Judy Shen-Filerman is CEO of Dreambridge Partners LLC, a communications and leadership development firm, focused on advancement success for executives, professionals and graduate students who are crossing cultures. Her practice

Judy Shen-Filerman is CEO of Dreambridge Partners LLC, a communications and leadership development firm, focused on advancement success for executives, professionals and graduate students who are crossing cultures. Her practice builds on three critical capacities: self-aware leadership, contextual communications and collaborative interpersonal relationships. As an executive coach to senior-level leaders and a sought-after lecturer at business schools around the country, Judy helps individuals decode critical cultural expectations and develop strategies to successfully navigate their professional environment.

Judy’s coaching approach is strongly informed by her experience as a bi-lingual, immigrant, Chinese-American woman who has achieved cross-cultural success throughout her life. Judy leverages interpersonal communications as the platform for bridging culturally diverse people towards shared outcomes. In addition to coaching and teaching, Judy writes extensively about leadership, career and culture and has been featured in numerous professional and national publications.

Judy is an accomplished business leader, consultant and entrepreneur with an expansive 25-year career and has held innovation-oriented marketing management positions for the world’s top consumer brands including: Procter and Gamble, Campbell Soup Asia and Polaroid. Judy is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and two children.

David A. Thomas is Dean of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. A recognized thought leader in organizational behavior and strategic human resource management, Dr. Thomas’ research focuses on issues

David A. Thomas is Dean of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. A recognized thought leader in organizational behavior and strategic human resource management, Dr. Thomas’ research focuses on issues related to executive development, cultural diversity in organizations, leadership, and organizational change.

Prior to his appointment at Georgetown University, Dr. Thomas was the H. Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where he directed the school’s Organizational Behavior Unit. He also served as senior associate dean and director of faculty recruitment at Harvard; led its business school’s required first-year MBA course, Leadership and Organizational Behavior; and held the position of faculty chair for several executive education programs. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard in 1990, Dr. Thomas was an assistant professor of management at the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Thomas has co-authored two books—Breaking Through: The Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America (Harvard Business Press, 1999) and Leading For Equity: The Pursuit of Excellence in Montgomery County. (Harvard Education Press, forthcoming)—and more than 60 case studies and articles for leading academic journals and practitioner publications.

In addition to being widely published, Dr. Thomas has been recognized with a number of prestigious awards, including the Executive Development Roundtable’s Marion Gislason Award for Contributions to the Theory and Practice of Executive Development. He recently received the Administrative Science Quarterly Scholarly Contribution Award for the article that had the most impact on the field in the last five years. He also earned the George R. Terry Award from the Academy of Management for the most outstanding contribution to the advancement of management knowledge for his book, Breaking Through: The Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America.

Partnering with the Washington, D.C., community, Thomas is a member of the Federal City Council, and in 2014, the Washington Business Journal recognized him as a top Minority Business Leader.

Dr. Thomas received a Bachelor of Arts in Administrative Sciences and Master and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Organizational Behavior from Yale University. He also holds a Master of Arts in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University. He currently is a member of the Board of Directors of DTE Energy, American Red Cross and the Estoril Conferences Advisory Board.