Convention Speakers

Carol Reese

Saturday Morning Business Session Speaker

Carol Reese is a recently retired Extension Horticulture Specialist with the University of Tennessee’s West Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center in Jackson. She is a nationally-known speaker, blending equal parts gardening knowledge, natural lore, and quirky humor.

Carol is the gardening and nature columnist for several newspapers, as well as a contributor to various gardening magazines. She was the Q&A columnist for Horticulture Magazine for several years.

Her B.S. and M.S. in Horticulture are from Mississippi State University. While there, she taught classes in Plant Materials, and co-taught Landscape Design for non-LA majors alongside a “real” landscape architect.

She attributes her love of horticulture to being raised on a farm by generations of plant nuts, including a grandfather who dynamited his garden spot each spring to “break up his hard pan.” Carol’s very personal appreciation of the natural world is at least partially a result of her near daily rambles through the wild areas near her home with her motley collection of mutts.

Seconde Nimenya

Monday Morning Business Session Speaker

Seconde Nimenya is the author of five books on personal and professional leadership development and her most recent is: Unlocking Diversity: How to Create Inclusive Cultures in a World of Differences. This timely and thought-provoking book shares the best practices to support institutional leaders and individuals in their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, while bridging the gaps between diverse and multicultural communities. Through her leadership development programs, Seconde works with organizational leaders and individuals who want to build inclusive cultures where everyone feels accepted for who they are and what they bring to the world to make it a better place for all.

Her TEDx talk on race and other identity constructs, titled, “We Are Not All That Different” has been hailed as one of the most inspirational talks for our times.

For more information about Seconde’s work and to order her books to be signed onsite, visit SecondeNimenya.com.

Katie Ray-Jones

GFWC Signature Program Luncheon Speaker

Katie Ray-Jones is the CEO of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, where she provides the strategic vision and leadership for the only hotline that links survivors to more than 4,500 shelters and domestic violence programs across the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Prior to being named CEO of The Hotline, Katie served as president of the organization for three years. She was also the operations director where she transformed operations within The Hotline and National Dating Abuse Helpline, known as Love is Respect.

In addition, Katie has managed an emergency shelter, transitional and permanent housing programs, nonresidential services for survivors and their children, services for individuals with HIV/AIDS, and a therapeutic preschool for children who have witnessed violence. She also worked at a legal clinic that provided assistance to domestic violence survivors seeking restraining orders, provided individual therapy and facilitated groups for survivors and abusers, and worked for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission administering funding to family violence providers.

Katie is a National Task Force to End Domestic and Sexual Violence member. She is well known on Capitol Hill for domestic violence prevention, and was chosen by Congress to deliver testimony to the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Committee.

Karen White

ESO Breakfast and Monday Afternoon Business Session Speaker

Karen White is the New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty novels, including The Shop on Royal Street (a series based on New Orleans), the Tradd Street series, The Last Night in London, Dreams of Falling, The Night the Lights Went Out, Flight Patterns, The Sound of Glass, A Long Time Gone, and The Time Between. She is the coauthor of four collaborative novels including The Lost Summers of Newport with New York Times bestselling authors Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig. She grew up in London but now lives with her husband and one spoiled Havanese dog near Atlanta, Georgia. She is the proud mother of two grown children and when not writing enjoys reading, playing piano, and avoiding cooking.

Garden District Books will be selling Karen’s books the morning of the ESO Breakfast.