Advisory Board

Our advisory board members are business leaders who are committed to making Florida's business climate conducive to economic success by encouraging and supporting diversity in the workplace.

Randy Kammer

Vice President, Regulatory Affairs and Public Policy

The fight for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) rights is the next frontier of civil rights. I am an ally and advocate because I passionately believe in the 'radical' notion that GLBT persons are human beings who deserve to be treated with the same dignity and respect as heterosexuals.

Randy Kammer, BlueCross BlueShield of Florida

Randy Kammer is Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida’s (BCBSF) vice president, regulatory affairs and public policy. In this role, Kammer represents the company before state and federal regulatory agencies. She also leads the Public Policy group to oversee the creation of critical policy positions and policy advocacy. Prior to joining BCBSF in 1987, Kammer was the senior staff attorney at Three Rivers Legal Services in Gainesville. Currently, Kammer is active in many diversity activities at BCBSF. She was recently honored by the nation’s largest GLBT workplace organization Out and Equal, with the Champion Award, the only award given to a non-GLBT individual.

Throughout her career, Kammer has been active in community organizations, particularly in the Jacksonville Jewish community. She is the immediate past president of The Blue Foundation for a Healthy Florida, BCBSF’s philanthropic affiliate. Kammer chaired the Department of Insurance Small Group Standard Benefit Design Committee and serves on the Florida Health Insurance Advisory Board. She also serves as vice-chair of the Florida Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Association and is on the Boards of Three Rivers Legal Services, Memories of Love and River Garden Hebrew Home for the Aged. Kammer is active in the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and frequently speaks on health care related topics.

Kammer holds a Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University and a juris doctorate degree from the University of Florida College of Law.

Beth Shimko

District Sales Leader

The whole is much stronger than the sum of its parts. As people, we need to come together as one and rid discrimination everywhere. If each company, city, town , state joins in this belief and adopts the ideals that PepsiCo, as a company, represents, then I believe this country will be a far better place, a happier place and more productive place. I simply cannot wait for that day.

My name is Beth Shimko. I am a District Sales Leader for Frito-Lay, Inc, a division of PepsiCo and have been in this position for over 10 years. I began as a route sales associate and worked my way up in the company through the self-nomination process. I have been given every opportunity to succeed within this organization, not because of or in spite of my gender, sexual orientation, religion or color, but because Frito-Lay fosters hard work and dedication above all else and has gone above and beyond to make sure that their employees will be judged by merit and not prejudice. I was honored to speak at a city council meeting in Tampa recently and it was one of the most powerful experiences I have ever had. I knew then that I would forever be joined in this movement, to help spread this very important message and to make a difference in any way that I could.

I am very proud to be associated and employed by PepsiCo/Frito-Lay. The culture of our organization is one where we truly are a team. This could not be the case if we did not foster inclusion and respect for the individuals that make up our team. I am certain that this is the very core of our success at PepsiCo. And, to take it one step further, I believe it is the core of our success as a country, state, city and town. The whole is much stronger than the sum of its parts. As people, we need to come together as one and rid discrimination everywhere. If each company, city, town , state joins in this belief and adopts the ideals that PepsiCo, as a company, represents, then I believe this country will be a far better place, a happier place and more productive place. I simply cannot wait for that day.

Tracy Stone

Director of Associate Relations

I am proud to work for an organization that recognizes diversity and inclusion as a core value, not as a separate body of work, or a tactic that can be checked off at the end of the year; but rather an integrated approach that touches everything we do.

Tracy Stone is the Director of Associate Relations for Sweetbay Supermarket, where she recently celebrated her 20 year anniversary. Tracy's career began in a retail location as she attended college and soon after became a Store Manager. From there, she pursued opportunities in many functional areas including Regional Training Specialist, Organizational Development Supervisor, Director of Deli and Bakery, and Director of Retail Marketing. Her passion for people and love of the business created the perfect job fit in her current role within human resources.

Sweetbay is headquartered in Tampa, Florida and is part of the Belgium based Delhaize Group, operating in the United States as Delhaize America. Supermarket News ranked Delhaize America number nine in the "Top 75 North American Food Retailers" awards of 2009. Sweetbay operates 104 stores, primarily in west central Florida, and has 9,000 associates. Each store combines passion, knowledge and excitement and offers outstanding quality, value and variety for a one-of-a-kind shopping experience. You'll find a cornucopia of enticing sights, scents and textures at Sweetbay, as well as an abundance of fresh-picked produce, top-quality meats, diverse ethnic offerings, oven-fresh baked goods, an expansive deli selection and well-stocked grocery aisles.

