2022 Speakers

Partner at nexxworks, inspiring organisations to act on their Day After Tomorrow. When markets speed up, organisations have to think further ahead. Not just about Today and Tomorrow but about their Day After Tomorrow. That’s because focussing on radical innovation is what offers the most long term value: it’s what changes entire markets, industries and even the world.

Celeste Headlee is an internationally recognized journalist and radio host, professional speaker and bestselling author of We Need To Talk: How To Have Conversations That Matter,  Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving, Speaking of Race: Why Everyone Needs to Talk About Racism and How to Do It., and her latest, You’re Cute When You’re Mad. She is host of Newsweek’s “Debate” podcast and “Women Amplified,” a podcast from the Conferences for Women, and president and CEO of Headway DEI, a non-profit that works to bring racial justice and equity to journalism and media through targeted training and interventions, and serves on the board for the National Center of Race Amity. Her TEDx Talk, 10 Ways to Have a Better Conversation, has been viewed over 26 million times.

Before becoming an academic Blyth has been variously, a stand-up comedian, a chef, and a funk bass player. Realizing that such pursuits where long options at best, he finished his PhD. in political science at Columbia University in 1999. He then joined the Johns Hopkins University before moving to Brown University in 2009. His research focuses upon the causes of stability and change in the economy and why people continue to believe stupid economic ideas despite buckets of evidence to the contrary. The power of economic ideas is a common theme in Blyth’s work, as seen in his award-winning Book Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea (New York: Oxford University Press 2015) and in his new projects on the economic legacies of the baby boomers and the politics of low growth. When not writing, he still likes to cook, and he recently has become a serious cocktail mixologist, which eases the pain of the stuff he writes about.

Dimitra is Executive Vice President, Chief Purpose Officer of S&P Global. She oversees People, Marketing, Corporate Responsibility, DEI, and Communications. She serves as a board member at S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, S&P Global Foundation, and the British American Business Inc. where she also serves on the Nominating and Compensation Committee.

A bold, inspirational leader, Dimitra is known for leading award-winning teams through transformations. She is a trusted advisor to CEOs, executive teams, and boards of directors on business, compensation, organizational change, diversity, talent strategies, M&A, and crisis management.

Dimitra is renowned for leading a “People First” experience that continues to make a lasting impact on people, customers, and local communities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dimitra co-led the S&P Global COVID-19 Steering Committee and informed the CEO and Board of Directors on critical business continuity decisions. Building on extensive experience leading business transformations, Dimitra acts as executive sponsor for strategic initiatives that drive business growth or build foundational capabilities. She was a member of the steering committee for S&P Global’s merger with IHS Markit and is leading integration for People, Marketing, Corporate Responsibility, DEI, and Communications.

Johanna Söderström leads all aspects of the company’s global people strategy to enable its overall growth, innovation and transformation agenda. A member of Tyson Foods’ enterprise leadership team, Johanna reports to President and Chief Executive Officer Donnie King. Johanna brings more than two decades of experience in global people solutions, employee engagement and talent development to Tyson Foods. She most recently served as Senior Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer at The Dow Chemical Company and oversaw the company’s cultural and organizational transformation through the DowDuPont merger and spin-off. She previously led global compensation and benefits at Huhtamaki, a global sustainable food packaging company. Her career began in Finland at Ericsson and she has also held HR roles in Germany and Switzerland. Johanna holds a master’s in economics from the Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland, as well as the Society for Human Resource Management Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP) credential. She is a member of the board of Neste, the world’s largest producer of renewable diesel and jet fuel from waste and residues. 

A recognized human resource executive known for crafting the strategic vision to achieve business goals through the investment in people. Quentin offers a unique blend of executive acumen, critical evaluation skills, and ethical leadership. Quentin raises leadership performance through transformative interactions and delivering results by aligning human resource initiatives with business goals, increased levels of employee engagement, and increased company metric performance. A graduate of the University of Maryland with a Bachelor of Science in Human Resources and Psychology, the Wharton School of Business Executive Ed, and the Darden School of Business Executive Development Programs. A certified Executive Coach with the Institute of Professional and Executive Coaches (IPEC). 

