Georges Gonzalez, MBA
Water Resources Enterprise Solutions Director
Georges Gonzalez is currently serving as the Hillsborough County Water Resources Enterprise Solutions Director. He is based out of Tampa Florida. Though Georges has only been with Hillsborough County for just over a year, he brings over 27 years’ experience in private and public sectors serving in senior and executive roles.
After serving almost 6 years in the US Air Force, he joined The Coca Cola Company as a driver. He grew his career in the company, holding several roles, from IT to finance. Georges also assisted with the company’s global SAP development and implementation, taking him to several countries. After 20 years, he joined the Otis Elevator organization as a special assistant to the CEO. At Otis Georges created and implemented a Shared Services Department where all finance, accounting and HR functions were centralized under one system.
After a short tenure, Georges decided to pivot and join the Public Sector as Pinellas County Utility Business and Customer Services Director. There he worked alongside his team to improve the Meter to Cash processes, upgraded to a new SAP version, improved reporting and enhanced the customer experience. After 5 years with Pinellas, he moved to Minnesota as the Deputy Regional Administrator & CFO of the Metropolitan Council the policy-making body, planning agency, and provider of essential services in the seven-county Twin Cities metro area.
Georges holds a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Tampa and an undergraduate degree from Eckerd College. Georges is a member of the American Water Works Association and is a veteran of the United States Air Force where he served in the Gulf War. Additionally, Georges is an avid long-distance runner and has run a marathon in all 50 states.
Keri Laine
Founder & CEO
Keri Laine is the founder and CEO of Keri Laine Executive Solutions and the author of Infinite Return on Relationships and The 100-Year ROI. A former C-suite executive who has led organizations from $40M to $5.6B in revenue, through three IPOs and global M&A integrations, she now coaches boards and executive teams stewarding essential industries through accelerated change.
Jamie Workman
Founder & CEO
Jamie Workman is a dynamic storyteller and entrepreneur whose work with hunter-gatherers on land and at sea has sparked new thinking about how we replenish freshwater, marine fisheries, and wildlands. Jamie founded AquaShares Inc., which pioneered online water savings credit trading in California & Morocco, and wrote Sea Change and Heart of Dryness, two award-winning books on building resilience through rights-based, incentives-driven conservation. He has advised political leaders from Nelson Mandela to U.S. Cabinet officials, studied at Yale and Oxford, and taught new courses in natural resource markets at Wesleyan & Whitman colleges. But his real education came from blowing up dams, releasing wolves, restoring wildland fires, guiding safaris, smuggling water to dissidents, breaking down in Africa’s Kalahari Desert, and becoming a husband and dad (not ranked in that order).
William Manzi Freitas
Leadership Strategist & Experiential Facilitator
William Manzi Freitas, M.S. is a leadership strategist, keynote speaker, and experiential facilitator who helps leaders and teams turn complexity into clarity, align around strategy, and move into action.
With over 20 years of experience across higher education, public health, and nonprofit systems, he combines academic insight, executive leadership, and practical facilitation. As a former Extension Faculty and Leadership Educator at Washington State University, he designed leadership programs, built community partnerships, and expanded engagement initiatives.
William has delivered training and facilitation internationally across the U.S., Brazil, South Africa, Ireland, and Canada. He is a certified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® facilitator, using hands-on methods to strengthen communication, unlock innovation, and solve complex challenges.
He has also led strategic planning and performance improvement initiatives at the Florida Department of Health, contributing to measurable gains in organizational effectiveness.
Dr. Kasi Lacey
CEO & Founder | Keynote Speaker | Psychologist
Dr. Kasi Lacey is a psychologist, keynote speaker, and executive consultant whose work sits at the intersection of leadership psychology and organizational trust. With a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology and more than 15 years of C-suite leadership experience, she helps organizations navigate the human side of change.
Dr. Lacey works with leaders and teams across the country to build the clarity, consistency, and psychological safety needed to move from knowing change is necessary to trusting that it will work. She is the author of Your Confidence Comeback and founder of H & L Legacy Consulting. Today, she brings the psychology of uncertainty directly to the challenge this sector knows well: bridging the digital divide isn’t just a technology problem — it’s a trust problem.