Peter Kageyama

Co-Founder & Producer

Peter is the co-founder and producer of the Creative Cities Summit , an interdisciplinary event that brings together practitioners around the big idea of the city. The most recent Summit, held in Detroit, Michigan in October of 2008, drew over 700 attendees and speakers from all over the world. Peter is also one of the founders of the Sarasota International Design Summit presented by the Ringling College of Art & Design. He has been the show’s coproducer and the host and moderator since 2007. He has worked with Richard Florida and his team on several projects, and with Charles Landry, author of “The Creative City” and founder of Comedia, the U.K.’s leading cultural development consultancy. He is currently producing a documentary film about Landry. He is the past president of Creative Tampa Bay (2005-07), a grass roots, not for profit organization championing the creative economy in the Tampa Bay area. In 2007-2009, he organized and led groups of community leaders from Northern Ireland on their learning tours of the United States, looking at creative cities and innovative community development projects in Washington DC, Chicago, Baltimore, Austin, Memphis and Tampa Bay. In 2009 he is working on conferences in Toronto and Philadelphia and will be working in England over the summer with the Creative Industries Development Agency. Recent engagements include: • Hillsborough Co. Task Force on Economic Stimulus • Creative Cities Summit - 2004, 2008 • Sarasota International Design Summit - 2006-08 • Florida Redevelopment Association – 2008 • Sarasota Young Professionals - 2008 • ULI Tampa Bay – Young Professionals -2007 • Great Towns Conference, York, UK – 2006 • World Culture Open, Kigali, Rwanda – 2006 • Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit – Philadelphia, US – 2006 • Global Village on the Move , Perth Australia- 2005 • Creative Catalysts, Perth, Australia - 2005

Brian McNaught

Fortune 500 Diversity Trainer

Named "the godfather of gay diversity training" by "The New York Times," Brian McNaught works with Fortune 50 and U.S. government senior managers in offices around the world, helping them build competence and confidence in their proactive response to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees.

A Fort Lauderdale resident, he has worked with heterosexual audiences in churches, classrooms, and boardrooms since 1974. His six books and six DVDs are extensively used as educational resources. From 1982 - 1984, Brian served as the Mayor of Boston's Liaison to the Gay and Lesbian Community. More recently, he was an advisor to former Surgeon General David Satcher on matters of national sexual health. For more information, go to www.brian-mcnaught.com.

Nancy Faggianelli

Shareholder Attorney

Carlton Fields, P.A. was established in 1901 and is one of Florida's oldest and largest full-service firms, with more than 300 lawyers and government consultants. They serve national, international and local clients in all areas of business transactions, litigation and government matters. Nancy Faggianelli represents business clients, financial institutions, and insurance companies in class actions and complex litigation in state and federal courts. She has substantial experience defending and prosecuting a wide variety of claims. Ms. Faggianelli has tried cases in the areas of breach of contract, insurance, infringement of intellectual property rights, defamation, employment discrimination, and products liability, and she has won injunctions in cases involving intellectual property rights, non-competition agreements, and tortious interference with business relationships. She also has extensive experience in products liability cases, having tried two smoking and health cases for a major tobacco company, one of which was featured as the “Verdict of the Week” in the National Law Journal, and having defended over twenty other cases that were dismissed or resolved on summary judgment.

Ellen McLatchey

Director of Global Diversity and Inclusion

A larger and more diverse pool of employees will ensure a diversity of perspectives in business planning, making Symantec an even more dynamic company.

