Who are our trainers? What makes them different and great?
Our trainers share a common philosophy about discrimination, harassment, cultural diversity, communication and conflict resolution. We want people to understand not only what our common legal frameworks are, but how the laws actually operate at the workplace. What’s okay, what’s not, and how to operate in today’s workplace.
Every person has a unique “cultural DNA” which affects how we operate at work. While we share many values, we also each have strong internal sets of deeply held culturally-related values which often differ from our co-workers or clients in profound ways. Those differences give every employer and employee particular strengths, but also affect workplace communications, interactions and perceptions. Everybody believes their own way of perceiving things is the correct way – but that may differ from our neighbours' or co-workers’ internal codes.
Different cultures place different emphasis and value on individuality, community, family, “face”, honor, time, speaking skills, status, risk, social context, conflict and even silence. Our job is to help employers and employees make sense of this at the workplace. Our trainers understand not only the legal frameworks and the cultural dimensions which operate at the workplace, but how they operate in the real world. We also recognize that people learn things in different ways. We come from all different walks of life, different backgrounds and different life experiences. We are not cookie cutters, and you are not cookies! We provide tailored seminars to help management and staff learn to the necessary communication, technological and behavioural skills to reduce conflict, avoid illegal or just downright inappropriate behaviour, and improve real communication, with each other, with clients, vendors, customers and the others who people our daily work lives.
Deb Volberg Pagnotta: Prior to founding Interfacet, Deb, an AV-rated attorney, served as employment practices partner with Kirkpatrick & Silverberg, LLP. She had previously served in a number of litigation and management positions at the New York State Department of Law (under then-Attorney General Bob Abrams), and subsequently served as Director of Legal Affairs for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Deb began training groups on sexual harassment as early as 1988. Since then, she has developed and provided many, many hundreds of trainings on discrimination and harassment, cultural diversity, communication skills, conflict resolution and other employment issues. Clients range from emergency responders to the fashion industry to academic and financial institutions.
Deb has pioneered training in difficult and sensitive areas raised at work by increasingly diverse workforces and markets. Her workshops and webinars address how to successfully navigate and address complex workplace issues of race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation and ethnicity. She advocates a broad concept of diversity, stressing “each of us have a unique cultural DNA profile which impacts how we communicate and perceive others, and how they perceive us.” Given the recent high-profile issues arising related to religion and employees, she has partnered with Multifacet Diversity Solutions, Ltd., to develop a unique seminar “Religion at the Workplace: A Delicate Balance.” Recognizing that employers face difficult financial challenges, she has developed, with www.mondaydots.com, a unique set of inexpensive on-line, interactive digitalized trainings. These trainings enable employers to save up to 90% on training budgets and ensure timely compliance.
After studying anthropology and linguistics at Brandeis University, Deb received her law degree from Hastings College of the Law, University of California in 1981. She is presently studying Mandarin in order to embarrass her Chinese-born daughter.
Sue Perlmutter: Sue is an international business consultant with over twenty years of corporate experience in the U.S. and overseas. She has designed and delivered highly customized programs for clients of major multinationals and non-profit business organizations in individual and group settings. In addition, she has held seminars and workshops on “American Culture” for newly-arrived international assignees, and has led discussion sessions dealing with cross-cultural communication, repatriation issues, leadership and cultural diversity in the workplace. Her area of expertise is the Asia Pacific region, where Sue lived and worked for seven years.. Her knowledge of the area is extensive, particularly regarding the cultures of Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, China, Singapore and the Philippines, and she is intimately familiar with the differences both overt and subtle among them. Sue also has had far-reaching experience with the cultures of Western and Central Europe, most notably those of the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Greece, Turkey, and Russia. Her experience also includes work with clients from Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and United Arab Emirates (both Abu Dhabi and Dubai). Her client list from the past decade includes UBS, Pepsico, Kraft Foods, Corning, Boehringer-Ingelheim, BASF, Lockheed Martin and United Technologies. She is fluent in Japanese, fairly proficient in French, has basic speaking knowledge of Cantonese, and has been enrolled in the study of Mandarin since 2003 both at the China Institute of NYC and through private instructors. Sue holds a M.S. in International Management from Manhattanville College in Purchase, N.Y., and an M.S. in Elementary Education from Tufts University.
Michelle A. Caiola: Michelle began her employment as an attorney with the EEOC and has worked in field offices in St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Chicago prior to joining the New York District office. In the Chicago office, Ms. Caiola worked on one of EEOC’s largest pattern-or- practice sexual harassment cases, EEOC v. Mitsubishi. She was also the lead attorney on EEOC v. Morgan Stanley, a class case alleging sex discrimination in pay and promotion that eventually settled for $54 million dollars. Prior to her departure from EEOC, she was co-litigating a cutting edge pattern or practice case of pregnancy and caregiver discrimination against Bloomberg, L.P.
Prior to working for the EEOC, Michelle was an attorney at a plaintiff’s side employment firm and also volunteered on behalf of battered women seeking protective orders. She earned her J.D. with distinction from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1994 and graduated cum laude in 1989 from Kent State University.
Michelle is married to a Korean-American, is the mother of 4 beautiful children, and resides in Westchester County, New York.
Nadir Shirazi: Nadir is the founder and CEO of Multifacet Diversity Solutions Ltd. He served as the former Interfaith Facilitator at York University. In this role Nadir oversaw the needs of over 30 different faith-based clubs of York’s Interfaith Council. During his tenure he created education and accommodation strategies for these faith groups who were part of a broader and diverse community. This unique experience has been instrumental in creating practical and dynamic solutions for faith education and accommodation in different sectors of society. Nadir not only works with a wide range of businesses and non-profit entities to provide practical accommodations, but he trains management and staff on a variety of issues relating to religious practices at the workforce. A very engaging and knowledgeable presenter, Nadir defuses that anxiety people may have about even discussing religion in a workplace-based forum.
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