The WISE Conference 2026 Guest Speakers
EMCEE
MELISSA WILSON
News Anchor and Full-time Reporter
FOX 26’s Medical Correspondent
MELISSA WILSON
Multiple Emmy Award-winning Melissa Wilson is an anchor for FOX 26 Morning News weekdays. She is also FOX 26’s Medical Correspondent. She spends most afternoons in the Texas Medical Center and surrounding areas, including The Woodlands Medical Center, covering health stories that most affect our community. She also hosts a weekly podcast called ‘Lunch For the Soul’ that is dedicated to medical miracles.
Melissa received her Bachelor of Arts in Telecommunications from Baylor University. She began her career as the evening anchor at KAUZ-TV in Wichita Falls and then went on to anchor at the 24-hour network, Florida’s News Channel. Houston Woman Magazine named Melissa one of the ‘Top 50 Most Influential Women in Houston’. American Women in Radio and Television nominated Melissa for ‘Personality of the Year’. She has been honored with the prestigious ‘Gracie Award’ and Lone Star Emmy Awards. The Fair Care Center of Houston named Melissa a ‘Living Legend’. The Houston Press named Melissa one of Houston’s ‘Most Beautiful Reporters’ and Health Fitness Revolution named Melissa one of the ‘Most Fit’ reporters in Houston. She is a member of the Association of Health Care Journalists and The Society of Professional Journalists.
Melissa loves giving back to our community. She has served on the following Boards of Directors: Children at Risk, Susan G Komen, Lazarus House, March of Dimes, United Way, Harris County Community College Nurse’s Association, ‘Gifts with Heart’, Baylor Business Network, Baylor Fine Arts Department, and the Journalism Advisory Board at Baylor. This year, she hosted her 25th Annual golf tournament for Children at Risk. Melissa is a member of Baylor University Women’s Association and Sigma Kappa’s Alumnae Association. She has been a “Friend” of Escape Family Resource Center, and has volunteered for the Christian Community Service Center and Abandoned Animal Rescue.
Melissa is a huge advocate for childhood cancer awareness, after her son, Caleb, survived leukemia and started treatments in Kindergarten. He’s now a teenager and a true sign of resilience, after recently completing The Woodlands Marathon! Melissa is also getting to re-live the start of her career through her son, Zach, who is now studying Journalism at The University of Texas at Austin.
In her spare time, Melissa adores spending quality time with her family. She’s writing a book and enjoys scrapbooking, Pilates, and traveling. She and her husband, David, made sure their boys got to travel to all 50 states in the U.S. and now they’re exploring other countries with their children.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
ROULA CHRISTIE
Host of The Roula Show with Eric on 104.1 KRBE-FM (Houston, TX)
Host, Weekends with Roula, Westwood One
Roula Christie has been a radio powerhouse for over 25 years, captivating audiences with her authenticity, energy, and storytelling. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Roula began her career in 1996 at 104.1 KRBE, answering request lines while in college.
In 2000, she took on her first morning show role as co-host of The Chio in the Morning Show on WIOQ-FM in Philadelphia. After three tremendously successful years, she returned home to lead her own show on Houston’s Mix 96.5. Shortly after proving her success there, she moved over to 104.1 KRBE FM Houston where she has stayed for 20 years!
Roula’s talent and dedication have earned her numerous industry accolades, including three national Gracie Awards, the prestigious MIW Air Blazer Award (as only the third woman in America at the time to receive the honor), and multiple wins as Houston’s Media Alliance On-Air Personality of the Year.
In 2022, Roula was inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame, cementing her legacy in broadcasting.
As the host of The Roula Show with Eric, Roula has helped 104.1 KRBE earn two Marconi Awards for CHR Station of the Year. Beyond the morning show, her reach extends nationwide as the host of Weekends With Roula, syndicated through Westwood One.
Roula has lived her entire adult life on the air, sharing everything from career milestones to personal moments—meeting and getting married to her husband Tasos, going into labor on live radio, the ups and downs of raising their three children and embracing the ebbs and flows of life with her community.
Her deep connection with her audience and passion for storytelling make her one of Houston’s most beloved and influential radio personalities. Every morning, she continues to inspire, entertain, and connect with listeners on The Roula Show with Eric Monday through Friday 6-10am
And she wouldn’t have it any other way. 💫😊
BREAKOUT SPEAKER
tina bernard
Business Owner, Speaker, Coach
Tina Bernard is the founder of The Badass Arts™, a transformational platform devoted to helping high-capacity women move beyond performance and into true energetic alignment, creating lives that feel deeply nourishing and relationships that are consciously chosen rather than unconsciously repeated. Blending neuroscience, somatic rewiring, and bold spiritual truth-telling, she challenges the cultural myths that keep accomplished women over-functioning, over-giving, and quietly under-receiving.
