Melibee Global Speakers

What brings us together at work? You may not realize this, but #food does. Food is a great way to bring people to the table - be in the dining table or the conference room table - to better understand each other. This is a pic of Melibee speaker, Michael W. Twitty, with a diverse group of people in Baltimore this past week - cooking KosherSoul matzoh ball gumbo together. The conversations were deep, thoughtful, fun, engaging, serious, mindful, intriguing. There may not be a better way to get people to relax into conversation than cooking side by side. The simple task of food prep is meditative for many. It gets our heads out of the details and let's us focus. We relax into it. We chat with our fellow chefs in the making. We listen to the repetitive sounds of the knife hitting the chopping board. We hear others in conversation. We get curious. We ask questions. Food is a metaphor for work life - sometimes we have to cut the onions to get to the sweetness. Sometimes the best flavor comes with more salt than we think we need. Sometimes the flavor comes in layers, over time. We learn to sit, side by side, and soak in the delicious along with the spicy - and to notice the nuanced flavors of each aspect of a dish. So much can be learned in the kitchen and then by discussing the process and outcome at the table with those who literally sweat alongside you as you chopped, peeled, seasoned, basted, and tasted. If you want to do some teambuilding with you employees, have Michael deliver an intersectional meal experience. Perhaps you have challenges on a team or you simply want to THANK them for their hard work this year? Or maybe you just want encourage bonding. Regardless of the goal/s, Michael can cook with them - and create conversation around identity and how food parallels with so much of life at work. Here is more about Michael Twitty, a two times James Beard award winner for his book The Cooking Gene. Be in touch if I can answer any questions about his cooking and his talks. https://lnkd.in/gpq7fPYz #eventplanners #teambuilding #leadership #thecookinggene #Identitycooking #yourfoodisyourflag #tasteatwork #food #culinaryarts #letscook #teams #communication #identity #DEI #black #Jewish #gay #chef #keynote #speakers

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We are grateful to be here after Hurricane Helene, a category 4 storm, hit our beloved city of Asheville, N. Carolina. Our home is ok and we are safe - and very lucky - as the post storm situation was beyond shocking. We only saw media of our community once outside of it as we had no power, phone, or internet. It is hard not to cry when you see the suffering - huge swaths of our city simply gone, stories of people being washed away, children drowning, people missing, animals left to suffer and die. No school for who knows how long. We had to take our son out of the area for now to keep him busy and not overwhelm him with all the devistation. My sweet, sensitive boy loved to study "extreme weather" prior to living through this...now, he's simply shook up and not eager to hear anything more about hurricanes. So many reached out to check in on us and offer beds since we have no electric, water is boil only (most of the city has no water - we are lucky to have it at all), and no internet. Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for caring about our family. What can you do to help - send money to the Red Cross or World Kitchen (Chef Jose Andres' org) or any other place helping our community. The shelters are full and in need of support. If you know anyone coming up our beloved mountain, load their car with diapers, water bottles, clothes you don't need, boxed food. Our community needs it all. What does our family need? We aren't sure at the moment because we're not sure of the situation on the ground as we have been at a friend's outside the area since Monday. We hope to know on Friday if we can aim to return home for now. However, as small business owners, we are deeply impacted when our work is interrupted. (The joy of self employment in the US - if you don't work, you don't get paid.) Please do consider us if you're booking a speaker or event. You'll be helping us keep our work going which is hugely helpful to our mental health and giving us a routine of normalcy. It gives us something we love to focus on and eases the worry of this horrific experience. We are still processing it all. We also know that we couldn't stay right now after two days of no communication at all with our loved ones, having no idea what was happening, seeing roads closed and being locked into our house with a curfew, seeing trees and power lines snapped in half with electrical lines hanging in the streets like spaghetti. We are confused, grateful, unsure, and emotional - but we are safe and mostly grateful that we're still here and that so many people we love in our community are safe despite it all. Thank you again to everyone who reached out and showed tremendous care - from offering places to stay to asking how they could help otherwise. There are no words to tell you how much it meant to us. Well, we aim to return to some sort of routine this week. Here is our speaker page, meanwhile. https://lnkd.in/eP2bMmYf Be safe and well everyone.

#Food is his flag. Let Michael W. Twitty tell you all about how food is also YOUR flag - ideal as you plan to gather with your company for end of year. It will make every family celebration SO much more meaningful. #speakers #keynote #endofyear #celebrationspeaker #Fortune500 #identity

How many people who are disabled are on your team at work? Do you not hire more people with a disability because of assumptions you make about them? I'm sharing Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens with you today because she has a phenomenal history talk about Harriet Tubman - who was person with a disability. Did you know that? I don't recall learning about her disability in all my years of schooling. As we know, she was unbelievably capable. Let Dr. Cooper Owens remind you, through history, of the power of one human with a disability. https://lnkd.in/ggJVKvrg #DEI #disability