Rhonda Spencer believes she has the best job in the world. As Barry-Wehmiller’s Chief People Officer, Spencer leads a team of professionals whose central role is sustaining the organization’s vision of measuring success by the way they touch the lives of people. Spencer’s team focuses on inspiring personal growth of the $3B global organization’s 12,000 team members, cultivating leaders in all corners of the firm, and fostering a culture where caring for people and performing with excellence have become the foundations of their success.

Spencer began her journey with Barry-Wehmiller in 1991 as an engineer but was quickly promoted to VP of Sales. In 1999, Barry-Wehmiller’s visionary CEO Bob Chapman tapped Spencer to create a team to help transform the traditional manufacturing firm’s culture. Under Spencer’s leadership, the Organizational Empowerment Team initiated innovative continuous improvement and sales motivation programs as well as the organization’s internal leadership development institute, Barry-Wehmiller University. Spencer assumed the newly created role of CPO in June 2014 as the organization merged Culture and People Development (traditionally known as HR) and Organizational Empowerment to harmonize cultural initiatives and fully engage the global talents of both teams.

RJ and his team accelerate business impact by providing the data-driven insights, research and products that ignite opportunity, improve productivity and increase wellbeing. RJ’s responsibilities include people analytics and research for Uber’s global businesses and People functions, people data infrastructure, and people data privacy & security policies. RJ brings 20 years of global experience improving organizational performance through evidence-based talent strategies.

Prior to joining Uber, RJ led the people analytics teams at McKesson and Chevron. He has also held leadership positions in HR, Product, Operations and Sales at Equifax, Citrix Systems, and CEB (now Gartner). He started his career as an investment banker at Citigroup. RJ earned his BA in International Relations from Rhodes College, and MA degrees in International Relations and International Economics from The Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies. RJ received the Bersin by Deloitte What Works Award for Transforming HR and the Human Resource Executive Top HR Product of the Year. His work has appeared in Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other books, articles and podcasts.

Sue reports to the CHRO and is responsible for leading the center of excellence and shaping the future of TCCC’s workforce by developing and executing the company’s long-term people, analytics and engagement strategy. She is responsible for developing and leading global culture and change management efforts on the company’s journey to emerge stronger after significant organizational change. Prior to joining the company, Sue was the global head of HR diagnostics for Shell, based in Houston, Texas. In her role, she managed a global center of excellence in HR strategy, learning and organizational effectiveness. Sue was responsible for the overall development and execution of the company’s assessment and analytics strategy to accelerate the change in people and their business with the goal of creating more and cleaner energy solutions. Throughout her career, Sue has held additional roles with various organizations, including APQC, where she led HR and human capital management projects with a focus on best practices, benchmarking, organizational surveys, strategy formulation and development, and thought leadership. Sue has also held leadership roles with other organizations, including Psychology Beyond Borders and University of California at Irvine. Sue received dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Psychology and History from UCLA. She also received her Master’s in Social Ecology and a Ph.D. in Social and Personality Psychology from UCI. Sue holds SHRM-CP, PHR and various assessment certifications. 

Tyronne is currently at Hyatt Hotels Corporation, a global hospitality company with widely recognized, industry leading brands and a tradition of innovation developed over its more than 60-year history. At Hyatt Stoudemire collaborates with senior leadership team to implement culture, talent, and marketplace strategies that leverage diversity and inclusion globally growing the enterprise wide across brand portfolio. He is the Co-Chair, of Hyatt’s Global Diversity Equity and Inclusion Counsel (GDEIC). Tyronne, has received several accommodations and awards just to name a few: he was named one of the Top Executives in Diversity by Black Enterprise Magazine; and honored as one of the 50 Diversity Champions by Diversity Woman Magazine.

