Meet Our Keynote
Jodi Anderson Jr.
Co-Founder, Rézme
Jodi Anderson Jr. is the Co-Founder of Rézme, a technology platform designed to break down the systemic and often invisible barriers that keep justice-impacted individuals out of jobs, housing, and higher education. Rézme integrates with HR and applicant tracking systems to transform standard screening processes into legally compliant workflows, increasing individualized and holistic assessments for previously excluded and qualified talent while helping companies navigate hiring legislation with smarter technology, better data, and real financial incentives.
Jodi founded Rézme to solve a critical challenge: helping companies operationalize fair-chance hiring while driving meaningful economic opportunity. By leveraging technology and data, Rézme creates pathways for justice-impacted individuals to access meaningful employment, which empowers both companies and communities.
His vision is deeply rooted in his own life journey. After growing up in poverty and experiencing foster care and incarceration, Jodi discovered an early college program while incarcerated that ignited his academic path. That journey led him first to Cornell University and ultimately to Stanford University, where he earned both his undergraduate and graduate degrees while studying how systems and technology shape access to education and employment.
Before launching Rézme, Jodi worked in early-stage and venture-backed startups including MOJO Sports, CreateSafe, and Reddit, gaining firsthand experience building and scaling technology solutions. He has also contributed to research and innovation as a researcher at Stanford’s Accelerator for Learning and as Deputy Director of Technological Innovation at Cornell University’s Criminal Justice & Employment Initiative.
Across entrepreneurship, research, and technology, Jodi is driven by a simple belief: that entrepreneurs, technologists, and educators have a responsibility to create opportunities for every citizen to obtain the knowledge and skills needed to contribute to their communities and the economy.
Meet Our Speakers
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Peter Anderson, PhD PCC
Founder, Inner Citadel Consulting
Peter Anderson PhD PCC brings humor, empathy, curiosity and a love for structured processes to his work with executives and leadership teams. His human-centered approach is informed by a unique blend of non-violent communication strategies, multi-partial dialogue training, convergent facilitation training, and a deep understanding of emotional intelligence and organizational mindfulness.
Peter is certified by and works with a range of global partners, including Genos International, the Institute for Organizational Science and Mind, LINC GmbH, and the International Coaching Federation. His firm Inner Citadel Consulting offers a range of services to C-suite leaders and leadership teams, focused on team cohesion, decision-making dynamics, leadership team personality & workplace behavioral profiles, and executive coaching. ICC's clients include executive and leadership teams that are in transition; that are less effective because of conflict; that want to be more cohesive, aligned and productive; that need to have critical conversations but can’t manage them on their own; or that need to reset in order to move into complex work together.
Peter is rooted in Burlington VT and works nationally.
Sami Baqai
Founder, Autokatalyst LLC
Sami Baqai is Founder & Principal of Autokatalyst LLC, an applied AI and automation advisory firm based in New York. Autokatalyst works with organizations to build practical, revenue-generating technologies and improve operational efficiency through automation, advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI. The firm partners with companies across stages of growth, from startups and small businesses to large enterprises and PE-backed firms.
Prior to founding Autokatalyst, Sami worked at GTS Securities, a quantitative trading firm, and Steadfast Financial LP, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund. He holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor.
Charity R. Clark
Vermont Attorney General
Charity R. Clark was sworn in as Attorney General of Vermont on January 5, 2023, and is the first woman to be elected to this position. Since then, she has made protecting Vermonters a trademark of her administration, suing Monsanto for PCB contamination of Vermont’s waterways and schools and bringing a case against Meta for Instagram’s harm to young users’ mental health. She also successfully advocated for the recommendations of the Domestic Violence Fatality Review Commission, housed in the Attorney General’s Office, and continues her work to bring focus on the issue of sexual and domestic violence. A passionate defender of reproductive rights, Attorney General Clark joined a challenge to a ban on the abortion drug mifepristone, allowing Vermonters to retain access to this safe and effective abortion medication.
