Kim Annunziata is Director of Supply Chain Management at Delta Airlines. Prior to joining Delta Airlines, Annunziata was the Southern Group Procurement Director for Waste Management, Incorporated, a Vice President at Bear Stearns & Company in the Crude Oil and Natural Gas Trading unit, Corporate Director of Supply Management at M.A. Hanna Company, and Senior Trader at BP and The Williams Companies. She began her career in the U.S. Navy as a Supply Corps Officer, retiring as a Commander. Annunziata received her Bachelors degree in Business Administration from Miami University in Oxford, OH and her Master of Science in Management from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. Residing in Atlanta, Annunziata regularly supports Westminster School student activities, and is a founding member of the Waste Management Women's Professional Network.

Virginia Atkins, Senior National Accounts Manager

FleetCor Technologies

Vice President

Vision-Makers and Sprayberry Travel

Mary Jane is Vice President of Vision-Makers and Sprayberry Travel. She has worked with Sprayberry Travel since 1988. Her primary responsibilities include oversight of Vision-Makers, the corporate incentive, meeting planning and special event division and the Leisure division. Sprayberry Travel has grown from revenue of 5 million in 1988 to being ranked as 13th in metropolitan Atlanta by the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Mary Jane is a speaker whose focus is travel security and travel “deals”. She works with corporations on a variety of employee motivation programs, performance rewards and travel management consulting. Travel is the 3 largest expenditure of most corporations and controlling this cost is a focus for her consulting.

Mary Jane is active in the metropolitan Atlanta community. She is the immediate past president of the Atlanta Women’s Network. She serves on the Atlanta Women’s Alliance board and is a member of the Board of Directors Network. She is also a member of the Georgia chapter of Meeting Professionals International.

Denise L. Billups has held a variety of sales management and customer support positions during the past 23 years. She joined IBM as a Systems Engineering trainee in Los Angeles, California in 1978 and held several field and area staff marketing assignments before moving to Atlanta and being promoted to Systems Engineering manager in 1987.

Ms. Billups held management positions in marketing, sales, and consulting organizations over the following nine years. During that time, she also spent one year on special assignment leading a strategic seminar for over 6000 IBM employees in the Southern geography. This seminar was designed to help IBM employees to increase their personal and professional effectiveness, enhance their customer relationship building skills, and to help them accept and effectively manage change.
In 1996, Denise became the Gold Service Telesales Executive in the ibm.com Atlanta Sales Center. In 2000, she was promoted to Director, ibm.com Atlanta Services Center. Denise was then named Director, Sales Execution and Operations, ibm.com Americas in 2002, where she was responsible for an $8B revenue plan.

In her current position, Denise leads the Software sales teams in the ibm.com Americas Sales Centers in Atlanta, Dallas, North Reading, and Toronto. Her team consists of over 300 highly skilled inside sales professionals who generate more than $170 million in software revenue annually.
Ms. Billups is a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles, where she received a B.A. degree in Business Economics in 1975. She is active with many IBM groups dedicated to enhancing diversity, mentoring and leadership development. She is also very active in the community and serves on boards of Quality Care for Children, Sheltering Arms, Atlanta Women's Network, Atlanta Women's Alliance, and Cool Girls, Inc. She has in the past served on the Board of Directors of the Greater Atlanta Metropolitan YWCA and the Georgia 100, where she still serves as a mentor to professional women outside of IBM. Denise regularly volunteers her time to many other charitable organizations with a particular focus on literacy and initiatives related to addressing children, minority, women's issues

Kathy Leggett Eldridge

Certified Public Accountant

As a sole practitioner licensed in Georgia, Kathy provides various accounting and audit preparation services to nonprofit clients.  Her areas of expertise include providing accounting, auditing, compliance, and consulting services to organizations including churches, religious organizations, voluntary health and welfare organizations, and membership-based associations.  Kathy has drafted accounting policies and procedures manuals for several churches including the evaluation of these churches’ internal control systems.  She holds a Certificate of Educational Achievement in Governmental/Nonprofit Accounting and Auditing from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.  She has presented workshops and seminars for the Georgia Society of Certified Public Accountants (GSCPA), Automated Church Systems (ACS) Users’ Group in Atlanta, National Business Managers’ Conference for Alumni Associations, ACS National Convention, as well as the Atlanta and Peach State chapters of the National Association of Church Business Administrators.

Kathy has been practicing in public accounting since 1991 when she first joined Brooks, McGinnis & Company, LLC (a local firm of Certified Public Accountants) in Atlanta.  She began as a staff accountant and attained ownership in that Firm.  Kathy left in 2006 to establish her own practice.    

