2024 Annual Meeting Speakers
Jenny Black is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the State of Tennessee, the founder
of Media Trauma Care, the co-author of Our Digital Soul: collective anxiety, media trauma and a path toward recovery and the creator and
host of Lose the Phone, a podcast series that follows artists on their journey of replacing their smartphone use with creativity. She spoke at
Tedx in 2022 with a presentation titled The Slow Drip of Media Trauma. She has been quoted in articles from numerous publications including The Wall Street Journal, Real Simple and Fast Company. She has been
interviewed on dozens of podcasts like Raising Girls and Boys, 60 Mindful
Minutes, Making History and This Undivided Life in addition to having a regular
segment on The MomCult Podcast. You can listen to her most recent in depth
interviews on Off The Vine with Kaitlyn Bristow and Motherhood Meets Medicine. You can follow her current
writing on Substack.
Louie Gravance is often referred to as “the guy that can make the Disney service
concepts work outside of Disney.” From 1987 to 2014 Louie enjoyed a distinguished career with Disney theme parks, designing everything from
live-entertainment experiences to customer service training programs through
the Disney Institute in Orlando Florida.
Following his hugely effective tenure in
Orlando, Gravance left Disney to pursue other opportunities and soon amassed even more success
working as a consultant, customer service speaker and corporate culture guru. Louie has designed multi-million-dollar service campaigns for
companies such as ING Financial, Choice Hotels, Microbac Technologies, Nikon and The American
Council of Independent Laboratories.
Gravance has been credited with “literally
changing the consciousness of business in America” through his service campaigns and initiatives that have included Bank of America’s “The Bank of
America Spirit” campaign - deemed the most successful customer service training
initiative in the company’s history.
In 2014, his unique entertainment and
training experience was called upon to be part of the opening team of Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley expansion
at Universal, Orlando.
At only twelve years old, he began working in California as a stage, film and television actor and would go on to appear in
over thirty-five national television commercials. In 1987, Gravance was offered a summer job with one of the entertainment industry’s most successful conglomerates, The Walt Disney Company, beginning as a comic at Disneyland in
Anaheim, California and soon thereafter embarking on a nearly three-decade
adventure at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida.
Through his company Louie Gravance Creative Content, based in Orlando,
Florida, Louie continues to offer clients unique training programs with
incorporated themes such as “Great Service Serves the Server First!” and
powerful initiatives including “Service is a Superpower!”.
Mary DeNiro has served as CEO of the Association of College and University Housing Officers – International (ACUHO-I) since 2015. In this capacity, she works with the executive board to fulfill the organization’s mission, executes its strategic direction, and leads the home office staff as they support the work of its international membership. Prior to coming to ACUHO-I, DeNiro served as the Chief Engagement Officer for the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association. Before that, she worked as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Capital Newspapers and Vice President of Advertising for Thomson Newspapers.
DeNiro earned a bachelor’s degree from Ohio University, an MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and certificates from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business and the Northwestern University executive management programs.