Attorney General Clark’s career in the Attorney General’s Office began in 2014 as an Assistant Attorney General in the Public Protection Division. Later, she was appointed Chief of Staff, serving in the role from 2018 to 2022. During her tenure as Chief of Staff, and the first person to ever hold this position, she oversaw the Office’s expungement clinics, training countless attorneys to assist Vermonters seeking to expunge or seal their criminal records. She also championed the effort to achieve status as a Breastfeeding Friendly Employer and create a dedicated space for breastfeeding employees and visitors to the office, an effort that she would bring to fruition during her first few months as Attorney General.
Attorney General Clark was born and raised in southern Vermont and grew up working in her family’s grocery store in Londonderry, Clark’s IGA. She is a graduate of Burr & Burton Academy in Manchester, the University of Vermont, and Boston College Law School. Before she entered law school, Attorney General Clark was a policy analyst at the Vermont Governor’s Office under Governor Howard Dean. In 2005, she began her legal career as an associate at a law firm in Burlington, Vermont, and later in New York City. Attorney General Clark is an avid skier and hiker, completing the Long Trail in 2021. She is chair of the board of her town library and serves as a justice of the peace.
Teresa Davis (she/her)
Owner & Founding Director, Davis Studio
Teresa believes that everyone thrives in a world that promotes and supports creative thinking. She loves nothing more than helping others give voice to their unique perspectives through art. Teresa holds a BA in education and began her career as an elementary school teacher in Pasadena, California. Over the years she also worked as an children’s occupational therapy assistant in Amman, Jordan, taught classes for gifted students in Minnesota, and opened a preschool in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Since moving to Vermont 1999 she has been enthusiastically focused on gifting individuals of all ages with a life-long love of the arts. Teresa founded Davis Studio in 2003.
Andy DeMeo
Creator & Host, Granite Goodness
I grew up in Londonderry, NH and have spent my life exploring every corner of New England. Granite Goodness is my love letter to New England and the people solving its hardest problems.
Ten years working in climate policy, carbon accounting, sustainable finance, and food systems taught me one thing: our biggest problem is not a lack of solutions, but stories.
When problems are framed as endless and unsolvable, cynicism is seen as rational and smart. A pessimistic worldview leaves people less likely to invest in long term thinking and collaboration.
By contrast, optimism produces its own social contagion, creating reinforcing flywheels of community, purpose, and positive outcomes. Research consistently shows that optimists tend to live longer, healthier, happier lives. I suspect they have more fun too.
Inspired by the work of globally focused solutions journalists at Fix The News and The Progress Network, I started Granite Goodness to bring optimistic, solutions-focused storytelling to a more local scale in New England— my beloved corner of the world. My work with Granite Goodness has attracted regional recognition, learn more here.
When I’m not talking to optimistic New Englanders, I can be found doing homesteading projects with my twelve chickens, two dogs, and one wife on our farm in New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington Valley.
Isabel (Izzy) Gogarty
Small Business Advocate, Vermont Attorney General's Consumer Assistance Program
Izzy Gogarty serves as the Small Business Advocate with the Vermont Consumer Assistance Program (CAP), a collaboration between the Vermont Attorney General’s Office and the University of Vermont. In this role, she supports small businesses in navigating scams, consumer complaints, and marketplace challenges, while engaging with business groups statewide to identify solutions.
As a member of the Middlebury Town Selectboard, Izzy focuses on strategic and forward-thinking approaches to the efficient allocation of taxpayer resources, supporting economic development, community health, and wellness.
As Executive Director of SHAPE Vermont, Izzy draws on her deep expertise in health and physical education to create and support skills-based programs in schools while advocating for public health policy at both the state and national levels. Her teaching experience spans from International Baccalaureate classrooms to graduate-level university courses.
Izzy holds a Master’s in Education Research from Vermont State University, where her research examined sex education law compliance, adherence, and regional alignment, analyzing how schools align with state laws and regional needs in sex education programming.
Brian Hines
Vermont Comedy Arts
Brian Hines (he/him) moved to Vermont in 2021 from Hartford, CT. He has over a decade of improv & sketch comedy experience as a performer and teacher. Brian has a passion for making comedy accessible to everyone.
Sam Kurnit
Director of Education, Vermont Comedy Arts
Sam Kurnit is an actor, voiceover artist, improviser and educator. He has studied at The Second City in Chicago, as well as iO and The Annoyance Theatre. He has acted in films, TV and commercials, and provided voiceover for film narration, audio books, and video games.
