Plenary Speakers

Flores  Norma Flores grew up in a migrant farm-worker family. She began working in the apple orchards in Indiana at the age of 12 and continued to work in the fields in the states of Iowa, Michigan and Texas until she graduated from high school. Flores attended Texas Pan-American University in Edinburg, Texas, and graduated with a B.A. in Communications. She is now living in Chicago where she works as an account coordinator at MWW Group, a public relations firm. She is an active advocate for migrant farm-worker child rights and continues to raise awareness of migrant farm-worker issues in national conferences and workshops across the country.

Frieze Deborah Frieze is co-president of The Berkana Institute, a global non-profit leadership organization started by Margaret Wheatley. Berkana works in partnership with a rich diversity of people around the world who strengthen their communities by working with the wisdom and wealth already present in their people, traditions and environment. Debbie arrived at Berkana to launch the Berkana Exchange, a network of leadership learning centers who are developing the capacity to solve their communities’ most pressing problems—such as food security, ecological sustainability and economic self-reliance. Debbie has an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Hurley Thomas Hurley serves as a senior advisor and executive coach for leaders seeking innovative approaches to key strategic issues and large scale systems change. For more than 25 years, he has worked with innovators, thought leaders, and executives in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors, helping guide and give form to whole system change initiatives in a wide range of fields. He was co-founder of the Chaordic Commons with VISA founder Dee Hock, and served for seventeen years with the Institute of Noetic Sciences as a member of the senior management team that guided the Institute’s growth into a leading global organization on expanded human capacities and positive futures. He serves on the board of directors for both the World Café Community Foundation and the Berkana Institute.

Wiley Maya Wiley is the founder and Director of the Center for Social Inclusion, a national policy advocacy organization working to transform structural racism into structural equity and prosperity. A civil rights lawyer and policy strategist, Ms. Wiley has worked for the American Civil Liberties Union National Legal Department, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the US Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York and the Open Society Institute's US Programs and the Open Society Foundation South Africa.