Speakers

Mohammad is the President and CEO of Softway and Culture+, co-host of Love As A Business Strategy podcast, WSJ Best Selling Author of ‘Love
as a Business Strategy: Resilience, Belonging and Success,’ speaker, and a member of Forbes Business Council.

Mohammad founded Softway in 2003 and has grown it to a Business-to-Employee solutions company that focuses on bringing technology solutions to others by building high performing teams to build solutions that speak to the human needs of your workforce. In 2021, he formed Culture+ as a standalone organization that provides Culture-as-a-Service to transform behaviors of employees and leaders – creating high-performing teams capable of achieving any business outcome.

Mohammad lives in Sugar Land, Texas with his amazing wife Yulia, a five-time Olympic medalist in diving from Russia, and his beautiful children, Sufia and Moshin. In his spare time, he enjoys fitness, watching college sports, and butchering American idioms.

Chris Pitre is Vice President at Culture+ and Softway, co-creator and facilitator of Seneca Leaders, co-host of Love As A Business Strategy podcast, and WSJ Best Selling Author of ‘Love as a Business Strategy,’ He manages the company culture and works to ensure that all projects, interactions, and deliverables reflect the company’s human-first approach.

Chris is a student of the world and enjoys anthropology, history, travel, and culinary experiences. His interests in global cultures naturally led him to travel around the world co-leading change management and leadership through Seneca, Softway’s workplace culture program.

Chris is a native Houstonian who loves everything Beyoncé. He has a B.A. in Business Administration from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

 Kerri has over 16 years of event and meeting planning experience, 8 years of corporate business development, 8 years of experience in marketing and outreach and over 12 years of experience in media materials development & design. 

Kerri joined the Bank of America Tower management team in September of 2019 as the Experience Manager of the building to create and build a new tenant experience program that had not yet existed in the Houston market. Kerri and the Transwestern property team worked alongside one another to create a synergistic approach to enhance the Transwestern customer service experience for the tenants of the building. The tenant engagement program has consisted of hosting weekly treats, customized fitness classes, workshops, self-defense classes, elevated monthly themed & stylized happy hours, brunches, and large-scale events spaced throughout the year. 

Kerri has built and customized three building apps for Bank of America Tower including providing integral feedback to HQO on how to optimize and enhance their app platform that has now become a national roll out for them. 

Programming creation at Bank of America tower has also been extended into our tunnel level food hall, Understory, where she has created open to the public activations to enhance the space and draw the public in to purchase from the building’s retailers. These events have been carefully curated to include partnerships with the neighboring Arts District, providing new and exciting cultural experiences for guests, as well as community outreach opportunities for guests and tenants of the building to give back to those less fortunate. With these initiatives, she has built a community hub for visitors of downtown. 

Dorita Hatchett is the founder, owner, and lead consultant of D.L. Hatchett & Associates, LLC. The company is more than an event planning service, but the solution, as an accomplished provider of strategic planning, implementation, and the execution of small to large-scale events
with superior business support offerings that include integrated project and staff
manager coordinating and scheduling to mitigate unforeseen circumstances and
resolve complex problems. D.L. Hatchett & Associates provides a keen and hands-on approach to business support, event management, and consultation services for clients in various industries including corporations and nonprofits. With vast expertise, insight, and skills in managing national events, the company’s methods and practices are proven effective in fundraising and profit increase and strengthening an organization’s prestige and community presence. With over 30 years of experience in Community Engagement, Dorita’s acumen
and skillset have gained the attention of the NCAA. She currently serves as the
Senior Director of Community Relations for the 2023 NCAA Men’s Final Four Houston Local Organizing Committee (HLOC). In this leadership role, she works alongside the NCAA to leave a lasting and positive impact on the Greater Houston community through their projects that include the NCAA Read to the Final Four and the Men’s Final Four Legacy Project. In addition to founding D.L. Hatchett &
Associates and her leadership in the NCAA, other highlights in her career include programming, planning, training, and implementing community initiatives
for Superbowl LVI, Harris County Flood Control District, Radio One Houston, and
the $947M METRO Rail Expansion along Capitol and Rusk in Downtown Houston.
Dorita is the 2022-2023 President of the International Live Event Association(ILEA)
Houston Chapter, an Executive Committee member of the Epsilon Phi Chapter of Iota
Phi Lambda Sorority, Inc., a Business and Professional Sorority, and is a graduate of
Leadership Houston Class XL.