Mary Lou Bryant Frank, Ph.D. received degrees in Speech Communication, Counseling, and Psychology from Colorado State University, with a doctoral internship at the University of Delaware. A licensed psychologist, she has received the Distinguished Provider Award in Counseling. She has been the recipient of grants, national leadership awards, teaching and diversity leadership awards, and awards for community service. She has been named in lists of Who's Who and has been a consultant and speaker nationally and internationally on first year programs, learning communities, student success, women in higher education, ethics, leadership, and faculty development.

Dr. Frank has published in journals and textbooks. At Arizona State University, she coordinated the Eating Disorders treatment program and team, co-coordinated the master's and doctoral practicum training programs, and taught in the graduate program in counseling. She was associate professor and assistant academic dean at the University of Virginia at Wise. Dr. Frank next served as professor and department head of Psychology & Sociology at North Georgia College & State University. Prior to coming to Gainesville State, she served as the Dean of Undergraduate Studies and the University College at Kennesaw State University.

Dr. Frank most recently has been the president of the Georgia Association for Women in Higher Education and is the Vice President for the Georgia Women's Institute. She serves on many boards in addition to being active in numerous professional and community associations.

Emily Bourne Grigsby, Attorney & Mediator

Emily Bourne Grigsby, an accomplished artist, Emily Grigsby's paintings reflect her broad interests, travel and educational experiences and her zest for life. She balances her weekly schedule as an Attorney Arbitrator, Mediator and a painter. She has had 12 one person shows and group exhibits throughout the South, California and France. Emily graduated from Mills College, Georgia Institute of Technology and Woodrow Wilson College of Law.

Kathleen Hall is a native of Atlanta and attended West Georgia College. She has worked in the travel industry in Los Angeles and Atlanta for the last 24 years, 17 of them with Sprayberry Travel. During her career she has worked in management, corporate and vacation travel and has planned and escorted groups, many of which have been to Mexico. More recently she has been traveling with women's group to spas.

Kathleen has served on the Boards of the Atlanta Women's Network, the Atlanta Women's Alliance and on the membership committee of the International Alliance of Women and is a 20 year member of the Chattahoochee Plantation Women's Club. She is active in fund raising in her community for worthy purposes that benefit the residents and has supported causes that impact women and enrich their lives through a group at her church.

Pat Koehn, President, Koehn Financial Group, Inc., an independent, fee-based financial planning firm, is an expert at assisting a wide range of clients - from small business owners and corporate executives to retirees and women in life transition.

As a certified financial planner with more than 25 years of experience, she helps them to develop their financial goals while helping them to conquer procrastination and to increase their confidence in making financial decisions. A financial consultant for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Atlanta Business Chronicle, Ms. Koehn is also featured guest on the local radio talk show "Women Want To Know" and a frequent speaker at meetings of women's organizations in the Southeast.

Joyce LaValle

Sr. VP of Associate and Customer Engagement

Interface Americas

A veteran in the commercial interiors industry and advocate for environmental sustainability, Joyce LaValle serves as senior vice president of associate and customer engagement for Interface Americas. Joyce is responsible for developing and enhancing initiatives designed to strengthen the company’s ties among associates and customers.  Joyce is also responsible for engaging for customers and associates in Mission Zero™, which is Interface’s mission to become sustainable and reduce and/or eliminate its environmental footprint by the year 2020. Joyce joined Interface in 1982.

Helene Lollis, President

PATHBUILDERS, Inc.

Helene Lollis is the President of PATHBUILDERS, Inc., an organization focused on helping companies shape the future with high-performing women.  PATHBUILDERS works with clients to increase the gender-diversity of their senior leadership teams and focuses on the development of high-potential women at four key stages in their careers.   Since 1995, the organization has worked with over 300 organizations and has impacted the career success of more than 2000 Atlanta-area women.

Prior to being with PATHBUILDERS, Helene spent 12 years with Amoco and then BP Corporations in a wide range of responsibilities in the commodity plastics arena.  An engineer by education, her work spanned the areas of process and product development, marketing, strategic planning, and mergers/acquisitions.  She successfully combines highly-technical skills with broad business sense, and brings tremendous energy to all that she does.  In addition to her Bachelors and Masters degrees in Chemical Engineering, Helene is a graduate of Dartmouth’s Tuck-WBENC executive program for female entrepreneurs.

Helene is frequently invited to speak the topics of mentoring and career planning, both inside client companies (e.g., BellSouth, Home Depot, Coca-Cola Enterprises, etc.) and for other organizations (e.g., Georgia Tech’s Alumni Mentoring Program, The International Alliance for Women, the Buckhead Business Ass’n Leadership Development Program, the Jaycees, the Georgia Ass’n of Women Lawyers, etc.)

