About Our Leadership Conference Speakers

Missy Franklin
A Journey of Growing: Olympics, Family, Passions, and More. What Really Matters — Keynote Speaker

Missy Franklin is a five-time Olympic gold medalist and multiple world record-holder in the sport of swimming. Franklin became a household name during the 2012 Olympic Games in London when she won four gold medals and one bronze medal, becoming one of the most decorated athletes of the Games. She won gold in the 100-meter back, 200-meter back, 4x200-meter free relay and 4x100-meter medley relay, and won bronze in the 4x100-meter free relay. Franklin’s performance in the 200-meter backstroke broke the world record in the event and also marked the first time that an American had won the event in 40 years. She followed her Olympic success by winning six gold medals at the 2013 FINA World Championships in Barcelona, becoming the most-decorated female swimmer in history at a single World Championships. At the 2015 World Championships in Kazan, Russia, Missy made history again, becoming the first woman to earn 11 career World Championship titles.

Franklin, who was raised in Centennial, Colo., began swimming competitively at the age of five and competed in her first international event at the age of 14. In 2011, she established herself as one of the top swimmers in the world when she won five medals – three of them gold – at the 2011 FINA World Championships in Shanghai. That fall, she also broke her first world record at the FINA World Cup in Berlin, becoming the first female to break an individual world record since high-tech bodysuits were banned in January of 2010.

As a member of the U.S. National Swim Team, Franklin competed at UC Berkeley before turning professional. Her choice to swim collegiately and forgo sponsorships and prize money was well documented during the 2012 Olympics, but swimming for a college team was something that was very important to Franklin. In her two years competing at Cal, Franklin earned four individual NCAA titles and helped UC Berkeley win the 2015 NCAA Women’s Division I Swimming and Diving Team Championship. She was also awarded the 2015 Collegiate Woman of the Year and awarded the Honda Cup for her collegiate athletic achievements. 

Most recently, she started the Unfiltered Waters Podcast with olympic champion, Katie Hoff. Franklin retired from competitive swimming in December of 2018. She currently lives in Middle TN with her family.

Dawn Davenport
A Journey of Growing: Olympics, Family, Passions, and More. What Really Matters — Keynote Moderator

Dawn Davenport joined ESPN at the start of the 2013 college football season as a reporter on ESPNU, and currently serves as a sideline reporter for ESPN and SEC Network.

In addition to her sideline duties, Davenport is Nashville’s first full-time female sports radio personality on 104.5 The Zone. She previously worked as a morning show anchor for WKRN-ABC in Nashville, Tenn. for nearly ten years. Prior to joining the three-hour morning news show, Davenport was an award-winning weekend sports anchor and reporter for the station.

Davenport started her career at WWAY-ABC Wilmington, N.C., and then at WRIC-ABC in Richmond, Va., where she was a part of a sports department that twice won the AP Award for Best Year-Round Sports Coverage. She also worked events for the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) and CSS Sports, Atlanta.

Born in Plano, Texas, Davenport was raised in Atlanta. An honors graduate from Auburn University in December 2002, she earned a degree in mass communications/radio, television, film. Davenport was a three-year letterwinner and a two-time SEC Academic All-American member on the volleyball team.

Rick Byrd
A Coach’s Take: Shifting Mindsets, Pushing Limits, and Supporting People Through the Challenges — Session Leader

Coach Rick Byrd served as a collegiate head coach for 38 years, including the last 33 at Belmont (1986-2019). In that time he won 805 career games, the 12th-most in NCAA Division I history, while leading Belmont to 17 conference championships and coaching 17 Academic All-Americans. Byrd guided the Bruins from the NAIA level to Division I.

In his final year as head coach Belmont lost in the OVC Tournament final but earned an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament, the first for an OVC team since 1987. Belmont would go on to top Temple 81-70 in the First Four in Dayton, marking the program’s first Division I NCAA Tournament victory in eight total appearances.

In just seven years in the league, Byrd was named OVC Coach of the Year four times (the second-most selections in league history), coached four OVC Players of the Year and 16 All-OVC selections.

Among all-time coaches with five or more years of experience in the OVC, his 73 percent winning percentage is second in OVC history.

