Meet the Speakers
2023 Small Actions, Big Impacts Speakers:
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MIA HAZLETT
Rejection Recovery: A Journey to Your Yes​
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Mia has over two decades of experience in executive management. She has spent close to 15 years in MA public and private higher education. Although Mia has built a solid executive management and leadership career for herself, she remade herself when her world came crashing down after divorcing her husband. With 15 months of unemployment, 2 years of home insecurity, and two daughters to raise, Mia wrote her first book, Going Through It. She later accomplished her goal of sharing her story in Defining Your Own Title as a featured TEDx Talk speaker in 2016. In 2018, Mia rebranded herself as a Single Professional Mother. She set the mission to eliminate the negative stereotypes associated with single motherhood and build an international network of single professional mothers who join together to uplift one another.In her downtime, Mia enjoys time with her daughters, writing, reading, and crocheting.
ELISHA FERNANDEZ
How Representation in Publishing Can Change the World
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Elisha is a 20-year-old Latina best-selling author, international public speaker, and award-winning editor. She is passionate about using her art, stories, and ideas to empower, uplift, and motivate teens and young adults. Her family is from the Dominican Republic, and Elisha is proud of her heritage. Elisha is a senior in college at Brigham Young University in Editing and Publishing with minors in Communications and Linguistics in April 2023. Elisha has published and contributed to multiple books, and is currently working on an academic Honors thesis collecting data on the representation of young adults of color in the YA publishing industry. She plans to pursue book publishing as her career and keep writing and publishing her own books.
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BRIAN DZINGAI
How Small Actions Led Me to Become an Olympian​
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Brian Dzingai loves to inspire people to reach their fullest potential by tapping into their inner strength. He never had dreams of competing at the Olympics but as a two-time track and field Olympian (2004 Athens & 2008 Beijing ), he just competed out of sheer love of the sport. During Brian’s eight years as a professional athlete, Nike & Mizuno sponsored him, and he consistently ranked in the top 20 for the 200m dash throughout his career.
Since his passion for track and field will never die, Brian is leveraging his experience as a professional athlete to help build entrepreneurial ventures that can solve problems athletes face. As the co-founder of Athlete Plus, he is helping build a platform that brings a community and financial foundation for athletes to succeed during and after sports. The company provides equitable finance and monetization products that level the playing field for all athletes through financial literacy.
ROBIN CAMAROTE
I was the World's Worst Manager​
Robin Camarote is an executive coach, facilitator, consultant, and speaker. She’s on a mission to help ambitious, goal-oriented leaders get the outcomes they want at work and in life by seeing their potential, focusing their efforts, and managing time. She worked in consulting and management for 20 years before starting her leadership development and coaching practice.
This topic is so important to her because she’s made some pretty soul-crushing, productivity-squashing mistakes as a manager. She knows others face similar challenges connecting with and motivating employees and making work a great place to be. She shares what she’s learned with the belief that it will help organization leaders reduce resistance and frustration at work by increasing leadership and ownership for all.
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PHOEBE OMONIRA
The Power of a Question​
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Phoebe Omonira is using her voice to raise awareness about Empathy and Community as the key to reducing inequality. She is the Director of Community and Nonprofit Partnerships at GenZ Girl Gang where she works to redefine sisterhood for a new generation using social media to build digital communities that hold “IRL” value. She is a sophomore at Southern Methodist University where she is double majoring in Human Rights and Nonprofit Organizations and Social Innovation with a minor in Sociology on the Pre-Law track and serves her campus as a member of the SMU Human Rights Council. Her advocacy work is centered around creating Social Emotional Learning resources for kids and their grown-ups, learning from the Center for Children’s Brain Health at the University of Texas Dallas. She hopes to revolutionize the way kids learn soft skills in order to make a more equitable world for all. One of her most impactful experiences was as a Nobel Prize Summit 2021 Speaker & Facilitator, speaking on Empathy as a Global Responsibility. Her work stems from her personal experiences with her cultural identity, mental health, and wellness practices, as well as her belief in the power of empathy to create a more equitable world.
GRAHAM COCHRANE
Why Givers are Happier and Have Less Money Stress​
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Graham Cochrane is the author of “How To Get Paid for What You Know” and is a business coach to over 3,000 premium customers worldwide. He founded The Recording Revolution, a 7-figure online music business, in 2009. He now hosts over 80,000+ monthly followers on his podcast, YouTube, and blog, talking about business, mindset, productivity, and psychology. Graham has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, CNBC, Yahoo!, and The Huffington Post.
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