Women in Leadership Instructors

Sarah Carlson

• BA Spanish and Political Science, University of Arizona
• JD Harvard Law School

Sarah is a career coach, professor, public speaker, and professional development powerhouse. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Spanish and Political Science at the University of Arizona and her law degree from Harvard Law School in 2007. After law school, Sarah clerked for a federal judge in Atlanta and then practiced commercial litigation at a top law firm in New York City.

In 2011, Sarah made a powerful personal decision to leave her law practice and re-orient herself to her core strengths, interests, and values. At that point, she moved from New York City to Haiti, where she built schools and water filters after the earthquake of 2010. After Haiti, Sarah then started working at Emory Law School as a career coach and Director of the Center for Professional Development and Career Strategy. In that role, Sarah worked with hundreds of law students helping them find work that aligned with their core strengths, interests, and values. At Emory Law, Sarah also became adjunct faculty creating the first for-credit professional development course called Professional Narrative. Her coursework, which is designed to teach students how to advocate for themselves as professionals, was then expanded and made mandatory for all first-year students and has been adapted and taught to all kinds of professionals.
Outside of higher education, Sarah also expanded her career coaching to work with practicing lawyers, non-lawyers, and people in all walks of their professional lives and speaks nationally on professional development topics.

In addition to her professional endeavors, Sarah also has a beautiful English bulldog named Turkey, and is a passionate traveler, singer, yogi, and coffee enthusiast.

Nancy Colter

• BA Economics State University of New York at Stonybrook
• MBA University of South Carolina
• Recipient of the Haywood Memorial Fellowship
• Certified instructor for Zenger Miller

Nancy Colter is a human resources consultant and trainer who develops and implements learning solutions that support the organization business strategies. She is the principal of Nancy Colter Consulting, LLC located in Atlanta, Georgia.

Prior to establishing her own business, Nancy spent 20 years in the corporate arena. Her career includes senior HR management positions at leading financial services and hospitality companies as well as various benefits, compensation and employment manager positions in other organizations.

This consummate professional is equally accomplished in handling a variety of human resources projects from human resources audits to recruiting in various industries and high-profile environments. She is an effective communicator with a quick, analytical mind who enjoys solving problems that contribute to the organizations bottom line.

Nancy incorporates her insights from this highly successful corporate career into the development and delivery of her training programs. Her combination of practical business experience with engaging facilitation has generated fast-paced, effective and fun programs that work.

As a result, Nancy has been instrumental in the development and success of corporate management certificate programs for leading Fortune 500 companies. She is widely recognized for delivering effective management programs including but not limited to communicating using DiSC, performance management and coaching, time and productivity, listening skills, delegation essentials, difficult conversations, emotional intelligence, and change management.

Nancy holds her masters degree in business from the University of South Carolina and her bachelors degree in Economics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She is a certified instructor for many leading training programs, is an instructor at several leading Universities and has published many articles on todays cutting-edge management topics. She is an active member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SPHR certified) and has served as an HR Advisor for the Bureau of Business Practice Georgia Newsletter publication.

Certified instructor for Zenger Miller, DISC, Personalysis and Fortune Group Sales and Leadership Training. Society of Human Resources (local and national member), HR Advisor for the Bureau of Business Practice Georgia Newsletter publication.

Nancy Green

• MBA Emory Goizueta Business School
• BA Psychology, UMASS

Nancy Green is a training professional who is passionate about providing professional development that helps people succeed in the workplace and beyond. She has 20 years of experience working with Fortune 500 companies across many industries. She believes that most professionals want to meet expectations; they just need the right skills, knowledge, tools, motivation, clear expectations and supportive environment.

Nancy began her career at Goldman Sachs in New York City and London where she worked as an internal consultant in the Training & Development department. Upon moving to Atlanta, she joined the consulting firm The Center for Effective Performance (CEP). Sole publisher of industry guru Robert F. Mager's work, CEP helped clients identify when training is the right solution and, more importantly, when it is not. While there, Nancy had the opportunity to work with clients across the hospitality, retail, security and pharmaceutical industries.

In 1999, Nancy came to Emory's Goizueta Business School for her MBA. Upon graduating, Nancy joined past colleagues as a partner in the consulting firm iinteg, inc. iinteg helps its Fortune 100 clients integrate performance improvement initiatives into the organizational fabric and culture. They help define business processes, develop incentive systems, clarify and communicate performance expectations, and develop and implement learning strategies that include on-line, classroom and blended training solutions. They have also worked with several companies to establish corporate universities. Nancy earned her BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Nancy is an accomplished speaker at local, regional and international conferences.

Katie Karppala

• BS Interdisciplinary Studies, Kennesaw State University
• MS Organizational Leadership, Brenau University
• EQ-i 2.0 and EQ-360 emotional intelligence certifications
• Certified in the ARSENAL Assessment

Katie Karppala MSOL, BCC is the founder of Authentic Dimensions Consulting, LLC. She is a board certified executive leadership coach and a member of the International Coach Federation with additional coaching specialties in health, wellness, business, relationship and life coaching. In addition, she is an image management consultant, corporate trainer and organizational leadership consultant. Karppala uses her various bodies of knowledge to deliver an integrative, systems approach to meet her client's unique needs.

Karppala graduated as an Honors Scholar with a Bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies from Kennesaw State University, and obtained a Masters of Science in Organizational Leadership from Brenau University. She has earned EQ-i 2.0 and EQ-360 emotional intelligence certifications, is certified in the ARSENAL Assessment, is a trained DISC facilitator and also facilitates classes using The Peoplemap System. She has received additional training from The Institute for Life Coach Training, Emory Continuing Education and the Conselle Institute of Image Management.

Soumaya Khalifa

• BS Chemistry, University of Houston
• MBA Human Resources, Georgia State University

Soumaya founded Khalifa Consulting, a strategic Diversity, Equity and Inclusion consulting firm in 2007 to provide executives with intercultural and leadership training and guidance in a rapidly changing world. Her career spans more than 25 years in human resources, management, business management and ownership, non-profit and entrepreneurship.

Khalifa Consulting specializes in helping executives and organizations reach global success by providing them the most relevant, practical and up to date cross-cultural coaching and training. In addition, Khalifa Consulting's expertise on building global virtual teams, women's leadership and executive coaching has assisted business and community leaders in their professional development.  Soumaya and team work with a broad range of clients, from large established national and global organizations to startups. Soumaya is a frequently requested presenter at Human Resources conferences across the country and has published articles and blogs on a variety of DEI and Human Resources topics.

Quinn O'Briant

• BA Religion, Emory University
• MFA Creative Writing, Goddard College
• MLA Stanford

Quinn O’Briant, MFA, MLA, is a noted expert in creativity and innovation who has inspired and taught thousands of people around the world. Today she is a Vice President and Senior Artificial Intelligence Content Strategist for Bank of America and a Guest Lecturer in Design and Innovation at Emory University. 

As Founder and CEO of the design thinking firm O’Briant Group LLC, Quinn brought her innovation expertise to the world’s top organizations, including Google, NCR, AT&T, and Equifax, and her company was a trusted partner company of Google Cloud. She closed O’Briant Group in 2021 to focus on forthcoming projects.  

Quinn is a two-time author, serial entrepreneur, and former English and Creative Writing professor. She holds a BA in Religion from Emory University, a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Goddard College, and a Master of Liberal Arts from Stanford University.