It was mid September 2001. I worked for a global relocation company in the international division, headquarted in the northeast US. We worked in a white population dominant and small city. In the days after 9/11, one of my colleagues who had beautiful long, curly black hair and brown skin was assaulted several times by ignorant people who assumed she was somehow in support of terrorism...well, because...she presented as Brown. We are again seeing acts of violence based on ridiculous assumptions about people - the latest riots in the UK where people who are Brown are being violently attacked and having their businesses targeted. Al Jazeera repors that "ethnic minorities and asylum seekers in Britain are paralysed with fear." It is painful to know that so many people are literally terrified to leave their homes due to other people's ignorance. Let's imagine how hard it is for our Arab identifying friends and colleagues to work when this is happening in the world. Who the hell can focus on work when you're worried about what your colleagues/clients/community is assuming about you and if you can feel safe? I'm grateful for the work of #speaker Dr. Nadine Naber on the subject of identity of Arabs around the world. Dr. Nadine Naber recently received these words after a virtual #keynote talk on Arab Americans: “Your talk on Arab Americans (Beyond Invisibility and Stereotypes) was really excellent! I felt the presentation was exactly what we needed to hear and the way you incorporate creators / artists really meant a lot to me and the team.” (Global Head of DEI at a Major Music Company) Being in this world is hard enough without assumptions and stereotyping. Arab people face extraordinary challenges in the workplace. Most people don't even know how to define what it means to be of Arab descent. Dr. Nadine Naber is the ideal person to talk with your company about the complex identities of Arab people - which, if you didn't know, isn't exculsively #Muslim people. (A common misperception!) Her talk will also help your organization understand the latest acts of violence against Brown people in the UK. Your global team will better understand each other and help to not make assumptions about colleagues and communities as a result of your time with the brilliant Nadine Naber, PhD. I'll simply add that she is also one of the kindest, truly brilliant, engaging people I have met in my decades on this planet. Truly an exceptional human. https://lnkd.in/gVGbXmXP #DEI #DEIB #identity #leadership #diversity #humanresources https://lnkd.in/gVGbXmXP

For those of you in #highered planning for 2024/25, I hope this is helpful: Dr. Nadine Naber's Liberate Your Research workshop provides college and university administrators a path towards supporting and retaining BIPOC faculty and graduate students. It equips BIPOC scholars with tools for navigating the parts of the academic experience that feel oppressive and deflating while courageously transforming the pressure and uncertainty created by the academic ecosystem into an abundant capacity to boldly articulate one’s scholarly theories, methods and contributions. The beauty of Liberate Your Research is that it allows colleges and universities to support BIPOC faculty’s well being and their highest and most genuine academic research and writing while expanding your DEI commitment with tangible action. https://lnkd.in/e4UtMydE

Food is life. It is culture. It is identity. It is storytelling. Gathering. Our ancestors showing up on our plates. It is a beautiful vehicle for #DEI programming. Learn about our #food speakers here - including three James Beard award winners! https://lnkd.in/ea2e_Jap #speakers #keynote #eventplanners #culinaryarts #foodindustry #farmtotable #KosherSoul #Indian #fusion #foraging #flavor #humanresources #chefs

Did you know that AUGUST is National Black Business Month, which highlights and appreciates the contributions of Black-owned businesses to the U.S. economy and in promoting diversity and equity?! Let's celebrate! I have just the person to help you celebrate your Black Owned Business: she is CANDACE DOBY. Candace is a Black Business Owner. She is a professional speaker, trainer, author, and even owns a greeting card line. She uses #courage as a framework for excelling in business. She reminds us to create a #culture of courage to succeed. She is doing just that with her own business - leaving a lucrative senior level marketing role to start her own #BlackOwnedBusiness - and several years in she is absolutely exceeding every expectation! Did I mention she is also a wife & mom to a toddler - and she is still doing it all with courage. She's not playing. If you want to celebrate this month AND have your team gain skills in courage and risk assessment - she is your person! https://lnkd.in/gSvVB9GB

I truly love #history. Why? Because it informs us where we have been, teaches us about cycles, shows us #courage, leads us forward by looking back - even when it is painful. It is full of #storytelling that humanizes chapters of life in the US. What does that have to do with work? EVERYTHING including: - seeing patterns of past decisions and how they impact the present/future - understanding how human stories help us see and know our colleagues with more specific and intentional care - helping us to celebrate diversity, equity, and inclusion such as those who are differently abled (Harriet Tubman as one example - did you know she had a brain injury?!) and #BIPOC contributions (there are truly too many to name!). - the historical role of #Blackwomen when it comes to birthing - and how one will think differently about maternity leave at work when we know the history of ob/gyn. Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens is a historian and storyteller. She is one of the many reasons I love history. She shares impossibly difficult topics in our country's past and makes them very real, important, and necessary to hear - yet in a way that somehow has us on the edge of our seats ... yet still smiling from time to time because she is one of those rare #speakers who can inject appropriate doses of humor despite sharing some of the worst moments of our country's past. I am so grateful for her stories and lessons. Your teams will be, too - whether it is a mainstage, virutal, or more intimate in person talk -she is the historian you'll remember for a very long time. https://lnkd.in/ggJVKvrg