LeadershipWWeb

Mr. Donnie Smith is the former chief executive officer (CEO) of Tyson Foods. He graduated from the University of Tennessee, where he received a Bachelor of Science in Animal Science. Mr. Smith jointed Tyson Foods in 1980 as a broiler service man. Through the years, he was also a feed mill manager, grain purchaser, and oversaw transportation and warehousing before becoming the chief information officer. Mr. Smith served as CEO from 2009 -2016. Currently, he is active in the African Sustainable Agriculture Project Foundation and OneEgg.

Shelley Simpson, EVP; Chief Commercial Officer; President of Highway Services at J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc.; over 20 years of experience at J.B. Hunt in positions across a variety of business segments; board member, WorkMatters and the Mercy Health Foundation; Dean’s Executive Advisory Board, the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas; executive sponsor for J.B. Hunt’s Growing and Retaining Outstanding Women (GROW) and Latinos Engaging, Advancing and Developing (LEAD); named “Distinguished Woman of the Year 2016” from Women in Trucking; received the “2017 ATHENA Woman of the Year” from the Northwest Arkansas Business Women’s Network; BS, Marketing, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

John Reap is a career, third generation banker. He was the President and CEO of Town North Bank, N.A. Dallas, Texas for 15 years and served a total of 29 years with the company. He received his BS in Business Administration from the University of Arkansas in 1970 and his MBA from SMU in 1971 and is a former faculty member of the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking at SMU. He serves on multiple committees and boards, including the Walton College of Business Dean's Executive Advisory Board at the University of Arkansas. He is a past president of the National Board of the Arkansas Alumni Association and is a past chairman of the board of the Texas Affiliate, American Heart Association. A native of Little Rock, he has been married for 46 years and has two children and two grandchildren.

Dr. Kim LaScola Needy is Professor of Industrial Engineering and Dean of the Graduate School and International Education at the University of Arkansas where she previously served as the Industrial Engineering Department Head. Dean Needy is a life-long learner on the topic of leadership where she shares that her top five leadership values are service, respect, authenticity, integrity and making a difference. She is a Fellow and Past President of the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers and the American Society for Engineering Management, and a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education.

A native Arkansan, John White is an industrial engineering graduate of the University of Arkansas (BSIE), Virginia Tech (MSIE), and The Ohio State University (PhD). He was awarded honorary doctorates from the Katholieke Universitiet of Leuven in Belgium and George Washington University. His career includes 56 years as an engineering educator at Arkansas, Georgia Tech, Ohio State and Virginia Tech, as well as service on five boards of directors for publicly traded corporations: Eastman Chemical Company (10 years), J. B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. (18 years), Logility (12 years) Motorola (20 years), and Russell Corporation (14 years). His employment included the following leadership positions: Assistant Director for engineering at the National Science Foundation (3 years); Dean of Engineering at Georgia Tech (6 years), and Chancellor of the University of Arkansas (11 years).