Laurie Leibach serves as SVP of Human Resources for the Consumer Products Division of L’Oréal USA. She is responsible for developing and executing the people strategy to attract and develop diverse talent, continually build capabilities, and lead cultural transformation to drive employee engagement and enablement in collaboration with business leaders. Previously, Laurie served as Vice President of Human Resources for L’Oréal’s newest acquisition, NYX Professional Makeup, based in southern California from 2015 to 2017. In this role she was responsible for the onboarding and integration of this digitally native brand into L’Oréal USA. Prior to joining L’Oréal, Laurie served as Vice President of Human Resources for Destination Maternity Corporation.

In Jennifer’s role, she oversees the Human Resources, Internal Communications, and Real Estate and Workplace teams. She also has responsibility for Bolt’s Conscious Culture organization which is transforming corporate culture and defining the future of work. Prior to Bolt, Jennifer was the Chief Human Resources Officer at Twitter. She led both the global People and Real Estate and Workplace teams and worked with the executive management team as well as the board of directors to support the strategic direction of the company. Prior to joining Twitter, Jennifer was the Senior Vice President and head of HR for the Global Consumer Services Group at American Express. In this role, she was responsible for developing and executing the talent, organizational, and leadership strategy for the business. Prior to this role, Jennifer was the Vice President and HR Business Partner for Enterprise Growth Group. In her first three years with American Express, she served as Chief Diversity Officer and Vice President, Global Executive Recruitment and was responsible for developing the company’s global diversity and inclusion strategy while leading executive level recruitment for all business and staff groups worldwide. Before joining American Express, Jennifer was a consultant at a leading executive search firm and also spent two years as a Special Assistant to the President of the United States in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. Earlier in her career, she was an associate at Booz Allen Hamilton in their organizational design and change management practice and worked for more than a decade at several federal government agencies to support community safety and security programs and implement offender re-entry initiatives. She is a member of the board of directors for Special Love, a non-profit organization that supports children with cancer and their families. She has previously served as a member of the board of directors for both the Prevent Cancer Foundation and Compass Family Services. Jennifer received a master’s degree in criminal justice from The George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

René has 12+ years of experience in the pharmaceutical and life science industry with Novartis, Merck and Boehringer Ingelheim. He is passionate about building the bridge between business- and talent strategy, to create a competitive advantage for organizations. At Novartis he is currently heading up the global skill-based Strategic Workforce Planning practice, while also leading the enterprise-wide work on developing a skills management approach. He has been recognized as Top People Analytics Leader to watch out for in 2022. He has a strong academic background with an MBA with distinction from IE Business School. He has lived and worked across the US, Europe and Asia.  

Dr. Serena Huang is a thought leader and international keynote speaker in people analytics, HR technology, future of work, and employee experience with deep expertise spanning large multinationals including GE, Kraft Heinz and Deloitte. Her monthly newsletter ‘From Data to Action’ currently has thousands of subscribers. As a data analytics executive and one of the Top HR Leaders to Watch in 2022, Dr. Huang is passionate about building high-performing global teams and helping business leaders see data as an asset in large organizations. Her recent interviews appeared on People Matters, Data Chief podcast, AllVoices podcast, HR Leaders podcast, Workforce.com and Rallyware.

Casper Moerck has an established global career as a leader in the talent management space. He has consulted on learning, leadership development, and onboarding for large companies for years and has worked in the renewable energy sector for companies like Vestas & Siemens, as well as manufacturing and logistics being responsible Learning Technology, Learning Operations and the overall L&D space.

His career has exposed him to most aspects of talent management from instructional design of new hire programs, LEAN and leadership programs to strategy development, rewards and recognition management, talent acquisition, employee experience, learning process & infrastructure optimization and corporate university development.

He currently works for Dematic, where he leads the global L&D function as well as leading the change management center of excellence. Casper holds a Masters Degree in psychology and a Masters Degree in Business Administration from University of Roskilde in Denmark.

