Dr. Charles Barber was appointed to the Senior Executive Service (SES) and assumed the duties as Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, National Science Foundation in January 2023. In this role, he serves as the NSF’s senior advisor responsible for providing vision, strategic leadership and management for ongoing agency programs and new initiatives related to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, or DEIA, in the NSF workplace and the STEM enterprise. Prior to his appointment as  Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Dr. Barber served as Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Programs, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower and Reserve Affairs and was a primary author on the Navy’s Task Force One Navy report that led to the Operational Navy’s DE&I Implementation Strategy. Dr. Barber is a TEDx speaker and served as the feature speaker on DEI at the 2022 DAU TEDx conference.

Dr. Barber has led a broad range of diversity efforts, development of culture intelligence capabilities, strategy, organizational leadership, critical data analysis and business transformation initiatives that have provided world class human resource and transformational leadership support to a dynamic range of public and private sector clients to include military service members, civilians and their families. With more than two decades of experience in HR, Diversity & Inclusion, Business Transformation and Cultural Intelligence, Dr. Barber is a staunch advocate for efficiency, transformation and process improvement. He spearheaded development of the Army’s Soldier Record Brief (SRB) while supporting the Integrated Personnel and Pay System – Army (IPPS-A) during one of the largest Army HR Transformation efforts in the modern era. At the Defense Logistics Agency, he led the development of a culture intelligence framework that integrated transformational leadership principles within the DLA enterprise. As Director of Business Transformation for the
Department of Defense Vetting Directorate, he was a key contributor to the US government’s security clearance and background investigation process improvement effort. He also previously served as the Chief Human Capital Officer for the District of Columbia Courts.

Dr. Barber holds a doctorate degree in Transformational Leadership from Bakke Graduate University, and other degrees in Organizational Leadership and Business Management from
Columbia Southern University and Excelsior College. He is a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and a previous guest lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School’s Senior Executive Fellows Program for Political Science and Government. Dr. Barber is a U.S. Army veteran with deployments to Kosovo and Iraq. A native of Bald Knob, Arkansas, he also starred as a sprinter on the Ouachita Baptist University and All Army Track Teams and achieved a personal best of 9.98 seconds in the 100 Meter dash, and recently inducted into the Arkansas Track and Field Hall of Fame (class of 2022).

Henry Lonsdale, VP of Sales & Co-Founder of California Payroll

• Co-Founded California Payroll in 2001
• HR industry since 1993
• Former Director of Recruiting Training for 700-person company
• Consulted with over 1500 companies, large and small
• Former leading sales representative for a national payroll provider
• Former Workers’ Compensation Insurance & Benefits Broker 1996-1999
• American Payroll Association: Speaker at National Congress
• Member, Society Human Resource Manager: Speaker/Member
• The Payroll Group: Member
• HR-Star: Speaker
• Past Northern California Human Resources Association – NCHRA: Board of Directors, Tri-Valley Chapter
• Past Board Director, Independent Payroll Providers Association – IPPA
• Married with wife and two kids

Meg Delp is the Director of Workplace Mental Health with the National Alliance on Mental Illness and a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a specialty in Organizational Psychology. As the Director of Workplace Mental Health at NAMI, she partners with organizations of all sizes and spearheads initiatives to promote mental health awareness and support in professional settings. Meg is dedicated to destigmatizing mental illness and creating mentally healthy workplaces at the individual and organizational levels.

As the CEO of Spectrum Knowledge & Chair of Elevate, Vu H. Pham, Ph.D., works with hundreds of organizations from the Fortune 500 to major federal government and international non-profit agencies. Elevate is a multi-university partnership with the UC Office of the President—MESA. He heads several communities of practice with ERGs and Executive-level mastermind groups and has taught Executive Education and leadership at UCLA, UC San Diego, and UC Irvine.

Dr. Pham's work has been featured on national and international multimedia, such as CNN, MSNBC, the Associated Press, Forbes, Voice of America, Los Angeles Times, KSCI International Television, Strategic Innovators, Asian Week and Radio Free Asia. He has given numerous keynote speeches internationally and has written many publications. He has helped generate over a million dollars for non-profit groups and donates many hours to them.

Dr. Katie Brown has spent nearly three decades leveraging the science behind high-impact language instruction to create scalable, sustainable English learning solutions for immigrants, refugees, and speakers of other languages. As founder and chief education officer of EnGen, a Certified B Corporation, she is pioneering a personalized, career-aligned, mobile-first approach to English upskilling and is engaging cross-sector partners – Fortune 500 companies, regional employers, higher education institutions, apprenticeship programs, and government institutions – to advance economic mobility, workforce inclusion, and talent pipeline development across the U.S.  An expert in adult learning, education technology, and instructional design, Katie has crafted numerous award-winning language courses and authored multiple technology patents to deliver empowering, effective language training to millions of learners. Katie holds a PhD in second language acquisition from the University of Maryland, and is a frequent speaker, author, and panel moderator.

Aleta Howell currently leads Global Inclusive Recruiting and Business Strategy for Cisco Systems.  In this role she works to align corporate diversity, equity and inclusion strategies that drive diverse and inclusive hiring.   

Prior to her current role, Aleta led Inclusive Recruiting Strategy for University recruiting, where she worked with leaders and HR Partners to drive hiring strategies and program development to attract diverse university talent.  She also served as a Program Manager with Cisco’s Office of Inclusion and Collaboration where she helped to create new processes to drive diversity metrics review discussions with senior leaders.

Before joining Cisco, Aleta spent more than a decade as a senior branding consultant, working with senior leaders and executives to develop and guide branding and business strategy.   Her experience includes leading brand marketing teams, strategic consulting, education recruiting and talent acquisition strategy for numerous Fortune 500 companies.

Aleta began her career as a brand manager with Nabisco Foods.  Upon leaving Nabisco, she returned to Kenan-Flagler Business School as Assoc. Director of Admissions for Minority Recruitment and later became MBA Admissions director, where she led all recruiting and admissions for the full-time MBA program. 

Aleta is an alumnus of NC State University where she earned a BA in Economics and Business Management.  She also earned an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at UNC Chapel Hill.  Aleta resides in Raleigh, NC with her husband Kevin.  She is the mother of two college-aged daughters.  In her spare time she loves to sing, cook, write and travel.