Speaker Bios

Dr. Ronald Beghetto - University of Connecticut's Innovative House

Dr. Ronald Beghetto is an internationally recognized expert on creative thought and action in education. He serves as Professor of Educational Psychology and Director of Innovation House at the University of Connecticut.  Dr. Beghetto is the editor for the Journal of Creative Behavior, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and a creativity advisor for the LEGO Foundation.  His most recent books are: What if? Building Students’ Problem Solving Skills Through Complex Challenges (ASCD) and Beautiful Risks: Having the Courage to Teach and Learn Creatively (Rowman & Littlefield).  More information about Dr. Beghetto can be found at his website: www.ronaldbeghetto.com.

Jim Clifton - Gallup

Jim Clifton has served as Chairman and CEO of Gallup, a global leader in public opinion research and advanced analytics, since 1988. Under his leadership, Gallup has expanded from a predominantly U.S. based company to a worldwide organization with 30 offices in 20 countries and regions.

Mr. Clifton is the creator of The Gallup Path, a metric-based economic model that establishes the linkages among human nature in the workplace, customer engagement and business outcomes. This model is used in performance management systems in more than 500 companies worldwide. His most recent innovation, the Gallup World Poll, is designed to give the world’s 7 billion citizens a voice on virtually all key global issues.

In June 2015, the Clifton Foundation and Gallup announced a $30 million gift to the University of Nebraska to establish the Don Clifton Strengths Institute. The gift will support the early identification and accelerated development of thousands of gifted entrepreneurs and future business builders.

Mr. Clifton is the bestselling author of The Coming Jobs War and Born to Build, as well as many articles on global leadership. His blog appears regularly in the Influencer section of LinkedIn and on Gallup.com’s Chairman’s Blog. He serves on several boards and is Chairman Emeritus of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. He has received honorary degrees from Medgar Evers, Jackson State and Bellevue Universities. He is also a Distinguished Visiting Professor at UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University.

Betsy DeVos - United States Secretary of Education

Betsy DeVos is the 11th and current United States Secretary of Education, appointed by President Donald Trump in 2017. She is a proven leader, innovator, advocate and pioneer fighting to remove barriers and enact change that create environments where people have the opportunity to thrive. Secretary DeVos has been involved in education policy for nearly three decades and is especially passionate about reforms that help underserved children gain access to a quality education. 

Her interest in education was sparked by her mother, a public school teacher. When her own children attended school, she was confronted with the reality that not every child in America is granted an equal opportunity to receive a great education and has been involved in the fight with business and political leaders to provide better educational options across the nation ever since. 

For 15 years, Betsy DeVos served as an in-school mentor for at-risk children where her interactions there with students, families and teachers, according to her, "changed my life and my perspective about education forever." A leader in the movement to empower parents, Betsy DeVos has worked to support the creation of new educational choices for students in 25 states and the District of Columbia. 

She is the former chair of both the American Federation for Children and The Philanthropy Roundtable board of directors and served on a number of other national and local boards including ArtPrize, American Enterprise Institute, Foundation for Excellence in Education, and the DeVos Institute for Arts Management at the University of Maryland.

DeVos is a graduate of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. She is married to entrepreneur, philanthropist and community activist Dick DeVos, and together they have four children and seven grandchildren.

Luis Fortuño - Former Governor of Puerto Rico, Steptoe & Johnson LLP

Luis G. Fortuño is a partner with Steptoe & Johnson LLP in Washington, D.C. Luis combines practical, business-savvy advice with an understanding of how legislative and regulatory policy can affect his customer’s business operations. His 12 years of government service includes serving as Puerto Rico’s governor and as its sole representative in the US House of Representatives. Under his leadership as governor from 2009 to 2012, Puerto Rico implemented the largest tax cut in the territory’s history, right-sized its government, reined in deficit spending, and developed new sources of government revenue, resulting in the island’s only period of economic growth in over a decade. Luis served from 2005 to 2008 in the US House of Representatives, holding the roles of vice-president of his House Republican freshman class and later as vice-chair and then chair of the Congressional Hispanic Conference during the 109th and 110th Congresses, respectively. Additionally, he served as co-chair of the Congressional Friends of Spain Caucus. In 2007, he was appointed as the Republican minority’s ranking member on the Natural Resource Committee’s Subcommittee on Indian, Insular and Alaska Native Affairs. He also served as a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure, International Relations, and Education and Workforce committees.

Megan Hernandez - Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers®

Megan Hernandez joined Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers® nearly four years ago and is a Senior Brand Manager for the company. Her background includes retail marketing/project management for Zale Corporation and account executive/project manager at a creative design/marketing firm. She received both an Associate of Science degree in Advertising/Communications and a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing from Johnson & Wales University in Denver, Colorado, and a Master of Business Administration in Marketing/Marketing Management from The University of Dallas (Texas).

