Marjorie Powell

Marjorie Powell is a collaborative people strategist and leader with a passion for inspiring others to achieve excellence. She brings 25+ years of Human Resources Generalist, Organization Development, Executive Compensation, Talent and Learning Management, Change Management, Organizational Strategy and Executive and Leadership Development experience acquired through various senior leadership and C-suite HR roles in the higher education and large non-profits sectors. Marjorie has held leadership positions at Michigan State University, Wayne State University, Georgetown University, University of Maryland (in Baltimore), National Public Radio, Inc. and AARP.

Marjorie is skilled in connecting with people, cultivating team dynamics and crafting innovative solutions to deliver people development, performance optimization and culture change. She is recognized as an effective leader, change agent, thought partner, and executive coach who loves the challenge of inspiring individual, team and organizational effectiveness to increase revenue and organizational efficiency, employee engagement and workplace productivity. Her passion is in creating best-in-class organizational strategies that align the people resources with the goals and strategic objectives of the organization.

Marjorie holds a Bachelor's degree in Sociology from Boston University and a Juris Doctorate degree from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.

In her spare time, Marjorie is an avid reader and watcher of documentaries who is always on a personal development journey. She enjoys community service, theatre, all genres of music and the arts, golfing and travel.

Ellyn Shook

Ellyn Shook is Accenture’s chief leadership & human resources officer, responsible for helping the 738,000 people of Accenture succeed both professionally and personally. Her global team of HR leaders is re-imagining leadership and talent practices to create the most truly human work environment in the digital age, fueling Accenture’s ability to live its purpose: to deliver on the promise of technology and human ingenuity.

A member of Accenture’s Global Management Committee and Investment Committee, Ellyn is a strong advocate for inclusion and diversity and Accenture has been widely recognized externally as an employer of choice and for their equality efforts. As an author on the topics of future of work, inclusion and diversity and responsible leadership, Ellyn frequently advises Accenture’s clients on these topics and on leading large-scale transformational change based on the talent and culture transformation she’s led at Accenture.

Ellyn is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shaper Community Foundation Board and serves on the board of directors of BRP Group, Paradigm for Parity and the HR Policy Association. She also serves as the program chair of the Peer Roundtable of CHROs, is vice chair for the Center on Executive Compensation and is active in both the NY Jobs CEO Council and HR50. Ellyn was named HR Executive of the Year by Human Resource Executive in 2020 and inducted as a Fellow in the National Academy of Human Resources in 2021. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Purdue University.

Brendan Reidy

Brendan joined the Acushnet Company in January 2019 as the company’s Chief Human Resources Officer. He is currently the Chief People Officer. Prior to joining the Company, he was Vice President HR - Organizational Effectiveness at Biogen where he had responsibility for talent management, global learning, culture initiatives, and people analytics. In his 7 years at Biogen, he also led HR for the global R&D organization and Global Commercial Operations. In those roles, he led global initiatives to improve leadership succession, build capability, and improve employee engagement in support of the company’s growth. Brendan holds a B.A. in English from Stonehill College.

Anthony Williams

Anthony Williams is Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Akamai. Williams leads global HR strategy including workplace management, employee development, talent acquisition, inclusion and diversity and compensation and benefits across Akamai’s more than 40 offices around the world.

Williams assumed the role effective January 1, 2020, after five years with Akamai. He began his Akamai career with the task of developing a world-class global recruiting function and was the company’s first diversity and inclusion leader. He led the human resources function for Akamai’s growing populations outside of the U.S., reflecting the company’s expanded footprint.

He played an essential role in the Akamai Foundation’s transition from private funding to an official corporate philanthropic entity. He serves as its president and hired its first executive director. Further, Williams launched the company’s employee resource groups (ERGs), voluntary associations that represent the needs of Akamai’s global employee population. He also launched the Akamai Technical Academy, a training program designed for people who have an interest and aptitude for technology but may not come from a traditional technical background. The unique program empowers diverse talent with technical work-ready skills while offering opportunities for prepared graduates to become full-time employees of Akamai.

Prior to Akamai, Williams held a wide range of global human resources positions at First Data Corporation, Newell Rubbermaid, and Time Warner – Turner Broadcasting System. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from Norfolk State University and a Master of Business Administration from University of Georgia, Terry College of Business.

Michael Rogers

As Chief Human Resources Officer at Alight, Michael is responsible for leading Alight’s global HR function and defining and executing its people and talent strategies. With nearly 20 years of HR leadership experience, Michael is focused on improving employee experience while driving a high growth and performance culture to help drive the success of Alight, ensuring its 15,000+ colleagues across the globe have fulfilling careers.

Previously, Michael served as Chief People Officer of NGA Human Resources until the close of Alight’s acquisition of the business in late 2019. Michael also held key HR roles across a variety of companies, including Vistaprint, where he played a key role in driving its rapid growth across Europe. In addition, Michael served as HR business partner at Travelocity (lastminute.com), where he supported the integration into the Sabre business and developed its sales and marketing people strategy. He also held numerous HR roles at Cisco, including a key leadership role in its worldwide sales and engineering academy.

Michael lives in Belgium, with his wife and two children. He holds a degree in business and economics with first-class honours from University of Brighton, Brighton, England.

Brenda Leadley

Ms. Leadley has been employed by the Allianz Group for 21 years. During this time, she has worked in a variety of functions, including marketing, communications, IT and Claims. These experiences coupled with a master’s degree in Organizational Management and Development and 17+ years in HR honed her interest in the drivers of positive corporate culture, including leadership, trust and transparency and organizational design as it relates to accountability and decision making. Currently, she is the regional head of HR for the US, Canada and Bermuda for Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS). She manages all aspects of HR from benefits ($54M+ budget, 32 benefits plans) to HRIS/payroll (22 vendors, 28 system interfaces) to development and employee relations (~1700 employees). Ms. Leadley joined Allianz in 1999 at its property & casualty company, Fireman's Fund, where she was in the marketing department. From there, she spent two years in IT, developing web application standards and becoming a usability expert and then moved to Claims building the Claims Academy. All three roles involved significant change management efforts. In 2005, she moved to the Allianz headquarters in Munich to lead three global HR IT projects, including talent and performance management, elearning and erecruiting. After five years, Ms. Leadley transferred to Paris to become global head of talent management at Euler Hermes, another Allianz subsidiary, where she implemented talent management and talent acquisition tools, processes and standards along with delivering the Euler Hermes Academy. In 2015, she returned to the US to head HR for Euler Hermes's Americas region, and then in 2018 she was appointed regional HR head for AGCS in New York.

Cole Brown

Cole Brown is American’s Chief People Officer. In this role, she leads all aspects of the airline’s People organization, including the teams supporting Global Talent and Recruitment; Benefits; Global Compensation; People Operations; Global Learning; and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Cole most recently served as Vice President, Human Resources for Amazon’s Devices & Services, Corporate & Business Development, and Advertising & Entertainment business segments. Prior to this role, she was Amazon’s Vice President of Human Resources for North America Customer Fulfillment. In these roles, she served as each business’s chief human resources officer with responsibility for all aspects of human resources, including recruiting, organizational design, training and development, diversity and inclusion, and employee relations.

Prior to Amazon, Cole served as Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for Conifer Health Solutions. Her experience also includes serving as Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Walmart U.S. Stores Operations, the company’s largest business segment. Before that, she served as Chief Diversity Officer for Walmart, Inc. Prior to joining Walmart in its Legal Department, Cole practiced as an attorney specializing in employment law and administrative regulations with Bashen Consulting, Wickliff & Hall, P.C. and Doerner, Saunders, Daniel & Anderson, L.L.P.

Cole holds both a bachelor’s degree and a Juris Doctor from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Matthew Breitfelder

Mr. Breitfelder is a Senior Partner and Global Head of Human Capital at Apollo Global Management and is a member of the firm’s Management Committee. He is responsible for aligning all human capital initiatives and functions with the strategic objectives of the firm. Mr. Breitfelder leads talent management, leadership development, diversity and inclusion, performance management, learning, compensation and benefits, and recruiting. Prior to joining Apollo, he was Managing Director and Chief Talent Officer at BlackRock, as well as a member of the Operating Committee. Previously, Mr. Breitfelder held talent and strategy roles at Mastercard, PwC, and the Corporate Executive Board. He began his career at the U.S. Department of Commerce, where he focused on international trade and economic policy. Mr. Breitfelder serves on the boards of the Lumina Foundation and the Aspen Institute’s Business and Society program. He holds a BA in economics from the University of Southern California, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. 

Kenneth Sharperson

As the firm’s Chief Diversity Officer, Kenneth Sharperson leads the execution of the firm’s strategy on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), as well as ongoing and new initiatives to build and sustain a culture of inclusion and belonging. He collaborates with firm leaders to embed a diverse and inclusive culture into the firm’s talent practices, business strategy, drive inclusion programming and initiatives, and support various affinity organizations firmwide and in the communities where we work and live.

Kenneth has extensive experience developing and implementing DEI programs in the public, nonprofit and legal sectors, including six years of service leading the Diversity Committee of a state bar association. Kenneth believes that a data-driven approach to DEI provides critical intelligence for determining where to focus DEI efforts to drive meaningful impact. As the driver of Armstrong Teasdale’s commitment to addressing the legal industry’s lack of diversity in its workforce, Kenneth will work with law schools to create pathways and expand the pipeline to the legal profession. In his role, Kenneth also will be involved in cultivating key internal and external partnerships to drive strategic diversity and inclusion marketing, as well as business development strategies.

As a practicing lawyer, Kenneth brings unique perspective to the role, as well as a deep understanding of client needs and expectations, and the challenges facing the legal industry. He previously served as counsel to clients across the country in insurance coverage and commercial litigation.

Kenneth collaborates with the firm’s Executive and Inclusion Committees in developing and advancing the firm’s DEI strategy, including the rollout of various trainings and programs, support of resource groups and affinity groups, and a targeted and intentional approach. He works within the firm to raise awareness, assist each department and practice group with implementation of best practices in alignment with the Inclusion Committee’s priorities and goals.

Kenneth has been a champion of diversity and inclusion in the legal profession for over twenty years and is a sought-after speaker and frequently called upon to discuss a host of DEI topics, including managing risks around diversity and inclusion efforts at law firms, building and sustaining inclusive workplaces and increasing a law firm’s financial outlook through DEI. Kenneth is a thought leader and regularly published in connection with his insights as it relates to the evolution of DEI in the legal field.

Kenneth is active in DEI initiatives affecting the legal field, including the Law Firm Anti-Racism Alliance’s Education Working Group. This group, which focuses on how structural racism informs various areas of law, is responsible for producing research papers and other work products that will be included in the Systemic Racism Legal Inventory. As a recipient of the certificate in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Workplace from the University of South Florida, Kenneth is well versed in the essential practices and tools designed to increase workplace diversity and to create a business model that embraces equity and inclusion.

Laura Birk

Laura Birk is the Head of Human Resources for the Americas Division of Barilla Group where she has been for almost 15 years. Laura is responsible for all of the talent and people processes and culture enrichment for Canada, United States, Mexico, and Brazil. Prior to Barilla she was accountable for Leadership Development at Discover Card/Morgan Stanley. Laura is passionate about D&I efforts and serves on several non-profit and advisory councils outside of work. She is the proud working mom of three daughters and works in the Chicagoland area.

Jon Frampton

Jon Frampton is Chief Human Resources Officer for Baylor Scott and White Health.

Amanda Bailey

Amanda Bailey joined BU as the Vice President for Human Resources in August 2021. Prior to her role at BU, Amanda served as the Vice President of Human Resources at Brown University and held the roles of Associate Vice President and Acting Chief of Staff at Morehouse College. She brings more than thirty years of professional experience in human resources and has held senior human resources leadership positions over the past two decades at secondary and post-secondary educational institutions. Amanda has previously served as a national board member to the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources and is a current board member to the Society for Higher Education HR Executives (SHEHRE), the American Research Universities’ Human Resource Institute, the New England Human Resources Association, Skills for Rhode Island’s Future, Operation ABLE, the Governing Body for Evanta (a Gartner company), and advisory board member to the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect. She frequently participates in events addressing workforce trends and thought leadership for the future of work, workplace, and workplace culture. Amanda has been featured in several publications and recognized as an influencer in HR in 2023 by Who’s Who in America for Top Executives, INC Magazine for Top HR Business Leaders in 2023, Making Boston University Resemble Boston by Vision Magazine, The Ambitious Women to Follow in Business in 2023 in FORTUNES Crown Magazine, and Top 10 Influential Business Leaders in 2022 by CIOViews. Amanda remains an active member of SHRM and additional local and national HR organizations. Prior to joining the education industry, Amanda held HR positions at private and public organizations such as American Express and the National Labor Relations Board. When available, Amanda enjoys traveling across the US, volunteering her time as a mentor, and attending arts events.

Amanda earned a bachelor’s degree from Florida Atlantic University, a master’s degree in Human Resources Management and Labor Relations from the University of Rhode Island, and has an additional certification in labor relations in education.

Parul Kapoor

Parul Kapoor leads the global Talent & Culture team, and operations supporting the company’s 800+ employees around the world. Parul joins us with a solid track record of developing and leading human resource programs at Cadence Design Systems where she was most recently the Human Resource Vice President for Global R&D, IT, and Marketing and Business Development.

Parul had several roles during her 12 year stay at Cadence where she oversaw rapid growth, transformation and scaling processes, and prior she was an HR business partner for Sales at Google in India.
Parul has a BS in Biology from the University of Delhi and an MBA from the Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development in Pune.

Rhonda Morris

Rhonda J. Morris is vice president and chief human resources officer for Chevron Corporation and has led the company’s human resources, health & medical and diversity & inclusion groups since 2016. She also serves on the company’s Executive Committee. Prior to 2016, Morris held a number of roles of increasing responsibility in human resources, global marketing and international products. In 2014, Morris received the Industry Leader Award from the Professional Businesswomen in California recognizing her work to advance gender equality in the workplace. Morris serves on the board of Techbridge. She previously served on the boards of the East Bay Agency for Children, A Better Chance, a national organization dedicated to opening the door to educational opportunities for thousands of young people of color in the United States, the Math Engineering and Science Association at the University of California at Berkeley and the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management. Morris joined Chevron’s Human Resources Development Program in 1991. She earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Davis, in 1987 and a master's degree in business administration from Boston University in 1991.

