Avatar Speaking Dynamics

12148 Jollyville Rd.
Suite 1206
Austin, TX 78759
512-203-2514

Diversity Ambassador: Steve Basile

Steve Basile is president of Avatar Speaking Dynamics, providing diversity training, platform skills training, executive performance coaching and motivational speaking throughout the United States. A veteran of the technology industry, he most recently served as director of Marketing at Austin, Texas-based Works, a provider of credit card management applications before he decided to split his time between the hospitality industry and speaking professionally.

Before joining Works, Basile was vice president of Americas Marketing and Worldwide Technical Evangelist at Tivoli Systems, Inc., an IBM company. While there he also served on the IBM Gay & Lesbian Executive Task Force, chartered with furthering workforce diversity through executive visibility and focused action throughout IBM and its subsidiaries. Previously, Basile managed professional services at New York-based systems integrator ERI, and held sales, technical, training and channel support positions at AT&T in New York, New Jersey and New England. A self-described "high-tech migrant worker," he has worked in technology-related fields since 1984. He has been "gay since Eisenhower, out since Reagan and managing a fine Irish Pub since Bush."

Appearances
Basile has been a featured speaker at the Summit on Leading Diversity, the national SHRM Workplace Diversity Conference, Faces of Change, the UAW-GM Workforce Diversity Conference, the Houston HR Managers Association Conference, Dell Computer Corporation, the inaugural M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Diversity Conference, Tivoli Systems, Inc., and several IBM Diversity Awareness Days. He has hosted and presented at professional conferences in Lisbon, Paris, Sydney, Brisbane, Tokyo, Monte Carlo, Vancouver, and many cities throughout the U.S.

Service
Basile has served on the Speakers' Bureau and board of directors of PFLAG/Austin (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians & Gays), and the board of Youth Guardian Services, a Washington DC-area Internet youth advocacy organization. Additionally he is a sustaining supporter of the Texas Freedom Network, Austin, Texas-based OUTyouth, a GLBT youth services organization, a producer of the Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival and a member of the State Cabinet of the Texas Lesbian & Gay Rights Lobby. Since 1995, he has also managed and moderated an interactive mailing list of GLBT people and supporters called "PFLAG-TALK" (email: pflag-talk AT youth-guard.org) which reaches and supports more than 300 email participants worldwide.

Education
Basile received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Broadcast Communications from LeMoyne College, with minor concentrations in Philosophy and Psychology.

Ver: 0501.2005