Symantec is well known for its Norton brand of security software. With the acquisition of Veritas Software in 2005 the company moved into enterprise backup and data-recovery products. The globalization of the technology industry has had significant implications for diversity at Symantec, where many teams are global and customers are located worldwide. Within the company diversity starts at the top. CEO John Thompson is African American, and other top leaders come from a variety of backgrounds. Symantec has a global diversity and inclusion executive steering committee that focuses on the strategic direction of Symantec’s global diversity and inclusion initiative. At the local level, grassroots efforts are led by diversity and inclusion councils of about a dozen employees. The councils work to increase diversity and identify barriers to an inclusive work environment. The local diversity and inclusion councils were instrumental in setting up a virtual network for Symantec’s GLBT community, . The diversity and inclusion councils also influenced Symantec’s decision to adopt gender transition guidelines and revise its nondiscrimination policy to include gender identity. Symantec offers domestic partner benefits. “A larger and more diverse pool of employees will ensure a diversity of perspectives in business planning, making Symantec an even more dynamic company,” notes McLatchey. Diversity on a global level can be difficult to achieve, McLatchey says. That’s why individual site efforts are so important. “The gender initiative resonates around the world, but in other areas the diversity perception changes depending on what part of the world you’re in.” Local diversity and inclusion councils help keep the initiative relevant, she adds.

Sebastian White

Spokesperson

Sebastian White is a spokesman for JetBlue Airways, which operates two of its five hubs in Florida (in Fort Lauderdale and Orlando), a training center in Orlando, and its LiveTV subsidiary in Melbourne. With more than 2,000 crewmembers in the state, JetBlue is a significant local employer. Mr White joined JetBlue in 2006 as a member of the airline's award-winning marketing and brand department. Today he works in corporate communications and is primarily responsible for internal communications to the airline's staff of 12,000 crewmembers spread across 60 cities and 12 countries in the Americas. Mr. White is active in JetBlue’s sponsorship of organizations including PFLAG and the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association as well as community promotions including JetPride, the first-ever LGBT-themed flight by a U.S. airline, which took flight in 2010. Mr. White joined JetBlue after three years with Carnegie Communications, a higher education marketing consultancy in Boston. He attended Boston University and Alfred University in New York, where he studied economics and sociology. An avid traveler, Mr. White makes his home in New York when not globetrotting.

Louis V Buccino

Community Relations & Public Affairs Officer/Director

<p> When you have an almost 200 year business heritage and are active in more than 100 countries world-wide, diversity is part of your core, part of your fabric - you live it, you breath it and you respect it."</p>

BA, Fordham University, New York, New York
JD, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio

Leader, board member, adviser, fund-raiser for a wide variety
of community educational, social service & arts/cultural NPOs

Professional/Civic Affiliations (2001-10):

CURRENT

- The Tampa Theatre                                    Board of Directors
- UT College of Business Administration                Advisory Board
- USF College of Education Stavros Center      Advisory Board
- USF College of Visual & Performing Arts      Advisory Board
- Tampa Bay Businesses for Culture & Arts      Board Member (chair 2005-06)
- Florida Council on Economic Education        Board Member
- Florida Financial Literacy Council           Appointed Member

FORMER
Louis V. Buccino (con’t)

- University of Tampa (UT)                             Board of Trustees
- Local Initiatives Support Corporation        Board Member
- USF/Patel Charter School                     Board Member
- Florida Chamber of Commerce                  Legal Affairs Committee
- Florida Bankers Association                  Gov't Relations Committee
- Tampa Chamber & Committee of 100             Board of Directors
- Junior Achievement of Central Florida                Board Member

Recent Honors/Roles/Recognition:

- Judge, Top Thirty Under Thirty (Tampa Bay Business Journal, 2005)
- Judge, Tampa Bay Philanthropy Awards (National Philanthropy Assn, 2004-08)
- Judge, Economic Educator of the Year (FL Council on Economic Education, 2004)
- Presenter, Florida Association of Museums (Naples, 2005)
- Presenter, Leadership Tampa, Tampa Bay & Hillsborough (Tampa, 2004-05)
- Who's Who In Tampa Bay Business (Tampa Bay Business Journal, 2004)
- Business Contributor of the Year (Tampa Bay Business Committee for the Arts, 2003)
- Corporate Counsel of the Year (Hillsborough County Bar Association, 2003)
- Private Sponsor of the Year (Florida Scholastic Chess League, 2003)
- Business Partner of the Year (Consortium of Florida Education Foundations, 2003)
- President's Annual Volunteer Service Award (VSA) Recognition (2008 & 2009)

Trevor R. Burgess

Vice Chairman

At Community Bank and at all of our investments around the world - we strive to hire the very best people - and we realized early on that to compete for the very best talent on a global scale we needed to not only have inclusive policies but inclusive practices. As an openly gay entrepreneur I have the exciting job of growing and revitalizing companies. With diversity of talent comes diversity of ideas and the ability to win in the marketplace.