Kristen Gorodetzer

Kristen has served as Senior Vice President since December 2018, and as a member of the HR Leadership Team for almost 10 years.
A senior human resources executive with experience leading talent management, global rewards, leadership development, human capital analytics, M&A, and large-scale change.

Deborah Cegielski

Deborah Cegielski joined Cubic in March 2022. Cegielski is responsible for the strategic leadership of global people and culture functions for Cubic, including talent acquisition, talent management, total rewards, HR systems, corporate communications, public relations, global business services and oversees the development and advancement of the company’s diversity and inclusion strategy.

Cegielski has over 25 years of Human Resource Leadership experience, having served as the chief human resources officer for Velocity Vehicle Group, chief human resources officer for OSI Systems, vice president of human resources for Landing Gear, a division of Raytheon Technologies (Formally United Technologies), vice president of Human Capital for XLA in Washington DC and vice president of human resources for AMETEK in San Diego.

Cegielski received an MBA from Northeastern University and a Master of Human Relations from the University of Oklahoma and a member of NHRA in both LA and OC, and a Governing Body Member for SoCal CHRO for CHRO Executive Summits.

Nadine Augusta

As Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer at Cushman & Wakefield, Nadine Augusta drives global commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) as a firmwide priority. This includes creating an environment that offers equitable and fair growth opportunities for all employees and the businesses with which Cushman & Wakefield works, while ensuring the firm brings diverse thought and expertise to its clients. Nadine takes a holistic approach to DEI, with a focus on workforce, workplace and marketplace, especially in the areas of recruiting, talent development and supplier diversity.

Nadine has more than 20 years of experience in financial services, with key positions in management consulting, project management, sales and trading, and diversity and inclusion. Prior to assuming her current position, she was Americas Head of Diversity & Inclusion at Goldman Sachs, where she led talent engagement, equity and inclusion efforts. Before that, Nadine worked at The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) as the Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion and Corporate Social Responsibility, and held various leadership positions at Bank of America, including Senior Vice President, Global Diversity & Inclusion. Notably, she was a member of the U.S. Trust and Merrill Lynch merger integration teams, contributing to the wealth management pre-merger assessment and integration strategy and leading the Global Markets technology deployment testing strategies. Nadine has also worked at several leading institutions, including Credit Suisse, BearingPoint LLC/KPMG Consulting LLC, and Pershing LLC.

Nadine is a member of the Board of Trustees for Brooklyn LAB Charter School, has twice received the President’s Volunteer Service Award, and was a recipient of the “Black Achiever in Industry” award from the YMCA of Greater New York. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from St. Peter's University in New Jersey and completed the Ascent Executive Leadership Program at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. She resides in New York.

Simon King

As Chief People Officer, Simon is responsible for leading the organization’s U.S. people strategy building our future together and strengthening our culture to realize our 2030 vision to become an “Innovative Global Healthcare Company Contributing to the Sustainable Development of Society.” Simon’s mission is to enable every colleague to be their best selves at work to serve the patients who rely on our medicines.

Simon decided early on that he wanted to help improve people’s lives and pursued a genetics degree and started his career in Biopharma Research and Development, before moving into Human Resources. He has pursued his passion to improve people’s lives with over 30 years of experience at AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb and now with Daiichi Sankyo.

Through an experience of when Simon was 16 years old volunteering in a hospital, he became close to a patient who passed away from cancer. Since that event, he has dedicated his career to seeking opportunities where he can make a difference to patients through colleagues to be their authentic selves.

Donnebra McClendon

Donnebra McClendon is Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) at Dayforce. Donnebra is responsible for designing and driving policies and programs to ensure equity and fairness across the organization. Donnebra first joined Dayforce in 2004.

Donnebra is passionate about cultivating a consciously unbiased and intentionally inclusive culture. She established a non-profit organization, Leaders are Readers, supporting literacy in the Tampa Bay area.

Donnebra holds a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts and sciences, and a master’s degree in organizational leadership from Bethune-Cookman University. She also received a diversity, equity, and inclusion certification from Cornell University, and is currently a doctoral student in strategic leadership at Carolina University.

Ciara Lilly

With an impressive tenure spanning more than a decade in her industry, Ciara Lilly currently holds the position of Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion at Diversified Maintenance. Within this pivotal role, Ciara masterminds and executes the organization's nationwide strategy for diversity and inclusion and supplier diversity.

Under her visionary leadership, the Company has spent over $40 million with small and diverse businesses, established a Corporate Diversity and Inclusion training program, and catalyzed the creation of over $20 million in new business growth.

Ciara's qualifications are equally as impressive as her accomplishments. She holds an Executive MBA from the prestigious Jack Welch Management Institute and earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Ciara's commitment to lifelong learning is evident in her completion of certificate programs at renowned institutions such as Dartmouth University, Cornell University, the University of South Florida, and the University of Richmond. These programs have equipped her with valuable expertise in diversity and inclusion, MBE executive management, and women's entrepreneurship, enhancing her capacity to drive impactful change in her field.

Over the years, Ciara has received numerous accolades that underscore her entrepreneurial spirit, outstanding leadership, and unwavering commitment to community improvement. Some of her notable awards include recognition as one of the Top 50 Women Leaders in North Carolina by Women We Admire, a place in Business Equality Pride Magazine's 40 Leaders Under 40, acknowledgment as one of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Black Chamber of Commerce's 30 under 30, and recognition from the Charlotte LGBT Chamber of Commerce with the prestigious Recognition of Excellence and Emerging Entrepreneur Award.

Daniel Guillory

Danny Guillory is VP and Chief Diversity Officer at Dropbox, where he leads a team that approaches diversity in a comprehensive way, while also leading Dropbox's Virtual First Community and Culture Team. Prior to this role, Danny served as Head of Global Diversity & Inclusion at Autodesk. For many years he served as CEO of Innovations International, a consulting firm that assists companies globally on leadership, innovation and diversity through assessment, strategic planning, learning and development, and internal communications. With his extensive background and B.A. from Stanford University, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, experience studying at the Universite de Paris I–Pantheon Sorbonne & Chemnitz University of Technology in Germany.

Ida Jackson Woods

As AVP and Chief Diversity Officer for ETS, Ida Jackson Woods provides leadership for the vision, direction, implementation, and evaluation of strategic efforts aimed toward advancing an organizational culture of equity. Her role is focused on embedding equity, inclusion, and diversity across the enterprise to enhance employees’ sense of community and belonging.

Before joining ETS, Ida was a Director in Human Resources for The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), where she was responsible for organizational learning and professional development, labor and employee relations, performance management and related HR workplace issues. Prior to her role with TCNJ, Ida was Court Executive EEO/AA Officer with the Judiciary’s Superior Court of New Jersey.

A proud U.S. Army veteran, Ida has earned a doctorate in Leadership and Innovation from NYU. She also holds an MBA from Rutgers University and earned her BA degree in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Mississippi.

Ida has completed the Diversity and Inclusion Professionals Certificate at Cornell University and is certified through the Human Resources Certification Institute as a Senior Professional in Human Resources, (SPHR), since 2001. As a member of the Society for Human Resource Management, she holds that organization’s designation of SHRM-Senior Certified Professional. Ida is also a Certified Public Manager, and a Development Dimensions International Certified Facilitator.

A lifetime member of the National Council of Negro Women, a member of the National Black MBA Association and the NAACP, she is also a member of Chief, a private network of executive women.  Ida is also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

Kristin Johnson

Edward Jones Chief Human Resources Officer Kristin Johnson leads the firm’s efforts to attract, develop and engage a diverse workforce, foster an inclusive culture and grow human capital capabilities to support the firm’s Five-year Plan. As a member of the Edward Jones Executive and Management committees, Kristin provides critical thought leadership to the firm's strategic direction and drives initiatives that enable the firm to progress toward its vision of becoming the first choice of serious, long-term individual investors. Kristin joined Edward Jones in 1995 as a member of the Internal Audit department and two years later was named the department’s internal audit manager. In 2000, she relocated to the Operations division, where she held leadership roles in several account and trade processing departments. Kristin was named a principal in 2006 and worked in the firm’s Retirement Services and Client Reporting areas over the next six years. In March 2012, she relocated to the firm’s Service division to lead the Service Optimization business unit, which she led until assuming responsibility for BOA Talent Acquisition and Performance in 2013. During her tenure with the BOA area, the role evolved to provide even more proactive contributions to the client experience and became a more integral member of the branch team. She became the interim co-leader of Human Resources in April 2019 and was named the firm’s chief human resources officer the following November. Kristin helps the firm work toward its objective of creating a talented and diverse workforce by serving as a senior executive sponsor of the firm’s Black African American and Young Professionals Business Resource groups. A native of Belleville, Ill., Kristin graduated from the University of Illinois with a bachelor’s degree in accountancy. She earned a master’s in information management from Webster University and completed Washington University’s executive MBA program. Kristin is active in several organizations and serves on the boards of the Center of Creative Arts (COCA), Webster University and the St. Louis Fashion Fund.

Darren Burton

Darren Burton is Chief People Officer for Eightfold AI.

Julie Dunlap

Julie Dunlap is the Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Officer and Sr. Vice President of Talent Management at Eli Lilly and Company. In this role, Julie has responsibility for all aspects of talent management for Lilly’s 40,000+ employees including recruiting, onboarding, performance and succession management, people strategy, employee and leadership development – with DEI fully integrated throughout. Julie’s team plays a critical role in ensuring Team Lilly can fulfill the purpose of making life better for people around the world.

Julie has a wealth of experience having served in numerous capacities of expanding responsibilities in human resources over the past 20+ years at Lilly, including total rewards, recruiting, business partnership, and global strategic project leadership. Prior to this role, she served as the leader of global compensation and led the enterprise Future of Work project during the pandemic.

She is passionate about focusing on the “equity” aspect of DEI both inside and outside of Lilly and is particularly interested in advancing opportunities for education. She serves on the Board of Early Learning Indiana which strives to ensure every child is empowered with essential skills to thrive in kindergarten and beyond.

Julie has an undergraduate degree in Economics from Duke University. She is a wife and mother to four children and lives in Fishers, Indiana.

Greg Giangrande

As chief people and chief communications officer, Greg Giangrande leads all aspects of Ellucian’s global people organization, including employee experience, HR business partners, talent acquisition, total rewards, diversity, equity and inclusion, learning and development, and communications.

Greg has deep experience as a transformative human resources and communications leader. He comes to Ellucian most recently from McKinsey & Company where he served as a senior advisor working with clients across sectors and geographies on enterprise transformation, employee experience, human resources, organizational health and culture, leadership development, diversity and inclusion, and communications strategies.

Prior to McKinsey, Greg served as executive vice president, chief human resources officer and chief communications officer for Time Inc. where he oversaw human resources and communications for 10,000 employees globally. Previously, he held leadership roles in human resources and communications at News Corporation including, Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal, Barrons, and HarperCollins Publishers. Greg is a career advice columnist for the NY Post, the fourth largest daily circulation newspaper in the U.S., and he is an adjunct faculty member of New York University (NYU).

Greg holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Master of Arts in Communications from New York University

Nick Piazza

Nick Piazza was appointed Emerson’s Chief People Officer in August 2023. In this role, he leads the company’s human resources function, including employee experience, culture, end-to-end talent management, total rewards, diversity, equity and inclusion, acquisition integration, organization development and effectiveness, and human resources technology.

Piazza is a member of Emerson’s Office of the Chief Executive, which helps develop and guide the company’s global business strategies. He also serves as executive sponsor of the company’s Diverse Abilities employee resource group.

During his 19-year career with Emerson, Piazza has served in eight roles and lived on three continents. He joined Emerson in 2004 and served in human resources management and executive roles with increasing responsibilities at four U.S. locations over a 10-year period.

From 2014-2016, Piazza was based in London for Emerson’s Network Power business, serving as vice president of human resources for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region and as general manager of a Munich-based business with $25 million in sales. After Emerson sold the Network Power business in 2016, Piazza stayed on with the new company Vertiv as vice president of human resources in EMEA for seven months.

In July 2017, Piazza rejoined Emerson as the Singapore-based vice president of human resources in Asia-Pacific for the company’s Automation Solutions business. In this role, he managed HR programs and services for Emerson’s 17,000-plus employees across the region.

In August 2021, Piazza was promoted to vice president of global talent and oversaw enterprise-wide talent management activities. He was given additional responsibility to lead HR operations in October 2022.

Piazza serves on the board of directors for the St. Louis chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Piazza has a bachelor's degree in finance, a master’s degree in human resources and industrial relations and master’s of business administration, all from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Sean Cook

Sean Cook has been an SHRM certified Human Resources Practitioner for the past 31 years. He has worked for several tremendous Hospitality and Retail organizations across the U.S., China, Japan, and India. Which has afforded him extensive experience in human resources, operations, finance, talent management, and diversity, all of which have provided him with a unique ability to see how human capital initiatives affect the entire organization.

Sean has led EDF’s global HR division through its organizational-critical growth transformation. The Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) is a crucial position entrusted to serve as an advisor to the CEO and senior leadership team. His leadership has translated global business strategies into a talent strategy for the organization. It has helped drive a performance-based culture that can change and adapt as the environment and competitive context change.

Sean believes that for robust growth, an organization needs to build a foundational Human Capital process that enhances the organizational effectiveness and regenerates focus on strategic planning for talent management.

Wil Lewis

As Experian’s Global Chief DEI and Talent Acquisition Officer, Wil Lewis is building on the company’s commitment to diversity, inclusion and equity by driving innovation in product development, building on the company’s culture of belonging and attracting talent that represents the communities in which Experian operates.

Karyn Twaronite

Karyn Twaronite is Global and US Diversity & Inclusiveness Officer for EY.