Using my experience, problem solving skills, and curiosity about the world, I help people that are planning meetings and events create unique experiences that their guests will remember while fulfilling the purposes and goals planners have.

After 19 years in the event and hospitality industry, I wanted to be able to support my clients without the constraints of a job description. I also wanted to form relationships with my clients, colleagues, and partners on my own terms, without the invisible walls sometimes built by well-meaning employers.

⭐️ Accomplished and certified professional with a diverse background in project management, event and destination management, hotel site selection & festival direction spanning a career of over 19 years!
⭐️ Consistently recognized for achievement in performance, winning National NACE ONE award for event design and execution in summer 2019, The Keep Houston Beautiful Mayor’s Proud Partner Award on behalf of Earth Day Houston in 2015, and several other honorable designations on behalf of clients.

Heather Hernandez is a Senior Account Manager on the Third-Party Partnerships Team at Cvent, Inc. She cultivated a multi-faceted career in the hospitality industry that ultimately led her to Cvent just over a year ago. After graduating from Texas A&M University with a BBA in Marketing, through happenstance she landed a position at the then brand new downtown convention hotel in Houston and the rest is history as they say. Heather has worked in hotel sales and operations, convention center sales, CVB city wide sales for the 4th largest city in the US and has overseen event sales and operations for a Texas-based restaurant management group. Over the years, she has held leadership positions with the Meeting Professionals International Houston Area Chapter and the Fort Bend Junior Service League, has been actively involved with the Executive Women International Houston Chapter, and she still supports her high school alma mater St. Agnes Academy as an Alumni Class Agent. Heather is a born and bred Houstonian who lives just south of Houston in Fort Bend County with her husband, 3-year-old son and two rescue dogs.

A veteran of broadcast, digital, and print media, editor Steven Devadanam directs CultureMap Houston’s daily content and also covers news, society, sports, arts, entertainment, fashion, and celebrity interviews.

His work most recently took him to Los Angeles, where he was the main writer for NFL Network’s flagship show, NFL GameDay Morning. He has also directed content or written for CNN, Village Voice Media (where he served as columnist at Houston Press), New York Daily News, and Modern Luxury Media, where he was editor of Houston’s first men’s magazine.

Passionate about promoting Houston as the next great global city, he also co-hosts and co-produces the weekly CultureMap television and streaming segment on ABC13.

Andrea Apple has two decades of experience in marketing and advertising in the health care industry, serving in various marketing roles at the nationally-ranked Houston Methodist Hospital System for the past 12 years.

Andrea is responsible for overseeing marketing and communication strategies for seven Houston Methodist hospitals. In this role, she is responsible for strengthening brand health in key markets and developing the marketing strategy for a new hospital in Cypress.

Prior to her current role, she served as a director of service line marketing at Houston Methodist. She was responsible for branding and marketing strategies for five key service lines (cancer, orthopedics, heart, neurology, and bariatric surgery) at the local and national level.  

Andrea’s career experience also includes working at a Houston-based startup health care company (eCardio Diagnostics), the media industry (Houston Press) and adjunct teaching at University of Houston and Lone Star College.

 Andrea holds a Bachelor of Arts in Advertising from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Arts from University of Houston in Mass Communications.

 Andrea is a native Houstonian and enjoys traveling, reading and spending time outside with her family. Andrea and her husband, Matthew, have two young children and a pug.

Anaye Milligan is the Associate Vice President of Websites for Providence Health, the nation’s second largest non-profit healthcare system that includes more than 50 hospitals across seven states.

As part of the Providence Digital Innovation Group, Anaye is responsible for developing and executing strategy for all consumer facing websites. Prior to joining Providence Anaye worked for Olive Health as Vice President of Product Marketing and for the Houston Methodist hospital system as Director of Digital Marketing.

Anaye has an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin, and another graduate degree in filmmaking from Boston University. He works remotely from Houston, Texas where he spends most of his free time driving his kids to gymnastics, jujitsu, and soccer games.

Tatum graduated from Texas Christian University (TCU) and majored in Business with an emphasis in Marketing while attaining a Minor in Nutrition.

During college, she attained an internship with St. Jude Children’s Hospital, working with the hospital administrators and staff, assisting with fundraising, sponsorship, promotion, networking, and other marketing duties.

An outgoing and philanthropic young professional, Tatum is passionate about giving back to the Houston community. She served as President of Champions for Children, benefiting Texas Children’s Cancer Center, and serves on the International Committee for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

After graduating from TCU, Tatum joined TMC, where she secured a position with the Marketing team and has been apart of the team for over seven years. Day to day, Tatum oversees the marketing, branding, public relations and social media for the TMC.

