Featured Speakers
Melissa Early works for Truist as a Senior Career Program Manager leading early career programs for the Leadership Development Program, Enterprise Track and FSE (Financial Services Enterprise) Interns. Prior, she worked as a DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) Consultant for 5 years, focused on creating and implementing the organization’s BRG (Business Resource Group) strategy. Melissa also worked in Operational Risk Management and Mortgage Operations. She joined Truist in 2012 from Toys R Us and Babies R Us where she managed a tri-state region of stores for HR and Asset Protection.
In 2021, Melissa and her BRG Co-Chair coordinated the inaugural Carolinas Veterans Day Festival in partnership with Truist and Veterans Bridge Home. In 2023, the event was elevated to include a benefit concert presented by Truist and home giveaway in partnership with True Homes, a Truist client. This is now an annual event for all generations, abilities and backgrounds that celebrates and honors veterans, service members and their families. She was recognized with the 2020 Council of Korean Americans Empower Award. Melissa has also been a Truist Performance Awards nominee consecutively for 5 years and earned a Presidential Volunteer Service Award for 7 consecutive yrs. In 2019, she relocated to Charlotte, NC from Richmond, VA where she served as a board member on the VCIC’s State Board and Richmond Advisory Chapter, YWCA Young Women’s Leadership Alliance, Equality Virginia – VA Competes Advisory Board, Girls on the Run
Richmond, United Way Young Leaders Society and Family Lifeline’s YP. Melissa also served as a board member for PFLAG Charlotte (2021-22). Currently, she and actively supports many non-profits in the Carolinas, to include Veterans Bridge Home, VOWS (Veterans on Wall Street), and NAAAP (National Association of Asian American Professionals).
Karen Grant is the Managing Director of Corporate Human Resources at Hershey Entertainment & Resorts (HE&R). Working with company leadership, she ensures the action and sustainability of vital human resource initiatives and programs across the organization. Karen holds her PHR and SHRM-CP certifications.
For more than 22 years, Karen has been a member of the HE&R HR team. She joined the company in 2001 as an intern while studying Business Administration at Lebanon Valley College where she earned her Bachelor of Science degree with concentrations in both Human Resources and Marketing in 2002.
During her tenure with HE&R, Karen has been nominated seven times for the Legacy of Excellence Award, the company’s highest level of peer-to-peer recognition. In addition to her daily responsibilities leading the HR team, Karen supports HE&R’s Core Purpose of providing value to Milton Hershey School (MHS) by serving as a mentor to a student in the Mentoring Our Leaders’ Development (M.O.L.D.) program. Karen is also a member of the organization’s Workforce Inclusion Committee and DE&I Council.
Lorelee Isbell serves as the Associate Vice President for Career and Workforce Development at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. In this leadership position, she drives strategic initiatives that strengthen career readiness, broaden workforce development opportunities, and contribute to regional economic growth by attracting and retaining top talent in South Central Pennsylvania. With her expertise in higher education, Lorelee plays a key role in bridging the gap between education and employment, advancing programs that prepare students for successful careers while fostering partnerships with industry leaders.
Lorelee’s professional journey includes 23 years of service with the Office of the Chancellor for Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education. During this time, she led strategic efforts at higher education centers in Harrisburg and Philadelphia, enhancing access to education and providing premier spaces for business and organizational events. Her work centered on building collaborative relationships across the 14 State System universities to deliver impactful continuing education and workforce development programs.
Beyond her role at Shippensburg, Lorelee actively engages with the community through leadership roles on various committees, including Leadership Harrisburg Area, South Central PA Works, and the University Professional and Continuing Education Association. She also serves on the board of directors for Community Carepoint. Lorelee holds a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Messiah College and a master’s degree in organizational development and leadership from Shippensburg University.
As senior vice president, work-based learning, Laura Love leads Strada’s work-based learning agenda, which focuses on paid internships and apprenticeships that help students connect their education to their career aspirations. Love’s work emphasizes ways to scale paid, quality work-based learning experiences across the United States and focuses on the research, policies, and practices needed on a national level to achieve systems change.
Before joining Strada in May 2024, Love served as a partner at Grads of Life, an initiative of the national workforce development nonprofit organization Year Up, where she worked to advise large employers on inclusive talent strategies.
Love spent 10 years at Year Up and Grads of Life, its consultancy arm. In 2014, Love helped launch Grads of Life as a national communications campaign with the Ad Council, focused on changing public narratives about young people who are neither enrolled in school nor participating in the labor market. Following the campaign, Love played a key role in leading Grads of Life’s strategic growth and impact, supporting the creation of a consulting practice, and developing a research and thought leadership strategy. Earlier in her tenure at Year Up, Love developed a blueprint for program expansion, overseeing the launch of Year Up’s first employer-based training model in partnership with multinational toy maker Hasbro.
Love also led international expansion projects for global nongovernmental organization Ashoka, based in Singapore. She connected social entrepreneurs with seed funding, built strategic partnerships with business leaders, philanthropic entities, and nongovernmental organizations, and helped secure support to expand the organization’s presence into Malaysia.
Love holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Oxford’s Said Business School and a Bachelor of Arts in international studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Angela “Angie” Meyers is the Director of Talent Acquisition at Hershey Entertainment and Resorts (HE&R). Angie’s passion for HE&R’s Core Purpose of providing value to Milton Hershey School (MHS) has kept her engaged and driven throughout her 25 years with the company. Before her appointment to lead company-wide talent acquisition efforts in 2022, Angie was the Director of Revenue Management & Reservations. Throughout her tenure with HE&R, Angie held various roles in the Reservations department.
Angie is a proud member of the HE&R-MHS Partnership Committee which drives engagement for HE&R team members with the School. She serves as the Board President of Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF), Central PA Chapter. Breakthrough T1D is the leading global organization harnessing the power of research, advocacy, and community engagement to advance life-changing breakthroughs for type 1 diabetes (T1D).
Angie recently earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management from Elizabethtown College.
Nichole Torpey-Saboe is Vice President of Research for Strada Education Foundation. She provides leadership and support in designing and producing original research aligned with Strada’s strategic pillars and facilitates collaboration and collective impact across the field to improve equitable pathways to opportunity through postsecondary education and training. Key research projects include the State Opportunity Index, alumni outcomes studies with more than 70 institutions, and Strada’s Public Viewpoint research series to track the impact of the pandemic on education and the workforce. Prior to joining Strada in 2018, she worked as an independent consultant, advising higher education, nonprofits, and local government on research, evaluation, and strategy. She is the author of the book Measuring Education Inequality in Developing Countries (Springer, 2018). Torpey-Saboe holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Colorado Boulder and master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Georgetown University