Hailey Hertzman and Katie Vonder Haar

Ooh La Lemon was founded in June 2018 by Hailey and Katie, two 12-year olds from Louisville, Kentucky. Katie and Hailey won the Lemonade Day National Entrepreneurs of the Year Award in 2017. The girls loved working together and wanted to continue their entrepreneurial journey by starting a business. With the support of their families, Hailey and Katie sought out to bring the trendiest lemon- and fruit-themed products to their followers. They launched an online store and also sell their products at events, including a pop up store in a Louisville mall during the holidays. The talented entrepreneurs have also appeared on television and radio since beginning their venture and were even named Treasurer for the Day by Kentucky State Treasurer, Allison Ball. This will be their second speaking engagement at the Lemonade Day/Gallup briefing. Last year, they also spent time on Capital Hill lobbying for passage of mandates on financial literacy as well as re-visiting permitting and licensing requirements for lemonade stands.

Karen Kerrigan - Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council

Karen Kerrigan - For nearly twenty-five years Karen Kerrigan’s leadership, advocacy and training work has helped foster U.S. entrepreneurship and global business growth.  She is president & CEO of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, and is the group’s chief advocate for its members. Kerrigan regularly testifies before the U.S. Congress on the key issues impacting entrepreneurs, investment and the economy, and has been appointed to numerous federal advisory boards including the National Women’s Business Council, the U.S.-Iraq Business Dialog, the U.S. Treasury’s Taxpayer Advisory Panel, and the National Advisory Committee for Labor Provisions of U.S. Free Trade Agreements. She has been called America’s “entrepreneurial envoy” and “small business ambassador” for her extensive speaking, knowledge sharing and capacity-building work overseas. Kerrigan is a founding member of the World Entrepreneurship Forum, and has provided counsel to governments and business associations across the globe regarding entrepreneurial development, capacity building, policy formation and implementation. In July 2018, Kerrigan was named to Fit Small Business’s “Top Small Business Influencers of 2018.” 

Brian Park - Real Time Cases, Startup Grind DC, Fishbowl Labs

Brian Park is a public speaker, director of technology at Real Time Cases, director at Startup Grind – DC, managing partner at Fishbowl Labs, investor, and startup advisor. He was listed on Forbes 17 Top Business Gurus. He has 18 years of product development experience from various internet companies including AOL and Startup Grind (Google for Entrepreneurs). At Real Time Cases, his goal is to build a product that delivers the highest quality and value to the user’s educational experience. As the Director (Wash. D.C.) of Startup Grind, Brian is part of the largest independent startup community which actively educates, inspires, and connects more than 1.5 million entrepreneurs in over 500 chapters. The organization nurtures startup ecosystems in 125 countries through events, media, and partnership with other organizations.

Amanda Roman - Conscious Capitalism, Inc.

Amanda Kathryn Roman has been called a cultural translator, a catalyst for creativity, an innovative designer, a dynamic highenergy speaker, a rockstar facilitator, a maven network-builder, and a transformational coach. She is a wanderlust woman who travels the world training, speaking, and connecting leaders from a variety of sectors for sustainable impact in their field; an adventure-seeking wife that has enjoyed living on both coasts with her husband and countless joyful road trips; and a fierce momma of three who schedules dance parties and road-trips with her magical children. Amanda lives in passionate pursuit of service to others and for more than two decades has been traveling in planes, trains, automobiles, buses, boats -- and even a gondola -- while successfully navigating the board meetings of countless service organizations; the green rooms of local and national media outlets; the halls of Congress; the inner sanctums of Fortune 500 companies; the offices of international policy organizations and elected officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Switzerland, Romania, and Germany; the West Wing of the White House and the chambers of state legislatures; as well as the homes of philanthropists to deliver sustainable results imbued with love and legacy. Amanda has trained thousands and is recognized as a trailblazer in the fields of leadership, government, and community engagement having worked in every state in the US. She has undergone extensive training in the science of happiness, the proven strategies of high performance, and holistic lifestyle practices in which she roots her offerings through coaching, training, speaking, and event design. Amanda’s work has been profiled in a variety of outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and New York Post. 

At Conscious Capitalism, Inc. Amanda is building on her twenty-five years in executive leadership where she bridged significant divides and created numerous alliances between the public and private sectors by connecting stakeholders from the arenas of business, investment, academia, government, community and media to unleash the potential of each individual in the ecosystem. Now she drives global innovation and strategic alignment for Conscious Capitalism while directing the incubation of learning and development experiences that support business leaders in integrating and implementing conscious business principles through mastermind gatherings, on-site workshops, site visits, online curriculum, and a series of experiential conferences around the world. Amanda also leads the initiative to support a diversified representation of business leaders in the growing global movement of leaders who live and lead according to the Conscious Capitalist Credo. Internally, she provides organization-wide coaching and serves as a member of the Conscious Capitalism, Inc. executive leadership team to support organizational development.