2017 VMS Professionals Conference June 1-2 at Hamburger University in Oak Brook, IL

One of the country’s most informed economists, Dr. Alan Beaulieu is a principal at ITR Economics where he serves as President. Since 1990, he has been consulting with companies throughout the US, Europe, and Asia on how to forecast, plan, and increase their profits based on business cycle trend analysis. Alan is also the Senior Economic Advisor to numerous domestic and international trade associations.

Alan is co-author, along with Brian Beaulieu, of books Make Your Move, Prosperity in the Age of Decline, and But I Want It. He has also penned numerous articles on economic analysis. He makes up to 90 appearances each year, and his keynotes and seminars have helped thousands of business owners and executives capitalize on emerging trends.

Cynthia Moore manages Allstate’s $100 million contingent labor program. Since joining Allstate, Cynthia has been working to enhance Allstate’s existing, supplier diversity award winning contingent labor program. Over the last 18 months she has worked to further increase diversity spend, optimized the supply based from 50 plus suppliers down to 18 suppliers and worked with leadership on a new MSP strategy.

Prior to Allstate Cynthia spent six months creating Discover's newly formed Supplier Diversity program, ran and completed multiple LEAN initiatives and managed Risk and Controls in Global Procurement. She originally joined Discover as the Sr. Manager for Professional Svc Management in 2007. In that role her responsibilities included, managing a team responsible for all offshoring, consulting, staff augmentation vendor and engagement relationships. Successes included the implementation of a contractor tenure policy and overall program to mitigate co-employment risks across the organization, development of a non-employee policy to drive awareness of how resources should be leverage, centralization of all nonemployee resources in the VMS tool which helped not only in identifying resources but identified savings opportunities and reduced risk as well as on boarding time by 80%.

Prior to joining Discover she was the Team Lead for Alternative Workforce at TransUnion. She was responsible for establishing Centralized Vendor Management at TransUnion LLC. She was instrumental in the selection and management of TransUnion’s web based vendor management system.

Prior to joining TransUnion, Cynthia was a successful sales, project and operations manager for a variety of IT consulting environments. As an account manager, Cindi exceeded revenue and gross profits expectations on numerous occasions and received several sales awards for her efforts.

Lastly, Cynthia is co-founder and co-chair of a national user group called VMS Professionals. This group was founded in 2001 and continues today.

Rebecca Pratt DeGroff is a partner in the Labor and Employment Department in Seyfarth Shaw LLP's Chicago office. Ms. DeGroff chairs the firm's innovative Administrative Charge Team and is a leader within the firm's national Wage and Hour Litigation Practice Group.

Ms. DeGroff directs Seyfarth Shaw's Administrative Charge Team, a national group of attorneys and non-attorney professionals who specialize in responding to administrative charges filed in forums across the country. This elite and first of its kind team partners with our clients to investigate a wide range of legal theories in a broad range of industries and jurisdictions, with exceptional results. Faced with an increasingly aggressive governmental agenda, Ms. DeGroff and her team have developed innovative strategies for addressing wide-ranging governmental requests for information and increasingly sophisticated agency tactics. Seyfarth has been praised by the Association of Corporate Counsel as being "five years ahead of every other AmLaw 200 firm” due in part to its commitment to delivering legal services in new ways, with an emphasis on value and continuous improvement.

Relatedly, Ms. DeGroff devotes a significant portion of her practice to litigating against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), both at the early charge stage and in large-scale EEOC pattern-and-practice litigation. Ms. DeGroff has handled complex regional and national EEOC investigations, which typically result in no action being taken against our clients. When the EEOC has resorted to litigation, Ms. DeGroff has been instrumental in defending our clients against these high-profile, systemic cases to achieve efficient and effective case resolution.

Ms. DeGroff also represents employers across the country in court litigation and administrative matters arising under federal and state wage and hour laws. She frequently conducts exempt status and pay practice audits and provides related counseling, training, and change management assistance to our clients.

