UNG lines up speakers for Cottrell Series

The Mike Cottrell College of Business will welcome a pair of leaders for the Cottrell Speaker Series this month. The speakers will share their experience and insights with University of North Georgia faculty, staff, students, and local business community members.

“We look forward to welcoming Stephanie Stuckey and Andy Hiles as part of our Cottrell Speaker Series,” Dr. Mary Gowan, dean of the MCCB, said. “These events provide an opportunity for students to learn from successful leaders from a wide range of industries and better understand how what they are learning in the classroom plays out in organizations.”

Stuckey’s CEO Stephanie Stuckey begins the series at noon Oct. 12 in Nesbitt room 3110 at UNG’s Gainesville Campus.

Stuckey purchased Stuckey’s in November of 2019 and assumed the role of CEO. Stuckey’s Corporation, the roadside oasis since 1937, is known for Southern hospitality and candies, including its pecan log roll.

Stuckey received both her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Georgia. She worked as a trial lawyer, was elected to seven terms as a state representative, ran an environmental law firm, served as director of sustainability for Atlanta, and taught as an adjunct professor at the UGA School of Law.

Her achievements include being named one of the 100 Most Influential Georgians by Georgia Trend magazine, and she is a graduate of Leadership Atlanta. She serves on the corporate board for Bealls, a Florida-based retailer with more than 550 stores, and the nonprofit board for Society for Commercial Archeology, an organization dedicated to preserving roadside Americana.

Stuckey will discuss reviving a third-generation family business and learning from the top down.

Following Stuckey will be Andy Hiles, vice president for plan sponsor insights and health equity solutions at Aetna. His presentation will be at noon Oct. 19 in the Don and Connie Cottrell Ballroom in UNG’s Cottrell Center for Business, Technology & Innovation at the Dahlonega Campus.

The title of his presentation is “The Future of Healthcare is Equitable,” and he will look at how roughly half of Americans get their health care coverage from an employer-sponsored plan.

Historically, these workers and their families have not been considered in conversations about health equity. However, new analytics reveal previously hidden health inequities and enable businesses to support all workers in their journey to achieve their best health.

Hiles is a nationally recognized health equity expert, leading the employer market in recognizing the impact that social determinants and minority status have on worker health and overall plan costs and the development of the first data-driven, return-on-investment-based analytics to identify, quantify and address health inequities at scale in employer-sponsored health plans.

In addition to his work at Aetna, Hiles has served as a senior expert on employee benefits at McKinsey & Company and provided leadership for benefits consulting for Aon and Willis Towers Watson.  He is a frequent presenter on health care trends and health equity at the McKinsey & Company Global Healthcare Conference, Duke University MBA Healthcare Conference, Notre Dame Healthcare Symposium, American Hospital Association, and the Business Group on Health Annual Healthcare Conference. He has full accreditation as a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries. Hiles is the co-founder of The Sandwich Project, which has delivered more than half a million sandwiches to the homeless and food insecure in downtown Atlanta over the past two years.

The series has previously featured other distinguished business leaders, including Tanika Cabral, vice president of global marketing for the Coca-Cola Company; Alan Amling, vice president of global strategy for UPS; Carol Burrell, president and CEO of Northeast Georgia Health System; David Stovall, director of commercial sales at the Norton Agency; and Eric Holtzclaw, ‘94, co-founding partner and chief strategist for Liger Partners.

In addition to learning from the experts in their respective fields, many attendees have also found opportunities through the program to sharpen their networking skills, increase their connections, and uncover unique leads to internships and employment.

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