Ginnie Carlier

As EY Americas Vice Chair — Talent, Ginnie leads the Americas efforts to create exceptional and transformative experiences for 80,000 people in 31 countries. During her tenure with EY, Ginnie has worked around the world in several key roles, building and leading high-performing EY teams on three continents. After joining EY in 1993 in Cleveland, she moved to Silicon Valley in 2000 to work with leading technology companies and was promoted to partner in 2006. In 2008, Ginnie transferred to Dubai and served as global client service partner for several technology, energy and advanced manufacturing companies, becoming the first Diversity and Inclusiveness Leader for the EY Middle East and North Africa Region. In 2011, she was appointed EY Europe, Middle East, India and Africa Assurance Talent Leader. Ginnie returned to the West Coast in 2014 to serve as the US-West Region Talent Leader, prioritizing the development and well-being of 15,000 people across 18 states while also leading Assurance teams in client service. Throughout her various roles, Ginnie’s commitment to building an EY in which everyone belongs and thrives has remained constant. Ginnie received a BA in Accounting and Marketing from Ohio University.

Dr. Anthony C. Hood

Dr. Anthony C. Hood serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer for First Horizon Bank. He also serves on the corporation’s Operating Committee.

Dr. Hood’s tenure as a DEI executive has garnered a number of leadership awards including from Savoy Magazine, the American Marketing Association and the Birmingham Business Journal.

He previously served as the Director of Civic Innovation in the Office of the President at UAB as well as a Tenured Associate Professor of Management in the Collat School of Business at UAB.

An electrical engineer by training, Dr. Hood enjoyed a 10 year career with Bellsouth and AT&T supporting startup telecom companies in the firm’s wholesale division. He was honored with the Pinnacle Award, the company’s highest honor for productivity and leadership.

He left AT&T to pursue his PhD full time at the University of Alabama (Roll Tide!). Since completing his PhD, he has completed studies at the Harvard Business School, Stanford University and the Morehouse School of Medicine.

Dr. Hood received his undergrad and MBA from UAB (Go Blazers!). In 2019, Dr. Hood was honored by the UAB Alumni Association with the prestigious Distinguished Alumni Award.

Dr. Hood is a member of the Kiwanis Club of Birmingham and serves on the boards of a number of organizations including the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the Birmingham Education Foundation. He is also the Immediate Past Chairman of the Board of the Housing Authority of the Birmingham District, the largest affordable housing provider in the state.

Beth Steinberg

Beth Steinberg has over 20 years of experience in organizational growth, talent strategy, and leadership development for both emerging and Fortune 1000 companies. Beth holds her BA in Psychology from San Jose State University and is certified in Myers-Briggs, Hogan Assessment and the MRG. She is also a certified PCC level Leadership Coach through the International Coaching Federation. Beth currently serves as the VP of People for Chime - a financial services company based in San Francisco, CA.

Monica Pool Knox

Monica Pool Knox is EVP & Chief People Officer of Domo, a publicly traded, global cloud software company specializing in business intelligence tools that puts data in the hands of everyone to multiply business impact. A seasoned executive with over 25+ years in industry, Ms. Pool Knox has provided strategic HR leadership for organizations such as Microsoft, Twitter, Sony, PepsiCo, The Walt Disney Company and Verizon International, Puerto Rico. More recently, she led global Human Resources as the Chief People Officer for LivePerson (Nasdaq: LPSN), a global, conversational commerce AI company based out of NY.

Over her career, Monica has developed strategies, built global teams, and evolved corporate cultures across multiple industries and companies. She is known for building high performing organizations to lead growth at scale in both mature and earlier-stage companies. She has also created value by developing innovative people programs and practices as well as AI enabled HR technology solutions for internal and external consumption. As a business leader with deep expertise in the practice of Human Resources, Monica is known for developing progressive strategic vision as well as operational excellence through approaches anchored in human centered leadership.

A San Francisco Bay Area native, Ms. Pool Knox has focused her career on evolving the HR function to become more data driven and open to adopt technologies such as Machine Learning and generative AI to increase the effectiveness of talent solutions. As an industry thought leader, she often is often called upon to write and speak about innovations in HR technology, executive leadership, manager capability, DEI, career development, culture and the Future of Work.

Monica serves as a Board Director for Swedish Health Systems, a $2B, 13K employee healthcare organization based out of Seattle, WA and a Sr. Talent Advisor for Talentsky, a pre-IPO human capital management company based out of Redwood City, CA. She is a member of the Executive Leadership Council, the CHRO Advisory Board for Enterprise Ireland as well as an investor and advisor for tech start-ups based out of Silicon Valley, San Diego, Austin, London and Dublin, Ireland.

Monica has a BA in Communications from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. She lives in Seattle with her husband and son.

Monica Novomisle

Monica Novomisle, the Chief People Officer, Kraft Heinz, North America, is known for building high performing teams that deliver profitable business results. In her 20 plus years of experience in the people space, she worked with leadership teams at Kraft Heinz, Diageo, and Tory Burch, to achieve total business and culture transformations, focusing on changes in performance culture, coaching culture, employee experience, and corporate integrity and compliance. She also has focused her career on evolving HR teams away from executional and administrative work and into business partnering and people experience strategies. Monica has lived and worked in six countries and been the head of HR in Canada, United States, Greater China, and APAC. Prior to her work in Human Resources, Monica served as a Senior Associate for the International Employment Law Group at Paul Hastings LLP. Monica holds multiple degrees from various institutions including, Trinity College, University of Leiden in the Netherlands, and the University of Connecticut School of Law.

Abiola Jeremiah

Abiola Telesford Jeremiah is the VP, Head of Talent, Culture & DEIB at Saks OFF 5TH. In her role, Abby leads global client facing HR support and initiatives across the company’s 100+ retail stores, corporate offices and fulfillment centers. She also oversees Talent Management, Talent Acquisition as well as Learning & Development for the organization. As the head of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, she is responsible for developing strategic, sustainable DEIB practices to drive meaningful change.

Abby has 20 years of diverse HR experience across several industries. Prior to Saks OFF 5TH, she served as the Global Equity Leader at The Estee Lauder Companies and led HR for Global Corporate Functions. Earlier in her career she held roles of increasing responsibility at Northwell Health, MetLife Insurance, Raytheon Technologies and Bank of America. She started her career as part of the HR Leadership Development program at Merck Pharmaceuticals.

Abby leads a pro bono consulting team for the Government of Grenada focused on strategic transformation and co-owns a real estate development company with her husband. She is also a member of CNBC’s Workforce Executive Council.

Abby holds a MA in HR Management from the University of South Carolina and a BA in Psychology from Temple University.

Quita Highsmith

Quita Highsmith is Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer at Genentech, a member of the Roche Group. At Genentech Quita was selected as the first Chief Diversity Officer in the 46-year history of the company and reports to the CEO. She is responsible for enterprise-wide strategic initiatives that drive business impact by: investing in commercial efforts, stakeholder engagement, research innovation and community relations.

Outside of D&I knowledge, Quita brings brand marketing, business development and a global leadership perspective. Prior to becoming the CDO, she held leadership roles in Commercial and Government Affairs of several companies (Genentech, Sanofi, Aventis) where she impacted and improved revenues. Because she recognized the need to diversify clinical research, she co-founded Advancing Inclusive Research® an initiative to embrace equitable access.

Quita is routinely requested to address members of Congress, speak at national and international forums, and give media interviews with both large and small outlets, such as WSJ, STAT, The Atlantic, and Essence Magazine. She has co-authored numerous publications regarding health disparities in peer reviewed journals. In 2023, she was selected for The Power 100 list of Bay Area’s Most Influential Business Leaders. In 2022, she was chosen by Savoy Magazine as one of the Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America and named Executive of the Year by Lead360.

Quita is an advisor to Cerebral, a mental health startup company and Artis Ventures. She is also committed to community service by working with non-profit boards such as, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Northwest Kidney Centers, Delta San Francisco-Peninsula Scholarship Foundation and The Genentech Patient Foundation, serving on the Audit Committee.

Quita received both a Master of Business Administration Degree and an Advanced Diversity and Inclusion Certificate from Cornell University, as well as her undergraduate degree from the University of Kentucky.

Donald Knight

Donald Knight is Chief People Officer at Greenhouse Software. He leads with a people-first mentality hoping to unlock the potential of Greenhouse talent globally. With a laser focus on the connection between people and the processes that serve them, Donald and his team create proximity by building bridges focusing on enhanced experiences that nurture culture and develop people.

In his role leading the People team, Donald works to help Greenhouse create an environment for people to do the best work of their lives. He is responsible for providing global strategy and leadership in developing, overseeing, and administering people programs. With expansion top of mind, the team delivers a scalable people strategy that enables the organization to expand globally. Before Greenhouse, Donald served as Senior Vice President of Global Talent for Edelman. He helped shape the HR brand as a proactive, insightful, and collaborative solution provider in this role. Donald has held numerous senior leadership roles for Southern Company Gas, a subsidiary of Southern Company (NYSE: SO), and the Defense Commissary Agency.

A native of Virginia, Donald holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Virginia Commonwealth University and a master’s degree in human resource management from the University of Richmond. Donald is also a graduate of the project leadership program at the engineering school of Cornell University for business executives. He and his family reside in the Greater Atlanta area.

Bala Sathyanarayanan

Bala is a recognized thought leader, sought after speaker and a respected Fortune 500 C-Suite Executive. Bala currently serves as Chairman, and Board Director for Balmer Lawrie – Van Leer Limited, a public industrial manufacturer in India. In addition he serves as a Board Director on the board of Columbus Council for World Affairs, an education-driven Columbus, USA based organization. Bala also serves on the board of Center for Executive Compensation at Washington D.C. Bala is an NACD Certified Corporate Director with a passion to advancing highest standards of boardroom excellence.

Bala is Executive Vice President & Chief Human Resources Officer at Greif, Inc. a 145-year-old Fortune 500 size global leader in industrial packaging products and services operating over 220 locations in over 40 countries across 4 continents. He is focused on delivering a world-class, diverse, and engaged workforce that can execute on Greif’s vision of be the best performing customer service company in the world. Prior to joining Greif, Bala was an Executive Vice President at Xerox Corporation where he headed Human Resources and Business Transformation for the Technology Business spread across 145 countries worldwide. Previously, Bala lead Human Resources for Hewlett-Packard’s Americas Enterprise Business organization. Earlier in his career Bala held positions of increasing responsibility at Avaya Inc., Coca-Cola, and United Technologies/Otis Elevator Company.

Bala graduated from the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. In addition, he holds a Master of Human Resources Management (MHRM) degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey, an MBA in General Management from University of Madras and BE in Electronics & Communications Engineering from SVCE.
A recipient of many global awards, Bala was named to the list of Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business by the Asian American Business Development Center (AABDC), Executive of the Year by Columbus CEO Magazine, Top inspiring Business Leaders of the Year in 2020 by Industry Wired Magazine, 10 Most Influential Business Leaders to Follow in 2021 by CIO Insights Magazine to name a few.

Sandra Hurse

Sandra Hurse is the Chief Human Resources Officer of Grosvenor Capital Management. In this capacity Ms. Hurse is responsible for the development and execution of the firm people strategy and leads the firm’s real estate and facilities efforts. She also serves on the ESG Committee and the Diversity & Inclusion Governance Committee. Prior to joining GCM Grosvenor, Ms. Hurse held various positions at Bank of America, most recently serving as Global Head of Human Resources for Corporate and Investment Banking. Previously, Ms. Hurse also held leadership roles in Talent Management and Talent Acquisition at Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase. She received her Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from Bernard M. Baruch College and her Master of Business Administration in Marketing from the University of Michigan. Ms. Hurse serves as a Corporate Board Member for the Harlem School of the Arts, the Council for Urban Professionals and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund where she is a member of the finance committee.

Dean Carter

Dean has been an innovative and industry-recognized leader of People and Culture for over two decades across Fortune 50, hot growth, and culture-driven organizations. For the past seven years, he has led global People & Culture, Legal, and Finance teams for Patagonia reporting directly to the CEO. He also currently serves as an Independent Director on the Board of Directors for Griffith Foods, a high-growth Chicago-based privately held sustainable food company, as well as served several years as an Independent Director on the Board of Cornerstone OnDemand (NASDAQ: CSOD), a now-private, formerly a publicly traded SAS, cloud-based HR technology company. In addition to Patagonia, he served as CHRO during his tenure at Sears Holdings and Fossil Inc. Leading up to his time at Fossil, he served in a variety of progressive HR and Management roles for Pier 1 Imports, Pearle Vision, and Procter & Gamble.

Tiffany Monroe

Tiffany Scalzitti Monroe is the chief people and culture officer for H&R Block. In this role, Monroe leads H&R Block’s people strategies, including organizational and performance management, talent development, and ensuring the workforce has both the people and organizational capabilities to enable and ultimately deliver company strategy. She leads programs and initiatives to attract, develop and retain a world-class full-time and seasonal workforce of nearly 90,000. Monroe has more than two decades of human resources experience. Prior to her role at H&R Block, she served as the chief human resources officer, at U.S. Foods. While there, she oversaw talent and culture development, including instituting a formal talent assessment process, formal development programs, and redesigning the company’s incentive programs to better attract and retain great talent. Before U.S. Foods, Monroe spent 14 years at Target Corporation where she served as senior vice president for human resources at Target Canada, vice president of human resources, and director of human resources. During her tenure, she developed a comprehensive total compensation offering, implemented an innovative program focused on enhanced talent development, and maintained high employee engagement and retention levels by ensuring a positive team culture and working environment. Monroe holds a Juris Doctor degree from Pepperdine University School of Law and a bachelor’s degree in political science and history from Indiana University.

Michael Bokina

Michael Bokina is Chief Human Resources Officer for Hanwha USA & Hanwha FutureProof.

Iraisa Jones

Iraisa Jones is Chief Human Resources Officer for Harlems Children's Zone.

Cecilia Nelson-Hurt

Cecilia Nelson-Hurt is Heidrick & Struggles’ Chief diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer based in New York. She leads the firm’s diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy and delivers long-term, sustainable programs and initiatives that build on our values and commitment to creating the most diverse and inclusive executive talent and leadership advisory firm in the industry.