Sam has worked with Vermont Comedy Club for over 10 years, and now serves as the Director of Education for Vermont Comedy Arts.
Natalie Miller
Executive Director, Vermont Comedy Arts
Co-Owner, Vermont Comedy Club
Natalie Miller (she/her) co-founded Vermont Comedy Club with her husband, Nathan, in 2011. With 20 years of experience performing and teaching comedy, music and theater, Natalie has a deep passion for bringing people together through the performing arts.
Dr. Lynda Ulrich
Founder of the Goodness Exchange, Author & TEDx Speaker and Podcaster
Dr. Lynda is an expert in possibility: what can come next and how we get there. She connects us to the astounding goodness and progress in the world and shows us exactly how to discover our role in it—especially in the context of building resilient, forward-thinking organizations and families, and meaningful working lives.
With a global positive news website, a bestselling book, 2 TEDx Talks, a popular (and practical) newsletter, and a long-running podcast, she is regularly featured in media markets reaching millions around the world. Her work equips individuals and teams at every level to see opportunities others miss and to turn optimism into a practical advantage.
Upon meeting Dr. Lynda, you quickly understand the scope and gravity of what she’s uncovered in her 20-year journey to celebrate insight and innovation. She sees possibility everywhere, and her gift lies in fitting seemingly unrelated pieces together—instincts sharpened by a life as a global traveler, an exceptional artist, a business owner, and an early adopter of technology. She is the ultimate “multiplier,” inspiring others with her warmth and exuberance to bring out the best in everyone they meet.
Dr. Lynda is the founder of the Goodness Exchange, a global positive media company launched in 2013. There, her team has written and recorded thousands of articles and interviews highlighting breakthrough ideas and innovations that often go unnoticed. (And it remains the only positive news platform with a promise of no ads and no politics.) The Goodness Exchange provides a clear, evidence-based view of a world that is still full of opportunity—and helps people tap into it in their personal and working lives.
Experience has shown her that a powerful wave of goodness and progress is already well underway, yet largely overlooked by traditional narratives. She calls this hidden momentum The Conspiracy of Goodness—and believes that those who learn to see it are better equipped to contribute, collaborate, and thrive in uncertain times.
Dr. Lynda devoted her professional life to keeping the humanity in healthcare as a relationship-centered dentist for over 35 years. Having managed a team of 12–17 people, she brings an experienced, innovative business mindset and, today, through weekly conversations with global thought leaders, she shares ideas and innovations that are reshaping industries and redefining what’s possible.
Her unique strength is synthesizing these insights into clear, actionable perspectives that help individuals, teams, and organizations move forward with confidence.
In short, Dr. Lynda helps people celebrate what’s right with the world—and translate that awareness into meaningful work, stronger relationships, and organizations built to flourish.
Becky Walsh, MA, CFP®, CAP®
Founder & Financial Planner, Oak Maple Finance, LLC
“If people are honest they can build a true connection and help one another. If they are hiding things there is an inability for healing, support and connection. This not only applies to individual relationships, but to business and institutional relationships as well.”
A native of Oak Park, Illinois, Oak Maple Founder Becky Walsh has been a happy Vermont transplant since 2006. Her love of both places and their signature trees inspired the name Oak Maple: a combination of strength and endurance, and beauty that can be found even in change.
Becky has always loved a challenge. As a child, she enjoyed Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series for its pioneering spirit and “we can do hard things” embrace of life. Founding her own financial firm, with the goal of raising others while building a business, reflects Becky’s entrepreneurial background. As the daughter, granddaughter, great-granddaughter, and even great-great-granddaughter of business-founders dedicated to serving the communities where they lived, Becky carries on a family tradition of service oriented entrepreneurship, working with causes close to her heart, such as the Vermont Food Bank, All Brains Belong, and the Vermont Youth Orchestra Association.
Becky’s background as a classically trained musician informs her financial planning approach. Her academic research and analysis skills transfer from notes and music theory to financial planning and portfolio management. Whether serving clients or playing piano, Becky brings joy, creativity and a healing energy to her work.