Helene is extremely active in the Atlanta community.  She serves on the Board of Directors of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, and she chairs the Teacher Recruitment subcommittee of the Chamber’s Regional Education initiative.  She also chairs the Chamber’s Small to Mid-Sized Business Council.  She is a member of the Board of Advisors for Women’s Leadership Exchange; she was just recently named to the Boards of Directors for the Possible Woman Foundation International and Junior Achievement of Georgia.  Helene has a long history as a Junior Achievement volunteer, and in 2006 she became a lead advisor in the inaugural JA Fellows Program.  She is also a volunteer wedding coordinator at her church.  Helene was selected as a finalist for the Metro Atlanta Chamber’s Small Business Person of the Year Award in 2005.

Myra McElhaney Myra McElhaney is a speaker, workshop leader and writer who helps companies and associations to improve workplace relationships and inspires people to push beyond their boundaries. Her programs are based on the belief that when people get along better they do better work, stress is reduced, morale goes up, and turnover goes down.

Investor's Business Daily, The Employment Review, Woman's World, and other renowned publications quote her frequently. Her articles have also appeared in various publications including Customer Relationship Management, Competitive Edge, USIndustry Today, and Atlanta Woman.
Myra's writing is featured in two anthology books published by James & Brookfield in Atlanta, Georgia. Among her professional affiliations: The International Alliance of Women, The National Association of Female Executives and the National Speakers Association.
Myra is currently writing a book based on interviews with 100 women who were "the first woman to…" in a variety of accomplishments. First Women: A Celebration of Women Who Pushed Beyond the Boundaries, scheduled for release in 2006.

Barbara B. Rose, president of New Generation Partnerships Inc., has twenty-five years experience in strategic planning, management, development, training, recruiting and fundraising and now heads up an all service firm for not-for- profit organizations. She has specialized in philanthropic management as Vice President for Development at Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital, Atlanta, in several positions at Georgia Institute of Technology, and Director of College Relations at Keystone College, La Plume, PA. Rose is co-author of Dollars for Dreams, a book on focused fundraising on campuses. In 1981, Ms. Rose was among twenty women chosen for the American Council on Education’s National Identification Program, in 1983 was the recipient of Association for Fund Raising Officers, Inc.’s Distinguished Service Award, and attended the 1995 United Nations Women’s Conference in Beijing. She is a member of the National Advisory Panel of The Women’s Museum, Dallas, Texas, on the board of the Center for International Business Education and Research at Georgia Institute of Technology, a board member of the Possible Woman Foundation International. Inc. and on the national board of Leadership America.

Melissa Vernon, Director of Sustainable Strategy

InterfaceFLOR

Melissa Vernon puts her money where her mouth is when it comes to preserving the environment, living her life mindfully of her impact.  She lives simply, drives a hybrid vehicle, has been television-free for more than four years, and has not bought a garbage bag in five years.  A triathlete since 2003, she mentors others training for their first race and has raised nearly $10,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  She takes a similar role at work, mentoring InterfaceFLOR’s sales team and customers on their personal and professional journey to more sustainable living and business.

Melissa is the Director of Sustainable Strategy for InterfaceFLOR.  She is responsible for maximizing business opportunities for InterfaceFLOR by strategically leveraging Interface’s leadership in Sustainable Development.  She works closely with technical, marketing, and sales to develop strategies, programs, and tools for Account Executives, enabling them to educate their customers.  She supports sales efforts as a Sustainability Expert and researches and returns trends and opportunities in the green product market to Interface.  As a liaison between several InterfaceFLOR departments, she ensures that Interface customers receive a more holistic approach in creating commercial interior environments to meet the needs of client, community, and environment.   Furthermore, she oversees the company’s image, messaging and presence at key environmental conferences.  Melissa is an active member of the Atlanta Chapter of the USGBC and served on the US Green Building Council’s Materials & Resources Technical Advisory Group for LEED in 2005 and host committee for GreenBuild 2005. 

Melissa spent her first two years at Interface Research in the Sustainable Operations group where she created the corporate greenhouse gas emissions inventory, bought renewable energy credits, assisted with a landfill gas direct-use project, developed carbon dioxide offset projects, and supported the launch of “Cool” (climate neutral) products.  She is a graduate of the University of Michigan, with an MBA from the Business School and an MS from the School of Natural Resources & Environment, and has a BS in biology from Duke University.  Melissa is a previous intern with Ford Motor Company’s Global Purchasing Planning Strategy sustainability group, has worked with the West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum developing their ‘Sustainable Facilities’ website, and assisted the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce in the initial stages of creating a Sustainable Business Forum for Southeastern Michigan.  She recently took on yet another mentoring role, being named to the Possible Woman Foundation International Board of Directors.  Their goal is to raise money for scholarships benefiting women returning to school after taking time off.