Cecilia joined Heidrick & Struggles from L’Oréal USA, where she was vice president of diversity, equity, and inclusion, responsible for shaping the company’s diversity and inclusion efforts. She also developed and facilitated its diversity and inclusion education programs and worked with the company’s employee-led think tanks to create and implement strategies and initiatives that positively impacted employee engagement, consumer insights and community outreach.

Before that, Cecilia was vice president of university relations and a diversity and campus relations officer at JPMorgan Chase, where she managed relationships with business and recruiting teams to create targeted events at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. She also developed and maintained relationships with multiple diversity-oriented organizations, including National Association of Colleges & Employers, Universum, and Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement, increasing the number of diverse applicants for its entry-level and experienced hire recruiting programs.

Samanntha DuBridge

Samanntha DuBridge serves as Vice President of Global Benefits, Culture, and People Experience at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). In her role, she is responsible for driving strategy and execution in a variety of areas that directly support innovation, engagement and the HPE Human Resources strategy, including building the HPE culture, creating an engaging team member experience and enabling the workplace of the future. Through ongoing culture initiatives, team member campaigns, wellbeing programs and service delivery, Samanntha’s team plays a critical role in making HPE a great place to work and a destination for top talent.

Additionally, Samanntha leads the design, development and compliance of global benefit and mobility programs that support the needs of the business, team members and their families, navigating an ever-changing global political and regulatory landscape. She also manages people operations that include a range of important HR support services such as Labor and Employee Relations, Privacy and Compliance, HR service centers, along with Agile HR project and change management processes that are accelerating the pace of change throughout HPE.

Samanntha is passionate about creating programs and services that deliver a world-class experience for HPE team members and their families through effective integration and alignment to maximize the impact and value of all people experiences.

Prior to joining HPE, Samanntha held positions at HP, National Semiconductor, and various healthcare organizations. She holds a Master’s Degree from San Jose State University in Health Care Administration.

Angel Franklin

Angel brings a multifaceted, innovative, and fresh perspective on Human Capital Strategy to her role as Chief People Officer of Hinge. In this role, Angel is scaling one of the fastest-growing dating apps in the market to a truly global footprint while maintaining the culture that has driven the success of the company to date. Her scope includes global strategic workforce planning, talent acquisition, talent management, career development, and succession planning, compensation, benefits, people analytics, culture and diversity, and equity and inclusion initiatives.

Prior to joining Hinge, she spent time leading all aspects of Talent Strategy in multiple Blue Chip and Fortune 500 companies including Tesla, Cummins, and Ernst & Young, to name a few. In Angel's most recent role she led Cummins' global COVID-19 response and was the youngest named Officer and Vice President in the history of the company. Prior to that, she spearheaded the creation of Tesla's Performance Acceleration process, which led the company's employees to deliver on its most rapid and significant YOY growth in Tesla’s history up to that point. Leveraging knowledge of Talent Strategy, Human Centered Design, Innovative thinking, and a deep understanding of the business – the subsequent design and implementation of Performance Acceleration helped the company double its revenue during one of the most pivotal times of its growth.

In addition to her professional focus, Angel works to provide resources, education and coaching opportunities to marginalized women and young children through her support of the non-profit Too Young to Wed. She was previously a Team Leader at the Arthritis Foundation of North Carolina. She is married to her husband of 16 years, Reggie, mother of two children, Tre and Austin, and caretaker for her disabled mother and brother. Angel holds a Bachelors in Human Resource Management from the University of Central Florida.

Vincent Lim

Vince Lim is Chief People Officer of Hinge Health, a fast growing digital musculoskeletal (MSK) clinic and pioneer in the telehealth space.

Vince grew up in Singapore and spent time in the UK and Australia before immigrating to the United States. He started his career in management consulting with Bain & Co and McKinsey & Co, advising technology, financial services and CPG companies in strategy, operations and organization. He developed a passion for People and Culture and spent seven happy years at Google, first as HR Business Partner to Search Engineering's leadership team, and then leading recruiting operations and all technical university recruiting in the Americas. Since 2015 Vince has been CHRO at a number of high growth startups including LiveRamp, Juul Labs and Medium.

Vince holds a BA (Honors) in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University, and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Vince enjoys travel, the outdoors, cinema, deejaying, and has a passion for LGBTQ+, racial equality and animal care causes. He lives in San Francisco with his partner and a host of pets including two dogs, two cats, four goldfish and an axolotl.

Teresa Palacios Smith

Teresa Palacios Smith is Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer for HomeServices of America, a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate which is one of the country's premier providers of homeownership services, including brokerage, mortgage, franchising, title, escrow, insurance, and relocation services. In her role, Teresa oversees the organization's commitment to employee and agent diversity programs, along with cultivating a culture of equity and inclusion and championing the company's goal of increasing minority homeownership.

Teresa has more than 20 years of experience working in the real estate industry and is a frequent speaker and trainer at national and local industry events along with providing CE training on important real estate topics. She also serves on numerous industry boards.

In 2020, Teresa founded the Women Who Lead Series which is a Facebook and YouTube series where powerful and influential women are featured. In 2019, Teresa received NAWRB's Diversity leader award which recognizes top leaders in the industry and in 2018, Teresa received RISMedia's Newsmakers award and was inducted into the inaugural Hall of Fame class.

Teresa server as president of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP), one of the largest minority trade associations in the country with more than 50,000 members in 2015. She is also the co-founder of the NAHREP Atlanta Chapter, which launched in 2005. Teresa has held numerous leadership roles in the industry and currently serves on the board of some of the top housing organizations in the country. Teresa received LISTA's Leadership Award in 2016. She was named by the Atlanta Tribune magazine as one of Atlanta's "Superwomen" for her leadership and advocacy in the Hispanic Community and was featured in Allan Dalton's book "Creating Real Estate Connections."

Tara Ataya

Tara Ataya is the Chief People and Diversity Officer at Hootsuite where she represents employee voices in the C-Suite and implements growing DE&I strategies company-wide. Formerly VP of People at Hootsuite, Tara is a key member of Hootsuite's executive team where she provides strategic direction and insight as Hootsuite continues to expand its reach globally, as the market leader in its space.

Tara is an experienced HR professional with a demonstrated history of working in SaaS and Professional Services. She is skilled in global Human Resources, M&As, people development, leadership, analytics, performance management, and HR technology.

Tara has over 15 years of experience having held several regional and global leadership roles. Prior to her role at Hootsuite, Tara was VP HR at Vision Critical, Canada’s leading CXM SaaS company based in Vancouver. There she oversaw their global people team along with the business technology team and the payroll team. Prior to that, she was in a leadership role at Sierra Systems, and spent time honing her craft at Deloitte.

Kevin Chan Bradley

Kevin Chan Bradley is the Vice President, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Community for HUB International. Joining the organization in 2021, oversees the company’s overarching DEI strategy and provides coaching and consultation to ensure the execution of the strategy on all levels or the organization.

Mr. Bradley is a seasoned Diversity & Inclusion practitioner with over 30 years in Human Resources. He has been a recruiter, business partner, EEO/AA Compliance leader and D&I leader. Bradley has worked in various industries including manufacturing, aerospace, fast food, and financial services. Throughout his career, he has had the developed D&I strategies that includes building ERGs from the ground up, introducing D&I curriculum, and establishing external community partnerships. At times has managed both the diversity and compliance functions simultaneously, which has allowed him to leverage compliance initiatives to enhance diversity strategies. Bradley has always created collaborative internal coalitions with key internal leaders and stakeholders to create, establish and grow D&I strategies. His philosophical approach is that diversity & inclusion is part of every leader and employee’s jobs.

He is often asked to speak at events on the topic of diversity as a business driver and has received recognition for his work in advocating for diverse communities. He currently serves as Board Chair for Access Living, a nationally renowned disability advocacy organization. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the Parents’ Alliance Employment Project an organization that finds gainful employment for individuals with disabilities and serves on the Board of Directors for the Chicago Philharmonic. He has been asked to serve on the Chicago advisory committee for St. Jude Children’s Hospital and is on the DEI Advisory Committee for his fraternity, Tau Kappa Epsilon,

Mr. Bradley earned his BA from Northeastern Illinois University and his MS from Villanova University.

Toni Lowe

Toni Howard Lowe is Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer, at Huge where she is responsible for end-to-end diversity, inclusion, equity and social impact leading the design and implementation of a holistic DE&I strategy at Huge, ensuring that DE&I is embedded in the Huge's DNA, and that it is reflected in every aspect and process across the global organization, from recruiting to promotion, employee experience, culture and behavior and client engagement.

Prior to joining Huge, Toni brings 20+ years of innovative, transformational leadership experience. She has supported Fortune 500 & 1000 companies like E&Y, USAA and McAfee as a global DEI and human resource practitioner, where she deftly built DE&I and culture infrastructures from grassroots to global scale.

Toni has been widely recognized for her advocacy and work by many organizations such as, National Diversity Council Top 100 Diversity Officers, as a Nominated Change Maker for The White House United State of Women’s Summit, and Walker’s Legacy Power 15 Women in Leadership Award recipient. Toni’s insights have also been featured in many national media outlets such as Business Insider, Forbes, Black Enterprise, Glassdoor and LinkedIn Learning.

Toni is a graduate of University of Central Florida. She holds a BA in Interpersonal Communications, and MHR in Human Resource Management. Toni earned Certification from Cornell University in Executive HR Leadership

Toni resides in Dallas, Texas with her husband and son.

Nickle LaMoreaux

Nickle LaMoreaux is CHRO for IBM Corporation.

Erika Flowers

Erika Flowers is J.S. Held's Vice President of People. Erika is a transformative global human resources executive and business partner who designs and executes strategic plans that support the ever-changing workplace environment.

Throughout her garnered career, she focused on creating enduring solutions that aligned with business plans, human capital needs, and strategic direction. While meeting the challenges facing the global talent market by delivering initiatives that touch not only the organization, operations, culture, and leadership, but the bottom line.

She also has extensive experience building a foundation of trust and connectedness among internal and external stakeholders, building bridges, and winning consensus toward organizational vision and goals.

Wanda Hope

Wanda Bryant Hope is an accomplished business executive with significant experience in general management, marketing, sales, commercial operations, and human resources. She currently serves as Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer at Johnson & Johnson, and is responsible for globally advancing the company’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) outcomes, strengthening DEI capabilities, and driving growth through innovation.

Prior to this role, Wanda held a variety of leadership positions across Johnson & Johnson including Vice President, Sales & Marketing; Vice President, Commercial Analytics, Development & Operations; and Vice President, Global Performance & Development. She has been recognized for her ability to exceed business results, deliver innovative solutions to complex challenges, lead global change, develop people for optimal results and drive diversity and inclusion global outcomes.

Wanda is a sought-after speaker and thought leader on advancing DEI to drive business performance and results. She recently presented at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Conference and currently serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the New Equality and Inclusion. Wanda also serves as Chair of the Business Roundtable Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Working Group and on the Penn State Smeal College of Business Board of Visitors.

Her passion and performance have been recognized with several awards including the Penn State Smeal Diversity Award, the Most Powerful Women in Corporate Diversity by Black Enterprise Magazine, American Needs You Honoree, Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association’s Rising Star Award, Auburn Lives of Commitment Award, YWCA Tribute to Women in Industry Award, and the National Sales Network Community Service Award.

Wanda received her Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing from The Pennsylvania State University. She and her husband Bobby are the proud parents of Tyler, their 14-year-old son.

Michelle A. Banks

Michelle A. Banks, Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer, is responsible for leading Kohl’s enterprise-wide diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, including training and development, strategic initiatives across the business, and leadership of both the company’s DEI Task Force and its DEI Council.

Banks joined Kohl’s in 2010 and has held a number of progressive leadership roles within the stores organization, most recently having served as senior vice president, territory manager overseeing nearly 200 stores in the Southeast region. Prior to joining Kohl's, Banks served in store leadership roles with DSW Shoes, Gap, Marshall Fields, and Donna Karan. Banks has more than 25 years of experience in the retail industry.

Jason LaRue

HR leader with experience delivering multi-disciplinary transformation programs, building and elevating high-performing teams, cultivating strong executive relationships and delivering business-aligned talent strategies and programs.

Jason is the National Managing Principal for KPMG’s Talent and Culture (T&C) organization and a member of the US Talent and Culture leadership team. In this role, he serves as the COO for T&C and is responsible for functional strategy, including delivery model, capabilities, technology and tools, budget and process design and delivery. He also closely collaborates with the national managing partners from other parts of the firm to ensure that T&C’s policies, processes and programs are aligned with their business needs and the firm’s strategy.

In addition to his NMP role, Jason also oversees three of the primary pillars within the T&C organization: Total Rewards, which encompasses the compensation, benefits and well-being teams that design and operate the firm’s portfolio of behavioral incentives and shape significant portions of the workforce value proposition; Workforce Shaping, which includes all talent acquisition, talent development, learning and workforce planning activities; and Service Delivery, which is responsible for critical areas such as technology and data, people relations, people operations, process enablement and global mobility.

Prior to these roles, Jason led the firm’s People Strategy & Solutions organization (community of HR business and people relations advisors) and was the HR leader for the US Advisory organization. In those roles he helped shape the firm's people strategy and experience, ensured high-quality delivery of HR services, efficiently led talent processes and supported leaders through talent and leadership decisions.

Jason joined KPMG in 2005 as part of Experienced Hire Recruiting before moving to Senior Talent Acquisition in 2007. He previously worked for Bank of America / FleetBoston Financial and Management Recruiters International in various HR and recruiting roles.

Rodolfo Camacho

Rodolfo Camacho is Global Chief Talent and Rewards Officer for Kraft Heinz.

Maryjo Charbonnier

Maryjo Charbonnier is the Chief Human Resources Officer of Kyndryl, one of the largest startups in corporate history. Kyndryl is the world’s leading IT infrastructure services provider. With the industry's most experienced talent and 4,600 customers, Kyndryl is uniquely positioned to help organizations build strong, secure, resilient, and adaptive digital capabilities.

Harnessing her deep experience in large corporate transformation, Maryjo is leading the global initiative to make Kyndryl the employer of choice in the more than 60 countries where the company operates. She at the helm of the company’s massive renovation of all HR systems and processes to support the company’s nearly 90,000 people to advance their skills and careers as they deliver for customers. Maryjo is also leading the company’s global effort to create and advance its differentiating culture – The Kyndryl Way.

