Session Description

Retirement by Design is a presentation that illustrates how you can translate your vision for retirement into tangible goals. Whether you are 10 or 40 years from retirement, you’ll learn investment strategies to help design the retirement you want. We’ll also discuss ways to make your strategy more flexible, helping you manage unexpected events and stay on track.

Bio

Pinkee Harley is a financial advisor with Edward Jones and a member of Harley Wealth Management, where she partners with individuals, families, and business owners to help them align their financial resources with what matters most. She is passionate about helping women build confidence in their financial decisions and create lives of purpose and impact. 

Pinkee holds a BBA in Finance and Economics and an MBA from Lamar University. Before joining Edward Jones, she spent nearly a decade in financial, administrative, and audit roles with the State of Texas. 

A wife, mother of two, and active community volunteer, Pinkee understands the many roles women balance each day. Her approach combines personalized guidance with a genuine desire to help clients care for themselves, their families, and the causes they value most. 

Pinkee lives in Port Neches with her husband, Devin, their sons, Jai and Miles, and their two schnoodles, Roger and Junior.

Session Description

LLMs & Cowork: Balancing Productivity, Personal Accountability, and Brain Power

As someone who lives and breathes technical training and adoption, I’ve become fascinated by how different this wave of deployment and change management feels from anything we’ve rolled out before. I’ve used AI daily for the last two years, and our team has helped more than 50 organizations—small businesses, mid-market companies, and large enterprises—prepare for, deploy, adopt, and govern AI. What we’re seeing is striking: the range of deployment strategies is incredibly wide, and in some cases, there is no real strategy at all.

Organizations and employees are both feeling the pressure not to fall behind. With AI available at a flat fee and capable of handling an endless stream of work, it’s easy to start every task by asking AI and to hand over as much as possible. These tools can aggregate, analyze, summarize, create, and automate—but that power is a double-edged sword. Used well, they can sharpen our thinking and free us from repetitive work. Used carelessly, they can weaken the judgment and creativity we need most.

Blind trust in AI output has already damaged reputations, and research suggests that overreliance may also affect creativity, thoughtfulness, and our ability to think deeply about complex topics. It can also create anxiety and resentment among employees who are unsure what AI means for their work. But it doesn’t have to play out that way. In this session, we’ll look at how to use AI as a thinking partner—not a thinking replacement—so we can protect our judgment, strengthen our work, and still let the tools take on the busy work they’re good at.

We’ll close with a practical demo of Copilot Cowork, including how to create skills that help produce high-quality, branded deliverables without giving up human accountability.

Bio 

With over 15 years of experience designing and delivering Microsoft-based solutions, I specialize in helping organizations unlock the full value of their Microsoft 365 investments. My approach blends technical expertise with strategic guidance to drive adoption, improve productivity, and deliver measurable business outcomes.

Whether working with M365 Copilot, SharePoint, Teams, Viva, or the Power Platform, I enable clients to fully leverage the capabilities of these tools to address genuine business requirements.

As a Microsoft Certified Trainer, Changefirst Change Practitioner, and Microsoft Adoption Specialist, I bring a change management lens to every engagement. I’m proud to work at Steepmeadow, a Microsoft Copilot Jumpstart Ready Partner, FastTrack Partner, and Modern Work Partner with advanced specialization in Adoption & Change Management.

Session Description

Own Your Seat: Confidence in Any Room is an empowering breakout session designed to help women recognize their value, silence self-doubt, and show up with confidence and authenticity in every environment. Participants will learn how to overcome imposter syndrome, communicate with authority, build executive presence, and embrace the unique strengths that set them apart.

This session will provide practical strategies for developing confidence from the inside out, navigating intimidating spaces, and leading with purpose—without pretending to be someone you’re not. Attendees will leave equipped to speak with conviction, make meaningful connections, and confidently take their seat at every table they have been called to occupy.

Because confidence isn’t about being the loudest person in the room, it’s about knowing you belong there.

Bio

Gina Taylor is an entrepreneur, speaker, minister, prophet, mentor, educator, and community leader with a passion for helping people discover their purpose, build confidence, and walk boldly in their God-given calling. She is committed to developing individuals and building purpose-driven businesses that create impact in both ministry and the marketplace.