Tim Hines, a.k.a. The Marketing Starter, is a CMO, international keynote speaker, author, podcast show host, and consultant who helps people master the art of human-to-human (H2H) business and communications.

Tim specializes in harnessing the power of the entrepreneurial spirit to develop omnichannel marketing programs from the ground up. With nearly 20 years of experience, Tim has developed strategic marketing initiatives with many companies including Dialpad, Tribune Media, Ticketmaster, and the CIA.

Tarik launched Pure — a New York-born, New Orleans-based full-service ad agency — in 2011 to deliver a new agency model better suited to the hyper-innovative, digitally-driven reality marketers confront.

Before PURE, Tarik was Chief Digital Officer of Young & Rubicam where he set the global vision and strategy for the agency’s advance in the digital space while leading key client engagements and business development.

Tarik began his career in public affairs at Burson-Marsteller in Washington, D.C. Five years later he switched to advertising, heading key global accounts for Young & Rubicam in New York City. He went client-side as director of interactive marketing at Accenture for three years and returned to agencies as head of client services at mcgarrybowen and managing director of AtmosphereBBDO, the North American digital arm of BBDO.

Along the way, he’s been fortunate to work with some of the world’s best-known brands, like NFL, Marriott, Target, FedEx, Cingular (now AT&T), Accenture, Snickers, J&J, Starwood, MetLife, Citibank, Emirates Airline, Texaco and LG.  Tarik is a Stanford graduate and lives with his wife and family in New Orleans.

Fueled by coffee and hip-hop, Henry Adaso is an award-winning marketing leader with over 15 years of experience. A former music journalist, he is a natural storyteller and an innovative marketer. Henry has a successful track record of clarifying brand stories, creating remarkable messages, and developing marketing strategies to deliver a resonant experience and drive business results.

Before finding his home in marketing, Henry honed his knack for storytelling as a music journalist, writing for VIBE, LA Weekly, and The Houston Press.

Henry is currently head of marketing for CEMEX USA, and is the author of two bestselling books, Content Mapping and The Gap.

You can find him at henryadaso.com.

Michael Bell, Ph.D. serves as Chief Data Scientist for Teknoir (teknoir.ai), a Houston-based startup helping industrial organizations simplify the deployment and management of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions in remote and extreme environments. As a data scientist and executive leader, his mission is to work collaboratively with organizations and their technical teams to meet objectives, increase value, and achieve differentiation through the strategic application of AI.

Prior to Teknoir, Michael served as a Principal Consultant and Director of Technology at Mercury Data Science (mercuryds.com). There he developed scopes of work and managed numerous AI projects for clients in the healthcare and life science arenas from startups to large enterprises. Michael also designed and led initiatives to reduce recognized biases in voice and video analytics and improve the quality of emotion recognition systems for healthcare and neuroscience applications. These experiences resulted in a deep understanding of the steps required to get from ideas to ROI while avoiding numerous data and AI pitfalls.

Michael received his Ph.D. in Quantitative and Computational Biosciences from Baylor College of Medicine where he developed high-throughput software to help biologists better understand how the 3D structure of proteins relates to human disease. Michael’s academic and industry experience spans application areas including physics, mathematics, biology, and neuroscience, with an emphasis on AI and machine learning. His professional passions include developing AI strategies, serving as a mentor and thought partner, and developing high-functioning teams to address challenges at the intersection of business, technology, data, and customer needs. Outside of work, Michael enjoys woodworking, backpacking, and running, and he and his wife are expecting their first child in March.

Michelle Ngome is an award-winning inclusive marketing consultant. As the founder of Line 25 Consulting, she trains and consults with organizations on how to create diverse and inclusive marketing strategies. Also, Michelle created the Be Inclusive: A DEI Card Game to help organizations facilitate conversations on diversity and company culture.

 She is the recipient of the Houston Business Journal Diversity in Business award with her efforts creating the African American Marketing Association (AAMA) a nonprofit to empower Black marketers. The organization hosts the Marketing For the Culture podcast and Marketing For The Culture Summit.

Michelle has written white papers on The 6 Methods For Your Organization to Become Inclusive and The Language of Inclusion Guide. She has presented to AIG, Ad Age, Content Marketing World and has been featured in LinkedIn’s Blog, The Wall Street Journal, and Forbes.