Byrd is also a member of the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, the NAIA Hall of Fame, the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame and the Belmont Athletic Hall of Fame and is a nominee for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

James Crumlin
Do Hard Things: Where You Can Go When You Tackle The Challenging Things — Session Leader

James Crumlin is a Partner Attorney at Spencer Fane where he is also the Chair of the Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Committee. James helps clients navigate the corporate legal landscape and avoid costly mistakes, so employers can focus on running successful operations. He concentrates his practice in the areas of labor and employment law, business and corporate law, litigation and dispute resolution, and entertainment and media law.

James serves as outside general counsel for several small and midsize businesses, including entrepreneurs and startup ventures in a variety of industries. His experience includes business formation and strategy, funding and investor relations, contracts, employment compliance issues, risk management, litigation, and dispute resolution.

Encouraged by his mother, and following in his father’s footsteps, James says he wanted to be a lawyer for as long as he can remember. What he enjoys most about the profession is “helping employers resolve their employee issues and assisting small businesses in maximizing their potential by focusing on the bottom line and not legal problems.” One of the proudest moments in his life was accepting the National Bar Association’s induction of his father into its Hall of Fame, posthumously.

James is very active in the Nashville community and a passionate nonprofit supporter. Among the organizations he has been involved with are Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee, Matthew Walker Comprehensive Health Center, and the Kelly Miller Smith Center Against Abusive Behavior. He is an active member of the Mt. Zion Baptist Church. He is also the Founder of the Capitol Steps workouts to offer a free and accessible wellness opportunity to all that wish to participate and show up for themselves.

Rob Salome
The Leadership Decade: A Playbook for an Extraordinary Era — What Does the Big Generational Shift Mean for Millennials and GenZ — Session Leader

Rob’s military career and 27 years of leadership experience — almost entirely with Millennials — bring a unique perspective to the Solutions 21 team on what it takes to adapt to the information age, and he’s not one to shy away from challenging situations.

A retired Army colonel, Rob served in leadership positions large and small across the globe. He exercised transformational leadership in the nation’s most elite military organizations: the 101st Airborne (Air Assault), the 82nd Airborne, and the 173rd Airborne in Vicenza, Italy. His style of servant leadership suited him well as he led Airborne Rangers in the United States, Europe, North Africa, Iraq, and Afghanistan under the most arduous conditions.

Rob’s ability to communicate with executives across industries reflects his experience in myriad geopolitical environments. Rob helps executive teams think from new perspectives and has aided dozens of clients on varying strategic issues — from economic growth and deliberate downsizing to building multi- functional teams and managing time in the margins.

Rob’s expertise is defined by strategic planning, leadership development, and design thinking. He helps lead cross-functional teams to understand their environment, define their problems, develop organizational approaches to solve complex problems, and integrate ongoing assessments for operational budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Rob has served in critical roles at the highest levels of government: as a military aide to the vice president of the United States; the director of the Commander’s Initiatives Group in the Army’s Forces Command, and as garrison commander of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Rob knows what it means to be a contributor on a team, lead from the middle, and serve from the top. As the Chief Operations Officer and Vice President of Consulting Services, Rob brings the vast array of Solutions 21’s capabilities to the most technologically advanced and fastest growing cities in America.

Rob, a decorated U.S. Army combat veteran, is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point with a BA in mechanical engineering. He holds a master’s degree in management and administration from Central Michigan University and a master’s degree in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College.

Aabesh De
Startup Stories from Nashville Entrepreneurs: What It Looks Like to Start Your Own Company — Panelist

Aabesh De is the founder of Flora, the all-in-one platform for consumer plant care. His journey began with the loss of his mother's 4-year old rose bush plant, which he sadly killed in just 10 short days. He set out to find tools that could help his horticultural hopelessness, but couldn’t find a reliable go-to platform to monitor, track, and treat his plants. He realized that his problem was not uncommon, and yet there was no common solution. This began the journey of Flora, where he taught himself DIY electronics and Swift programming in order to create the Flora app and Flora Pod - a smart IoT plant sensor.

In just 2 years, Flora has grown to over 300,000 users across 190 countries, and supports the care of over a million plants which offsets over 100,000 KGs of carbon emissions. The Flora Pod is now in mass production, and is an award-winning, patented device that acts as a life alert for your plants. He recently pitched the Flora Pod on Shark Tank Season 15!

