S P E A K E R S

S P E A K E R S

S C H E D U L E

S C H E D U L E

K E Y N O T E S

K E Y N O T E S

A T T E N D

A T T E N D

2025 KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

sponsored by

Michelle Anne Johnson

Candace Doby

Leadership Development Strategist, Author, and Founder of The Can-Do Company

Candace Doby is founder of The Can-Do Company. She is a leadership development strategist, author of A Cool Girl’s Guide To Courage, and professional speaker who works with organizations to create a culture of courage where employees spend less time and energy censoring and hiding themselves and more time performing at their highest potential.

Candace combines a decade of research on courage with her experiences traveling the world solo and a 16-year, award-winning marketing career — much of which was spent leading teams at Chipotle. This unique combination equips her with the actionable strategies she has shared with leaders across the globe to help them courageously speak up, step up and show up in the workplace. Her work has been featured on MSNBC, NPR and TEDx.

Candace is the creator of The Courage Hotline podcast and host of The Own Your Brilliance retreat.

Hollywood Actress, Corporate VP and Consultant

As a Hollywood actress, Michelle embodied the art of influence on stages and television for over 20 years on shows such as Friends, Bones, CSI: Miami, Modem Family. and NCIS. In practice of the craft, Michelle uncovered that acting is really about getting to the truth of your experience and finding yourself in whatever role you play.

Also known as The Speech Queen, she has facilitated dozens of workshops for companies such as Lowe's, Deloitte, AbbVie, Amex, Cisco, Genentech, and KPMG, and is an executive coach for senior leaders at major corporations.

With a BA in Psychology and an MBA, Michelle combines leadership communication and personal transformation principles to guide leaders to step into their personal power, deliver stand-out presentations and keynotes, successfully win promotions. achieve desired outcomes from strategic conversations and discover authentic, confident, and purposeful leadership.

2025 WORKSHOP INSTRUCTORS

WORKSHOP – Mastering Productive Conflict

Deep dive into the various conflict styles, behaviors and triggers. Learn your personal conflict style and how to engage opposite conflict styles effectively and with minimal anxiety. Workshop attendees will leave with tools to engage opposite conflict styles effectively and through small group discussions and instruction will walk away with opposite conflict style solutions to implement in the workplace.

This workshop is perfect for:

  • New or seasoned managers with challenging teams

  • Leaders navigating a difficult boss, direct report or co-worker

  • Professionals who typically avoid or cave during conflict

  • Those who simply want to get better results from conflict engagement

President, The Leadership Bridge

Before starting her company, Deborah “Deb” Degner spent over twenty years as a specialist in communications and stakeholder relations in the public and private sectors. She has held numerous leadership roles in multiple industries. Deb was a Team Lead at EnCana Oil & Gas in Dallas and served as a lead lobbyist for Noble Energy in Pennsylvania. She began her career in Washington, D.C., and worked for several federal and state elected officials.

She started her company, The Leadership Bridge, in 2016 and specializes in individual coaching and customized group leadership programs. Her focus areas are team dynamics, hard conversations, and conflict management. As a certified professional coach, she works with various clients, including executives, managers, trade associations, academic leaders, business owners, and emerging leaders.

Candace Doby

WORKSHOP – Courage-Ready Culture: How to Get & Keep Teams Engaged for Good


Learn and apply the real-world skills that create an empowered workplace culture where everyone is equipped and supported to speak up, show up and step up with courage. By the end of this 90-minute workshop, participants will be able to follow the courage process employees undergo to prepare themselves to own their brilliance at work, identify key opportunities within that process to deliberately engage and support their teams in taking worthwhile risks and apply key strategies to those opportunities that, when repeated, start to create a culture where employees are engaged, ready, willing and able to courageously speak up, step up and show up.

This workshop is perfect for:

  • Leaders looking to increase innovation by cultivating an environment where risk-taking is routine

  • Managers and leaders who want to build teams where everyone can contribute and perform to their potential

  • Leaders looking to drive long-term employee engagement and productivity

Deb Degner

Leadership Development Strategist, Author, and Founder of The Can-Do Company

Candace Doby is founder of The Can-Do Company. She is a leadership development strategist, author of A Cool Girl’s Guide To Courage, and professional speaker who works with organizations to create a culture of courage where employees spend less time and energy censoring and hiding themselves and more time performing at their highest potential.

Candace combines a decade of research on courage with her experiences traveling the world solo and a 16-year, award-winning marketing career — much of which was spent leading teams at Chipotle. This unique combination equips her with the actionable strategies she has shared with leaders across the globe to help them courageously speak up, step up and show up in the workplace. Her work has been featured on MSNBC, NPR and TEDx.

Candace is the creator of The Courage Hotline podcast and host of The Own Your Brilliance retreat.

Previous Keynote Speakers

  • Soledad O'Brien

    Award-Winning Journalist, Entrepreneur & Host of the Weekly Syndicated Political Show Matter of Fact

  • Mia Hamm

    Founder & CEO, Mia Hamm Foundation & World Soccer Champion

  • Christy Turlington Burns

    Advocate & Founder of Every Mother Counts

  • Cara Brookins

    Author & Motivational Speaker

  • Shiza Shahid

    Cofounder of Malala Fund, Our Place & Now Ventures

  • Janet Stovall

    TED Speaker, Author and Global Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at NeuroLeadership Institute

  • Randi Zuckerberg

    CEO & Founder of HUG, Creator of Facebook Live

  • Rebecca Minkoff

    Founder of Rebecca Minkoff and The Female Founder Collective

  • Danielle Weisberg & Carly Zakin

    Cofounders of The Skimm

2025 Sponsors

  • DELTA DENTAL OF ARKANSAS

    CO-PRESENTING SPONSOR

  • THE HATCHER AGENCY

    CO-PRESENTING SPONSOR

  • BAPTIST HEALTH

    WELLNESS SPONSOR

  • SIMMONS BANK

    KEYNOTE SPONSOR

  • DESIGN1

    VIP SPONSOR

  • CARTI

    EXECUTIVE TRACK SPONSOR

  • WOMAN RUN (WLJ)

    ENTREPRENEUR TRACK SPONSOR

  • STEPHENS

    LEADING LADIES TRACK SPONSOR

  • WOMEN'S FOUNDATION OF ARKANSAS

    RESOURCE SPONSOR

  • CROW COUNSELING

    SUPPORTING SPONSOR

  • STONE WARD

    SUPPORTING SPONSOR

CORPORATE TABLE SPONSORS

Arvest Bank

Baptist Health College Little Rock

Ben E. Keith

Mitchell Williams Law Firm

UAMS

US Bank

Windstream