Karl Ahlrichs specializes in helping professionals make order from chaos. He is a national speaker, author, and consultant, presenting on the people issues in all industries, and is often quoted in the local and national media. 

Karl’s experience is ideally suited to times of organizational change as he pulls on risk management and organizational development theories to replace “best practices” with “next practices”. He owes much of his communications mastery to working as a writer and editor in daily media, to on-the-job writing experience and to the process of becoming a published author.

He joined Gregory & Appel in 2010 after serving as a founding partner of ExactHire, bringing his HR, operations, diversity & belonging, and learning & development skills with him. Karl’s affinity for design, composition and learning started at a very young age, by taking and examining thousands of boring pictures with the goal of improving his craft. He loves deploying that practice-to-improve approach with all manner of hobbies including writing haiku, mastering cutting-edge technology and learning Spanish.

In 2003, he was named the SHRM Human Resource Professional of the Year for the State of Indiana. He is on the Boards of several organizations, including the Maryland CPA Society.  He has lived in Scotland and Spain and lives to explore new experiences with his wife and family.

Andy Sieg is Head of Global Wealth & Retirement Solutions (GWRS) for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. GWRS provides a comprehensive set of investment products and services, as well as retirement solutions, to the company’s clients and financial advisors globally.

Andy first joined Merrill Lynch in 1992 as an analyst in the Global Wealth Management business, later serving in senior strategy and field leadership roles during the next 13 years. Before rejoining the company in 2009, Andy led the Emerging Affluent Client Segment within Citigroup Global Wealth Management from 2005 to 2009.

Prior to his career at Merrill Lynch, Andy served in The White House as an aide to the assistant to the President for Economic and Domestic Policy. Andy earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Penn State University. He also holds a Master in Public Policy (MPP) degree from the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and serves as a member of the HKS Dean’s Council.

Andy serves on the boards of ReadWorks.org, a non-profit dedicated to ensuring students in our nation’s neediest public schools have literacy skills to compete and succeed in life, and The Peter Westbrook Foundation, which helps inner-city children develop life skills through the sport of fencing, academic support and mentoring. Andy also represents Bank of America Merrill Lynch on the board of the Global Coalition on Aging, an organization of industry leaders committed to advocating for aging populations and to reshaping how society prepares for this profound demographic shift.

Penny Wofford is a South Carolina Supreme Court Certified Specialist in Employment and Labor Law. She concentrates her practice in the area of employment litigation and employee benefits. She advises and defends employers, employer sponsored plans, and plan fiduciaries against all types of claims under ERISA and employment discrimination laws. Penny not only provides proactive counseling and legal advice to employers and management regarding human resources issues but also assists employers with the design, drafting, and administration of welfare benefit plans. Penny is a frequent speaker on employee benefits and employee leave topics and regularly provides company and supervisor training on employment discrimination, documentation and confidentiality.

Bill Schiemann is founder and CEO of Metrus Group, specializing in performance measurement and organizational change. He has consulted extensively with corporations on the development and implementation of business and people strategies; HR measurement; strategic employee surveys and internal value assessments; and creating high performance cultures. He also founded the Metrus Institute, which supports research and publications, many in the human capital arena.  

Bill is a thought leader in the human resources field, having written scores of articles and six books in the human capital area, most recently the SHRM-published book, Hidden Drivers of Success:  Leveraging Employee Insights for Strategic Advantage (2013). 

He is the Past Chair of the SHRM Foundation Board of Directors and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the HR Certification Institute.  He has been named a Fellow and Scholar by the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. 

Follow Bill on Twitter @wschiemann.