Maryjo joined Kyndryl from Wolters Kluwer, where she served as Chief Human Resources Officer for the global provider of professional information, software solutions and services for professionals since the start of 2015. She drove the design and implementation of all human resources strategies, policies, and processes. Prior to joining Wolters Kluwer, Maryjo served as Chief Human Resource Officer at Broadridge Financial Solutions, a global Fintech company, for seven years. Earlier, she was an HR executive in a variety of leadership roles at PepsiCo, including Vice President for Talent Sustainability for PepsiCo Foods Americas, a unit with $30 billion in revenues and more than 120,000 employees.

A native of the Detroit area, Maryjo is a graduate of Catholic University in Washington, DC, and earned her MBA at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas. She was named "CHRO of the Year" in the Netherlands for 2019.

Stephanie Kramer

Stephanie Kramer is the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) of L’Oréal USA, Adjunct Professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), author of “Carry Strong: An Empowered Approach to Navigating Pregnancy and Work” (Penguin Life, 2023), and the mother of two young sons.

Stephanie currently leads Human Resources for L’Oréal USA, and is responsible for the company’s overall HR strategy in the U.S. including talent, learning, rewards and people experience.

Prior to becoming CHRO in January 2023, Stephanie was the Global General Manager, US General Manager, and Senior Vice President of Global Marketing, Product Innovation and Retail at SkinCeuticals. Previously she was Vice President of Global Marketing for Kiehl’s Since 1851, and an Executive Director of Marketing at Chanel. Prior to Chanel, Stephanie was also Global Marketing Director at L’Oréal for the Professional Products and Luxury Products divisions. She joined L’Oréal from Quest International Fragrances and was a participant in their European Graduate Development Program (EGDP) with roles in the U.S., the UK, and China.

Stephanie graduated with a major in chemistry from Wake Forest University. She completed her master’s degree at FIT and graduated in 2011; in 2023 she joined the FIT CFMM Industry Advisory board. Stephanie is a member of Cosmetic Executive Women (CEW) and has been a featured speaker at the Wharton School, Harvard Business School and New York University.

Tracy Layney

Tracy Layney is Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Levi Strauss & Co. Tracy is responsible for LS&Co.’s people strategy on a global scale, including diversity, equity & inclusion, recruiting, employee engagement, talent management, compensation and benefits, HR technology and HR communications.

Tracy brings more than 20 years of experience in human resources and organization strategy to her role. Prior to joining LS&Co., she served as senior vice president and chief human resources officer for Shutterfly, Inc., the leading retailer of personalized photo-based products. Before Shutterfly, Tracy spent 10 years at Gap Inc., where she held numerous senior leadership roles in HR, most recently serving as the senior vice president of Global Human Resources and Communications for Old Navy. Prior to Gap Inc., Tracy held positions at LS&Co. and PricewaterhouseCoopers/IBM Business Consulting Services where she worked with Fortune 500 clients in the high tech, financial services, retail and healthcare industries on projects ranging from organization design and development to strategic change management.

Tracy holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Pennsylvania where she graduated magna cum laude. She is active in the HR thought leader community and serves on the Board of Directors for the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) Foundation. Her philanthropic commitments are reflected in her service on the GLIDE Board of Trustees and the Levi Strauss Foundation.

Katy George

Katy George is Senior Partner & Chief People Officer for McKinsey & Company.

Erica J. Bolden

As the Head of Diversity, Inclusion & Equity Engagement for Mercedes‐Benz USA (MBUSA), Erica J. Bolden oversees internal and external relationships and designs strategies to attract, develop and advance the most talented individuals in support of Mercedes‐Benz Group AG’s commitment to foster a diverse workforce and inclusive environment. This includes ensuring that national employment, dealer development, training, marketing and media, purchasing and philanthropic outreach activities are implemented in ways that direct the strategic global direction of the company’s diversity, community and social engagement initiatives.

Prior to joining MBUSA, Erica was the Director of Diversity for Perkins Coie LLP where she focused on critical intervention strategies affecting more than 1K lawyers in 19 offices across the U.S. and Asia. She is also a 10‐year veteran of Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP (PwC), where she last served as the National Diversity Programs Senior Manager in the National Office of Diversity. In that role, Erica planned and managed signature earlier minority success programs and special projects to strengthen retention and advancement strategies and execute the firm’s national people strategy targeting 55K+ U.S. partners and staff. Erica has also been responsible for driving profitable revenue growth and leading business/relationship development efforts, while sharing winning practices across the firm network.

Erica has 20 years of HR strategy consulting and change management experience in data analysis; communications; business issue identification; corporate social responsibility and employee engagement; as well as training design related to leadership development, teambuilding and cultural transformation/diversity nuances.

Erica is a graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio where she earned a B.A. in Speech Communications and a B.A. in Spanish. In addition, she is a Certified Diversity Professional (CDP) and serves as a member of the American Council on Germany’s German‐American Working Group on DEI, CNBC Workforce Executive Council, the Board of Trustees for Meals on Wheels Atlanta; as well as the Board of Directors for Boys & Girls Club of Metro Atlanta, National Diversity Council (GA Chapter) and the National Coalition for Racial Justice and Equity. Most recently, she was recognized in ELLE Magazine as a 2021 Empowered Women honoree; presented the 2020 Diversity Leadership in Action Award by Career Mastered Magazine; and featured in Savoy Magazine’s list of 2019 Most Influential Women in Corporate America.

Celeste Warren

Celeste Warren is Vice President, Global Diversity and Inclusion Center of Excellence.  As the leader for Merck’s Global Diversity and Inclusion Center of Excellence, she is responsible for working with Merck’s global leaders to advance and embed diversity and inclusion as a strategic approach to maximize business performance and create a competitive advantage.

Ms. Warren joined Merck in 1997 and has held numerous positions of increasing responsibility within its Human Resources organization. Most recently, she was Vice President, Human Resources of Merck's Global Legal, Compliance, Communications, Population Health, Patient Health and Global Public Policy Organizations.   Prior to that, she held the role as Vice President, Human Resources for Merck’s Manufacturing Division and Global Labor Relations and US Employee Relations Center of Excellence.

Prior to joining Merck in 1997, Celeste worked for nine years in Human Resources at Kraft Foods, Inc. and General Foods and held several positions of increasing responsibility including such roles as Training & Development Leader, Diversity leader, Labor Relations Director and Human Resources Leader for several organizations within Kraft and General Foods.

She has been honored with many awards, including Black Enterprise’s “Top Executives in Global Diversity and Inclusion”, Savoy Magazine’s “Most Influential Women in Corporate America”,  “21 Leaders for the 21st Century” and Diversity Global’s “Influential Women in Global Diversity.”

Celeste attended the University of Kentucky where she earned her B.S. degree. She received her Masters Degree from Carnegie Mellon University.

She is the wife of John Warren and the mother of two children, Christina-Celeste and John Steven, Jr.

Catherine Codispoti

Catherine Codispoti joined Mercy as Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer on Dec. 1, 2023, with a focus on hiring, recruiting and retaining co-workers for the health system’s multi-state region. Codispoti most recently served as chief people officer at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. Previous positions include a variety of financial and organizational leadership positions at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, Texas.

Lori Young

Lori Young is Metropolitan Commercial Bank's, Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer. Lori Young most recently served as the EVP Chief Administrative Officer at Bank of New Jersey where she was recruited by the President and CEO to join a newly formed Executive Management Team. Lori had direct responsibility for oversight of the retail bank, deposit growth and related new business development, branch administration, human resources, payroll, training and development and deposit operations. She had decision making responsibilities for the strategic plan of the bank and related initiatives across the company. In addition, Lori conducted customer sales calls to retain and expand relationships. She was a Member of the Executive Management Committee, Asset and Liability (ALCO) Committee, MIS Committee, Credit Committee, Compliance Committee, Audit Committee (as needed), Core Conversion Team, and was the SAFE Act Officer.

Prior to her time at Bank of New Jersey, she built the Human Resources Department for Pascack Community Bank reporting directly to the President and CEO. She was directly responsible for all Human Resources activities for the company. In addition, Lori built the Training and Development Department at Hudson Valley Bank where she managed two trainers and created all relative internal training programs as well as named a team leader for the core system conversion team. She came to Hudson Valley Bank as a recruiter and was quickly promoted to VP Training and Development. Lori has honed her Human Resources skills over her decades long financial services career working in different roles and departments, being regularly promoted and having a passion for helping people achieve their goals.

Tracey Franklin

As Chief Human Resources Officer, Tracey Franklin leads Moderna’s talent and organizational strategy.

Ms. Franklin joins Moderna following 15 years at Merck & Co., Inc. where she most recently led Merck’s global talent strategy as Vice President, HR Chief Talent and Strategy Officer and served on Merck’s HR Leadership Team. In this role, Ms. Franklin was responsible for leading the vision, development and execution of the company’s Talent and Workforce Strategy with a focus on evolving the organizational culture and talent for the future. Ms. Franklin’s previous leadership roles included responsibility for HR for all divisions in the European region, head of HR for the U.K. and Ireland subsidiaries of Merck, and HR Operations leader responsible for HR program implementation across Merck’s global footprint. She was based in Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S.

Ms. Franklin holds a bachelor’s in communication arts and sciences from Pennsylvania State University and a Master in industrial and organizational psychology from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Paulette Alviti

Paulette is Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer for Mondelēz International, a global snacking leader evolving the role of snacking with 2021 net revenues of approximately $29 billion. She joined the company in June 2018 and is responsible for the company’s human resources function worldwide, including talent management, leadership and capability development, compensation and benefits, change management, employee relations as well as diversity and inclusion.

Paulette has been a leader in Human Resources for more than 25 years, partnering to drive business results through a focus on culture and talent to achieve long term business goals. Her areas of expertise include talent and organization development, change and transformation
leadership that closely aligns an organization’s people assets to accelerate its business strategy.

Prior to joining the company, Paulette served as Senior Vice President & Chief Human Resources Officer at Foot Locker, Inc., a global retailer of athletically inspired shoes and
apparel. Before Foot Locker, Paulette held various senior leadership positions at PepsiCo and The Pepsi Bottling Group in both developed and emerging markets, including serving as Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at PepsiCo Asia, Middle East and Africa.

Paulette received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Connecticut School of Businessand holds an MBA with a focus in Business Management from PACE University.

Harsha Jalihal

Harsha brings more than 20 years of experience in a broad range of HR and business roles to her role as Chief People Officer at MongoDB. Most recently she was the Vice President of HR at Unilever, responsible for delivering the end-to-end HR strategy and operations for the U.S. business, and co-creating Unilever's strategy to build a sustainable future of work across its multinational business while being on a part-time secondment to the World Economic Forum. She started her career as a business development associate with a software company before finding her calling as an HR business partner at Cognizant Technology Solutions in 2004. She spent 10 years at Cognizant, helping the company through its hyper-growth phase, and laying the early foundations of their talent acquisition, talent management, reward management, employee relations practices.

Cara Stein

Cara Stein is Chief Talent Officer and Senior Vice President for NBCUniversal, a newly created position that she was appointed to in June 2011. She is responsible for talent management, including hiring staff, executive development. Since joining the company, she has been a trailblazer in how the company hires, trains and retains talent throughout NBCUniversal.

Stein and team have developed a series of unique leadership experiences for executives at all levels of the company. Under Stein’s leadership, the NBCUniversal Talent Lab was created with the purpose of creating a more strategic, well-informed and engaged workforce. She has also modernized the traditional employee survey and performance feedback process at the company. Stein’s currently re-imagining the early career development programs, including the premier Page Program, NBCUniversal’s longest running franchise. Stein is currently working on a company-wide initiative to maintain and nurture an inclusive environment for women across the entire NBCUniversal Portfolio.

Stein spearheads the NBCUniversal women's initiative, HERE SHE CAN, focused on respect, equity and opportunity for women at all stages of their career at NBCUniversal. In addition, Stein oversees a company-wide DEI initiative, MEET THE MOMENT, which focuses on education and awareness.

Prior to her work at NBCUniversal, Stein served as partner and television packaging agent at WME, a worldwide leader in the talent representation industry. Stein represented numerous well-known writers and producers for both late night and prime time television series. She also represented actors who built their own production companies, most notably Whoopi Goldberg. Stein also oversaw operations and human resources for the WME New York office during her 25 years at WME and its predecessor, the William Morris Agency, which represented some of the most well-known entertainers of the 20th century. Stein served on the Board of Directors at WMA and subsequently was a senior partner at WME.

Widely known and highly regarded for identifying talent and developing careers, Stein has been named by The Hollywood Reporter in its Women in Entertainment Power 100.

Born and raised in Huntington, N.Y., Stein is a graduate of Grinnell College, and she is married to Dr. Barry Rosenfeld, a forensic psychologist and professor at Fordham University. They reside in Manhattan with their three daughters; Jane, Kate, and Anna.

Debra C. McCowan

Debra C. McCowan is currently the Chief Human Resources Officer at NetApp, Inc. a Fortune 500 hybrid cloud data services and data management company with a large global footprint.

Debra is a seasoned transformational Human Resources executive with years of global experience in the technology sector focused on integration of the people strategy with the business strategy to effectively build brand, drive performance and growth, promote organizational health and cultivate culture and employee experience. Her success comes from her proven ability to understand business imperatives and organization dynamics and build high performing, goal exceeding teams to develop progressive HR strategies and initiatives while providing strategic and operational leadership, typically in a context of rapid growth, scale, change and maturation.

In her last role as Chief Human Resource Officer at Equinix, Debra was a highly engaged member of the executive leadership team. She built a robust global HR function in a fast-paced growth environment
and in doing so, established strategic direction and spearheaded significant work to help the Equinix business scale globally and focus on maturing business and people practices. During her five years with
the company, Equinix more than doubled it’s business growth and its global workforce, undertaking large scale M&A activity and expanding into new markets.

Under McCowan’s collaborative and strategic leadership the global HR organization was instrumental in evolving and leveraging Equinix’s culture as a unique strategic asset, building the company brand and designing and implementing leading-edge programs and initiatives in support of business objectives and to ensure the attraction and retention of critical talent helping to build and position Equinix as the market leader it is today.

