TEDxWakeforestu: Staying connected aims to give innovators and storytellers the opportunity to share stories of disruption to fuel positive change.
2024 Speakers:
Florence “Flo” Ngala
Steven David
Shenarri Freeman
Griffin Spolansky
Suresh Vishnubhatla
Florence “Flo” Ngala is an editorial photographer known for her celebrity portraits and photojournalism of various hip hop artists. She is a New York native and first-generation American who credits Harlem and her parents for a love of creative hustle. She discovered photography in middle school as a student and went on to major in Advertising/Public Relations and minor in Digital Design at The City College of New York.
Flo’s work has appeared on The New York Times, Billboard and Essence covers, she is also known for portraits of musical talent such as Cardi B, Method Man and Burna Boy, and others. In 2022, Flo became the first Black woman invited by Vogue to photograph at the MET Gala. Later that year, she was listed as a 2023 Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient in the Art & Style category.
Justice David took the Oath of Office as Indiana’s 106th Supreme Court Justice in 2010, where he served until 2022. His long-established and multi-faceted career also included twelve years as the Judge of the Boone County Circuit Court presiding over civil, family, criminal and juvenile cases. He is a retired United States Army Reserve with twenty-eight years of Military service as a distinguished soldier, leader and lawyer, six years of corporate practice, as well as private practice experience.
A James Beard Award Nominee, Executive Chef Shenarri Freeman is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education's plant-based Health-Supportive Culinary Arts program. Born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, she fully embraced veganism in 2017 as a means of putting her health first and taking control of her well-being. Today, she is committed to creating plant-based dishes that are fun and indulgent. Since opening her first restaurant (Cadence) in 2021, Chef Shenarri has been named a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient, been nominated for Two James Beard awards, has been recognized by Esquire, New York Times, Michelin, Vogue, and so many more. Now, she is excited to be bi-coastal, leading UBUNTU and Cadence as Executive Chef
Griffin Spolansky is the Co-Founder and CEO at Mezcla - a plant-based snack brand that launched in August of 2020.
Mezcla has seen strong growth since inception, and is sold in stores nationwide - some of Mezcla's accounts include Whole Foods, The Fresh Market, H-E-B, Gelson's, Thrive Market, Erewhon, Citarella, and Pressed Juicery. Griffin was a member of the 2023 Forbes 30 Under 30 class for Food and Beverage and has raised $7.5M to date for Mezcla. Griffin attended the University of Virginia, where he Majored in Economics, and competed on the schools Division 1 Men's Lacrosse team where he won a national championship.
Suresh Vishnubhatla is General Manager of Chorus, X’s moonshot to transform how we make, move and manage the world’s goods. Before joining X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory, he was President of PharMerica Corporation (NYSE: PMC), the second largest provider of pharmaceutical services to the post-acute care, specialty and home infusion markets. PharMerica was acquired by KKR (NYSE:KKR) and Walgreens (NYSE: WBA). Suresh started his career at Emerson Electric Corp. (NYSE:EMR) where he built the Ovation(R) Distributed Control System. Ovation is used to generate power in approx. 60% in the United States and 30% of the world. Suresh subsequently was a senior executive at BodyMedia (acquired by Jawbone), a pioneer in wearable body monitoring and Millennium Pharmacy Systems (acquired by PharMerica). Millennium was a 3 time recipient of Inc 500 Fastest Growing Companies award and led the market in developing and deploying patient side medication management technology for safe pharmaceutical administration. His work during his career was focused on rapidly growing businesses by launching innovative products and services, building scalable platforms and developing customer focused service organizations. He owns several US and international patents and the products were recognized by several national and international publications.