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Event Overview:
Innovation starts with people. It’s that simple.

Fostering creativity, encouraging cross-functional interactions, creating channels for ideas to be cultivated and nurtured, and recognizing and rewarding employees for their contribution, insures a workplace culture where innovation thrives. In great workplaces, innovation does not live in a specific department, it does not turn on and off with business cycles, and it is not tied to a specific product or initiative. Innovation is an on-going practice that feeds business success and bottom line growth.

Who should attend?

This event is ideal for CEOs, Organization Design or Effectiveness professionals, people strategy leaders, and anyone who wants to learn how to harness the creative power of the people who know your business best -- your employees.

You'll walk away from this event with both tactical and strategic insight into how some of The Best Companies are fostering innovation, inspiring their employees to be fearless with ideas that ultimately drive business success.

Hear from Leaders from best companies to Work for to get answers to questions like:

• Why is trust essential in the innovation equation?
• How do shared values and having fun contribute to creative thinking and idea generation?
• Why should you invest in ideas that might not pan out?
• How do you organize teams and facilitate cross-functional interactions to discourage silos that impede innovation?
• What channels or processes can you create to capture ideas?
• How do you as leaders get out of the way of innovation?
• How should you reward and recognize employees for contributing to innovation?

Agenda

Speakers

Shawn Boyer

CEO, SnagAJob

Shawn Boyer is founder and CEO of SnagAJob.com.  Boyer has directed the Company’s rapid growth from start-up to the nation’s largest online community of hourly workers with more than 28 million members.  His insights on the hourly workforce have appeared in places such as The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Good Morning America, CNN, and in daily newspapers throughout the nation.  Boyer is author of Help Wanted & Help Found: The insiders’ guide to recruiting & hiring hourly workers, an instructional book on the best strategies to hire hourly workers.

Boyer was named the 2008 National Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration and met President George W. Bush so he could publicly recognize Shawn for successfully creating a Web site to help hourly workers find the right job for them. For the last three years, SnagAJob.com has been named one of the ten Best Small Companies to Work for in America by the Society for Human Resource Management and the Great Place to Work Institute, and over the last ten years, the Company has been awarded multiple other awards for its rapid growth and commitment to its people, culture and community.

Prior to founding SnagAJob.com in 1999, Boyer was a transactional attorney with the law firm of Brown & Wood LLP (now Sidley Austin, LLP).  He is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and the Washington & Lee School of Law, and he received his LL.M. in taxation from Georgetown University Law Center. He currently serves on the boards of several non-profit organizations: The Richmond Forum, Sports Backers, Comfort Zone Camp, Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce and the George C. Marshall Foundation.  He loves to spend time with his wife and two young children and is an avid reader and an exercise and outdoor enthusiast.

Joe brickey

Chairman & CEO, Integrity Applications Incorporated

Joe Brickey is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Integrity Applications Incorporated (IAI).  IAI is a mid-sized engineering and software services company with a nationwide presence primarily supporting the intelligence community and other civil, defense and intelligence customers with a focus on Government space and intelligence surveillance reconnaissance systems activities.  IAI’s headquarters is in Chantilly, Virginia.  IAI also has offices in California, Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

As Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IAI, Joe provides executive leadership on strategic business issues.  Joe is also a champion for IAI’s “Above and Beyond” corporate culture.  IAI is highly regarded for its culture of excellence and is regularly listed among the nation’s best places to work.   Since 2007, IAI has appeared on The Great Place to Work Institute’s Best Small and Medium Companies to Work For in America list achieving a number two medium size company ranking in 2010.  IAI has also been consistently recognized as a top tier employer by Washingtonian magazine and the San Diego Business Journal.  IAI was awarded the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve Freedom Award in 2011 which is the highest recognition given by the U.S. government to employers for their support of employees who serve in the National Guard and Reserve.

Joe and his three partners founded IAI in 1999 and Joe has held the role of Chairman and CEO since the company’s beginning.  Joe is a systems engineering and program management specialist with an expertise in conceiving, developing and transitioning state of the art capabilities to operational users.  Joe obtained his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tennessee and his graduate degree in Electrical Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology.  Joe is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, a certified DoD Acquisition professional and a recognized expert in the field of Automated Spectral Processing.  Joe is also a Senior Member of the IEEE.  Joe and his wife Kay live in Clifton, Virginia. 

Suzanne Burns

Vice President —Leadership, Talent, and Organization Development, W.W. Grainger, Inc.