Ms. DeGroff frequently speaks at seminars and conferences on all human resources issues. Ms. DeGroff authored the Illinois Employer's Guide to Wage and Hour Laws, published by the Illinois Chamber of Commerce (2011). Ms. DeGroff also contributes to publications such as the Fair Labor Standards Act: Cumulative Supplement, ABA Section of Labor and Employment Law (2006-2010) and is a member of the ABA Fair Labor Standards Legislative Committee. Prior to entering private practice, Ms. DeGroff served as a law clerk to the Honorable Garland E. Burrell in the United States District Court, Eastern District of California.

Education

• J.D., Vanderbilt University School of Law (2001)
• B.A., University of California, Berkeley (1994)

Admissions

• Illinois
• California (inactive)

Courts

• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
• U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
• U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
• U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois
• U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan

Mary Pat Knight Leverages Emotional Intelligence to Develop Leaders in HR, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Effectiveness

Mary Pat Knight is a Transformation Strategist and Business Coach. Her training, coaching and mentoring programs help corporate leaders hone their Emotional Intelligence (EI) to become effective leaders.

She works with companies and leaders who want to turn chaotic teams, disengaged employees and frustrated leaders into a vibrant and healthy business. Her customized EI leadership development programs produce inspired leaders whose teams create compelling cultures, engaged employees and business results.

Drawing on her C-level leadership development experience, Mary Pat leverages Emotional Intelligence in corporate training and executive coaching in key business areas including:

• Leadership mastery development
• Strategic planning
• Human resources
• Organizational effectiveness
• Management and supervisory development
• Integrated marketing
• Project supervision

Mary Pat helps leaders find their passion and develop their leadership skills. She equips leaders to fix broken teams, jar them from their leadership ruts and reinvigorate disengaged employees.

Karen leads the Contingent Workforce Program at Southwest Airlines. Their program is a VMO model that combines recruiting and vendor management under one umbrella that sits in HR.

Karen has been at Southwest Airlines for the past 17 years and has served in both Operational and Corporate roles. Over the past 6 years she has been building and leading the contingent workforce program for Southwest Airlines. She now leads both contract and fulltime hiring teams as part of their overall Employment Organization.

Karen is a member of SIA, SIAGG, the Beeline Advisory Council, and she leads the VMS Professional Dallas Chapter.

Karen is someone that has truly grown up at Southwest Airlines. Having started as a Customer Service Agent in the Kansas City Airport, she’s had many opportunities to move around the company and build her career into what it is today.

John has over 20 years of full life-cycle staffing experience including 8+ years of full lifecycle procurement experience for contract, temp-to-hire, and permanent placement positions. Demonstrated experience in supporting high-volume contingent labor projects while ensuring vendor compliance, and reducing costs. Expertise in the areas of VMS management, Vendor Management, Workforce Planning and Management, Project Management, recruiting & sourcing strategy, relationship management, candidate generation, pipeline management, interview coordination, rate negotiation, diversity & EOE compliance, candidate on-boarding, contractor conversion, recruiting metrics, and training.

Denise manages McDonald’s Global Workforce Solutions department which is the Contingent Workforce Program for McDonald’s Corporation. McDonald’s program is an internally run VMO that manages the contractor population in all categories including staff augmentation, managed service projects, outsourced labor, and IC’s. This program sits in the People pillar of McDonald’s Global Business Services function.

In addition to experience running an internal program, Denise has managed on and offsite MSP programs. She was introduced to the industry when she was hired at a direct hire staffing firm. Two years later she co-founded her own staffing firm where she worked for 10 years prior to selling the business to stay at home to raise her daughter.

With over 25 years in the staffing industry, she has experienced the vast industry and legislative changes that have brought us to our current state. Denise is a member of VMS Professionals and a former SIA member.

Kelly leads the Contingent Workforce Program at United Airlines. United’s program has been an internally run VMO until they recently brought an MSP onboard to manage the staff augmentation program. Managed service projects continue to be managed internally by United.

Kelly has been with United Airlines for 10 years and began working with the contingent workforce program while in the IT division. Her role and the program has recently been transitioned to Procurement. Currently, she is working with the MSP to roll out the staff augmentation program enterprise wide at United.