ACCESS logo
ACCESS 2023 KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Caroline Casey

Founder – The Valuable 500

Pronouns: she/her

Caroline Casey is the businesswoman and activist behind The Valuable 500, the world’s largest CEO collective and business move for disability inclusion. She is a system shaker driving the transformational change needed to create a more inclusive world.

Recently appointed President of the IAPB, Caroline also sits on several diversity and inclusion boards to include L’Oréal, Sanofi and Sky and is a much sought-after speaker. She has received an honorary doctorate as well as multiple awards and accolades for her work as a disability activist.

Caroline Casey

Christopher Patnoe

Head of Accessibility and Disability Inclusion – Google

Pronouns: he/him

Christopher Patnoe is the Head of Accessibility and Disability Inclusion for EMEA at Google. He leads Google’s efforts around the accessibility of product, people, policy and partnerships across EMEA – with a particular focus on Emerging Markets. He has more than 25 years experience in Tech working at companies like Apple, Sony Ericsson and Disney where he’s built hardware, software, and services. His current passion is Accessibility at the intersection of immersive technologies (xR) and consumer hardware. He is the chair for the Immersive Captions Community Group with the W3C, is the Accessibility Working Group Chair for the XR Association, sits on the Board of Trustees for the American Foundation for the Blind and the GAAD Foundation. Christopher has a degree in Music from UC Berkeley.
Christopher Patnoe

Claudia Gordon

Senior Accessibility Strategy Partner – T-Mobile

Pronouns: she/her

Claudia Gordon is a dedicated advocate for people with disabilities with nearly 30 years of versatile professional expertise, with a personal mission to level the playing field and ensure the same opportunities are provided for all. She currently serves as the Senior Accessibility Strategist with T-Mobile US, Inc. In this role, she drives strategies for a disability inclusive culture and an accessible plus equitable work environment. Gordon has held senior leadership positions with Sprint Corporation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the National Council on Disability, and the National Association of the Deaf Law and Advocacy Center. During the Obama-Biden Administration, Gordon served as the Chief of Staff for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs and the Associate Director of Public Engagement for the White House Office of Public Engagement. Notably, in November 2022, Gordon was appointed by President Biden to serve as a Council Member on the National Council on Disability, and she was subsequently tapped to serve as the Council’s Vice Chair.

Adding to Gordon’s professional expertise is her lived experience as an immigrant at the intersections of race, disability, and gender, which is the foundation for the strong emphasis on disabled individuals with multiple marginalized identities that she brings to her work. For her unrelenting commitment to advocacy, compliance, civic engagement, and mentoring, Gordon has been recognized by the American Association of People with Disabilities, Google, AT&T Humanity of Connection, National Disability Mentoring Coalition, National Association of the Deaf, National Black Deaf Advocates, and The Root 100. Gordon is a native of Jamaica, graduate of Howard University, and graduate of the American University’s Washington College of Law.

Claudia Gordon

Derek Featherstone

VP of Accessibility & Inclusive Design – Salesforce

Pronouns: he/him

Derek Featherstone is the VP of Accessibility & Inclusive Design at Salesforce, and is an internationally known author, speaker, practitioner, and authority on accessibility and inclusive design. Derek has spent the last decade creatively guiding enterprise organizations towards sustainable and proactive accessibility programs through inclusive design methods,  creating processes that shift left, and facilitating culture change.

Derek Featherstone

Kathy Martinez

VP of Global Disability Inclusion – Expedia Group

Pronouns: she/her

Kathy joined Expedia Group in October 2022 and leads the development of the travel tech company’s disability inclusion and equality strategy, weaving awareness and accessibility into all physical, digital, and cultural aspects across the organization.

Kathy is an internationally recognized disability inclusion thought leader. She most recently served as President & CEO of Disability Rights Advocates (DRA). Throughout her extensive career, she has also served as SVP, Head of Disability and Accessibility Strategy for Wells Fargo, and as Assistant Secretary of the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) at the U.S. Department of Labor, putting policy priorities into practice. Kathy is on the board of The American Association of People with Disabilities and has served on the boards of the National Council on Disability, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and the State Department’s advisory committee on disability and foreign policy.