In her role, Carrie is responsible for leading the design and execution of Fannie Mae’s Total Rewards strategy targeted at attracting, retaining, engaging, and rewarding talent in support of meeting the short-term and long-term workforce needs of the company and reports to the Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer. Prior to her present appointment, Carrie was the VP of Global Total Rewards and People Operations at Medidata Solutions. She was responsible for directing global compensation, benefits, equity, sales compensation, and people operations functions. Before that, she was a leader in Total Rewards for The Winebow Group, The Advisory Board Company, and the MidAtlantic Employers’ Association. Her work has included designing pay structures, job architecture systems, and compensation processes, along with providing compensation consulting services to clients. She designed and administered a holistic wellness program to promote employee mental, physical, and financial health; and delivered home-based self-care programs for a newly remote employee population due to COVID-19. Carrie is active on the Board of Directors since 2012 for Touch the Nations. She has also served as a Pro Bono Consultant at the Children’s Law Center from 2015-2020, Reading Connection from 2014-2018, and KIPP Charter Schools in Atlanta and Austin from 2013-2014. Education: Ms. Theisen has a Bachelor of Science in human resources from the University of Nebraska and has both her Senior and Global Professional in Human Resources certifications.

Dr. Iris Ware is an impact-focused Human Capital Strategist and Transformation Navigator with experience in senior-level leadership, managerial and consultant roles in domestic and international organizations as well as the public, private and non-profit sectors. She is best known for building collaborative relationships, leading change, and designing strategically aligned accelerated learning. 

Blair is responsible for the Global TA Centers of Expertise and overall success of campus, professional and executive hiring. Blair’s vast experience spans across not only recruiting but also politics. After her first job in political consulting, Blair took the leap into recruiting at Korn/Ferry International. Her next big move was to Walmart where she joined their in-house executive TA team. In 2019, she joined PepsiCo with a goal for talent to recognize PepsiCo as an employer of choice and to create a candidate experience that embodies PepsiCo’s mission to Create More Smiles! 

Kyle leads all of GM’s go to market functions in global talent acquisition and plays a critical role in driving transformation of the recruiting operations. Previously, Lagunas was Research Director of Emerging Trends and Technologies in Talent Acquisition at IDC, Director of Strategy for Beamery, HR Innovation Analyst for Software Advice by Gartner and Founder & Principal Analyst of Lighthouse Research.

Lydia is on a mission to unleash the power of an organization’s most valuable resource – its people! She does this by firmly integrating the organization’s Human Capital with their Operational and Financial outcomes through the deep understanding and application of people analytics. Driven by her curiosity for all things related to organizational behavior, Lydia has developed an instinctive understanding of the talent related challenges faced by organizations at various stages of growth. She combines the art of human and organizational behavior with the sciences of explorative and causal research and analysis to derive meaningful insights that enable the organization’s human capital strategy and business outcomes. Lydia is skilled at focusing on the big picture strategy while driving tactical execution. Her experience in conducting organizational research, analyzing various types of data, and collaborating with both technical experts and business executives has given her the unique ability to derive crucial insights and drive strategies that impact the bottom-line. She is also a strong proponent of a data and insights-driven approach to human capital management. This approach has enabled her to successfully partner with 20+ organizations across North America on their various transformation journeys by serving as a trusted advisor and coach. Lydia is currently Head of Talent Analytics and Transformation at Panasonic North America, where she has built the people analytics practice from the ground-up and is now focused on driving transformation through the adoption and application of analytics on all talent related topics. 

Keith E. Sonderling was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on September 22, 2020, to be a Commissioner on the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  In this capacity, he is responsible for enforcing federal laws that prohibit discrimination against job applicants and employees because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetic information.  Commissioner Sonderling previously served as the Acting and Deputy Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division at the U.S. Department of Labor. Prior to that, he was a partner at the Gunster Law Firm in Florida, where he practiced labor and employment law.  

