Join our panel of experts who have ties to local Utah companies making a real difference in diversity and inclusion
*PLEASE NOTE*: Due to security at Goldman Sachs all participants names are required 48 hours ahead of the event. Please register by 2/18 so we can ensure your participation.
Thursday, February 20th from 11:30AM - 1:30PM
at Goldman Sachs, 222 S Main, Salt Lake City, UT 84111
Lunch Sponsor: Goldman Sachs
Chapter Sponsor: Kaitlin Butler
PANEL MODERATOR
Name, Title: Clark Newell, Queer Tech SLC Leader
W. Clark Newell is a Utah native, born in Provo and raised in American Fork. Clark was raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and served a two year mission in Hamburg, Germany. Upon returning from Germany, Clark began a music degree at Brigham Young University and completed two semesters after which he made the conscientious decision to leave BYU and the LDS faith. Clark supported himself through this life change by working for Discover Card for several years. In 2005, Clark turned to the University of Utah to complete his Bachelor’s Degree in Music with a German minor. This pursuit took several years as Clark was simultaneously working full time for the University as Administrative Assistant for the Nanotechnology Institute of Utah and later the Center for Engineering Innovation.
After graduation from the University of Utah, Clark moved to Denver, Colorado originally to pursue a Masters Degree in Music but ultimately felt more inspired to complete the Software Development Immersive at Galvanize, which is a full time 6-month “bootcamp”. After completion of this program, Clark returned back to Utah to pursue growing opportunities at home on the Silicon Slopes. Clark completed a 11-month full stack software development internship at Red Pepper Software in Pleasant Grove. Post-internship, Clark is working on personal content and coding projects while applying for front-end development roles in Utah.
Clark is a regular attendee of and has presented at UtahJS in Salt Lake City. Clark is also a co-leader of Queer Tech SLC, a networking and social group for LGBTQ engineers in the Salt Lake City area. Clark balances screen time with continued piano study, and training for Cirque Series Mountain Races in Utah and Alaska, Summer 2020.
PANEL
Name, Title: Sara Jones, CEO InclusionPro
Sara Jones is CEO of InclusionPro®, where she consults thoughtful leaders on building inclusive cultures, with a particular focus on team performance and team innovation. Sara has 20 years of experience within companies leading vision, diversity and inclusion, talent, workforce, operations, partnerships, content/product, fundraising and legal strategies. Sara is also co-founder and COO of Women Tech Council (WTC), a national organization focused on the economic impact of women in driving high growth for the technology sector. Sara currently serves on the Board of Trustees for Intermountain Healthcare Salt Lake Valley Hospitals and as a D&I Advisory Board member for global company Dyno Nobel.
Sara was CEO of ApplicantPro, an HR technology company providing recruiting tools with a strong female workforce. She was VP of Strategic Development at Patent Law Works, an IP firm based in Silicon Valley that has received several diversity awards. She was head of business development at School Improvement Network, an educational technology company, where she led product development and business development. There, she developed professional development content on educational best practices delivered through on-demand video. She started her career as a patent attorney, leading diversity efforts and became a partner at Workman Nydegger. Sara has a J.D. law from Brigham Young University and a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Utah.
Name, Title: Michael Deninno, Consumer and Investment Management Goldman Sachs
Michael is head of Salt Lake City Engineering in addition to his regional responsibility for Consumer and Investment Management Technology in Salt Lake City. He is also global co-head of investment Management Federation Technology. Michael is co-sponsor of Salt Lake City Disability Interest Forum, a diversity champion for Salt Lake City Technology and a member of the Salt Lake City Leadership Council.
Michael joined Goldman Sachs in 1989 as a developer in Treasury Operations Technology. In 1997, Michael moved to Asset Management Operations Technology and relocated to Tokyo in 1999 to oversee Asia Asset Management Technology. Upon returning to the United States in 2001, he was responsible for Investment Accounting Technology and oversaw the initial migration of the investment accounting function to Archon, formerly a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs. In 2002, Michael assumed oversight for Legal and Compliance Technology, focused on initial transaction surveillance and anti-money laundering solutions. From 2005 to 2008, he was responsible for Human Capital Management, Compensation Accounting, and Services Technology solutions. Prior to assuming his current roles and relocating to Salt Lake City in 2012, Michael was a senior manager in Operations Technology for four years, managing the Regulatory Operations Technology teams in the United States and India and globally leading the technology agenda for global regulatory position reporting, Legal Entity Management, and Goldman Sachs Bank USA regulation. Michael was named managing director in 2013.