Prior to Equinix, Debra co-founded the Accelerance Group, where as a partner she provided strategic, organizational design and talent consulting services to help clients lead strategic change more effectively. Debra has also held global executive leadership roles at Avago Technologies (now Broadcom Inc.), Hitachi Data Systems (now Hitachi Vantara), and Telstra Corporation. In these roles, she built and led high performing teams that achieved; taking an organization to IPO, developing a firm’s global HR capabilities and infrastructure, and designing and building a scalable organization with the future focused capabilities.

In April 2018, Debra was elected to the Board of Directors for HealthEquity, Inc., the largest health savings account non-bank custodian in the U.S. In June 2020.

Jacqueline Welch

Jacqueline M. Welch became Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources officer in January, 2021. In this role she leads The Times’s human resources department and oversees all aspects of talent acquisition, career development, organizational development, equitable compensation practices, performance enablement and diversity, equity and inclusion. She sits on the company’s executive committee and reports to the Chief Executive Officer. Ms. Welch joined The Times from Freddie Mac, where she was Senior Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer and Chief Diversity Officer since 2016. In this role, she led the Freddie Mac H.R. team and served as a trusted adviser to its board of directors and the executive team. She also had oversight responsibility for Freddie Mac’s corporate community engagement program and their 10 employee resource groups. A seasoned corporate executive, Ms. Welch joined Freddie Mac with 20 years of experience in H.R. strategy and execution. She served as senior vice president for international human resources for Turner Broadcasting System from 2010 to 2013 and was Senior Vice President, talent management and diversity, from 2008 to 2010. Prior to Turner, she worked for organizations such as WestRock, Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) and Willis Towers Watson (formerly Towers Perrin). She began her career in New York at Lord & Taylor as a merchant. Ms. Welch earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Syracuse University and a Master of Science in Human Resources Management from The New School’s Milano School of Policy, Management and Environment. She serves on the Boards of Habitat for Humanity of Northern Virginia, the Human Resources Policy Association and Buckman.

Michelle Piekutowski

Michelle Piekutowski is Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for New York University .

Pamela Wheeler

Pamela is an accomplished leader with nearly three decades of experience improving diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) outcomes for employees, clients, partners and communities. As NFP’s Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer, she works with leaders across NFP to drive DEIB strategy and move the organization forward with deliberate action, measurable results and continuous refinement.

Pamela Wheeler is a woman of firsts. She was the first woman appointed to lead a professional sports union, was the founding Director of the Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) and negotiated the first collective bargaining agreement in women’s professional sports.

Currently, Ms. Wheeler is a Lecturer of Leadership & Personnel Management within the Columbia University MS Sports Management Program and is an Executive Leadership Development and DE&I Consultant. She collaborates with clients to develop transformational, cross functional leaders and advises on creating diverse, inclusive and equitable cultures, systems and fully integrated DE&I strategies.

As founding Director of the WNBPA, Ms. Wheeler created the organizational infrastructure of the organization and was responsible for improving the lives of professional women basketball players both on and off the court. Whether through collective bargaining, establishing programs for players or developing alternative income sources, she consistently implemented strategies that resulted in significant advances for WNBA players. She successfully led multiple CBA negotiations, culminating in the establishment of (i) minimum salary increases of 75% for rookies and 100% for veterans; (ii) year-round medical, maternity and retirement benefits; (iii) a landmark system of free agency; (iv) player controlled group license marketing rights; (v) player revenue sharing and (vi) a flexible salary cap system. Under her leadership player benefits, salaries and resources increased by 300% from 1998 to 2014.

In addition, Ms. Wheeler consistently worked to shift the systems and cultures within the sports industry to enhance the working conditions and social welfare of WNBA players both during and after their playing careers. To that end, she implemented and administered a myriad of Association and joint labor/management programs, including anti-drug, graduate school tuition reimbursement, career assessments & apprenticeships, financial planning and Rookie Orientation.

Prior to the WNBPA, Ms. Wheeler was the Director of Business Development for the Continental Basketball Association, where she finalized stalled negotiations with New Line Cinema to create a national branding platform based on merging sports and entertainment. Before that, she served as General Counsel & Marketing Manager at Bob Woolf Associates, creating sports and entertainment marketing programs for institutional clients and negotiating marketing agreements for athletes.

She earned a BA from Dartmouth College and a JD from Boston University. She has been profiled in a number of traditional and sports publications, including the Sports Business Journal, “Game Changer,” Sports Illustrated, 101 Most Influential Minorities in Sports, Black Enterprise, 50 Most Powerful Blacks in Sports and Essence Magazine, Powerful African American Women.

Maxine Carrington

Maxine Carrington currently serves as Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer for Northwell Health, New York State’s largest health care provider and private employer.

In her role, she leads the people strategy for the 83,000+ team member organization with a focus on maximizing organizational effectiveness and performance -- in support of its mission and strategic direction. She has been with Northwell since 2008 and has served in progressively responsible leadership roles. Prior to Northwell, Maxine was a manager and attorney with the New York City Mayor’s Office of Labor Relations.

Like her Northwell teammates, Maxine is committed to service beyond her core responsibilities. In addition to mentoring, she is an instructor with the Center for Learning & Innovation, Northwell’s corporate university and serves as a co-sponsor of the organization’s business employee resource groups. She is also a trustee of the 1199 Pension Fund serving employees for the New York Region, serves on the board of the National Center for Healthcare Leadership - a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing healthcare leadership and organizational excellence, and on the New York Urban League’s Project Ready Mentor Program Advisory Board.

Maxine holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Africana Studies and a master’s degree in Educational Administration and Policy Studies from the University at Albany in New York. She obtained her Juris Doctor degree from New York Law School. She is a graduate of Northwell’s High Potential Leadership Development Program, a prestigious succession preparation and leadership development program and the Health Management Academy’s GE Fellows Program. Her recognitions include the Human Resource Executive Magazine’s Rising Star in HR award, Crain’s Notables in Healthcare list, and Modern Healthcare’s Top 25 Women in Healthcare.

Maxine and her family reside in Stamford, CT.

Don Robertson

Don J. Robertson joined Northwestern Mutual in July 2018 to lead employee experience, driving organizational vision through the power of its people.

As the company’s chief human resources officer, Robertson is responsible for advancing the company’s people strategy and employee value proposition, as well as for the overall employee experience. He leads an organization that comprises Human Resources, change management, campus facilities and meeting events. Collectively, his organization delivers business-focused solutions that propel the business strategy and culture of Northwestern Mutual.

Throughout his career, Robertson has held senior HR leadership roles during times of transformation in companies ranging from Fortune 50s to maturing start-ups. In addition to his broad-based HR experience, Robertson brings strategic leadership, foresight, systems thinking expertise and a collaborative style to engage key stakeholders and lead the HR organization to deliver on the people strategy needed now to advance the company’s transformation.

Most recently, Robertson headed HR at Apttus, a Silicon Valley start-up firm that provides software solutions for mid-sized and enterprise companies. Previous to Apttus, Robertson was head of HR at Sutherland Global Services and start-up firm TrueCar. Before transitioning to the start-up world, Robertson worked at Hewlett-Packard Corporation for 14 years, where his broad-based HR experience culminated as SVP-HR Global Technology & Operations. He led a team of more than 300 HR professionals responsible for all HR-related matters for a global organization of 100,000+ employees.

Robertson launched his career in accounting, finance and sales roles before moving into Human Resources. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from California State University in Fresno, where he currently serves on the advisory board for the Craig School of Business. He is also a member of the board of directors for the Wisconsin Humane Society and the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Heather McHale

Heather McHale is Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer at OneMain. She is responsible for focusing on OneMain’s 10,000+ team members and ensuring it remains a great place to work for all employees by focusing on leadership development, diversity and inclusion, and performance achievement. She also leads OneMain’s talent acquisition, employee development, learning, operations, compensation, benefits and employee relations teams across the United States. Before joining OneMain in June 2019, she was the SVP of Global Human Resources for Marchon Eyewear, responsible for all aspects of human resources in over 20 countries. She has also held senior roles at Merrill Lynch, Pfizer and Kidder Peabody. Heather holds a Master of Arts degree in organizational psychology from Columbia University, as well as a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Loyola University. Additionally, Heather completed the Harvard Business School Executive Education’s HR-Executive Suite Connection program. She is a member of Chief, the Society of Human Resources Management and the Nassau/Suffolk Autism Society.

Nancy Tostanoski

Nancy Tostanoski has served as OUTFRONT Media’s Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer since February 2015, and oversees talent acquisition and management, compensation and benefits, recruitment, communications and administration. From May 2014 to February 2015, she served as Senior Vice President, Human Resources at OUTFRONT Media. Ms. Tostanoski served as Vice President, Global Compensation and Benefits at PVH Corp. (formerly known as The Warnaco Group, Inc.) from 2010 to 2013, where she was responsible for global compensation, benefits and performance management for the publicly-held branded apparel company. From 2007 to 2010, Ms. Tostanoski served as Vice President, Global Compensation, Benefits and Shared Services at Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., where she was responsible for global compensation, benefits and U.S. shared services for the privately-held publishing and media company. Nancy currently resides in New York with her husband and has four children.

Candace Barnes

Candace Barnes is Vice President, Global Head of DEI & Culture for Papa John's .

Ellie Shephard

Ellie Shephard is currently the Chief People Officer at a $2.5 billion hedge fund in the Bay Area, where she develops and implements programs to acquire, develop, and retain a top-performing, diverse team for the company. She is passionate about people programs and strategies that contribute to business success while focusing on team members as individuals.
Ellie is passionate about building transformational, cutting-edge teams, as well as innovative ways to build diverse communities. Ellie has also been the featured speaker at multiple financial services industry events, including but not limited to 100 Women in Hedge Funds, LinkedIn Talent Connect, JP Morgan - Disabilities in the Workplace, and multiple Cornell University ILR panels on Human Capital Management.

Ellie has nearly 20 years of experience as a Human Resources leader, primarily in the financial services industry. She began her career at Goldman Sachs within their Human Capital Management Division, where she concentrated on recruitment, strategic hiring, and diversity. Ellie continued her focus on recruitment strategy in a global role as a vice president for JP Morgan before becoming a vice president and Human Resources Business Partner within their Asset Management division. She left JP Morgan to join a 10-billion-dollar hedge fund, as their Global HR and Talent Management Director. Lured by the appeal of the Bay Area, Ellie rejoined JP Morgan Chase as Executive Director, Regional Head of West in San Francisco. While there, she spearheaded a program to decrease workplace bias in partnership with the Neuro Leadership Institute. After a brief stint as Regional Head of People Practices for a commercial real estate firm, Ellie returned to financial services when she joined the executive team in her current role.

Ellie holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She is a member of the WEC-CNBC Council as well as CHIEF, a network for C-Suite women. She is an elected member of the Cornell University External Recruitment Advisory Committee, as well as an active alumna and speaker at Cornell events.

Ellie currently lives in Marin with her husband, Peter. She spends her time volunteering with and serving on the Board of Directors for 10,0000 Degrees, an organization devoted to getting young people from low-income backgrounds to and through college.

Paul Wolfe

Paul Wolfe is a Human First Leadership Advocate who champions the development of workplace cultures built on authentic connection, shared vulnerability, and purpose-led performance. Wolfe came to this mission through two decades of service as an HR executive and his experience of seeking to show up– and view others as humans before titles. Paul has served as an HR Executive at some of the world’s most prominent companies, including Indeed, Conde Nast, Match.com, and others.

Paul is a board member at Payscale and an HR Venture Advisor for SemperVirens Venture Capital. He hosts the “52 Humans” vlog cast, a live weekly video podcast on the human side of workplace experiences. He released his book in March of 2023, "Human Beings First - Practices for Empathetic, Expressive Leadership." Paul enjoys much of his time speaking to– and leading workshops for organizations, companies, and teams on various topics in HR and leadership.

Paul lives with his husband and their three dogs in New York.

Learn more and reach out at paulwolfe.com. You can also email Paul at pw@paulwolfe.com

Kausik Rajgopal

Kausik Rajgopal is PayPal’s Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, responsible for global workforce planning, talent acquisition and evaluation, compensation, benefits, learning and development, as well as culture, diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Kausik brings a unique blend of senior leadership experience and expertise in human resources, technology and payments to his role. Prior to joining PayPal, he spent nearly 15 years with McKinsey & Company leading the development of high-performing HR functions for global companies across industries and sectors. Most recently, he served as the firm’s co-Managing Partner for the United States office where he was responsible for HR-related priorities and initiatives. Kausik also helped advance and scale McKinsey’s fintech efforts in his time with the firm. He co-founded the Digital Payments Practice in 2005, led the firm’s global Payments Practice for five years and served as McKinsey’s global Fintech co-lead.

He serves as Chair of the Board and Executive Committee of the Bay Area Council, and is on the Leadership Council of California Forward. He was previously a board member for the World Affairs Council, the San Francisco Symphony and the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University.

Kausik earned his MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar and now serves as Vice Chair of the Advisory Council. He holds a Bachelor of Arts and Science in Political Science and Industrial Engineering from Stanford University.

Laila Salguero

Laila serves as Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) Officer and is responsible for working across Peraton’s sectors and functions to help align the company’s DE&I goals with measurable business outcomes. She is charged with establishing and executing programs that support enterprise DE&I efforts, including the company’s employee resource groups.

Prior to her current role, Laila served as Peraton’s vice president, corporate responsibility where she led the company’s ethics, compliance, quality, and risk management efforts. She previously served in a range of human resource leadership roles with aerospace, defense, national security, and government contracting companies.

Laila earned a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) from Strayer University and a Master’s degree in Organizational Development and Knowledge Management from George Mason University.

Renuka Iyer

Renuka Iyer is Chief People & Culture Officer at PhRMA. In her role, she develops PhRMA’s talent philosophy and implements HR and DEI strategies to drive organizational excellence and employee engagement. She has over three decades of global experience in human capital management in organizations ranging from start-ups to large companies, in the commercial and nonprofit sectors. She has held leadership roles with Infor-SoftBrands, Levi Strauss & Co., Population Services International, Grameen Foundation, and more recently the World Resources Institute, where she was the Chief Human Resources Officer. She has led diverse teams and worked with multiple countries across the Americas, Asia, Africa, and South America.

