PLENARY SPEAKERS

Kenneth Dion
PhD, MSN, MBA, RN, RCSI, FAAN

2021-2023 President, Sigma

Kenneth Dion, PhD, MSN, MBA, RN, RCSI, FAAN, is a nurse entrepreneur, inventor, scholar, and 30-year veteran of the healthcare industry. He is a member of the Theta Epsilon Chapter and a founding principal at TurnPath, LLC, a healthcare technology innovation incubator.

His service in the healthcare industry began as a transporter in the radiology department at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami at the age of 16. He held various nursing assistant positions while becoming a firefighter-paramedic. After obtaining his bachelor’s degree in nursing, he practiced emergency nursing. A concentration in informatics in his master’s studies led him into management consulting, in particular, healthcare information systems selection and implementation.

Dr. Dion founded Decision Critical, Inc. in 1999 while simultaneously beginning his doctoral studies. Decision Critical, Inc., a cloud-based information systems company, was dedicated to meeting the education, compliance, and competency development needs of healthcare organizations. During his tenure, he was awarded a patent for the Critical Portfolio™, an ePortfolio application. Additionally, he was awarded a patent for Critical Staffer™, a reverse staffing system. In 2012, Decision Critical, Inc., was acquired by HealthStream, Inc. (Nasdaq:HSTM) where he served as vice president and chief of nursing informatics prior to founding TurnPath, LLC.

Dr. Thompson is a Professor, tenured, in the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing and jointly appointed in the Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health in the Rollins School of Public Health. She is the Director of Graduate Studies for the PhD program in nursing at Emory University. She is a member of Emory’s Network for Evaluation and Implementation Sciences at Emory University (NEISE). She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nurses. Her areas of research and education are focused on air pollution, climate change, and implementation science. She is a member of the Emory Climate Research Initiative established by Provost Ravi Bellamkonda to bring together faculty with diverse expertise to advance climate-related research and curricula across the Emory campus.

She received her BSN, MSN, and FNP degrees from San Francisco State University. She received her MS and PhD degrees in Environmental Health Studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 2008. Before coming to Emory in 2017, Dr. Thompson was on faculty in the School of Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Thompson worked for 18 years as a nurse and family nurse practitioner at La Clinica de la Raza, a community clinic that primarily serves Spanish-speaking patients in Oakland, California. In 2014, she began volunteering as a family nurse practitioner at the Street Level Health Project, a clinic in East Oakland providing free comprehensive medical care to primarily undocumented, uninsured patients.

The Challenge: The world has changed! Work and Life are blurred and blended yet distanced and virtual. We're all in search of new ways to stay courageous, engaged, connected, and productive in a changing world. Learning how to lead and navigate in the midst of ongoing disruption and uncertainty is critical to the survival and success of your businesses.

Solution: Now is the time to double down on driving leadership and high performance, even if it has to be done virtually. For nearly 30 years, Jackie has been helping people become more courageous leaders who accelerate innovation, embrace change, and know how to pivot in uncertainty.

Jackie is recognized as one of the "Top 30 Best Minds on Leadership" and is one of the most sought-after female business speakers in the nation. She speaks, consults, and writes on Courageous Leadership, Innovation, Change, Engagement, and The SheEconomy (a $20 trillion market).

A Certified Dare to Lead Facilitator, Jackie trained directly under the guidance of Brene Brown in 2019. She is a business owner and entrepreneur. Along with her husband Kevin, Jackie has co-authored 8 award-winning books.