Shakti Jauhar is a digital transformation leader, global cross functional executive and board member. He is and a data-driven executive recognized for his operational expertise in manufacturing, information technology, finance and human resources. Known as a transformational leader, he has a track record of setting clear strategies, driven by rigorous analytics and insights. Shakti leverages technology innovation across geographies to optimize business processes delivering technical competencies, costs reductions and increased efficiencies. Mr. Jauhar’s successes include leading Digital Transformation and Automation in multiple functions and companies including PepsiCo, Reliance, and ABB. Recently he served as Senior Vice President for PepsiCo Global Human Resources and Shared Services and led their strategic HR digital transformation. During this time, he established technology, global operations, and shared services across 83 countries with 300,000 employees for PepsiCo’s HR function. Shakti recently co-founded a new venture ‘Mechanism Wellness’ which is a personalized digital employee wellness program based functional medicine principles with big goals to help people optimize their health and ultimately bend the Healthcare cost curve. Acknowledged for his accomplishments, Mr. Jauhar has received numerous awards for his transformational work, including HRO Today’s 2014 Superstar, Outstanding 50 Asian American award in 2016 by the AABD and SAP’s Klaus Tricia Award for Breakthrough Thinking, Simplicity and Boldness in 2017. In 2018, he was featured in the book Talent Wins by Ram Sharan covering his human resources digital transformation work. Mr. Jauhar sits on the board and is a compensation committee chair at World Education Services. He is also on the advisory board of Censia and Acadian Ventures. He is actively involved in many philanthropic works and generously shares his expertise and time in mentoring emerging talents. Mr. Jauhar earned his Bachelor of Engineering, Electrical, Electronics and Telecommunications. 

Roz Francuz-Harris (she/her/hers) is a global recruitment and talent acquisition leader, currently at Zillow, as the Head of Recruiting for engineering and product, tech, and early and emerging talent. Roz has developed a reputation for building diverse recruiting teams at companies and strives to impact those same communities through hiring initiatives, development opportunities, and retention motivated programing. She has previously worked at some of the largest enterprise and fastest growing companies, including WarnerMedia, Slack and Uber. 

Over the past 20 years, Andrew has built a unique HR leadership portfolio through his experience in leading successful global businesses, transformation of organizations and delivering professional services. Always with the aspiration to develop and succeed with the fusion of embracing new challenges, he continuously strives to deliver and exceed industry visions. Andrew anchors himself in the simple principles of development, delivery and drive whilst his energy is firmly rooted in solving challenges. 

Stephanie Lepori is Chief Administrative and Accounting Officer of Caesars Entertainment. Holding dual responsibilities of Human Resources and Accounting, Ms. Lepori has leveraged her expertise, in both areas to play a transformative role in shaping growth initiatives for the largest gaming company in the United States. Caesars Entertainment is a $30B company with more than 50 destinations and 50,000+ Team Members, with over 43% of the headcount being unionized, representing over 120 Unique Collective Bargaining Agreements.

Over the last five years, Ms. Lepori let the HR function for Eldorado Resorts through unprecedented M&A activity that culminated in the acquisition of Caesars Entertainment and William Hill in the last two years. Since then, she’s brought together the companies to align on culture, building a cohesive vision an integrating the businesses to new technology platforms that are transformative to the HR function and improve the Team Member experience.

Ms. Lepori’s incredible financial acumen, paired with her Team Member centric approach, has benefited Caesars by redesigning and launching an all-new Mission, Vision and Values and a best-in-class approach to its new benefits and wellness programs.

With more than two decades of experience in finance, Ms. Lepori joined the Company formally known as Eldorado Resorts in 1995 with the opening of Silver Legacy Casino Resort in Reno. As Chief Accounting Officer, Ms. Lepori now oversees all functions of corporate finance, accounting, SEC reporting, insurance placement, and the Company’s internal collaboration between internal audit, compliance and risk departments. Before joining Caesars Entertainment, Ms. Lepori began her career with Arthur Anderson LLP in Las Vegas.

Ms. Lepori has a passion for community work and is honored to serve in a number of pivotal board roles. She currently serves on the Boys and Girls Club of Truckee Meadows Board of Directors, Renown Health’s Compliance and Audit Committee, and is a Trustee for Unite Here’s Health Plan. She is also Vice-Chair of Caesars Foundation.

