2023 Keynote Speakers
Angela Taylor
Former WNBA Executive and Equity & Inclusion Strategist, Co-Founder & Partner, The Dignitas Agency, LLC.
Angela Taylor is an entrepreneur, creative strategist, consultant, leadership coach, DEI practitioner, TV Sports Analyst for the Pac-12 Network, and podcaster whose mission is to help leaders and organizations reach their full potential. Taylor’s entrepreneurial endeavors include NetWorks Sports Consulting, Indulge Boise Food Tours, the award nominated Unlocking the Club podcast, and The DIGNITAS Agency. The Dignitas Agency is a boutique global consulting firm focused on leadership development, change management, executive coaching and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion strategy. The firm consults with global clients in corporate, government, health care, academia, tech, and the startup space. Taylor also launched Indulge Boise Food Tours, the first food tour established in the Treasure Valley that provides food & walking tours. Indulge Boise is the top-rated Food Tour in Idaho.
Prior to pursuing her entrepreneurial dreams, Taylor was an executive in the sports & entertainment industry. Her career in sports & entertainment included stops as President & General Manager of the Atlanta Dream and a 10-year stint at the WNBA/NBA League Office. A native of Mountain Home, Idaho, Taylor graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and earned her MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business. She was a member of two NCAA National Championship Women’s Basketball teams at Stanford University (1990 & 1992). Her philanthropic endeavors include being Vice-Chair of The Salvation Army-Boise Board of Directors, Chair of the Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center Board, Saint Alphonsus Health System Board, College of Idaho Advisory Board, Blue Sky Institute Advisory Board, and Boise CVB Board.
In her free time, Taylor enjoys golfing, reading and gardening
Cindy Montgenie
Cindy Montgenie is passionate about helping leaders thrive, and businesses grow in our diverse and ever-changing world. Cindy is a seasoned high-performance strategist, an international speaker, and the founder of Edgy Strategies. She leverages the latest research and her experience as a 20-year Fortune 50 executive to boost leaders’ effectiveness and spark transformations. From the trenches of the fast-paced and male- dominated tech industry, she led multicultural teams through countless changes and grew a business unit from $80M to $900M with P&L responsibilities.
Cindy equips leaders with the right mindsets, toolkits, and behaviors to overcome challenges, drive business success and win the future without burnout. She has served thousands of leaders from Fortune 100 giants SMBs, and government entities worldwide. What sets Cindy apart is not her distinctive French accent or 150- watt smile but her unwavering dedication to delivering tangible results.
Debra LaMorte
Former Special Adviser to the President and Senior Vice President for University Development and Alumni Relations at New York University
Debra LaMorte served as Senior Vice President for University Development and Alumni Relations at New York University from 2001 to 2016. Ms. LaMorte began her career at NYU in 1990 when she joined NYU School of Law where she ultimately served as Associate Dean for External Affairs. LaMorte had an illustrious 30-year career at NYU which resulted in her raising over $7B on behalf of the University. She was known to have raised over $1M per day during her time with NYU. As the University’s main fundraiser and alumni liaison, Ms. LaMorte was directly responsible for delivering the philanthropic resources necessary for NYU to meet its academic and programmatic goals and for engaging alumni, parents, and friends of the University worldwide. When she stepped down from her role as Senior Vice President in 2016, she stayed on with NYU for and additional two years as Special Advisor to the President.
In her role at NYU, LaMorte successfully completed a $3.2B comprehensive campaign in 2008 which at the time was the largest campaign in the history of higher education. LaMorte was directly responsible for helping to secure 15 transformative gifts ranging from $25M to $150M. In 2010, LaMorte led a $1B campaign to exclusively support scholarships at NYU. That campaign successfully closed at $1.2B in 2017.
LaMorte was also a member of the adjunct faculty at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service where she taught Professional Fundraising for 10 years. LaMorte was presented with the “Woman of the Year Award” by the New York City Women and Development Association in 2016.
Currently, LaMorte is Of Counsel with the International Consulting Firm of Marts & Lundy. LaMorte received her B.A. from Antioch College in 1975, and her J.D. from the Salmon P. Chase College of Law in 1979. She is currently engaged in service on several non-profit boards and lives with her husband in Stanley, Idaho.
Sarah G. Draper
Retired FBI, Supervisory Special Agent
Sarah G. Draper is a retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent, having spent 20 years in the FBI serving in Oregon, Virginia, and Idaho. Prior to the FBI, she was an officer in the U.S. Army Military Police Corps for eight years and served in Germany, South Korea, and Washington, and led units on deployments to Croatia and Kosovo.