Kathy Martinez

Ted Drake

Accessibility and Inclusive Design Leader – Intuit

Pronouns: he/him

Ted Drake is the Accessibility and Inclusive Design Leader at Intuit, a financial software company that creates TurboTax and QuickBooks. Ted leads a distributed team of Accessibility Champions; working together to power prosperity. Prior to Intuit, Ted co-founded Yahoo’s Accessibility Lab and was a developer evangelist. Ted speaks regularly at technology and design conferences and is a board member of Magical Bridge Foundation,  steering committee for  Web4All,  and program chair for CSUN Assistive Technology Conference.

Ted Drake

Jeff Wissel

Chief Accessibility Officer – Disability:IN

Pronouns: he/him

Jeff has a distinguished career with Fidelity Investments over the past 28 years. Jeff started Fidelity Investments as a Mutual Fund Representative and worked in a variety of roles including multiple Pilot Start up Roles. In March of 2010, Jeff obtained the Certified Financial Planning Certification, and in 2016, Jeff Founded the Fidelity Investments Enable Employee Resource Group. Today there are 5,147 active members.

Jeff is proud to say he is legally blind with a degenerative eye disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), and has been an avid user of assistive technologies including Screen Readers and Magnifiers for over two decades. Jeff has the IAAP CPACC Certification, the ADA Title II, III Coordinator Certification and is completing the DHS Trusted Tester Certification.

Jeff Wissel

Frances West

Founder – FrancesWest&Co

Pronouns: she/her

Frances West is the founder of FrancesWest&Co, a global strategy advisory company focusing on operationalizing diversity inclusion through digital transformation. Frances and her expert partners help public, private, non-profit, and start-ups thrive and grow through digital inclusion and purpose-driven innovation strategy.

Frances has 30+ years of global business management, technology sales, emerging market development and organizational leadership experience. She held numerous executive positions, including being IBM’s first Chief Accessibility Officer where she managed a global team from IBM Research to establish IT accessibility standards, shape government policies, and develop human first enterprise technology and solutions enabling all people to reach their highest potential, regardless of their age or ability. Because of her expertise, Frances was invited as the sole IT industry representative to testify before the US Senate on the need to pass the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.

Frances West

Charlotte Dales

Co-Founder and CEO – Inclusively

Pronouns: she/her

Charlotte Dales (She/Hers) is the Co-Founder and CEO of Inclusively, the workforce inclusion platform empowering employers with accommodation insights, access, training and the support they need to attract and retain previously hidden talent. Charlotte’s cousin Cameron became the first licensed aesthetician in the state of Florida with Down syndrome and after witnessing Cameron’s career fulfillment, she became passionate about replicating her employment success story for disabled talent and started Inclusively.

Before launching Inclusively, Charlotte started her career in finance with Deutsche Bank in London working with trading desks around the world. After five years, she left her bank job and co-founded her first company, CAKE Technologies, a mobile payment and reservation application for restaurants and bars which scaled to over 200 restaurants in London and was acquired by American Express. Charlotte’s experience in technology and startups has allowed Inclusively to provide a new technology solution to drive authentic diversity and inclusion in the workplace–helping employers acquire and retain top talent based on job seekers’ needed accommodations to build sustainable livelihoods and careers. Under Charlotte’s leadership, Inclusively is proud to be modernizing recruitment by creating structure and transparency around accommodations, benefitting all job seekers. Charlotte graduated from University of Colorado, Boulder and lives in Richmond, Virginia with her husband, daughter, and son.

Charlotte Dales

Theo Hildyard

VP of Global Demand Generation – Brightcove

Pronouns: he/him

Theo Hildyard is the VP of Global Demand Generation at Brightcove, the trusted leader in streaming technology. He oversees global campaigns and marketing operations as well as regional, partner and customer marketing. A results-driven analytical marketing leader, Hildyard has over 15 years of experience in B2B and enterprise software including PaaS and SaaS based products. Hildyard is a motivational and pragmatic leader with a proven track record of improving cross-functional collaboration and partnering with sales to ensure GTMs are actionable across every stage of the sales cycle.

Theo Hildyard
ACCESS 2023 SPEAKERS

Mark your calendars for ACCESS 2024!

 

SAVE THE DATE FOR 2024

3Play Media logo