Renuka is a certified Senior Professional of Human Resources. She has an undergraduate degree in economics, undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary studies and a master’s in organizational development and knowledge management.

Jess Elmquist

As CHRO and Chief Evangelist, Jess Elmquist is leading Phenom’s global HR team as the company continues to rapidly hire, train and inspire new employees around the world. An accomplished HR professional, Jess has held multiple senior roles, including Chief Learning Officer & EVP of HR, Talent Acquisition at LifeTime, Inc. While at LifeTime, he was a passionate Phenom customer and an evangelist for why innovation in HR is imperative. Previously, he served as President and a Boardmember at TrueWell, Inc.

Jess earned a BA in Education from Bethel University and an MA in Organizational Psychology & Change Management from Columbia University in the city of New York. Jess is an inspirational speaker and trainer — most recently speaking at SXSW.

Jon Couture

Jon Couture is executive vice president and chief human resources officer (CHRO) of Principal Financial Group®. He oversees all aspects of human resources for more than 18,500 employees worldwide and is also responsible for Principal’s service operations in India and the Philippines.

Couture joined Principal in 2018 and has more than 25 years of experience in human resources. Previously, he was the executive vice president–human resources for consumer lending, payments, virtual channels, operations, and innovation at Wells Fargo. Prior to Wells Fargo, Couture was senior executive vice president of human resources for HSBC North America Holdings, Inc. He's held various CHRO and senior human resources leadership roles in a variety of industries and is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force.

Couture has a doctorate in human performance from the University of Southern California, a master’s degree in instructional and human performance technology from Boise State University, and a bachelor’s degree in management from Southern Illinois University.

Sheila Rostiac

Sheila Rostiac was named Senior Vice President Human Resources and Chief Human Resources Officer, effective September 2019. Ms. Rostiac leads the Human Resources team in delivering a rewarding employee experience that meets the evolving needs of a diverse workforce. She also serves as a strategic partner to the business in developing a talent pipeline to drive organizational success. In addition, she assumed the role of Chief Diversity Officer, merging the company’s diversity and inclusion efforts within the Human Resources organization, in January 2020. Ms. Rostiac is a member of the Executive Officer Group. Previously, Ms. Rostiac was vice president -Total Rewards and Talent Management. Ms. Rostiac joined PSEG in 1997 and has held a variety of management positions across finance and human resources. She also served as director-Corporate Responsibility and president of the PSEG Foundation. Ms. Rostiac also held key roles in global human resource management at Schering Plough and financial roles with Jersey Central Power & Light and Arthur Andersen & Co. Ms. Rostiac holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Lehigh University and a Master of Business Administration from Centenary College. Ms. Rostiac was formerly a Certified Public Accountant and is a SHRM-certified senior professional in human resources. She sits on the Executive Council of the Center for Energy Workforce Development. Active in the local community, Ms. Rostiac is corporate executive sponsor for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and serves on the Trustee Emeritus Council for Imagine, a grief support center. She is a former board member and treasurer for Lead New Jersey. Ms. Rostiac was a NJ Biz Best 50 Women in Business Honoree and is a Lead New Jersey fellow.

Shannon Schuyler

Shannon Schuyler is a Principal and PwC Americas’ Chief Purpose Officer and Corporate Responsibility (CR) Leader. She also serves a member of PwC’s Global CR Board and is the President of the PwC Charitable Foundation, Inc.

In her role as Chief Purpose Officer, Shannon is working to infuse Purpose into PwC’s core business strategy by elevating the global conversation on building trust, collaboration and acting with intention and meaning in every practice, service offering and engagement. She serves as a managing editor for Huffington Post's What's Working initiative and is helping to redefine the role of Purpose as a critical avenue for achieving business growth.

As the firm’s CR Leader, she designs and implements social and environmental programs that are scalable and aligned with PwC’s Purpose and strategic business priorities—helping to activate employee engagement, drive operational efficiencies, elevate stakeholder engagement and connectivity, and differentiate PwC’s brand in the marketplace.

Shannon has a deep understanding of social innovation, supply chain and pro bono programs, sustainability, youth education, financial literacy, employee engagement and effective cross-sector collaborations. She also spends a portion of her time with PwC’s Sustainable Business Solutions practice, working with clients on their approach to internal sustainability.

Shannon has spoken at the UN General Assembly, participated in G20 meetings, keynoted at the Social Innovation Summit and is widely recognized in her field as a game changer. She has been honored by Foreign Policy as a 2015 Global Thinker and was named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative Leaders in Business.

Shannon is a board member of numerous charitable organizations including The National Environmental Education Foundation and Leadership Greater Chicago.

Cecilia McKenney

Cecilia McKenney is Senior Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer for Quest Diagnostics. She is responsible for all human resources activities across the company.

Prior to joining Quest in February 2018, Ms. McKenney spent more than a decade at Frontier Communications, where she led the telecommunications company’s human resources function, as well as held senior leadership roles leading the Consumer Division and sales, marketing, business operations and customer service. Before Frontier, she served in various HR leadership roles at PepsiCo over a period of 16 years.

Ms. McKenney earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration at Franklin & Marshall College, and a Certified Employee Benefits Specialist certification from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.

Jalie Cohen

Jalie Cohen serves as Chief Human Resources Officer for Radiology Partners, where they are committed to transformative radiology leveraging AI and other technology to provide the best patient and clinical care.

Prior to joining Radiology Partners, Jalie was the SVP Global Talent for the Adecco Group, which included DEI, People Analytics, Talent Acquisition, Talent Management, Learning and Development, Wellbeing and the Talent Experience for their 50,000+ colleagues around the world. She is a seasoned human resources executive with more than two decades of experience leading global teams in matrixed environments. She has held various human resources executive and business partner roles while living in various locations throughout the US, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) and Latin America with Newell Brands and Centene.

Jalie is a member of the CNBC Workforce Executive Council. She serves as an advisor for SHRM Labs, and is a member of Chief and the Gartner CHRO Council. As a trusted industry expert, Jalie has been quoted or published in national publications such as Fast Company, HR Brew, Inc., US News & World Report, CNBC Make It and Investor’s Business Daily, and is often asked to speak on the evolution of the workplace. Due to her extensive business partner and enterprise wide transformation experience, she is also a highly requested executive coach for Fortune 500 C-Suite executives and Start Up CEOs.

Jalie received her BA in International Studies and Juris Doctorate from the University of South Carolina.

Smita Pillai

Smita Pillai is a global leader in the space of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion with an accomplished career spanning Life Sciences, Technology, Financial Services and Media. She is the Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer for Regeneron, one the world’s most innovative biotechnology company, based out of New York. In her role Smita is responsible for a comprehensive DE&I strategy and implementation at the company, ensuring that equity is at the heart of the company’s mission: Science to Medicine.

Prior to joining Regeneron, Smita held Global Head and CDO roles for a variety of multinational Fortune 50 and fast growing companies like Zendesk, Dow Jones, including The Wall Street Journal, Prudential Financial and Johnson & Johnson. In her career, Smita has led groundbreaking global diversity efforts and established clear metrics for DE&I measurement that have advanced this import work across multiple organizations. She has also been a founding board member for several global employee groups and has always approached this work with a trifecta impact on talent, business and community. Her holistic approach to DE&I seeks to create a climate of inclusion and belonging where innovation can thrive.

Smita is a well-recognized global thought leader and has received several awards and recognitions like the Top 100 DEI Leaders of Influence, Leadership Excellence Award Tri-State Diversity and Leadership, NY Moves Mentor, Diversity MBA Top 100 Under 50, Economic Times, Leaders executive profile, COLOR profile, for her outstanding achievements in community, leadership and education. An accomplished public speaker, Smita has led various global forums like the Women’s Economic Summit, SOCAP, Sundance Film Festival, WSJ Women In conference, WSJ CEO Council, Latina Style, HACR, Diversity Council, COLOR magazine, W.I.N Forum NY, The Conference Board, Working Mother Media, and Diversity Best Practices, among others.

Originally from India, Smita has a master’s degree in International Business from India, and a Wharton Executive Education on Strategic Management certification. She is a Certified Diversity Professional and considers herself a true global citizen, having worked across the globe and based in Mumbai, Dubai, Tokyo, Singapore, Florida, San Francisco and New York. She loves to spend time with her family, travel, practice yoga and run trails. Smita lives with her husband, their three children and their Rottweiler in their historic barn home in Central New Jersey.

Anna Avalos

Anna is SoFi’s Chief People Officer, responsible for the company’s total talent strategy. Her career spans large, global organizations with fast-paced growth environments, and she has a breadth of experience building teams and business. Prior to SoFi, Anna led HR for Tesla’s EMEA region. She previously spent 14 years at Stryker, where she began her career in product operations and business unit leadership before she transitioned into several HR functions. Anna holds a BA in Communications and an MBA from the University of Arizona.

Lori Spicer Robertson

Lori Spicer Robertson is a creative change agent always pursuing opportunities to transform lives and foster sustainable progress. As a natural connector and multi-hyphenate, she currently serves as the VP, Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, founder of The DEI Collective - an industry agnostic collaborative of DEI leaders creating more just work environments and communities, and the founder and Chief Joymaker of an experiential membership community created to reconnect women and mothers to a life of joy called Wundher. Most recently, she held the role of VP, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Saks Fifth Avenue to design a more inclusive experience for employees, customers, and partners. A thought leader on women and mothers; diversity, equity, and inclusion; leadership and authentic joy, Lori is sought after by companies, universities, and organizations annually to share her narrative. She is wife to her fellow community crusader Eric Robertson, mother to her amazing boys - Liam and Emory, and they all believe in their family motto to ‘live in your vision and not your circumstances’.

Jackson Lynch

Mr. Lynch has served as Sunnova’s Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) since May 2023. Mr. Lynch brings to Sunnova nearly 30 years of experience in various HR leadership roles, having served as the CHRO at multiple public and private companies. Prior to joining Sunnova, Mr. Lynch served as Senior Vice Presidentand CHRO of RentPath from 2016 to 2021, Vice President and CHRO of Blueline Rental from 2015 to 2016, and Senior Vice President and CHRO of Clearwater Paper Corporation from 2013-2015. Mr. Lynch has also served in HR roles at Nestlé and PepsiCo, and he has also run his own consulting firm, 90Consulting, where he advised boards of directors and senior management on issues related to executive compensation, organizational redesign, and M&A integration. Mr. Lynch received his Master of Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame and a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Western Washington University.

Adrienne Gemperle

Adrienne Gemperle has successfully led people functions for a large scale global Fortune 500 company as well as high-growth, disruptive, start-ups. Adrienne’s passion is to enable organizational success through building progressive, mission-driven culture where people thrive and grow.

Adrienne joins Sweetgreen from SoulCycle where she served as Chief People Officer. SoulCycle is a leading fitness brand differentiated by talent and its mission to “move people to move the world.” At SoulCycle, Adrienne led the talent strategy and built a people function for global expansion and the innovation and launch of the digital bike.

She served as CPO for Plated, reporting to the Founders and led the people strategy through a period of high-growth and positioning for sale. Plated is leading meal-kit service serving fresh, delicious meals to the US market through subscription and in-store pick up. Plated’s funding included investment on Shark Tank and was acquired by Alberstsons in 2018, making Plated Shark Tank's most profitable venture.

A former Starbucks executive, Adrienne spent 10 years in a variety of leadership roles serving as SVP HR, Partner Resources for the US and Americas, Global HR Operations and Head of Global Staffing. Adrienne led a dynamic team of over 150 HR professionals responsible for the partner experience strategy serving over 100,000 retail partners (employees) and 10,000 stores.

Adrienne holds a BA, Communications from Washington State University and a MS, Management from Antioch University. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband James and their two children Rachel and Max and two dogs Leo and Friday. They’re a family inspired by food, fitness and travel.

DJ Casto

DJ Casto Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Leader Our culture is truly special. We have created an environment where inclusion and development are not just initiatives, but enablers to our greatness.​David "DJ" Casto is Executive Vice President and Human Resources Leader of Synchrony. Previously, he served as​ Senior Vice President, Human Resources for the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer and their organizations consisting of 9,000+ Synchrony employees in 20 locations in the US, India, and the Philippines. ​He joined Synchrony in 2014 serving as HR Client Leader for the Corporate Governance Functions: Finance, Risk, Credit, Regulatory, Compliance, Legal and Internal Audit, where he helped manage the integration and separation from General Electric. DJ started his career at PepsiCo and held several roles of increasing responsibility within HR Field Operations. He later became Director of Labor Relations where he led labor and employee relations for the North America Beverages business, a division with over $14B in revenue. In that role, DJ managed all aspects of union awareness strategies and programs. After that, DJ served as Senior Director Global Organization Development responsible for global career development and succession planning. Highlights: Holds a BS in Business and MS in Industrial Relations from West Virginia University Serves on three Boards: The West Virginia University MSIR Executive Alumni Board BuildOn for Connecticut, an international nonprofit organization that runs youth service after school programs in the United States and builds schools in developing countries​JAG (Jobs for America's Graduates, a state-based national nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the educational and career pursuits of at-risk students across the country​.

Alan Winters

Alan Winters is Chief People Officer & Chief Diversity Officer for Teleperformance USA.

Linda Aldred

Linda Aldred is Texas Children's Hospital's, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer and also serves as the principal strategist and implementer for the People Strategies and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives across the Texas Children’s system.

Ms. Aldred has been an executive at Texas Children’s for nearly two decades. In addition to her Human Resources role, her tenure has also included leading marketing, public relations and community initiatives.
Her enthusiasm lies in fostering leadership development, enriching the employee experience and creating a compelling and inclusive environment where people can perform their work with fulfillment. Ms. Aldred characterizes her leadership approach as “thinking it big, leading it bigger and being the difference.” She is steadfast in her belief that an organization cannot attain preeminence without building and executing effective and meaningful people strategies that demonstrate and exemplify its brand and culture.