Michael serves on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee for Junior Achievement of Utah. He served on FINRA’s Technology Advisory Committee from 2011 to 2013.
Michael earned a BS in Computer Science from St. John’s University.
Name, Title: Neelam Chand, SVP, Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Zion’s Bank
Neelam Chand is an accomplished diversity, equity, and inclusion expert with a decade of experience of embedding multiculturalism into a business strategy and facilitating critical dialogue on systemic change within a workplace environment. She currently works at Zions Bank as an SVP, Diversity and Inclusion Officer, where she provides workshops on topics that include social justice, tokenism, microaggressions, implicit bias, intersectionality, and women of color in the workplace. When it comes to inclusion work, her philosophy is to "keep it real" and to skip the etiquette of making people feel comfortable. She believes that people must feel uncomfortable to begin the process of empathy and inspire positive change.
Before joining Zions Bank, she was a director of marketing and communications for the University of Utah's Office for Equity and Diversity. From 2009 to 2013, Chand was executive director of Ten Thousand Villages, a nonprofit fair-trade retailer. She holds a bachelor's degree in public relations and marketing from the University of Utah. Chand serves on the Salt Lake City Human Rights MLK Commission Board, the University of Utah Tanner Center for Human Rights Advisory Board, the Utah Polynesian Professionals Board, and the Get Healthy Utah Board of Directors. She is a past member of the University of Utah Presidential Anti-Racism Task Force.
Name, Title: Emma E. Houston, Director, Diversity & Inclusion, Office of the Mayor, Salt Lake County, CEO Brighter Day Productions, LLC
Emma E. Houston hails from Texas, lived in Florida for 10 years and has been a resident of Utah since 1986, which she now calls home. Emma works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems within the social sector to increase awareness around diversity, inclusion, equity and high performance. Her purpose is focused on designing and creating opportunities for spaces that celebrates, acknowledges, embraces and understands the overachieving importance of diversity, inclusion and equity. Emma helps organizations to define, implement, and advance best practices and strategies internally, while showcasing their work externally to create a social impact for change across the community.
A longtime community member, Emma was appointed in 2016 as Diversity & Inclusion Director by Mayor Ben McAdams and currently serves with Mayor Jenny Wilson for Salt Lake County’s Office of Diversity Affairs. Emma was also appointed by Governor Herbert as the chair of the Utah MLK Commission. She serves on several community boards.
As a consultant through Brighter Day Productions, she has keynoted and trained several organization on diversity, inclusion and high performance. Her sessions are requested by customers from all walks of professions which have included legal services, state government, colleges and universities, boards of directors, and non-profit organizations.
Emma holds a BS in Business Management and a MBA in Business Administration and is the owner and CEO of Brighter Day Productions, LLC. Emma was named one of the 30 Women to Watch for her work in diversity and inclusion and by Living Color Utah.
Name, Title: Elle Griffin, Editor in Chief for Utah Business Magazine
Elle Griffin is the editor-in-chief for Utah Business Magazine as well as a freelance writer and editor with bylines at Forbes, Medium, The Muse, and Yahoo. She is currently completing her first fiction novel and is in the process of adapting it for the screen as part of the Sundance screenwriters program.
Elle holds undergraduate degrees in fashion merchandising and French and has completed her graduate studies in Mariology, the study of the Virgin Mary. As part of her final project, she recreated eight iconic portraits of the Virgin Mary using modern photography with the intention of recasting outdated Middle-Age and Renaissance-era feminine ideals for the contemporary era.
Elle volunteers for Utah's CASA program and sits on the board for Utah County Arts & Culture which advises the Eccles, Capital Theatre, Rose Wagner, and Abravanel Hall performing arts centers. You can learn more about Elle and her work at ellegriffin.com
InclusionPro
CEO
Queer Tech SLC
Leader
Goldman Sachs
Consumer and Investment Management
Zions Bank
SVP, Diversity and Inclusion Officer
Office of the Mayor, Salt Lake County, CEO Brighter Day Productions, LLC
Director, Diversity & Inclusion
Utah Business Magazine
Editor in Chief
Sara Jones is CEO of InclusionPro®, where she consults thoughtful leaders on building inclusive cultures, with a particular focus on team performance and team innovation. As a consultant, she has keynoted or trained over 80 groups on inclusive leadership, high performing teams, talent strategies, and career skills. Her clients range in industries such as technology, engineering, manufacturing, financial services, legal services, e-commerce, and non-profit organizations. Sara was recently honored as Utah Business Magazine’s CEO of the Year, a Distinguished Alumna from the University of Utah College of Engineering, and a Utah Innovation Awardee. Sara was adopted from South Korea and found her birth family after 42 years of separation. She spoke at TEDxSaltLakeCity about transracial adoption: https://youtu.be/RMM9FhZiP80.