Trevor Burgess is a lead investor in and Director of Community Bank, Tampa Bay's leading community bank with offices in Tampa, Riverview, Bradenton and Lakewood Ranch. Trevor is a Partner at Artesia Capital Management a private equity firm with investments in Brazil and the United States. Before joining Artesia, Trevor spent ten years at Morgan Stanley were he was last a Managing Director in Global Capital Markets leading over 100 investment banking transactions such as the IPO for Chipotle. Before joining Morgan Stanley, he was a management consultant at Monitor Company the Cambridge, Massachusetts firm associated with Michael Porter. Trevor has been featured in Bloomberg Magazine' s Out on the Street and in the book, The G Quotient-Why Gay Executives are Excelling as Leaders. Trevor graduated from Dartmouth College in 1994. Trevor and his husband of 14 years, Gary Hess, have a one year old daughter named Logan.

David Guzman

Senior Vice President & Community Bank President, Broward Region Florida Community Bank

David Guzman is senior vice president and community bank president for the Broward region of Wells Fargo’s Florida Community Bank. He manages $3.8 billion in deposits and 44 banking stores currently operating under the Wachovia brand.

Guzman joined Wells Fargo in 2002 and has worked in the financial services industry since 1996. He most recently served as the District Manger for the Beverly Hills Corridor region in the greater Los Angeles region. Prior to that, he was district manager in the Santa Barbara/Ventura market for the Wells Fargo Pacific Coast Community Bank as well as the North Valley community in the San Fernando Valley Community Bank.

In previous roles, Guzman managed a Wells Fargo team of private bankers in greater Los Angeles and served as store manager at several Los Angeles bank locations. Prior to joining Wells Fargo, he served as chief financial officer for Fringe Consulting Group, Inc., and also worked as a financial services officer at Bank of America.

Guzman holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from California State University Northridge and graduated from the Consumer Bankers Association Graduate School of Retail Bank Management.

Frederic Potvin

Retail Cross Border Segment Advisor

Talking about and claiming to embrace diversity is not enough. We must create a culture that enables employees to feel comfortable, empowered, and represented by their company.

As Retail Cross Border Segment Advisor, Frederic Potvin is responsible for RBC Bank’s Cross Border Retail Banking strategy, marketing, and execution for Canadian retail clients banking in the United States. This segment is now made up of over 135,000 clients all over the U.S., 93,000 households, over $1.5 billion in total business, and more than $47 million in annual revenues. Mr. Potvin is a member of RBC Bank's diversity council has contributed to the LGBT Employee Resource Group in the U.S.

Mr. Potvin began his banking career in 2000 and has been with RBC Bank since May of 2006. Born in in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Mr. Potvin graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelors of Science in Finance. He sat on the board of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Student Union at UCF for 3 years. He and his partner of ten years currently reside in Orlando, Florida.

My diversity statement on our internal Diversity Council website:

In the context of the workplace, valuing diversity means creating a workplace that respects and includes differences, recognizing the unique contributions that individuals with many types of differences can make, and creating a work environment that maximizes the potential of all employees. It is also about having the long term goal that the campus work force should generally reflect the population it serves in all its dimensions.

What is diversity at the workplace to me?

Diversity refers to human qualities in groups and individuals that differ from our own. We should not only strive to respect and tolerate these differences, but understand and include them. Dimensions of diversity include but are not limited to: age, ethnicity, gender identity, physical abilities/qualities, race, sexual orientation, educational background, geographic location, income, marital status, military experience, parental status, religious beliefs, work experience, and job classification. Creating a work environment that shows employees that their uniqueness and many types of differences add value will increase productivity, foster creativity, and create a safe, comfortable workplace. Embracing diversity is more than tolerance, it means not avoiding but engaging in activities, conversation, and practices that improve overall social justice and reduce discrimination.

Why is it important to me?

Because talking about and claiming to embrace diversity is not enough. We must create a culture that enables employees to feel comfortable, empowered, and represented by their company.