Before Flora, Aabesh served as a Technical Account Manager in Microsoft's Cloud Services division. In this role, he grew over $10M in yearly client budgets for the Chicago-based financial services companies he managed. Aabesh also served as a Sales Engineering Manager at Reverb.com, a startup he joined shortly after its Series A fundraising. He stayed on until after its acquisition by Etsy in late 2019. After the acquisition, he continued to work jointly with the Etsy and Reverb.com API integrations teams, leading and growing the seller-side of the platform from $2M in monthly GMS to over $14M in just three years.

Ever the entrepreneur at heart, Aabesh started his first business selling 3D digital assets he created using Blender in 8th grade, and has had multiple since, each teaching him valuable lessons that have helped make Flora the success it is today.

Tyler Cauble
The Impact of a Brand: How to Generate a Following that is Lasting — Session Leader

Tyler Cauble is Founding Principal and President of The Cauble Group. He's a native Nashvillian that has not only been a witness to the city's tremendous growth, but is also involved in it through his developments, renovation projects, and volunteer work.

As President of The Cauble Group, Tyler helps bring together buyers, sellers, landlords, and tenants in retail, office, industrial, and multi-family real estate. He’s committed to helping business owners understand the market so that they can grow their business and be part of Nashville’s future. Cauble is also the best-selling author of Open For Business: The Insider's Guide to Leasing Commercial Real Estate.

Zach Brickner
Leading From the Start: How the NJC Shaped Your Leadership Style — Panelist

Zach Brickner was born and raised in Nashville, TN, and graduated from Montgomery Bell Academy in 2009. He then attended the University of Colorado and graduated with a degree in Environmental Studies in 2013. 

Zach has a strong leadership background stemming from being a Young Leaders Council graduate, a Leadership Institute graduate, and his tenure with the Nashville Junior Chamber Board of Governors. Since he returned to Nashville after college, he expanded his community involvement, which is evident by being awarded the Volunteer of the Year award by the Cumberland River Compact and the Member of the Year award by the Nashville Junior Chamber. Additionally, he was elected President of the Nashville Junior Chamber for the 2018-2019 fiscal year. In 2018, he was selected to be a member of Leadership Nashville and was recognized as one of Nashville's Top 30 Under 30. In 2020, he moved his real estate license to Parks Realty where he was promoted to the position of Managing Broker and Partner. Since becoming Managing Broker, his office of approximately 50 agents has sold over $500 million in real estate sales. In 2022, he authored and published the book Millennials’ Guide to Real Estate. Most recently, he was awarded Nashville's Top 40 under 40 by the Nashville Business Journal. 

LeShane Greenhill
Leading From the Start: How the NJC Shaped Your Leadership Style — Panelist

A native Nashvillian, LeShane is the Founder of SalesCocktail and President of Eminence Holdings. Prior to his SalesCocktail, LeShane Founded Pishon Sales Outsourcing and Co-Founded Sagents. In 2016, he was selected by Google and Code2040 to serve as an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Googles Tech Hub. A graduate of the University of Memphis, LeShane received his BBA with a concentration in MIS. LeShane also completed the “Building High Performing Businesses” Executive Education program at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business.

He has served on numerous non-profit boards including Metro Nashville Municipal Auditorium (Commissioner), The Exchange Club Family Center, Young Leaders Council, and Girl Scouts of Middle TN, Dan and Margaret Maddox Foundation, Trustee; Nashville Chamber Leadership Connect, Vital Signs Task Force; WorkIT Nashville, Ambassador; Alignment Nashville Tech Team, YPNashville, Students Taking a Right Stand, and The Pencil Foundation. Currently, he serves as a Trustee for the Sue Peters Foundation and is a member of Board of Ethics for the Belmont Univeristy’s School of Business.

LeShane served as President & Chairman of the Nashville Area Junior Chamber of Commerce in 2008. As a facilitator for the Kaufmann Foundation FastTrac program, he also helped design and facilitate a 10-week entrepreneurship program for Nashville and surrounding counties.

He is a 2005 graduate of Nashville Emerging Leaders and a 2009 graduate of the Young Leaders Council. LeShane is also a member of the 2008 Leadership Nashville class. Nashville Business Journal named him a Top 40 under 40 in 2010 and Nashville Power 100 Business Leaders in 2017. In 2013 LeShane was awarded the Spirit of the Chamber Award by the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce.

