Chauncy Barnhill, MBA
Chairman
Senior Vice President, Operations Area Manager, Wells Fargo
Chauncy Barnhill is Senior Vice President and Leader of the Document Capture Center of Excellence Team within the Payments Virtual Solutions and Innovations Group at Wells Fargo. With over 25 years of management experience, Chauncy leads a diverse organization of approximately 450 employees who are accountable for the image capture, scanning, indexing, and research of documents in support of various lines of business across the Wells Fargo footprint. Born with limited hearing in his left ear, Chauncy has a passion for working with and hiring people with disabilities. In addition to representing Wells Fargo on the Disability:IN North Carolina board, he is an active member of Wells Fargo’s People with Disabilities Community of Practice, whose goal it is to provide a forum to build and exchange knowledge of talent acquisition practices and retention of people with disabilities in the workplace. Since 2010, teams under his leadership have hired over 100 people with disabilities as contractors and received multiple national awards and recognition for their efforts.
Yvette Pittman
Vice President
Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Manager, Biogen
Yvette Pittman serves as the DE&I site leader at the Biogen RTP manufacturing campus. She has over 15 years of managerial experience and transitioned to her DE&I role within Biogen about 4 years ago. In her global DE&I role, she is responsible for managing external partnerships, delivering global workforce initiatives that embed diversity, equity, and inclusion practices into workplace culture, overseeing leadership development programs for employees of color and supporting Biogen’s seven employee resource networks. Pittman earned a bachelor’s degree from UNC-Chapel Hill and continued her diversity and inclusion studies at Cornell University ILR School.
Blake Tinsley
Treasurer
Founder CEO, Prosyntix
Blake Tinsley is the founder and CEO of Prosyntix located in Charlotte, NC. Since 2017, his team at Prosyntix have been helping clients around the region fill the talent gap by identifying IT professionals specializing in analyzing and safeguarding data. Prior to that, Blake was in an advisory role for 9 years helping companies bridge the gap between business and technology through various IT solution offerings. He is a 2008 graduate from The Citadel, Military College of South Carolina holding a bachelor’s degree in business administration.
As an experienced sales director and entrepreneur, Blake has acquired significant expertise in budgeting, data center, contact centers, cloud computing, and virtualization. He has worked in several executive roles with a variety of high-profile IT companies, including Enterprise IT Security, High Performance Technologies, and Robert Half Technology.
Blake has received praise from various colleagues at his previous companies, who have cited his superb work ethic, his expertise as a team member, and his attention to detail and quality results. A member of DI-NC since 2017, Blake’s company, Prosyntix, is a certified disability-owned business enterprise.
Helen M. Calloway
Managing Director, Calloway & Associates
Helen M. Calloway is the founder of Calloway Associates, a financial accounting and information technology firm established over 39 years ago. Prior to starting her business, Ms. Calloway served eight (8) years in the United States Air Force, where she managed payroll, performed audits, reviewed budgeting proposals, analyzed financial reports, allocated funds/ approved payments, and established financial systems. She obtained her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Phoenix. Helen Calloway is an established member of the Raleigh community and is highly active in several community activities, including but not limited to preservation of historic landmarks. She serves as a Board Member for Mechanics & Farmers Bank, which is committed to economic growth in the urban landscape. Ms. Calloway has two adult children, Charles Jr. and Ashley, a beautiful grandson and a precocious 14- month old boxer.
Saima Cardwell
Supplier Diversity Specialist, SAS institute, Inc., Cary, North Carolina
Saima Cardwell is the Supplier Diversity Specialist at SAS Institute Inc in Cary, NC. She joined SAS in 1999 and has held various positions over the last 20 years. She has worked in Finance, Contracts, Proposals and Spending. Her experience in these customer facing roles has given her an in-depth knowledge of business development and strategic sourcing and procurement. Saima has always had a lifelong passion for helping others. Her current role allows her to use this passion and energy by engaging with diverse business owners, and SAS to diversify its supply chain with minority, women, veteran and disability-owned businesses. She has a bachelor’s from Campbell University and currently serves as the Board of Institute for Supply Chain Management Carolina Virginia-Triangle Chapter- Membership Chair.
