Becky Vollmer is a writer, longtime yoga teacher, and the creator of You Are Not Stuck, a movement that empowers people to pursue the lives they most deeply desire. A former newspaper journalist and agency PR pro turned corporate dropout, Becky now helps individuals, businesses, nonprofit, and academic institutions create a whole-person culture that prioritizes empowerment and wellbeing.

She is the author of You Are Not Stuck: How Soul-Guided Choices Transform Fear into Freedom (St. Martin’s Press, 2023) and guide of a global social media community that is several hundred thousand strong. Becky is also a leading voice in the sobriety and recovery space.

Lauren Bruggemans is the Director of Sustainability & Community Engagement at Visit Greater Palm Springs, where she leads their sustainability, DEI, and workforce development initiatives. Lauren has 16+ years of hospitality and management experience, starting her career in hospitality operations managing teams across multiple divisions. In 2015, she become the Executive Director of the Sumba Hospitality Foundation, a social enterprise and workforce development program in Eastern Indonesia that won an award for Innovation from the UN World Tourism Organization in 2017. Lauren and her team built a school for underprivileged young people providing a comprehensive hospitality & sustainability focused educational program, while also managing an on-site eco-resort that allowed students to practically apply their knowledge.

After her time in Indonesia, Lauren continued working in the hospitality education and social impact sectors as the founding CEO of We are One United, a community development organization in Palm Springs, and as an adjunct faculty member at California State University, San Bernardino. Lauren has a master’s degree in Social Business & Entrepreneurship from the London School of Economics (LSE) and earned her Bachelor of Arts in International Politics at the University of California, San Diego. She is passionate about responsible & sustainable hospitality and tourism; empowering young people through work-based learning opportunities; and fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion in organizations.

Councilmember Grace Elena Garner is a second-generation Palm Springs resident who was first elected in November 2019 to represent District 1. In 2022, she was re-elected and became the first Latina Mayor of Palm Springs.

A former member of the Palm Springs Planning Commission and the City Council-appointed California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) Working Group, Garner is also the first Latina woman elected to serve on the City Council and is passionate about promoting more inclusion and diversity in the City of Palm Springs.

Garner serves on the boards of Desert Regional Medical Center and the California State University of California San Bernardino Philanthropy Board.

Garner attended Palm Springs public schools and grew up playing in city parks and using local services like the Palm Springs Public Library. She has a B.A. from Pitzer College in Political Studies and Gender/Feminist Studies and a J.D. from California Western School of Law. She spends her time volunteering and participating in a host of community activities.

Keynote speaker Topsie Vandenbosch, a mindset and emotional intelligence coach for CEOs, will share how CEOs and owners are unintentionally shortchanging their agency’s growth by not fully releasing control to their second-in-command leaders and VPs, and constantly living in fear that it's a matter of time before their reputation is tarnished.

She will share practical strategies for leaders to trust in the hard work and legacy of their accomplishments, release control and allow their successors to confidently build upon their agency’s strong foundation and unique imprint of culture, clientele, and innovation.

Tony Elkins is a faculty member at The Poynter Institute. His teaching portfolio includes the Leadership Academy for Diversity in Media, a transformative leadership program that trains BIPOC journalists working in digital media to thrive professionally and personally, and Essential Skills for Rising Newsroom Leaders, an intensive workshop that focuses on critical skills new managers need on their paths to leadership in journalism, media and technology

Prior to joining Poynter, Elkins was a Product Director for Gannett media and marketing company and previously served as Senior Director of Innovation where he led designers, developers and product managers working on new storytelling formats, long-range strategy and building new systems and workflows. His team was awarded multiple rounds of funding from the Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge to explore new technology and build new tools focused on underrepresented audiences, diversity and accessibility.

Before founding his innovation team, Elkins was a managing editor at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune where he focused on project management for the paper’s Pulitzer-winning investigative team and other long-form storytelling projects.  

He is also a co-founder of the News Product Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to building a community of support and practice for news product practitioners.