Sara has 20 years of experience within companies leading vision, diversity and inclusion, talent, workforce, operations, partnerships, content/product, fundraising and legal strategies. Sara is also co-founder and COO of Women Tech Council (WTC), a national organization focused on the economic impact of women in driving high growth for the technology sector. Sara currently serves on the Board of Trustees for Intermountain Healthcare Salt Lake Valley Hospitals and as a D&I Advisory Board member for global company Dyno Nobel.
Sara was CEO of ApplicantPro, an HR technology company providing recruiting tools with a strong female workforce. She was VP of Strategic Development at Patent Law Works, an IP firm based in Silicon Valley that has received several diversity awards. She was head of business development at School Improvement Network, an educational technology company, where she led product development and business development. There, she developed professional development content on educational best practices delivered through on-demand video. She started her career as a patent attorney, leading diversity efforts and became a partner at Workman Nydegger. Sara has a J.D. law from Brigham Young University and a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Utah.
W. Clark Newell is a Utah native, born in Provo and raised in American Fork. As a child, Clark attended the Waterford School, originally founded in Provo by Wicat Computer Systems. Clark later returned to the public-school system and graduated from American Fork High School. Clark was also raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and served a two year mission in Hamburg, Germany. Upon returning from Germany, Clark began a music degree at Brigham Young University and completed two semesters after which he made the conscientious decision to leave BYU and the LDS faith. Clark supported himself through this life change by working for Discover Card for several years as a Cardmember Service Team Leader while continuously pursuing interests in electronic music composition and outdoor recreation.
In 2005, Clark turned to the University of Utah to complete his Bachelor’s Degree in Music with a German minor. This pursuit took several years as Clark was simultaneously working full time for the University as Administrative Assistant for the Nanotechnology Institute of Utah and later the Center for Engineering Innovation.
After graduation from the University of Utah, Clark moved to Denver, Colorado originally to pursue a Masters Degree in Music but ultimately felt more inspired to complete the Software Development Immersive at Galvanize, which is a full time 6-month “bootcamp”. After completion of this program, Clark returned back to Utah to pursue growing opportunities at home on the Silicon Slopes. Clark completed a 11-month full stack software development internship at Red Pepper Software in Pleasant Grove. Post-internship, Clark is working on personal content and coding projects while applying for front-end development roles in Utah.
Clark is a regular attendee of and has presented at UtahJS in Salt Lake City. Clark is also a co-leader of Queer Tech SLC, a networking and social group for LGBTQ engineers in the Salt Lake City area. Clark balances screen time with continued piano study, and training for Cirque Series Mountain Races in Utah and Alaska, Summer 2020.
Michael is head of Salt Lake City Engineering in addition to his regional responsibility for Consumer and Investment Management Technology in Salt Lake City. He is also global co-head of investment Management Federation Technology. Michael is co-sponsor of Salt Lake City Disability Interest Forum, a diversity champion for Salt Lake City Technology and a member of the Salt Lake City Leadership Council.
Michael joined Goldman Sachs in 1989 as a developer in Treasury Operations Technology. In 1997, Michael moved to Asset Management Operations Technology and relocated to Tokyo in 1999 to oversee Asia Asset Management Technology. Upon returning to the United States in 2001, he was responsible for Investment Accounting Technology and oversaw the initial migration of the investment accounting function to Archon, formerly a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs. In 2002, Michael assumed oversight for Legal and Compliance Technology, focused on initial transaction surveillance and anti-money laundering solutions. From 2005 to 2008, he was responsible for Human Capital Management, Compensation Accounting, and Services Technology solutions. Prior to assuming his current roles and relocating to Salt Lake City in 2012, Michael was a senior manager in Operations Technology for four years, managing the Regulatory Operations Technology teams in the United States and India and globally leading the technology agenda for global regulatory position reporting, Legal Entity Management, and Goldman Sachs Bank USA regulation. Michael was named managing director in 2013.