Sarah has a B.S. in Environmental Science from the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) and an M.A. in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga University. She has certifications as a yoga instructor, a Positive Psychology Practitioner, and a Resilience Practitioner, and is completing her training to become a Certified Health and Well-being Coach.
Sarah is married with two teenage daughters. Her family recently moved back to Boise, Idaho, after retiring from the FBI this summer. Her final FBI assignment was as an instructor at the FBI National Academy, which is a 10-week residential education program for law enforcement executives from around the world. Sarah taught graduate and undergraduate courses in leadership and wellness, allowing her to share her enthusiasm for leadership development, mindfulness, positive psychology, and well-being to help leaders both be their best and create cultures in which others thrive.
Angela Coleman
Associate Chief USDA Forest Service
Angela Coleman serves as the Associate Chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service. Prior to this assignment, she served as Forest Service Chief of Staff beginning in 2015, where she oversaw the Chief’s Office daily operations and staff, issues management, and Office of Communication and Legislative Affairs programs. She provided senior-level support to the Chief of the agency and the Executive Leadership Team to advance and deliver the agency’s natural resource conservation mission.
Angela has served in numerous leadership roles with the Forest Service, to include Washington Office roles as associate deputy chief of Business Operations, and associate deputy chief of Research and Development. Before that, she served as deputy regional forester for the Pacific Southwest Region for national forests located in California and parts of Nevada. She also served for 7 years as regional communications director for the Southern Region in Atlanta. A native of Phenix City, AL, Angela has amassed more than 27 years with the Forest Service. She launched her career as a professional journalist with news media conglomerate Knight-Ridder, serving as a news reporter for the Pulitzer Prize-winning Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.
Angela has served as a member of both the natural resource conservation and communications communities, including the National Wild Turkey Federation and Sigma Delta Chi Society of Professional Journalists. She is currently a member of the World Forestry Congress. A summa cum laude graduate of Troy University, she completed postgraduate course work at American University in Washington, DC. She also served as a Senior Executive Fellow for Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. In 2010, Angela was sworn in as a member of the Senior Executive Service.
Stephanie Sinclair
Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist
Stephanie Sinclair is known for gaining unique access to the most sensitive gender and human rights issues around the world. She has documented the defining conflicts of the past decade with a fearless persistence. Her widely published images of the occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan refute characterizations of violence in anything but human terms. Ms. Sinclair’s photographs are regularly published worldwide in esteemed outlets such as National Geographic and The New York Times Magazine, among others.
Although she has covered the dramatic events of war, many of Ms. Sinclair’s most arresting works confront the everyday brutality faced by young girls around the world. Her studies of domestic life in developing countries and the United States bring into sharp relief the physical and emotional tolls that entrenched social conventions can take on those most vulnerable to abuse.
The ongoing capstone of Ms. Sinclair’s career is her 15-year series, Too Young to Wed, which examines the deeply troubling practice of early, forced and child marriage as it appears in a variety of cultures around the world today. The series has earned numerous global accolades, including three World Press Photo awards and numerous prestigious exhibitions including the United Nations (2012, 2014) and the Whitney Biennial (2010) in New York. Other awards for this project include the 2015 Art for Peace Award, the 2015 Lucie Humanitarian Award, the International Center of Photography 2014 Infinity Award, an unprecedented three Visa D’Or Feature awards from the Visa Pour L’Image photojournalism festival in France, UNICEF’s Photo of the Year, the Alexia Foundation Professional Grant and the Lumix Festival for Young Photojournalism Freelens Award. Ms. Sinclair’s other projects have also received a great deal of recognition, including the 2008 CARE International Award for Humanitarian Reportage; The Overseas Press Club’s Olivier Rebbot Award (2009) for her essay A Cutting Tradition: Inside An Indonesian Female Circumcision Celebration; another World Press Photo award for her coverage of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon; and a Pulitzer Prize (2000) for her work documenting systemic failures in the U.S. airline industry.
Beyond photography, Ms. Sinclair has shepherded the Too Young To Wed series into a nonprofit organization of the same name whose official mission is to protect girls’ rights and end child marriage. As the Too Young To Wed’s Founding Executive Director, Ms. Sinclair has sought to use the power of visual storytelling to provide visual evidence of the human rights challenges faced by girls and women around the world. The organization amplifies the voices of courageous girls and women in order to generate attention, passion, and resources and to inspire the global community to act to end child marriage. Too Young to Wed also transforms influential advocacy into tangible action on the ground through partnerships with international and local NGOs and by supporting initiatives in the communities where the girls in the stories live.