2025 ATD Nashville Board Slate

Shelly Reed
President-Elect

Shelly Reed is a Talent Development professional currently seeking her next opportunity.  With 13 years of learning and development experience, she has gained expertise in many different areas of L&D. She has a passion for leveraging technology to enhance learning outcomes, as well as gamification.

Shelly has a B.A. in Organizational Communication and Public Relations from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, and holds an APTD certification issued by the Association for Talent Development. In her free time, she loves to read, travel, cook, check out restaurants in the Middle Tennessee area, and spend time with her 3 rescue dogs: Traveler, Pickles, and Zoey.

Sydney Corkern
Vice President of Finance

Sydney Corkern is a graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism with a minor in Business Administration. She began her career in hospitality, leading diverse teams, which ignited her passion for learning and development.

Sydney has implemented career development workshops and business optimization projects within her current organization and serves as the Chair of the Young Professional Employee Resource Group. Her main focus and goals are to continuously learn and develop herself and her community, sharing knowledge and opportunities broadly. Sydney holds a certification in Six Sigma (Yellow Belt) from the CRI-Mager Consortium and is currently pursuing PHR certification.

Karen Baird
Vice President of Marketing and Communications

Karen Baird is an experienced marcomm professional with 20 years of service in diverse industries including nonprofit, publishing, higher education, and healthcare. She developed her passion and interest in organizational and talent development through a decade of work at MIT where she honed skills via projects including employee engagement and retention initiatives, developing and facilitating onboarding programs, and student mentorship/intern management with an emphasis on career development. Karen recently transitioned her career focus to learning and development and is seeking her next professional opportunity.

Karen holds certifications in Conflict Management Training from Conflict Resolution@MIT, Talent Optimization from Predictive Index, Instructional Design from ATD, and Social Media Marketing from Boston University. She is a Yellow Belt in the globally recognized Six Sigma methodology where practitioners focus on continual process improvement. Karen earned her B.A. in English from Columbia College, South Carolina and an M.A. in Publishing and Writing from Emerson College, Boston. In her free time, Karen enjoys spending time with her family and friends, traveling, reading, dancing, swimming, and playing ukulele.

Tamara Jones
Vice President of Member Experience

Tamara Jones is a proud two-time graduate of Tennessee State University where she earned a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master of Professional Studies with a focus in Human Resource Leadership. She has over 16 years of professional experience in housing asset management, human resources, and training. Currently, she serves as the Training and Development Specialist at the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency. In this role, she provides individual career counseling, new hire engagement, management, and execution of all training offerings within the organization.

As a staunch believer in professional development, Tamara remains intentional about seeking out opportunities to enhance her knowledge base and stay abreast of current trends. Resultingly, she holds a SHRM-CP certification issued by the Society for Human Resource Management in addition to a Training and Facilitation, Instructional Design, and Adult Learning Certifications from the Association for Talent Development.

Tamara’s volunteer efforts speak to her passion for giving back to her community; most recently, she’s working along with Big Brothers Big Sisters Middle TN as a Mentor and Budget Coach for Habitat for Humanity. When she is not working, she finds joy in, reading, traveling, and cuddling with her fur babies Lola and Red.

Hope Nordstrom
Vice President of Programming

Hope Nordstrom serves as Special Counsel to the President for Strategy and Associate Professor of Strategic Leadership at Lipscomb University. She is an experienced educational leader with expertise in strategic planning, organizational effectiveness, leadership development, and employee engagement. Hope is a values and habit coach with a passion for helping others maximize professional capacity. Additionally, she assists faculty members in implementing best practices for online teaching and learning. Hope has an Ed.D. in leadership and professional professional practice from Trevecca Nazarene University and her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from Tennessee Technological University.

Lisa Baker
Member-at-Large

Lisa Baker is a Program Manager in Talent Management at Brookdale Senior Living where she is responsible for developing leaders (both current and aspiring). For 20+ years, Lisa has designed, developed, and delivered learning experiences, facilitating and coaching learners both in-person and virtually. Lisa has a B.S. in English Education from Tennessee Technological University and an M.S. in Library Science from the University of Tennessee.

Her certifications include Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR), Everything DiSC, Lee Hecht Harrison coach, and practitioner of the Korn Ferry competency model and 360 feedback instrument.