LFI Program Day
Held at joint location with 2015 ELI Class
Building Your Personal Legend
October 16, 2014
at
University of Virginia Northern Virginia Center
7054 Haycock Road, Falls Church, VA 22043
LEADERSHIP FAIRFAX educates, prepares, inspires and connects leaders to serve and strengthen our community.
Objectives:
1. Find your place as a community leader
2. Build connections among class participants
3. Introduce and identify Leadership Competencies as a basis for upcoming LFI program days’
competencies presentations
4. Provide in-depth understanding and insights into the complexities of diversity
8:15 am
Arrival and Breakfast
8:45 am
Welcome to University of Virginia, School of Continuing and Professional Studies
Bob Ranson, Director of Academic Outreach
9:00 am
CELEBRATING WHAT IS RIGHT WITH SERVANT LEADERSHIP (Joint Session with ELI)
Joan Fletcher, LFI ’09, Founder & President, Winning Ways, Inc.
10:30 am
Break
10:45 am
TEAM EXERCISE – 7 Minutes
11:45 pm
DEBRIEF and REFLECTION
Joan Fletcher, LFI ’09, Founder & President, Winning Ways, Inc.
12:00 pm
Lunch
1:00 pm
BUILDING CULTURAL COMPETENCE: BEING A CULTURAL STRATEGIST
Luby Ismail, Founder and President, Connecting Cultures, LLC
What does it mean to be culturally competent? Why is it important from a business and leadership
perspective? How do I be certain to not offend a potential customer to interact and negotiate
respectfully? Many of us know that diversity can have both a negative and positive impact on
teams and organizations. Success depends on the mastery of communication skills and cultural
competencies. Learn how you can set the bar high by investing in cultivating cultural competence.
This impactful and engaging presentation will provide an introduction to cultural competence,
explore the challenges to communicating across cultures, and practical ways to overcome the
challenges and optimize performance in a diverse and global work environment.
2:45
Break
3:00
LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES AND SELF-AWARENESS
Karen Cleveland, LFI ’05, Cleveland Coaching Group
Colin Callahan, LFI ’04, Colin Callahan and Associates
4:30 pm
DEBRIEF and REFLECTION
Karen Cleveland, LFI ’05, Cleveland Coaching Group
Colin Callahan, LFI ’04, Colin Callahan and Associates
4:45 pm
End of program day
5:00 pm
Happy Hour @ Madd Fox Brewing Company, 444 W Broad St, Falls Church, VA 22046
A Special Thanks To:
Our program day host University of Virginia Northern Virginia Center
Our program day presenters: Joan Fletcher, Winning Ways, Inc.
Luby Ismail, Connecting Cultures, LLC
Karen Cleveland, Cleveland Coaching Group
Colin Callahan, Colin Callahan and Associates
Joan Fletcher, Winning Ways, Inc.
http://www.winningwaysinc.com
Joan Fletcher is the founder of Winning Ways, a company focused on high performing leaders and teams.
Joan has over two decades of experience with training, coaching and strategic planning. The corner piece
of her skill is her ability to get measurable results through focus, presence and helping others better
understand how they communicate. Helping others learn new habits to make their lives richer and more
successful is her passion. She has successfully provided services for CBRE, Microsoft, Sodexo, ABA and
more.
LOBNA “LUBY” ISMAIL, CONNECTING CULTURES, LLC
www.connecting-cultures.net
Luby Ismail, founder and president of Connecting Cultures, LLC, is an inspirational public speaker, powerful
trainer and coach with over twenty years of experience. Luby is dedicated to building cultural competence
that requires new knowledge, skills and processes to understand and meet the needs in a diverse and
global setting. Luby’s reputation and strong experience is in communication across cultures, Arab and
Middle Eastern cultures, engaging with U.S. Americans, Islamic awareness, Diversity &5 Inclusion.
Luby lives with the cultural complexities in her personal life and works to promote ways to address
intercultural complexities in our society to a vast range institutions, nonprofit, corporate, government
agencies to help increase understanding of culture and how best to engage with Muslims and Arabs.
More recently, she advocates another dimension of diversity and culture to her work she calls “diverseABILITY” based in her personal experience living with Multiple Sclerosis. Her speeches and trainings lead
you to examine how to actively work as a change agent around the societal intercultural complexities
connected to anxiety, fears, prejudice to overcome the barriers of bias, conscious and unconscious.
Accomplished with both academic and practical experience leveraged from the CEO, Luby provides indepth and credible briefings and trainings based on intercultural models and best practice reports to
address the complexities of communication and engaging across cultures and faiths. Luby has developed
publications on Arab Cultures - Islam and American Muslims.
