Jessica Eberley, SPHR, SHRM-SCP is the CEO of HRT Solutions. Founded in 2016, HRT Solutions supports both small and large organizations with their Human Resource and Talent Acquisition needs. Jessica’s passion for Human Resources was sparked as a student at Penn State and has been the focus of her career for almost 15 years. She attributes part of her successful business launch to the Center for Women’s Entrepreneurship through their Start-up to Launch program which she participated in 2015 prior to opening her business.

Andrew O’Connor has 10 of years experience working to design and implement payment processing, security, technology and systems integrations for organizations of all sizes, across dozens of industries. Andrew is a co-founder of both Team Merchant and Paycove. Team Merchant is a payment processing and technology company with offices in Pittsburgh and Chicago. Team Merchant helps companies evaluate and deploy the best solution for their unique needs. Paycove is a software startup that saves time and money by connecting and automating payments, accounting and CRM systems. Both companies share the same value of “What Would Fred Rogers Do?”. Andrew is passionate about bringing transparency and better solutions to the payments industry. Andrew lives in Chicago Illinois with his wife Hilary and dog Nola. In his spare time he volunteers with a local art and music non-profit called Echoes of Chicago.

David Kane is the founder and Managing Partner of Ethical Intruder, a local Pittsburgh based Cyber Security Company founded in 2010. In 2015 David developed a methodology to assist organizations to create cyber security and compliance roadmaps called the Cyber Liability Maturity Model (CLMM), which has been utilized extensively in the Pittsburgh region, and led to a 2018 Tech 50 nomination for Innovative Technology. The CLMM has been used by small to enterprise sized companies to help organizations map out security or compliance requirements that fit their own cost structure, agenda and individual program maturity while staying technology and vendor agnostic.

Erin is an experienced transactional attorney and focuses on providing legal counsel to privately held businesses at all stages of the business life cycle. Her focused approach to growth and exit planning includes providing business owners with assistance to grow and protect their business while engineering an optimal exit. She is pleased to engage with her clients as both a lawyer and a trusted business adviser. She also serves as outside general counsel to entrepreneurs, private businesses, and private equity-backed portfolio companies, and is committed to partnering with her clients through an integrated understanding of each client’s industry, business operations, and strategic goals. She assists clients in various industries, including manufacturing, distribution, health care, technology solutions and staffing, software development, professional services, emerging technologies, real estate development and retail, on matters spanning from corporate governance, to commercial contracts, growth initiatives, and business succession planning. Her proactive approach to helping clients protect, grow and engineer an optimal exit includes strategizing and documenting business continuity plans for business owners. Erin’s vast experience in successfully completing a variety of transitional changes in ownership through mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, private equity, reorganizations, and generational transfers affords her the ability to best serve her clients. She is vice chair of the firm’s Business, Acquisitions and Securities practice group, and sits on the Opinion and Audit Letter Review Committee.

Jim began his career working with a Regional IT Consulting Firm in 1992, during the Personal Computer boom. At the time, the company had their own DOS-Based accounting software package that they sold to businesses of all sizes in northeastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. Jim was responsible for acquiring new customers for their accounting software. In 2001, after the company was sold and acquired by new investors, it became NEO3. Jim was promoted to VP of Sales in 2003, and in 2005 was promoted to managing partner and President of the company. At that time, Jim made the decision to sell the IT Division of NEO3 and focus more on ERP and CRM software and the company has been doing that ever since. Jim has been involved with over 300 ERP and CRM implementations in his career, and has worked at every level of the implementation process- from initial selection all the way through go-live. He is certified with Oracle NetSuite ERP & CRM, Sage 100 ERP, Sage 300, Sage 50(formerly Peachtree), Sage CRM, Sage BusinessWorks and Sage Fixed Assets. He has working knowledge of Dynamics GP, Quickbooks, Acumatica, ACT CRM, Infor CRM(formerly Sales Logix), Salesforce CRM, Sugar CRM and many others. Jim lives in Poland, OH with his lovely wife Donna and daughters Alexis and Olivia. He fancies himself a guitar player and believes he is good at it. Although anyone that has ever heard him play would disagree.

Innovative, forward thinking and solution-focused, Melissa Murphy is a nationally-recognized and award-winning leader committed to building and transforming brands and organizations. She currently manages her own company, Melissa Murphy Marketing, where she works with a variety of clients, including Ainsworth Pet Nutrition (makers’ of Rachael Ray pet products), NOVA Chemical, and the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation. For these and other clients, she works on a variety of assignments, including communications strategy and planning, crisis management, executive communication, social and traditional media strategy, special events, M&A and change management. She is also an active speaker and facilitator. In addition, Melissa is an adjunct professor of marketing at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, teaching both graduate and undergraduate courses in Integrated Marketing Communications. She is a devoted mom to her daughter, Amanda (23). They have two beloved dogs—Sadie, a Bernese mountain dog (5); and, Ziva, a German shepherd (5).