 2015 DiversityInc Top Utility Company Award, 2009 to 2013 Association of Diversity Council Top 25 Honors Award, 2009 – 2015 Top 100 Military-Friendly Employer by G.I. Jobs Magazine, Human Resource Management Association of Greater St. Louis Diversity Leader Award.
Sharon is a native of St. Louis graduating from Washington University with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, St. Louis University with an Executive Master’s Degree in International Business and Cornell University’s Diversity Management Certification Program. Sharon is certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources by the Society of Human Resource Management and as a Certified Diversity Professional Advanced Practitioner by Cornell University.
Sharon Harvey Davis is extensively involved in the St. Louis community as a member of several organizations. She serves as Chairman of the board of directors of the National Coalition of Community and Justice and Greater Missouri Leadership Foundation board member.
Sharon resides in University City, Missouri. She is the proud mother of two children, Preston and Cori.
Laura Morrison
More information coming soon
Nicole Hudson
Nicole led Community Relations and Media for the Ferguson Commission, which included developing the storytelling strategy, interfacing with media and community and overseeing the concept, design, content and execution of the final report platform. Nicole has spent her career applying digital media to products in industries ranging from Broadway to finance to journalism. A Northwestern University grad, Nicole has managed the online brands for shows like Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera, worked on web development, ticketing and calendar conversion and ad network development with clients such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Lincoln Center and tackled online tools and branding for companies like the New Yorker and Goldman Sachs. On the ad agency side, she oversaw national digital campaigns and one-to-one marketing products for AT&T. She has managed web, print, outdoor and on-air production for TV and radio stations, hotels and real-estate developments. Her 6 years as the General Manager of the non-profit news start-up St. Louis Beacon gave her a front row seat for the transformation happening in local information and the opportunity that digital platforms bring. Nicole consults independently with individuals, organizations and brands on communication strategy, content development and the general navigation of digital communities and digital waters.
Jamie Clark
More information coming soon