Ms. Aldred holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the University of Houston and a Master’s in Organizational Performance and Change from Colorado State University. Outside of work, Linda enjoys spending time with her family, hiking in international locations, and consuming leadership books and podcasts.

Dena Calo

Dena Calo is Executive Vice President of Human Resources & Employment Counsel for The Durst Organization .

Dale Nissenbaum

As General Counsel and Chief People Officer, Dale Nissenbaum is responsible for leading both the Legal and Compliance functions and LLS' Human Resources team. She is the liaison to the LLS Board of Directors for the executive leadership team and advises the Board on developing and maintaining best practices in corporate governance policies.

Dale has over 25 years of legal experience, developed at both public and private companies. Before joining LLS, she was the General Counsel, Americas, for Brunswick Group, a global critical communications firm, from 2012 to 2019. Before that, she was the General Counsel and Chief Human Resources Officer at a privately held manufacturing company. While in private practice, she was a mergers and acquisitions attorney at Weil.

She has a bachelor's degree in history and political science from the University of Pennsylvania and a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia University School of Law.

Taylor Bradley

Taylor is a seasoned HR executive deeply committed to shaping organizational talent strategy and fostering a culture of growth and technical innovation. Currently serving as the Head of HR Business Partners and Compensation at Turing, an AI-empowered Talent Cloud.

Taylor has experience working with late-stage, often founder-led, startups to craft and scale IPO-ready talent strategies, collaborating with notable organizations such as DocuSign (DOCU), Squarespace (SQSP), and Datto (MSP).

Taylor's personal experience as a Firefighter-Paramedic provided a foundation of people based assessment and diagnostics in dynamic and disruptive environments, and his business acumen allows him to uniquely balance organizational strategy with architecting the needed people capability and culture for success.

Taylor has a Master of Arts in HR Management from Seattle Pacific University and an MBA from the University of Cincinnati. Taylor and his wife, Michelle, are raising their two young children and spending their time in D.C. and Florida.

Greg Cunningham

Greg Cunningham is Senior Executive Vice President & Chief Diversity Officer for U.S. Bank.

Pat Wadors

Pat Wadors serves as chief people officer of UKG. In this role, Pat’s day to day responsibilities are driven by her deep commitment to the entire employee experience — starting from a job candidate’s first touch with UKG to building a strong alumni network of brand and culture ambassadors — and all the moments that matter in between. Pat oversees the critical HR functions that bring this experience to life, including talent acquisition and development, compensation and benefits, employee listening and people analytics, employee communications, HR technology, HR business consultants and shared services, and components of workplaces services and physical security. Her personal mission is to ensure that U Krewers around the world are better people for having worked at UKG.

Known for transformational and strategic HR leadership, Pat believes that organizations thrive when they have a blend of people with differing backgrounds and ways of thinking, and who feel they belong as a contributor to the company’s success. As a multiple recipient of the National Diversity Council’s Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology, Pat is a frequent speaker on HCM, diversity, and inclusion issues, and has served on the board of several prominent technology companies. Prior to UKG, Pat served as CPO of Procore Technologies, and has held multiple leadership roles at ServiceNow, LinkedIn, Plantronics, Inc., and Yahoo!

Tracey Power

Tracey Power isn’t your typical human resources professional. In fact, she describes herself as a business person first and foremost, and an HR person second. Her first priority is growing, protecting and tending the vital resources that ensure our company’s measured success.

Spoiler alert: it’s people.
As our Chief People Officer, Tracey spends her days focused on the hearts, minds, souls and goals of the Vaco Planet. She brings people, culture and business strategy together to create a pretty amazing place to work, populated by genuine, hand-picked humans who are committed to doing the right things for our customers. Our signature over-the-top client service experience begins with Tracey’s commitment to doing the right thing for our employees and consultants, so they can do the right thing for our customers.

Prior to joining the Vaco executive team, Tracey served as Manager of Training and Internal Communications for Affinion Group, Assistant Vice President of Professional Development for J.C. Bradford & Co, and Executive Vice President of Human Resources for Comdata Corporation/Stored Value Solutions. She’s been a proud Vacotian since 2015 and is currently an adjunct faculty member of Lipscomb University College of Business teaching Talent Management Strategy and Organizational Behavior.

Tracey holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and an M.Ed. from Vanderbilt University. She is a certified executive coach (PCC) through the International Coaching Federation, Tennessee Rule 31 Mediator, Global (GPHR) and Senior Human Resource Professional (SPHR) by the HR Certification Institute and Senior Certified Professional (SCP) with the Society of Human Resource Management. Tracey volunteers for various community organizations, including serving on the board of Impact100 Nashville and as a member of the American Heart Association’s Circle of Red.

Christina Schelling

Christina Schelling is a highly influential global HR executive recognized for her expertise in talent and culture with proven success working across different industries including technology/telecom, financial services, consulting, government and prestige beauty.

As the Chief Talent and Diversity Officer for Verizon, she oversees all talent practices including acquisition, learning and career development, talent management, succession planning, DEI and more for over 120,000 employees globally.

Christina and her team leverage data science and market intelligence to create people strategies that ensure Verizon has the current and future capabilities to win. By helping to sustain a differentiating and inclusive culture, Christina's team works to enable a V Team who continue to exceed the expectations of Verizon's customers, shareholders, employees and society for today and tomorrow.

Prior to her current role, Christina was the Head of HR for Global Corporate Functions at The Estee Lauder Companies. She also served in multiple global executive roles in the talent, DEI and HRBP space at Prudential and American Express. Early in her career she worked in federal government intelligence and management consulting.

Kelly Tullier

Kelly Mahon Tullier is vice chair, chief people and administrative officer of Visa. Ms. Mahon Tullier serves as corporate secretary, and leads Visa’s people, communications and corporate services functions, including real estate, aviation, security and global events.

Previously in her tenure at Visa, Ms. Mahon Tullier served as General Counsel, leading the Legal and Compliance function for the Company. In that role, she was a key negotiator of Visa’s $23 billion acquisition of Visa Europe and has led the Company through a variety of complex legal, regulatory and compliance matters globally. In 2021, Ms. Mahon Tullier took on the additional responsibilities of stewarding the communications, corporate services and people organizations. In her current role, Kelly is responsible for driving an exemplary 360-degree experience to attract and retain top talent, while creating a safe and engaging physical environment that enables all Visa employees to thrive and grow.

Prior to joining Visa, Ms. Mahon Tullier worked at PepsiCo, Inc. as senior vice president and deputy general counsel. She also served as senior vice president and general counsel for PepsiCo's Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa division, based in Dubai.

Previously, Ms. Mahon Tullier was vice president and general counsel for Frito-Lay, Inc. Earlier in her career, she was an associate at BakerBotts LLP and also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Sidney A. Fitzwater, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas.

Donna Morris

Donna Morris is executive vice president and chief people officer for Walmart Inc. A member of the executive committee, Donna is responsible for attracting, retaining and developing talent for one of the world’s largest private employers.

Donna has nearly 20 years of leadership experience in delivering innovative people solutions, developing and managing teams that operate in an agile way, and helping to build a high-performance culture that promotes diversity and inclusion. Donna joined Walmart from Adobe, where she served as chief human resources officer and executive vice president of employee experience.

A native of Ottawa, Canada, Donna joined Adobe in 2002 and most recently led all aspects of the company’s human resources, real estate and security operations. She led a number of workplace-friendly initiatives at Adobe, including expanding its family leave policy and simplifying standard HR processes.

Donna has a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Carleton University. Donna holds the Society for Human Resource Management – Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP), Senior HR Professional (SHRP) and Canadian Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP) designations. In 2022, Donna joined the Board of Trustees at Fordham University in New York.

Donna and her husband, Wayne, live in Northwest Arkansas. They have one son, Kyle, who lives in New York.

Elisa Wyman

Human Resource executive with over 20 years of global experience in both corporate and consulting environments. Specialized in partnering with C-Suite and Board of Directors, to establish HR and rewards strategy that are aligned with overall business objectives while ensuring all related programs support the business strategy, are easily communicated to employees, and drives engagement.

Danielle McMahan

Danielle leads our People and Business Operations teams, overseeing data-driven and outcomes-focused strategies to ensure that we are fostering both customer and colleague satisfaction. Knowing that people are the heart of Wiley, she is committed to helping colleagues succeed at work and win at life.

Danielle joined Wiley with over 20 years of experience in human resources and an impressive track record implementing strategies that foster a culture of innovation, empowerment and success. She joins us from the private insurance provider York Risk, where she served as Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer. While supporting the company’s global workforce, she led a culture and technology transformation, designed and implemented a multi-year benefits strategy, and deployed a new employee-centric human resource delivery model. During her tenure, York was ranked among Forbes America’s Best Midsize Employers in 2018 and 2019.

Prior to joining York, she served in a wide range of human resources leadership roles at multinational organizations including American Express Global Business Travel, ADP, and Citibank. Danielle holds a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Barnard College, and she earned a Master of Arts in organizational psychology from Columbia University. Danielle is originally from Somers, New York and is based at Wiley’s global headquarters in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Kelly Rooney

Kelly Rooney is the Vice President, People Solutions leading WM’s field human resources team. Kelly is a second-generation waste & recycling industry executive with more than thirty years of immersive experience. Her career includes progressive leadership responsibility across all business functions including Operations, Fleet, Sales, Customer Experience and M&A.

In her current role, Kelly is responsible for the execution of frontline employee retention, driving culture, change management, strategic coaching, talent assessment and development, succession planning, performance management and organizational design strategy to support field operations. Prior roles at WM include Area General Manager and Area Director of Collection Operations. Kelly also held several positions at Advanced Disposal including Corporate Director of Recycling and Regional General Manager with multi-state responsibility. Kelly earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Roanoke College, and a Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga University.

KeyAnna Schmiedl

KeyAnna Schmiedl is Workhuman\'s Chief Human Experience Officer, responsible for guiding all of the organization’s human experience strategy, including talent, total rewards, learning and development, culture and employee experience, organizational design, corporate social responsibility, and DEI initiatives. Previously, KeyAnna was the VP of Social and Environmental Impact (SEI) at Mozilla, the global head of Culture & Inclusion at Wayfair, and worked with top organizations such as Harvard University, Santander Bank, and IBISConsulting.

KeyAnna has received the industry’s esteemed Diversity Leader Award granted by the Diversity Journal® due to her stand-out work in creating an open, equitable, and inclusive workplace culture. KeyAnna was also featured on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list and was named a DEI Trailblazer by Business Insider in 2021.

Her superpowers include navigating complex structures to grow relationships and opportunities, connecting key stakeholders, assessing organizational readiness to allow for dialogue on DEI and people process topics at appropriate levels for all constituencies, and challenging/equipping leaders to move from careful to thoughtful conversations.

KeyAnna holds an Advanced Graduate Certificate in Organizational Learning & Development from Suffolk University, an MBA in Human Resource Management, and a Bachelor of Science in Human Services from Fitchburg State University. KeyAnna resides in the Greater Boston area with her husband, two boys, and a growing menagerie of pets.

Michelle Burroughs

Dr. Burroughs is an accomplished senior leader with over twenty years of experience building strategic frameworks and leading collaborative environments. She is a proven influencer of transparency and change, as she has a demonstrated ability to identify gaps and offer evidence-based recommendations. In 2006, Dr. Burroughs had the opportunity to assist with chartering the first Associate Resource Group at Bank of America in Delaware and traveled to multiple locations (e.g. Philadelphia, New Jersey, Maryland, and Washington D.C.) to assist with launching additional resource groups. She prides herself with leading the charge to establish success metrics, committees, and strategic frameworks that showcase the true benefit of productive resource groups. This has since become a common practice. She has since served in multiple senior leadership roles at organizations where she was responsible for building strategic frameworks that integrated risk management, community engagement, or diversity, equity, and inclusion into organizational culture.

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Dr. Burroughs has spoken publicly about racial health disparities, including at the 2020 Voices of Hope program at the Philadelphia Children’s Museum in partnership with The Mann Center. She openly shares her personal experiences with health inequities as a black mother who suffered a preterm loss at five months pregnant and three sudden family deaths during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In response to the social unrest in 2020, Dr. Burroughs spearheaded the development of a virtual panel discussion geared toward addressing trauma and stress for children. Her initiative, “What Do We Say to Our Kids” had over 50,000 views over the course of three days, providing tools and resources to parents seeking assistance with conversations about quarantine, racial trauma, and other mental health concerns. She was also responsible for developing and executing a process to address COVID-19 vaccination rate gaps in New Castle County, Delaware. The results of her work produced vaccine rates in black and brown communities that were higher than the national average.

Advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion for the improvement of opportunities, health, treatment, and quality of life is what drives the work of Dr. Burroughs. She prides herself in challenging others to “do human better".
Dr. Burroughs is a resident of Newtown, Pa. where she lives with her husband and two daughters. She is an active member of the community, serving as a member of the Bucks County chapter of the NAACP, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and is a member of the Equity Leadership Team for the Pennsbury School District. Dr. Burroughs is also a member of the Forum for Executive Women and represents WSFS on the Pennsylvania Diversity Council Board of Directors. She currently serves on the boards of the United Way of Bucks County, Health Care Improvement Foundation, and Maternity Care Coalition and was recently appointed by the Governor of Pennsylvania to serve as a Commissioner for the Early Learning Investment Commission in 2022.

She received her doctorate in educational leadership from Delaware State University, her master’s in business administration from Pennsylvania State University, holds an international certification as a Professional Master Life Coach, and is also credentialed by Cornell University as a Cornell Certified Diversity Professional.

Susie McDaniel

Susie McDaniel is Senior Vice President, Human Resources for Wynn & Encore Las Vegas.

Carolyn Roach

Carolyn Roach brings over 20 years of senior experience to her leadership of XPO’s human resources organization, including executive roles with prominent companies in the industrial and financial services sectors. Prior to XPO, Ms. Roach lead global talent management and diversity and inclusion at JELD-WEN, Inc. and held earlier human resources leadership positions with Corning and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. She began her career with Arthur Andersen. Ms. Roach holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from University of Notre Dame and a master’s degree in strategic human resources and organizational design from Cornell University. She is also a graduate of the Harvard Business School executive education program.