Fall 2019

Jesse serves as the firmwide head of Learning and Talent Solutions for JPMorgan Chase. His responsibilities include the management, direction and strategy development of this corporate function. This globally distributed and high impact learning organization supports more than 240,000 bank employees worldwide in addition to developing learning content for strategic vendors.

Jesse has been with the firm for over 25 years joining the bank via the firm’s Management Development Program after completing five-years of active duty in the United States Navy. He has also held several national leadership roles within Commercial Banking and Business Banking, serving as the national Client Service Executive. Jesse also held various Consumer Banking management roles, including: Branch Manager, Sales Manager and Division Sales Manager.

Jesse holds a Masters Degree from New York University, a Bachelors Degree from the University of Maryland and completed University of Denver’s Emerging Leaders Program. He also completed JPMorgan Chase’s Advance Credit Training and JPMorgan Leading through Execution CAO leadership training. Jesse holds Six Sigma Quality Improvement Black Belt certification, a Total Quality Management (TQM) Team Leader certification and is currently a doctorate student in New York University’s Innovation and Leadership Doctorate of Education Program.

Jesse currently serves as the North American Co-Chair to BOLD (Black Organization for Leadership Development) Business Resource Group, is a strategic advisor to HERE to HERE a not-for-profit focused on creating career pathways for disadvantaged youths and is a guest lecturer at Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations graduate program. Jesse resides in Long Island, New York with his wife Yasmin and son Jonathan.

Dr. Richard L. Irwin was recently named Executive Dean, UofM Global and Academic Innovation. Under Dr. Irwin’s leadership, UofM Global has become the top ranked online program in TN with more than one-third of the academic programs ranked nationally. UofM Global serves more than 3,300 students from 39 states and several foreign countries who are completing their studies fully online.

UofM Global’s commitment to building high-quality, low-cost pathways has enabled the University to holistically meet the needs of learners critical to our state—and nation–such as adults who don’t currently hold degrees. For example, UofM Global’s dramatic growth is attributable to the entrepreneurial spirit embodied within the LiFE, or Learning Inspired by FedEx program. This collaboration between the UofM and FedEx enables employees within the FedEx Express and FedEx Logistics operating companies from across the country to complete their degree at the UofM. Qualifying employees benefit from no upfront costs and utilize several non-traditional methods of earning college credit including prior learning credit for FedEx training and competency-based coursework to accelerate time-to-degree.

Irwin served as Vice Provost, Academic Innovation and Support Services from 2014 – 2019 where he oversaw the institution’s retention and completion initiatives. During this period the university realized record-setting retention rates for all cohorts including a first-to-second year retention of 80%. Likewise, record rates were realized for total graduates as well as the institution’s four- and six-year graduation rates. Within Irwin’s tenure as Vice Provost the 6-year graduation rate increased 20% while the 4-year graduation rate nearly doubled.

Maximizing innovative methods to deliver and recognize college-level knowledge, Irwin was instrumental in launching the Finish Line, a degree completion initiative that has enabled almost 600 former Tigers to return and complete their degree at the UofM since 2013. The Finish Line has been recognized by the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities, NACADA and others for its success in supporting non-traditional student degree completion.

As an advocate for lifelong learning, Irwin was awarded an Access & Diversity Grant from the Tennessee Board of Regents to support the redesign of the institution’s prior learning assessment program targeting returning adult students. As a result, in 2018, more than 400 UofM students were awarded experiential learning credit resulting in accelerated credit accumulation and over $1 million in savings for the ELC recipients. Irwin was also selected as a College and University Partnership Affiliate by the American Council on Education (ACE) and was awarded a grant from ACE to represent the University on the ACE Alternative Credit Project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Irwin earned his Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctorate degrees from the University of Northern Colorado and now resides in Germantown, TN with his wife Carol, who is a tenured professor in the School of Health Studies.

Allison Horn serves as the learning and leadership development lead for Accenture’s 480,000-plus people. She oversees an annual training budget of more than $1 billion, optimizing this investment in support of Accenture’s growth. She has worked in several different areas across HR and Accenture’s talent and organization consulting practice.  She resides in Baltimore and is based out of Accenture’s Washington, D.C., office.

Trish Holliday has formed a partnership with Lucinda Kenning to launch a new consulting business, Holliday│Kenning, that provides leaders in the private and public sectors with an organizational playbook that focuses on growing leaders and driving performance. The Holliday Kenning framework offers organizations and its leaders a playbook with five distinct approaches (plays) that are critical for a winning workplace that attracts and retains top talent. The five key plays are: strategic planning, succession readiness, leadership development, organizational accountability, and change navigation.

As the state of Tennessee’s first chief learning officer, Holliday was recognized by Governing magazines being instrumental in the successful transformation of the state workforce. She drove change through continuous improvement, strategic planning and employee learning at the macro and micro levels. Holliday designed the LEAD Tennessee program to create a sustainable platform for talent retention in government. She provided the vision for all learning and development, performance management training, and leadership growth for 40,000-plus member workforce. Holliday partnered with state executives in all three branches of government to customize strategic learning solutions for their employees to increase engagement and create a go-to-workplace.</p>

As an award-winning leader, Holliday was the cover feature in the 2019 March issue ofChief Learning Officer magazine. She was named one of the 2019 Women of Influence by the Nashville Business Journal. Holliday received the Warner W. Stockberger Achievement Award in honor of a lifetime of outstanding contributions toward the improvement of public human resources management by IPMA-HR. She is an alum of Leadership Middle Tennessee and a Leadership Tennessee graduate, Class IV.

As an adjunct professor, Hollidayteaches undergraduates to doctoral students in areas like entrepreneurship and innovation, human resources leadership and management, and personal leadership development. After receiving her doctorate in education, she wants to help students at all levels realize the importance of life-long learning.

Holliday is a speaker at the local, national and international level. She serves on various nonprofit and academic boards and enjoys giving back to the community. Holliday was a founding board member of the nonprofit organization Impact Nashville. As a Young Leader alum, she values paying it forward. Holliday volunteers with the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence on the Board of Examiners.

From her days in the Appalachian missionary field through her work in government, she has found enormous joy in helping people become their best selves and organizations to reach optimal performance.

Rob Griffin, HCM technology leader at DXC Technology, is the technology and sales lead for DXC’s learning experience platform with a focus on the principle of helping organizations plan, achieve and realize maximum value by aligning their business and technology strategy. Griffin’s career of more than 24 years as a change leader encompasses broad experience and disciplines ranging from management consulting, program management, product/software management and delivery leadership. Previously with Tribridge, he led a business transformation consulting practice providing CIO services to enterprise and midmarket clients. Former leadership and consulting roles at HPE, EDS and Microsoft included delivering enterprise client programs.

Ben Eubanks, principal analyst at Lighthouse Research & Advisory, is the author of “Artificial Intelligence for HR: Use AI to Build a Successful Workforce.” Previously an HR executive for an Inc.500-ranked global technology startup, he currently operates Lighthouse Research & Advisory, a human capital research and advisory services firm. He works with HR, talent and learning leaders across the globe to solve their most pressing business challenges with a research-based perspective tempered by practical, hands-on experience. Eubanks has developed hundreds of reports, case studies and other resources to support his life’s mission: making HR better, one HR pro at a time. He is the founder of upstartHR, a blog that has touched the lives of more than one million business leaders since its inception, and he also hosts “We’re Only Human,” a podcast that examines the intersection of talent and technology in the workplace.