Suzanne M. Burns joined Grainger in 2008 as Vice President, Leadership, Talent and Organization Development.  Her team is responsible for the Company’s human capital strategy and accelerating the development of the company’s talent to achieve Grainger’s growth and performance goals. In 2009, Ms. Burns was also appointed Vice President – U.S. Business Integration and was responsible for leading the integration of Grainger’s $6 billion U.S. business.  Prior to joining Grainger, Ms. Burns held several general management roles at Eaton Corporation and was a management consultant with A.T. Kearney, Inc., where she advised such companies as General Electric, Xerox and Bayer.

Through her team's efforts, Grainger was recognized in 2011 as one of Fortune magazine’s Best Places to Work, as one of the Chicago Tribune’s 2010 Top Workplaces and by the Hay Group and HR Executive Magazine as one of the Most Admired Companies for HR in 2010 & 2011.  Ms. Burns currently serves on the Board of Directors of Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital and Communities In Schools of Chicago.  She is also a Leadership Greater Chicago fellow and serves on their Board.  

Amr ElSawy

President & CEO, Noblis

As President and Chief Executive Office, Mr. ElSawy is responsible for the general management and direction of the company’s overall technical, financial, and administrative activities. Noblis is a nonprofit science, technology and strategy organization working at all levels of government, in private industry and with other nonprofits in areas that are essential to our nation’s well being:  national and homeland security, public safety, transportation, health care, criminal justice, energy and the environment, and oceans, atmosphere and space.

Mr. ElSawy was elected Executive Vice President and a member of the Board of Trustees of Noblis in January 2007. He has extensive experience leading organizations and developing innovative solutions to some of the most complex challenges in the public sector.

Prior to joining Noblis, Mr. ElSawy was Senior Vice President and General Manager MITRE’s domestic and international aviation and transportation security work program.  Mr. ElSawy established and ran public-private partnerships.  He has earned an international reputation as a leader in aviation.  His work experience includes research and development, complex systems engineering, modeling and simulation and informing domestic and international aviation policy.

Kevin Lyons-Tarr

President, 4Imprint

Kevin Lyons-Tarr is President of 4imprint, Inc., a multi-channel merchant of imprinted promotional products to customers in the US, Canada, UK and Ireland. Kevin has been with 4imprint since 1991, serving as Sales Manager, Operations Manager, CIO and COO, becoming President in December of 2003.  During his time as President, company sales have grown from $65 million to more than $190 million, the company is now the largest direct marketer of promotional products and the 5th largest overall distributor in the United States. The company has also been named one of the 25 'Best Medium Sized Companies to Work for in America' in 2008, 2009 and 2010 by The Best Places to Work Institute. Kevin was recently listed at the top of the ASI's Counselor Magazine 'Power 50' list, ranking the promotional products industry's most influential people.

Kevin also serves on the Board of Directors for the Aplastic Anemia & MDS International Foundation, an organization dedicated to fighting bone marrow failure diseases through patient support and research. 

You can follow Kevin on twitter (@4imprintklt) and visit his blog at http://info.4imprint.com/klt/ 

Wayne Wadsworth

Senior Vice President, Holder Construction Company 

Wayne Wadsworth is a Senior Vice President with Holder Construction Company based in Atlanta, Georgia.   Holder is a national commercial construction services firm respected as a leader in “team approach” project delivery. Holder’s focus on delivering the highest level of service, and on fostering a collaborative relationship with their clients and partners is essential in achieving their founding principle: "Do the kind of job that ensures our clients will want us to do their next project."

Holder is proud to have been recognized by the Great Place to Work Institute for each of the last seven years in a row as one of the Top 25 Best Medium Companies to Work for in America.

Wayne is one of a number of Holder leaders who have never worked for another company.  During Wayne’s more than 20-year career at Holder, he has led hundreds of successful construction projects totaling more than 20 million square feet of space valued at nearly id="mce_marker"0 billion.  A member of Holder’s executive leadership team, Wayne has also contributed significantly to defining and executing Holder’s business strategies.  In addition to his operational responsibilities, Wayne takes responsibility for championing Holder’s culture by studying and teaching the unique and critical behavioral characteristics that differentiate Holder.   He also provides leadership to numerous associate-driven initiatives that improve and innovate how Holder operates its business.  Most recently, he was an integral part of the development of “The Wall,” a new tool to help gather innovative ideas from Holder associates, to ensure it is a reflection of and enhancement to the Holder culture of innovation. 

Wayne is a committed alumnus of the University of Florida School of Building Construction and has served on the School’s Executive Advisory Board since 2002.  In 2011, the School recognized Wayne as the Distinguished Alumnus of the Year.  Wayne enjoys running, triathlons and along with his wife Dawn is the proud parent of three children.

Travel & Registration