LeShane has been a featured speaker for Chicago Federal Reserve Bank, Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, International Business Innovation Association, Vanderbilt School of Engineering, Middle TN State University, Pathway Women’s Business Center, Karen Hunter Show on Sirius XM Radio, and many other outlets

LeShane is married to Gealita Greenhill. As a family, their areas of community focus are education, homelessness, and girl/women empowerment. Together they have a daughter and son and live in Kansas City, MO.

Jill Robinson
Leading From the Start: How the NJC Shaped Your Leadership Style — Moderator

Jill started her career in 1995 at Tennessee 200, Inc., the non-profit responsible for managing Tennessee’s 200th birthday celebration. She directed programs and marketing garnering over 90 Tennessee county volunteer committees and over 15,000 volunteers developing programming for the celebration.

In 1997 she contracted with Tennessee Association of Craft Artists (TACA), a statewide not for profit supporting crafts artist guilds in four regions of the state, and LifeWay’s National Baptist Association Collegiate Department, marketing and planning educational programming across the state and nationally.

She soon joined Charter Resource Group, a consulting firm specializing in change management and personal coaching for CEOs in the Southeast, which helped to develop her interest in change management, and organizational dynamics.

She joined the Tennessee Performing Arts Center (TPAC) in 1999 managing their first “in-house” volunteer department, setting new structure and creating new programs growing it from 30 to 350 annual volunteers in two years. Always ready for a challenge, she took on new responsibility over the six years ending her career at TPAC as the Director of Development supporting the fundraising goals for TPAC’s $1.5 million educational outreach programs.

Finding a passion for organizational management and oversight, she sought further personal development by obtaining a Masters Degree in Organizational Management from Trevecca Nazarene University in 2002, and completed her MBA summer of 2004.

February of 2005, she joined Belmont University in the Office of the President and University Advancement, building a new structure for events management focusing on presidential initiatives, donor relations, and cross functional team management.

In the summer of 2007, she joined the Center for Executive Education at Belmont University as the Director of Executive Learning and Marketing combining both her love for learning with her niche in marketing and managing learning programs.

She received the inaugural 40 Under 40 Nashville Business Journal award in 2009 and the Nashville Chamber of Commerce Nashville Emerging Leaders award for Education in 2010. Jill accepted the chair position for the YP Nashville organization in 2012 for the Chamber of Commerce, a one year term leading other YP city initiatives, and in 2013 accepted the two year chairmanship for Young Leaders Council organization focused on training young professionals in board development, finding internship placements for their service in greater Middle Tennessee. Jill served as a member of the Advisory Board for Tennessee Repertory Theatre 2012 - 2013, and joined the Advisory Board for Oz Modern Arts Center in 2013 continuing her support of the arts in Tennessee. She is an active member in the Williamson County and Nashville Chambers of Commerce, serving on the Chamber Midtown Leadership Team of the Nashville Chamber of Commerce.

Jill moved to the Dean of the College of Business Administration’s suite in January 2014 to serve as Director of External Relations and Executive Learning Networks at Belmont University, expanding her role in bringing the needs of the community and goals of the College of Business Administration together in support of programming, learning, and outreach.

In her spare time, she enjoys spoiling her nieces, volunteering, painting, reading and exercise, and quite often can be found on a hike at Percy Warner, or yoga in the park. The novice foodie can be found eating out in Nashville at the latest restaurant opening, or in class learning about vino and cheese.

Rick Whetsel
Striking the Right Chord: Leadership Amplified From Entertainment to Nonprofit — Session Leader

Rick Whetsel, Senior Vice President of G7 Entertainment Marketing in Nashville, is a seasoned music industry professional committed to creating dynamic and memorable connections between brands and artists.  Rick has produced thousands of concerts and events worldwide, with a current focus on sponsor-driven events in collaboration with many Fortune 500 companies. His expertise lies in overseeing talent buying and event production, ensuring unparalleled experiences for clients and audiences alike.  His strategic approach and dedication to delivering exceptional entertainment has garnered the trust of major corporations, with a client portfolio that includes IBM, Cisco, Toyota, and other heavy-hitters across several industries. Thanks to Rick, G7 talent booking has become synonymous with extraordinary live experiences.

Beyond his 9-5, Rick serves as Vice Chair on the board of Musicians on Call, a nonprofit that brings live and recorded music to the bedsides of patients in healthcare environments.

Rick is particularly skilled in connecting passionate and experienced leaders and pushing organizations forward, and we are thrilled to welcome him to the Nashville Junior Chamber Leadership Conference!