Gabriela Francisco
Manager of Health Equity Operations, Novant Health
Gabriela Francisco is a health care professional with experience in corporate health strategy and background as an international board-certified lactation consultant (IBCLC). As a manager of health equity operations, she is responsible for the development and execution of strategic plans that address health care inequities, build measures for inclusion, and leverage the voices of diverse populations. She is passionate about learning diverse perspectives, intentionally engaging with groups that have been historically disinvested, and implementing initiatives that focus on equity for all people. She believes firmly that health care can and should be made accessible to all.
Lindsey A. Kroeger
Lindsey A. Kroeger brings over 16 years of experience to the table, which has involved leading highly complex supply chain, engineering, and customer facing operations for a $60B retailer. Her expertise includes large-scale multi-site leadership, regional start-ups, and process/performance optimization. During the last four years, Lindsey has worked at Ingersoll Rand, where she currently serves as the Distribution Center Leader. In her previous role as Ingersoll Rand’s Distribution and Logistics Center Operations Leader, she accumulated experience overseeing average shipments of $800k-$1M COGS daily worldwide; creating proactive On Time Shipment visibility for operations to track daily; creating an internal development culture for future leaders, moving 11 colleagues into salary roles over three years; and managing through the COVID-19 pandemic with no layoffs of the hourly workforce while maintaining record productivity.
Culture, talent development, and engagement are some of her core strengths, which Lindsey has demonstrated through her experience in customer facing final mile delivery and direct customer satisfaction management; engineering design of building flow, network profiling strategy, and compliance management; and leading large multi-level teams in new business functions and bringing cross-functional teams together.
Chantal Loo
Chantal Loo has worked with MetLife for 15 years and currently serves as Vice President of Global Infrastructure Risk and Security Assurance within MetLife’s Global Technology organization. Chantal has over 25 years of IT experience working for a top international consulting firm as well as one of the largest Fortune 50 insurance companies. She brings significant experience partnering with all levels of management and cross-functional teams bridging technology with business goals.
During her career with MetLife, Chantal has accumulated substantial experience managing multiple infrastructure disciplines/domains that comprised over 100 team members; overseeing the alignment of infrastructure services with MetLife’s business objectives; and managing the direction and leadership of the company’s overseas technology operations in Latin America. In her current role, Chantal is responsible for reducing risk with a focus on 1) Audit, Risk, and IT Controls Management, 2) Information Security posture improvement and 3) Robust management of Third Party/Vendor Managed Services Providers.
Ali Rutz
Teammate Relations, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist
Currently, Ali Rutz serves as the VP of Teammate Relations for Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, which is part of Advocate Health, the nation’s 5the largest nonprofit integrated health system. Together with her team, she actively works to align best practices for cultivating a positive and productive work environment that fosters teammate engagement and healthy work relationships.
Prior to joining Wake Forest Baptist, Ali served as Human Resources Program Manager for Atrium Health Greater Charlotte since 2019. In this role, she significantly contributed to organizational success by driving process improvement in numerous critical areas along with successfully updating and modernizing HR policies through strong partnerships. She was also instrumental in supporting a Teammates First strategy throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before joining Atrium Health, Ali held a variety of HR roles ranging in areas of responsibility from Division HR Leader at a large consulting firm based in St Louis, MO, to an HR Director at a major food retailer, where she spent 16 years in Human Resources and operations. She holds a Paralegal Certificate and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania and a Master of Business Administration degree with an emphasis in Human Resources from Lindenwood University in Missouri.
Greg Young, C.P.M., CPSM
Senior Category Manager-Indirect, Global Business Services, Trane Technologies
Greg Young has been with Trane Technologies since 2004 in various roles across Procurement and currently holds a role as Indirect Category Manager, Global Business Services. Greg is a co-chair for VisAbility, Trane Technologies Employee Resource Group for individuals with disabilities and has been instrumental in developing information programs for employees of Trane Technologies on disability inclusion strategies. Greg is a graduate of NC State University, College of Management where he earned an MBA in Operations and Supply Chain Management.