As the owner of De’ Luxe Cheveux Salon, Cheat Day Dessert Company, and Forever Young Collection, Gina has turned her vision, creativity, and determination into successful brands that inspire, serve, and empower. She is also the founder of Grow Academy, an organization dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and leaders in ministry and in the marketplace grow in purpose, leadership, and strategy. Through coaching, training, mentorship, and essential resources, she equips individuals with the tools they need to build strong businesses, confident leaders, and powerful legacies.

Gina is a licensed cosmetologist with a decade of experience and a passion for excellence in the beauty industry. Her talent and dedication have earned her multiple 1st and 2nd place trophies in professional hair competitions and shows all over the United States. Her work and journey have been featured in several magazines, highlighting her influence as an entrepreneur, stylist, and community leader.

Beyond the chair, Gina is a dynamic voice on stages and in boardrooms. She inspires audiences to pursue excellence, overcome adversity, and lead with integrity. In 2025, she was honored to serve as the Keynote Speaker for the BBB Conference, where she challenged business owners and leaders to build with purpose, lead with integrity, and create lasting impact.

Gina’s calling in ministry runs deep. As a licensed minister and prophet, she carries a bold, relevant, and life-giving word that inspires faith, breaks strongholds, and empowers people to walk in their God-given authority. Her passion is to see lives healed, leaders raised, and destinies fulfilled.

She is a mentor and educator who believes in developing leaders at every level. She provides one-on-one mentorship, leadership development, entrepreneurial training, ministry and marketplace guidance, confidence building, and access to essential resources. Her heart for people drives her to invest in the next generation, strengthen families, and create opportunities that transform communities.

Gina is deeply committed to community impact. She invests in youth empowerment initiatives, mentors and supports emerging entrepreneurs, partners with organizations to provide resources and opportunities, supports families, leaders, and local businesses through outreach and education, and creates platforms and programs that inspire, equip, and heal.

Gina holds a Master in Theology and a Bachelor’s in Mass Communication. She is a graduate of Leadership Beaumont and has been recognized as a recipient of the 40 Under 40 Award and Young Leaders to Watch for her influence, leadership, and contributions to the community.

Whether on the stage, in the classroom, in the salon, or in the community, Gina’s mission remains the same: to empower people to become everything God created them to be and to leave every place better than she found it.

Purpose. People. Legacy.

EMPOWERING PEOPLE. BUILDING LEGACIES. TRANSFORMING COMMUNITIES.

Session Description

An organized office isn’t about perfection, it’s about creating systems that help your business run more efficiently.

Bio

Tara Sonnier is the owner of Tidy Spaces, a Southeast Texas Professional Organization Company, specializing in professional organization services & estate sales. For more than 10 years, her Teams have helped homeowners and businesses create organized, functional spaces that improve productivity and reduce stress. Tara also serves as a professional organization consultant for Chick-fil-A, Vice President of the BNI Velocity chapter, and a committee member for Southeast Texas Mardi Gras. She is passionate about helping others simplify their spaces and lives through practical organization solutions, making a difference one home at a time.

Session Description

Coming Soon!

Bio

Hetty Brown is a lifelong resident of Beaumont, Texas, and a graduate of Lamar University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Education in 1979. She spent 35 years teaching students with special needs and learning disabilities in East Chambers and Hardin-Jefferson ISD.

Licensed in ministry in 1992 through Church on the Rock, Hetty dedicated 25 years to prison ministry, sharing the Gospel and offering encouragement to incarcerated individuals throughout Southeast Texas.

Today, Hetty volunteers with Nutrition & Services for Seniors, The Some Other Place, Gift of Life, Market to Hope, the Beaumont Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Lamar University. She serves on the Board of Directors for Anayat House and is President-Elect of the Lamar Alumni Board.

