Keynote Speakers

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A graduate of Mt. Holyoke College and Emory University School of Law, where she was an Earl Warren Scholar, Hatchett completed a prestigious federal clerkship in the United States District Court, Northern District of Georgia. She then spent nearly 10 years at Delta Air Lines, where she was the airline’s highest-ranking woman of color worldwide. As Senior Attorney, she represented Delta Air Lines in labor/personnel, and antitrust litigation and commercial acquisitions. As Public Relations Manager, she supervised global crisis management and handled media relations for 50 U.S. cities as well as all of Europe and Asia. 

Hatchett has presented leadership sessions for various companies including PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Georgia-Pacific, Wal-Mart and Hospital Corporation of America Inc. (HCA). Additionally, she frequently lecturers throughout the country, and has keynoted several national conferences including: Office Depot’s Success Strategies for Businesswomen Conference, Colgate Palmolive’s Multicultural Summit, the Diversity Conference in the U.S. Senate, the Minority Employers’ Conference at Newell Rubbermaid, Microsoft’s Education Summit, AT&T’s Diversity Summit, Home Depot’s Women’s History Speaker’s Series and Black Enterprise’s Entrepreneurs Conference. She has also moderated several forums including the CEO Forum on Diversity Leadership and Wells Fargo’s Forum on the Economic Impact on Colleges and Universities. Hatchett served as a guest faculty member lecturing on Corporate Ethics at the University of Vanderbilt’s Directors College, presented by the Law School and the Owen Graduate School of Management. 

      Hatchett has served on the Boards of three Fortune 500 companies – HCA, The Gap Inc. and ServiceMaster Company. 

While on the Board of Directors of HCA, she was Chair of the Ethics, Compliance and Quality of Care Committee. She was also a member of the HCA board’s Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee. Hatchett was a member of the five-person special board committee that negotiated HCA’s $32.7 billion leveraged buyout paving the way for the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain to go private. At the time, the buyout was the largest leveraged buyout in US corporate history. 

While a Board Director for The Gap Inc., Hatchett served on the Governance, Nominating and Social Responsibility Committee and the Compensation and Management Development Committee. 

Hatchett left Delta Air Lines to accept an appointment as Chief Presiding Judge of the Fulton County (Atlanta, Georgia) Juvenile Court—becoming the first African-American Chief Presiding Judge of a state court in Georgia and head of one of the largest juvenile court systems in the country. She is a member of both the Georgia Bar and the Bar of the District of Columbia.

 Hatchett presides over the two-time Emmy nominated nationally syndicated show, Judge Hatchett, now in its 18th season (Sony Pictures Television). Judge Hatchett won a Prism Award for Best Unscripted Non-Fiction Series. She is also the author of the National Best Sellers, Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say (Harper Collins, 2003) and Dare to Take Charge (Center Street / Hachette Book Group, 2010).

 Hatchett was a member of the National Football League’s Atlanta Falcons’ Board of Advisors, and served as a consultant to the National Basketball Association on pressing legal and social issues. Hatchett has consistently shown her commitment to community development through her service on various nonprofit boards including: the National Board of Governors of the Boys and Girl Club of America; the Leadership Circle for the After School Alliance and the Advisory Board for the Women’s Resource Center at Spelman College; and she formerly served on the Board of Advisors for PlayPumps International. Presently, Hatchett serves as the national spokesperson for CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), a non-profit volunteer organization that trains volunteers to represent abused and neglected children and is the recipient of their President’s Award. 

Currently, Hatchett is the proud founder of The Hatchett Firm, P.C. located in Atlanta, GA. The firm specializes in risk and crisis management and catastrophic police misconduct cases. She has access to an extensive network of attorneys who are dedicated to handling complex civil disputes, resulting from serious injuries and mass tort claims. The Hatchett Firm provides effective closing settlement strategies while using a client-centered approach. 

With over 30 years of experience as a judge, corporate lawyer, and board member of corporate and nonprofit organizations, Hatchett has established a legacy of excellence. 

Most recently, Hatchett has returned to TV in her new television court series, The Verdict. She presides over the series as a follow-up to Sony TV’s long-running Judge Hatchett. The Verdict marks Entertainment Studios’ sixth current court series on JusticeCentral.TV. 

Hatchett is the recipient of numerous awards including the Roscoe Pound Award for outstanding work in Criminal Justice, NAACP’s Thurgood Marshall Award and she has been recognized as one of the “100 Best and Brightest Women in Corporate America” by Ebony magazine. She was named Distinguished Alumna at Mt. Holyoke College, which later granted her an honorary degree. Her other alma mater, Emory University Law School, named her Outstanding Alumni of the Year. Emory University also presented her with the highest award given to university alumni, the Emory Medal.

  In today's world? DEl&B should no longer just be components in cultivating fair. safe. and effective business environments - they are a must. 

That's where diversity strategist. educator. author. speaker. and trainer Curtis Hill comes in. Curtis brings audiences an empowering message of awareness. culture. and resilience. combined with a potent mix of savvy business skills honed from a lifetime of raw and well-crafted experiences. 

Growing up in Chicago. Curtis quickly drifted into a life of violence and crime and quickly rose to become one of the city's most recognizable and notorious gang members. But. while dealing drugs earned him a six-figure per month bankroll. it cost him everything when he witnessed the cold-blooded murder of his best friend and came face-to-face with the immense suffering it caused in his community. 

Consequently. Curtis turned to education to springboard his street smarts into solid business acumen. After earning four degrees. including a Master of Arts in Teaching. an M.ED in Administration and Supervision. and he holds a Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma. Curtis now travels the globe working with corporations. associations. and organizations to Create A Culture Of Belonging™ to maximize people. profits and productivity. In addition. his unique way of communicating complex issues like race and division with humor and humanity keeps audiences engaged with laughter while they learn.

From a virtual or physical stage. Curtis delivers messages to senior leaders. HR professionals. sales professionals. service providers. and educators with high energy. purposeful passion. and solid strategies that create a long-lasting and significant difference in their personal and professional lives. Want to learn how to integrate a Culture Of Belonging™ and strong practical business skills into your organization? 

I’m a speaker and mindset coach, sharing my story of pain and struggle and how it led me to be the man I am today. 

Picture this. I’m a 3-time National Champion, 10-time All-American and the 6th fastest man in the world at the age of 22. I was just one year away from landing my first shoe deal as a track and field superstar. I was living out my ultimate dream and nothing could stop me.

I would face a 99% tear in my right quad muscle, an injury that would debilitate my career. My dream, as I knew it, was over. My purpose, gone. My confidence was left bankrupt, and my emotions were starving.  Little did I know it was this life-changing event that would make me become the man I am today. Following my injury, I began speaking voluntarily at local schools, giving them a watered down version of my life with surface level touching on the pain. I believed no one would want to hear me speak. I was fearful of the judgement I might face. I mean c’mon, even my mom was financially supporting me.

I finally realized that people needed to hear my entire journey. They don’t want to just hear about success, they want to understand how the pain I went through had purpose. That’s when my whole agenda changed. I started actually impacting people with my story. I started putting on Thrive Events and traveling around the world impacting tens of thousands of lives each year. I became an expert in the things that had some people stuck: becoming mentally strong, improving habit, discovering purpose, vision creating and goal setting.