Keynote Speaker Series
Ace Callwood
Director, Envoy
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/acecallwood
Instagram: https://instagram.com/acecallwood
Twitter: https://twitter.com/acecallwood
"Allyship" Keynote Presentation
Ace Callwood is a Director at Envoy, a consulting firm that investigates and influences human decision-making. He spent the early part of his career building tech companies such as Painless1099, a tax and finance platform for freelancers, and Coffitivity, one of TIME Magazine’s Top 50 Sites of 2013. He’s been the Entrepreneur in Residence at his alma mater's School of Business, a thoughtful facilitator, and DEI practitioner for nearly a decade, and has held several board positions across non-profit, government, and academic entities. Ace teaches skills such as aligning motives for access and connection, integrating DEI into core business functions, generating ideas for optimal solutions, and building deep partnerships.
Sidney Edwards
Associate Vice President, Equity Advancement, YMCA of Greater Richmond
"DND: UNinterrupted Rest" Keynote Presentation
"UNbossed: More Than a Title" Virtual Workshop
Sidney R. Edwards is an award-winning Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) practitioner who specializes in curating exceptional experiences for multiple levels of organizational stakeholders. With over 15 years of experience, Sidney has become a cultural architect who is known for innovating and refining systems and challenging organizations to go beyond the status quo and genuinely lean into their DEI work.
She is a gifted conference planner and facilitator who leads from a place of excellence. With an eye for small details and a passion for inspiring transformational change she is committed to developing more equitable communities.
Sidney pioneered and now leads the DEI Department for the YMCA of Greater Richmond where she crafted the inaugural DEI Strategic Plan and coaches other YMCAs along their own DEI journeys.
Sidney is the founder of SRGE Consulting: “Where all we need is you to help individuals and organizations honor diversity, practice inclusion, and achieve equity.”
She is happily married to her best friend, Joshua and together they are nurturing their three beautiful children: Cientriel, who beat us to heaven shortly after birth, Yara, a tenacious two-year-old, and Mekhai, a determined 6-month-old. She enjoys drinking her coffee black and being by the water to watch the sunrise while admiring the noisy silence of nature.