Her community service has earned numerous honors, including the 2025 Deliver the Difference Community Impact Award, the 2024 Woman of the Year Award from the Black Women Professionals of Southeast Texas, the 2024 Hall of Fame Industry Award for Tourism, the 2025 Provisional of the Year Award from the Junior League of Beaumont, and recognition as a NewsMaker of the Year Finalist by the Press Club of Southeast Texas.

Hetty is also an administrator of Best Bites, a Southeast Texas food review page with more than 25,000 members that promotes local restaurants and community engagement.

She and her husband, L.C. Brown, a Vietnam veteran, have been married for 37 years and are blessed with three adult children and seven grandchildren. Hetty is passionate about serving others, strengthening her community, and creating meaningful connections wherever she goes.

“Remember that people are guests in your life story the same way you are only a guest in theirs—so make sure your chapters are worth reading.” — Lauren Klarfeld

Session Description

This empowering session explores how to build confidence, earn credibility, and show up boldly as a woman in a male-dominated industry. Through personal insight and practical encouragement, attendees will learn how to speak up, trust their expertise, and lead with strength and authenticity in spaces where they may have to work harder to be seen and heard.

Bio

Graciela “Gracie” Nguyen is a Senior Environmental Specialist at Phillips 66, where she supports Midstream Operations through environmental compliance leadership across terminals, pipelines, compressor stations, storage caverns, and gas plants. Since joining Phillips 66 in 2019, she has managed a broad range of regulatory programs, including air permitting, wastewater, hazardous waste, spill prevention, emissions reporting, and leak detection and repair. Her work has included improving compliance systems, supporting operational reliability, coordinating reporting and permitting efforts, and leading cross-functional initiatives that strengthen environmental performance across complex assets.

Before joining Phillips 66, Gracie held multiple environmental positions at INVISTA, where she developed strong expertise in hazardous waste management, wastewater compliance, stormwater and spill prevention programs, and Class I injection well operations. She is known for her practical, solutions-oriented approach and ability to work effectively with operations, technical teams, and regulatory stakeholders. She is a graduate of Kansas State University and holds two bachelor’s degrees in Biology and Biological Systems Engineering.

Session Description

"Nobody's coming to save you" sounds like bad news — until you realize it's the most freeing thing you'll ever hear. When Cameron Cruse and her co-founder started R. Riveter as military spouses, no one was going to solve the problem for them — so they built the answer themselves, from a handful of handbags in a garage to a multimillion-dollar, Shark Tank–backed brand. In this breakout, Cameron shares how she turned relentless change into her greatest advantage — and why you are, and always have been, your own greatest asset. You'll leave ready to bet on yourself through whatever comes next.

Bio

Cameron is a visionary entrepreneur and co-founder of R. Riveter, the nationally recognized, multi-seven-figure brand that reshaped flexible work for military spouses. She is also the Founder & CEO of The Refinery. Equal parts strategist and artist, Cameron builds more than brands—she builds belief. Her signature lies in blending emotion, purpose, and precision to transform businesses into identities that last. The Refinery was a natural evolution: a move from building one iconic, mission-driven brand to refining many—using storytelling as the engine and intention as the standard.

Session Description

The way we present ourselves has the power to shape opportunities before we ever introduce ourselves. In this engaging session, you’ll discover how the science of color and human perception can help you project confidence, build trust, and create a lasting impression—without changing who you are.

Bio

Emily Lopez is an educator, entrepreneur, and founder of Beyoutiful Color Analysis in Beaumont, Texas. Through the science and psychology of color, she helps women discover how the right colors can elevate confidence, strengthen personal presence, and transform the way they are perceived - both personally and professionally.

Emily earned a bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies and Portuguese from The University of Texas at Austin and served as a bilingual educator before transitioning into the beauty industry. She combines her background in education with years of professional experience in makeup artistry and personal color analysis to equip women with practical, science-backed tools for presenting themselves with confidence and authenticity.

Emily currently serves as President of the BNI Southeast Texas Networkers Chapter and is an active member of Redemption Church. She resides in Beaumont with her husband, Charlie, and their three children: Phoenix, Maverick, and Trinity.

Emily’s mission is to help women stop chasing confidence and start revealing it by embracing the colors, features, and strengths that have been theirs all along.