After a decade of mentoring and leading thousands of Millennials from around the world to help them achieve their potential, Joan Snyder Kuhl launched Why Millennials Matter(www.whymillennialsmatter.com), a Gen-Y speaking and consulting company based in New York City. Why Millennials Matter is focused on raising awareness to employers about the value of investing in their future workforce. Organizations are struggling to attract and retain Millennials (Generation Y) because they lack the insights into what this generation wants out of their employer and the benefits that will inspire their loyalty. The same struggle exists for organizations who are trying to connect with the Millennial consumer through marketing and product development.As a keynote speaker, Joan delivers engaging presentations that incorporate the latest research and insights around generational dynamics in the workplace and her personal experiences hiring, developing, coaching and managing Millennials. As a sought out keynote and panelist for conferences including the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth, The Young Women's Leadership Network: Hot Jobs Cool Women, and the Trendsetters Annual Conference, Joan helps inspire students, new grads, parents and professionals. Joan's coaching and leadership trainings have impacted diverse audiences of Millennials across the United States and as far away as Dubai, China, Ghana, Australia, and India.Joan has a long and active commitment to empowering young leaders to achieve their potential as a mentor and coach. Since 2005, Joan has spoken to thousands of high school and college students as a trained speaker for the Making It Count Program on Career and College preparation for success. Joan serves as the youngest Board Member for the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute named after the former CEO of the Girls Scouts of the USA and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Over 525 leaders from 37 countries representing 375+ organizations joined a global webinar to hear Joan and Frances Hesselbein for "Women in the Lead" on March 9, 2011. Joan is frequently invited to speak to undergraduate and MBA students including Babson, Wellesley, Olin College of Engineering, NYU, University of Pittsburgh, Rutgers University and LIM College. While pursuing a career in the fields of business and healthcare, Joan has used her background of leadership in both the private and social sectors. Joan has over 14 years of corporate management and director experience working at Fortune 500 companies (Eli Lilly, Forest Laboratories, Actavis Inc) in the roles of sales, marketing, organizational effectiveness, training and development. She has been recognized for her turnaround tactics leading teams to high performance results and developing corporate wide training initiatives and product launches. The experience of coaching and mentoring Gen Y'ers about workforce issues--and being responsible for managing and developing them in a corporate environment-- gave Joan a unique perspective. Finding commonalities amongst all four generations in the workplace is a key component to engage Generation Y's employee loyalty and performance.Joan's advice has been featured in leading publications such as The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Leader to Leader journal. Cosmopolitan magazine has chosen Joan to be a part of their inaugural Millennial Board of Advisors featuring her in the magazine's masthead. Cosmopolitan Magazine has 61 editions in over 100 countries and Hearst Magazine International invited Joan to present her insights on Millennials at the Bi-Annual Cosmopolitan Magazine International Editors Conference (COSMIC) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A weeklong millennial roadshow in Cape Town and Johannesburg sponsored by Cosmopolitan South Africa followed where Joan spoke to clients in the Beauty, Fashion, Auto, Finance and Retail segments including Chanel, Burberry, Nivea, Revlon, Estee Lauder, KFC, Unliver, Proctor & Gamble, The Body Shop, Guess, Topshop, Levis, Audi, BMW, Woolworths and Samsung. Joan works with clients such as Barnes & Noble College and Viacom (Parent company to MTV, VH1, Comedy Central) to become Millennial Ready by assessing and developing programs, branding initiatives, onboarding experiences and management training to attract, retain and promote young talent. The results for the organization are to be seen as the Preferred Employer and Brand to Millennials and as an organization that is on the pulse of the Millennial customer needs. Launching in the fall semester of 2014, Joan will be sponsored by Barnes & Noble College who has over 725+ college campus bookstores as their Career Expert connecting with students across the country on topics such as interviewing, personal branding, networking and skills for succeeding on the job. In partnership with the NYC-based Think Tank, The Center for Talent Innovation led by Sylvia Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce, Joan will be leading new research on The Millennial Career Odyssey to be released in 2015. While serving as Student Government President at the University of Pittsburgh, Joan began honing her leadership skills. She was the student speaker at her own undergraduate graduation and invited back as an alumni commencement speaker. She earned an MBA from Rutgers University and studied global business strategies in Beijing and Shanghai, China. In 2011, Joan became certified in the Principles and Practices of Organizational Development through the Executive Change and Consultation program at Columbia University in New York, NY. Joan's first book, "The First Globals: Understanding, Managing, and Unleashing Our Millennial Generation" launches in June 2013 co-authored with International founder of the "Zogby Poll" and best-selling author. John Zogby. So much of the literature written and blogosphere discussion about Millennials has been about their self-centeredness, even outright selfishness, immaturity, deferred adulthood, and laziness. To a great degree this is simply ahistorical and out of context. For nearly one hundred years (think the "Roaring Twenties" era of flappers, fraternity pranks, bathtub gin, automobiles denounced as "houses of prostitution on wheels") twenty-somethings have been generally focused on themselves. "Hooking up", staying at home until married, low-end startup jobs (especially for young women) are not really new at all. Over the past three decades, parents have structured the lives of First Globals and raised their (and our) expectations too much, just as we have (until 2007 at least) proffered too many choices that were bound to be unfulfilled. With so many going to college and accumulating so much student loan debt, it is not surprising at all that there is a lot of impatience, disillusionment, and deferred (even lost) dreams.The First Globals: Understanding, Managing, and Unleashing Our Millennial Generation is a revisionist examination of who First Globals really are, what they have to offer, and how they are the best equipped of all to thrive and solve the problems of our shared world today and tomorrow. It is a call to action, a handbook for those who lead and want to lead, and a more holistic depiction of an outstanding group with so much potential.