Michael serves on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee for Junior Achievement of Utah. He served on FINRA’s Technology Advisory Committee from 2011 to 2013.
Michael earned a BS in Computer Science from St. John’s University.
Neelam Chand is an accomplished diversity, equity, and inclusion expert with a decade of experience of embedding multiculturalism into a business strategy and facilitating critical dialogue on systemic change within a workplace environment. She currently works at Zions Bank as an SVP, Diversity and Inclusion Officer, where she provides workshops on topics that include social justice, tokenism, microaggressions, implicit bias, intersectionality, and women of color in the workplace. When it comes to inclusion work, her philosophy is to "keep it real" and to skip the etiquette of making people feel comfortable. She believes that people must feel uncomfortable to begin the process of empathy and inspire positive change.
Before joining Zions Bank, she was a director of marketing and communications for the University of Utah's Office for Equity and Diversity. From 2009 to 2013, Chand was executive director of Ten Thousand Villages, a nonprofit fair-trade retailer. She holds a bachelor's degree in public relations and marketing from the University of Utah. Chand serves on the Salt Lake City Human Rights MLK Commission Board, the University of Utah Tanner Center for Human Rights Advisory Board, the Utah Polynesian Professionals Board, and the Get Healthy Utah Board of Directors. She is a past member of the University of Utah Presidential Anti-Racism Task Force.
Emma E. Houston hails from Texas, lived in Florida for 10 years and has been a resident of Utah since 1986, which she now calls home. Emma works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems within the social sector to increase awareness around diversity, inclusion, equity and high performance. Her purpose is focused on designing and creating opportunities for spaces that celebrates, acknowledges, embraces and understands the overachieving importance of diversity, inclusion and equity. Emma helps organizations to define, implement, and advance best practices and strategies internally, while showcasing their work externally to create a social impact for change across the community.
A longtime community member, Emma was appointed in 2016 as Diversity & Inclusion Director by Mayor Ben McAdams and currently serves with Mayor Jenny Wilson for Salt Lake County’s Office of Diversity Affairs. Emma was also appointed by Governor Herbert as the chair of the Utah MLK Commission. She serves on several community boards which includes; the Reverend France A. Davis Scholarship Foundation, You Got This! Interfaith Women’s Conference, the Utah Diversity Connection, the Anne Stirba Cancer Foundation, the Huntsman Cancer Foundation Community Advisory Committee and PBS Utah. Emma is also the Vice-President of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, Upsilon Beta Omega Chapter and was appointed to serve on the International Disaster Relief Committee.
As a consultant through Brighter Day Productions, she has keynoted and trained several organization on diversity, inclusion and high performance. Her sessions are requested by customers from all walks of professions which have included legal services, state government, colleges and universities, boards of directors, and non-profit organizations.
Emma holds a BS in Business Management and a MBA in Business Administration and is the owner and CEO of Brighter Day Productions, LLC. Emma was named one of the 30 Women to Watch for her work in diversity and inclusion and by Living Color Utah.
Elle Griffin is the editor-in-chief for Utah Business Magazine as well as a freelance writer and editor with bylines at Forbes, Medium, The Muse, and Yahoo. She is currently completing her first fiction novel and is in the process of adapting it for the screen as part of the Sundance screenwriters program.
Elle holds undergraduate degrees in fashion merchandising and French and has completed her graduate studies in Mariology, the study of the Virgin Mary. As part of her final project, she recreated eight iconic portraits of the Virgin Mary using modern photography with the intention of recasting outdated Middle-Age and Renaissance-era feminine ideals for the contemporary era.
Elle volunteers for Utah's CASA program and sits on the board for Utah County Arts & Culture which advises the Eccles, Capital Theatre, Rose Wagner, and Abravanel Hall performing arts centers. You can learn more about Elle and her work at ellegriffin.com or by subscribing to her newsletter at ellegriffin.com/newsletter. She can also be found on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/ellegriffin.
Instructure
Chapter Chair
Springbuk
Chapter Organizer
Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development
Chapter Organizer
Instructure
Team Lead Engineering
Salt Lake City Department of Economic Development
Recruitment and Retention Manager
Fragomen Worldwide
Chapter Organizer
