Michelle Hoover
Principal
Baem Leadership

Michelle Hoover is a leadership development strategist, advisor, and executive coach and has designed, delivered, and facilitated talent development programs for more than 15,000 learners across five continents in her nineteen years in leadership development. Before starting her firm, Baem Leadership, Michelle established the Leadership and Learning function at Audible, an Amazon company, launching the company’s first suite of management-development learning initiatives. Before that, she led two years of 100 percent year-over-year growth at venture-backed educational startup General Assembly, globalizing four functions responsible for product and service quality in the delivery of online and in-person learning programs, developing the core strategic asset upon which Adecco’s $400M acquisition of GA was based. Michelle also served as Director of Executive Education for the Beijing-based Cheung Kong Graduate Graduate School of Business and spent eight years holding several roles at Duke Corporate Education, at the time the number-one provider of custom executive education as ranked by Financial Times and BusinessWeek. A First-Generation Professional (FGP) herself, Michelle has begun focusing Baem’s work on developing and supporting these emerging leaders. She recognizes FGPs as a motivated and hardworking group that will represent an increasing percentage of the talent market. Michelle believes any company prepared to embrace the positive opportunities created by this category of employees will gain a huge competitive advantage. She’s excited to support these forward-thinking organizations and the individuals who lead them. Baem Leadership is a boutique consultancy that partners with mission-driven organizations in the design and delivery of learning programs, talent strategy solutions, and leadership coaching initiatives to drive growth and business strategy. The firm is conducting a study through which it will clarify the points of the employee journey where company investment can enhance First-Generation Professional (FGP) performance. From there, Baem partners with organizations to build the strategic approaches to attract, retain, and develop FGPs, and, second, work with the FGPs themselves to build the skills, behaviors, and mindsets to accelerate their ascent in the white-collar workplace.

Sonia Park
Executive Director
Diverse Charter Schools Coalition

Sonia leads the Diverse Charter Schools Coalition, a coalition of 225+ individual diverse-by-design charter schools. Prior to DCSC, she served in federal and local governments: under Secretary John King at the Department of Education as a Senior Policy Advisor and under Schools Chancellor Denis Walcott as Executive Director of Charter Schools Accountability and Support, NYC Department of Education. In addition to leading Manhattan Charter Schools, her work experiences include the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, NY Charter Schools Resource Center, NY Charter Schools Association, Edison Schools. She's a trustee on the boards of Atlas Public Schools and Central Queens Academy.