Selected as a Peace Fellow for Seeds of Peace and a Malone Fellow in Middle East and Islamic Studies by
the National Council for U.S. and Arab Relations, Luby participated in a study visit to Saudi Arabia. Luby is
often is a sought after compelling keynote speaker and presenter at conferences around the world
including Human Capital Forum in South America, the Arabian Society for Human Resource Management
conference and the Society for Human Resources’ Workplace Diversity.
Luby assisted in the development and launch My Fellow American, America’s Unofficial Ambassadors and
20,000 Dialogues to stimulate dialogue across faiths through powerful PBS documentaries.
She holds a Master’s degree in Intercultural Relations from Lesley College in Cambridge, Massachusetts
and a B.A. in International Service from The American University in Washington, DC. She has traveled and
spoke throughout Europe, including Bosnia and Croatia, and the Middle East, including Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Jordan, the West Bank, Jerusalem and Israel and most recently, Peru, Singapore,
Colombia, and Mexico.
Luby’s clients include Federal and State agencies, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations and
private corporations including Microsoft, Walt Disney World, U.S. Department of Justice, Campbell Soup
Company, CVS, Darden Restaurants, King Abdullah University for Science and Technology, Foreign Service
Institute, Shell Chemicals, Institute of International Education, Brookhaven National Laboratories, NIKE.
Luby received the 2012 Arab American Anti-Discrimination Honoring the Achievements of Extraordinary
Arab-American Women Award.
Luby is married to Alex Kronemer, an award winning documentary film producer and founder of Unity
Productions Foundation www.upf.tv. They have three children, Sharif, Zakaria and Laila who inspire them
to bring peace and harmony across cultures and faiths!
KAREN CLEVELAND, CLEVELAND GROUP, LLC.
http://clevelandcoachinggroup.com/
Karen is the President of Cleveland Group, LLC and Cleveland Coaching Group. The Cleveland Group, a
Reston, VA company specializes in helping leaders, teams and organizations identify and develop their full
leadership potential. The Group utilizes a holistic approach that includes individual and/or team coaching
along with effective industry tools and methodology.
Karen’s specialty is working with senior executives and emerging leaders who recognize their need for
continued personal and professional growth. She helps them develop sustainable practices that are
actionable and produce desired results. In addition to coaching leaders Karen consults with nonprofits on
board and fund development as well as strategic planning and meeting facilitation.
Karen brings over twenty years of executive leadership experience to her role. Prior to founding the
Cleveland Group in 2010, Karen served as President & CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Northern VA where
she was known as a visionary leader and was credited with growing the organization into one of the most
respected charitable organizations in the Metro DC area. Under her leadership Habitat expanded their
homebuilding model to include the building of condominiums, opened two ReStores to help fund the
expansion of their core business and was recognized as the nonprofit of the year by the Fairfax County
Chamber of Commerce in 2010. Karen also served as the first Executive Director/CEO of the Reston
Chamber of Commerce and in executive positions with the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce and the
Association of Sales & Marketing Companies, a division of the Grocery Manufacturers of America.
Karen was named the 1994 Reston Citizen of the Year and received a 2004 Best of Reston Award for
Community Service and the 2011 Robert E. Simon Award. She was also named the 2002 Volunteer of the
Year by the YMCA of Metropolitan DC, received the 2006 Joseph L. Ritchey Award for Community
Service and the 2008 EXCEL Award for Nonprofit Leadership Excellence by the Center for Nonprofit
Advancement.
Karen is an inspirational speaker and a dynamic presenter. In addition to her expertise in leadership, Karen
assists startup businesses and nonprofits and consults in the areas of strategic planning, board and fund
development, leadership presence development, public speaking and presentation skills.
Karen received her coaching certification from Georgetown University and is a graduate of the University
of Cincinnati.
COLIN CALLAHAN, COLIN CALLAHAN & ASSOCIATES, LLC
Colin Callahan is the founder and managing partner of Colin Callahan & Associates, LLC, a leadership
development, executive coaching, and organizational consulting firm based in Northern Virginia. Colin
specializes in working with leaders and teams through the transition and change they need to maximize
effective performance and growth.
Colin has over 30 years of progressive business management experience in leadership development,
information technology management, customer service and strategic planning. He has been a principal in
a successful leadership development and financial consulting firm, and vice president with a large
technical services company having responsibility for financial and project management, strategic planning,
and P&L operations in support of EPA, GSA, DOJ, and the Department of Treasury.
Prior to starting his firm, Colin has headed the Booz Allen Hamilton Strategic Business Intelligence (SBI)
Information and Education team and the Frontline Leadership initiative where he was responsible for
managing the SBI Knowledge Center and launching the firm-wide Frontline Leadership initiative. Before,
Booz Allen, Colin was a principal of Northward Leadership and Development, focusing on executive
coaching, team and leadership development. He also has held the position of Director of Knowledge
Management for a Northern Virginia telecommunications firm pioneering the use of speech recognition
technology and served as Vice President of Network Consulting Services for DynCorp.