After rebuilding her life through divorce, reinvention, relocation, and remarriage, Tina began articulating what she now teaches: that appreciation is more powerful than gratitude because it expands rather than compensates, that boundaries are not walls but clarity in action, and that chemistry is not the same as desire. Her proprietary frameworks, including Love Like a Badass™, Doubt Goblins™, and Badassfirmations™, offer practical tools that help women rewire limiting patterns, shift their energetic set point, and reclaim their big, unapologetic desires.
Tina is known for her signature blend of sass and soul. She speaks with emotional intelligence, depth, and disarming honesty, guiding audiences to examine where they are still performing for approval and inviting them into lives that feel aligned, embodied, and internally coherent.
When it comes to life, Tina teaches that everything is energy. The thoughts you rehearse, the stories you defend, the standards you tolerate, and the emotions you suppress are shaping your reality whether you are conscious of it or not. Shift your energy and you shift your perception. Shift your perception and your life reorganizes around a new frequency. When it comes to love, she disrupts the fairy tale. Love is not voltage or chemistry or the spike of intensity that hijacks your nervous system and calls itself “destiny.” It is not even primarily a feeling. Love is a practice and a choice. It is how you show up when the spark settles and real life begins. When women live as if love is a verb, they stop chasing butterflies and begin cultivating devotion, depth, and emotional safety. And when it comes to leadership, Tina insists that power without integration is fragile. True leadership moves beyond hardened ambition and soft sentimentality into the integration of heart and head, intuition and strategy, fire and grounded wisdom. This embodied authority has the capacity to move a room not through force, but through coherence and presence. Based in The Woodlands, Texas, Tina is a speaker, author, and facilitator leading salons, intensives, and group programs for women who are externally successful yet internally ready for transformation, women who sense there is more and are prepared to live it.
BREAKOUT SPEAKER
Monica Daigneault
Speaker, Writer, Guide
Talk Title
“You Don’t Need Reinvention. You Need Return”.
Talk Overview:
In a world that constantly tells women to reinvent themselves after hardship, loss, burnout, or transition, Monica Daigneault offers a different message: you do not need reinvention — you need return.
Exploring what happens when women stop performing survival and begin reconnecting with the person they were before the world told them who they had to be. Through personal storytelling, reflection, and practical insight, Monica speaks on emotional exhaustion, identity loss, resilience, healing through connection, and rebuilding from alignment rather than pressure.
Tied directly to this year’s theme, Rooted and Rising, this message reminds women that true growth does not come from becoming someone new, it comes from returning to what has always been within them. When women are rooted in self-awareness, truth, and purpose, they rise stronger in their families, communities, leadership, and lives.
Speaker Bio:
Monica Daigneault is the Founder of MY BEST and the President & CEO of The Power of Us Network, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to strengthening communities through connection and resource awareness. A strategic leader with a background in operations, organizational development, and cross-sector collaboration, Monica builds initiatives that bridge business, nonprofit, and civic spaces to create lasting impact while empowering individuals through connection, conversation, and community support.
After navigating personal transition and rebuilding her life with independence and resilience as a mother, Monica realized she didn’t need reinvention — she needed return. From that realization, she developed the MY BEST framework, a philosophy centered on coming back to self after seasons of survival, burnout, grief, or loss.
Through speaking, storytelling, workshops, and community conversations, Monica encourages women to stop performing strength and start building lives rooted in alignment, truth, and self-worth. Her work focuses on resilience, emotional healing, identity, and empowering women to rise without losing themselves in the process.
monica.daigneault@gmail.com
https://thepowerofusnetwork.org/the-power-of-us-podcast/
https://www.woodlandsonline.com/vmps/vdocat.cfm?catid=138
https://thepowerofusnetwork.org
BREAKOUT SPEAKER
DR. TAMARA WHITE
The Divine Disruptor™
Talk Title:
“Rooted in Purpose, Rising Without Burnout: The SHIFT to Sustainable Success”
Talk Overview:
In this breakout session, Burnout & Resilience Strategist Dr. Tamara White speaks directly to faith-driven women leaders in transition who are ready to stop sacrificing themselves for success. You’ll discover her proven SHIFT framework and learn why burnout isn’t a badge of honor. Through practical strategies and real-world insight, you’ll uncover how to declutter your life, reclaim your energy, focus on what truly matters, and take aligned action toward sustainable success. Whether you’re leading a business, a team, or your family, this session reveals the shift that transforms exhausted leaders into resilient, purposeful powerhouses rooted in faith and rising with clarity.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Tamara White is a Burnout & Resilience Strategist, Licensed Counselor, and dynamic Speaker with over 25 years of experience helping high-achieving women conquer stress, heal, and thrive. She is the founder of the Courageous Woman Network and author of 7 Strategies for Courageous Living and Courageous Women Rise. Her work blends spiritual wisdom with psychological expertise to create lasting transformation. When she’s not coaching or speaking, you’ll find her dancing in the kitchen or spoiling her grandchildren.