Ms. Lepori earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting and Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors from the University of Southern California. She is a Certified Public Accountant and a member of the Nevada Society of CPA’s.

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research covering Next Generation Apps and Human Capital Management. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell side firms and technology buyers.

Coverage Areas

• Future of Work, Human Capital Management
• Tech Optimization & Next Generation Apps

Madeline Laurano is the founder and chief analyst of Aptitude Research. For over 18 years, Madeline’s primary focus has been on the HCM market, specializing in talent acquisition and employee experience. Her work helps companies both validate and re-evaluate their strategies and understand the role technology can play in driving business outcomes. She has watched HCM transform from a back-office function to a strategic company initiative with a focus on partnerships, experience and efficiency.

Before founding Aptitude Research, Madeline held research roles at Aberdeen, Bersin by Deloitte, ERE Media and Brandon Hall Group. She is the co-author of Best Practices in Leading a Global Workforce and is often quoted in leading business publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Yahoo News, The New York Times and The Financial Times. She is a frequent presenter at industry conferences including the HR Technology Conference and Exposition, SHRM, IHRIM, HCI’s Strategic Talent Acquisition conference, Unleash, GDS International’s HCM Summit, and HRO Today.

Luciana led Employee Experience at HP until April 2022. In this role, she oversaw HP’s culture, employee communications, engagement, social impact, change management, and employer brand. With 25+ years of experience, Luciana specializes in helping corporate leaders achieve business results by driving culture and engaging employees with the company, their colleagues, and their work through effective programs and communications. Luciana has led both internal and external communications teams. Prior to joining HP in 2015, Luciana spent four years at Apple. Before that, she was at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Luciana began her career at Sapient. She consulted for MIT, Merck, and Manulife, among other clients. Luciana has twice received the prestigious International Association of Business Communicators’ Gold Quill Award. She has a BA in English and Anthropology from Amherst College and an MBA from Boston University, both with high honors. 

Kristen Weirick is a developer of people and teams. For 20+ years she has partnered with company leadership across varying industries as a talent expert, to define and implement strategies that leverage talent resources to drive growth initiatives and create an enviable culture where all talent can thrive. Currently she is Vice President, Global Talent Acquisition and Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Alcon, the global leader in eye care, dedicated to helping people see brilliantly. Alcon has more than 23,000 associates globally and a 70-year heritage in surgical and vision care. Kristen defines and delivers global strategies to ensure Alcon has the best talent at all levels. Similarly, she partners with leaders and associates across the organization to create a diverse and inclusive environment that fosters innovation and drives performance. Prior to Alcon, Kristen held the role of Global Head of Talent Acquisition and Chief Diversity Officer at United Airlines. As part of an integrated Talent Team, she delivered holistic strategies that attracted, assessed, hired, engaged and developed the best talent to make United a leader in the airline industry and to propel them to further growth. With more than 90,000 employees globally, Kristen ensured United focused on mirroring the customer base it serves while creating an inclusive environment, supporting workforce development and increasing overall representation. Prior to United, Kristen was the Vice President, Global Talent Acquisition and Diversity and Inclusion at AbbVie, a research-driven biopharmaceutical company committed to developing innovative advanced therapies for some of the world’s most complex and critical conditions. In this global role she led talent acquisition and development, executive recruitment, employer branding, diversity recruiting and the development and implementation of assessment and selection methodologies. She is focused on creating an organization that delivers long-term, sustainable performance and attracts and retains the best talent in the marketplace. Under Kristen’s leadership, AbbVie moved up more than 20 places on DiversityInc’s Top 50 list, was ranked in the top 10 on Working Mother Magazine’s Best Employer list and was ranked #6 of the Top 25 Workplaces in the World by the Great Place to Work Institute. Prior to Abbott, Kristen and was Global Leader, Recruiting, Employer Branding, and Onboarding Strategy at Cargill, an international producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial, and industrial products and services. Prior to Cargill, Kristen was the Director of Talent Acquisition at Whirlpool Corporation where she spent 12 years. 

Bill Tompkins is the current head of Total Rewards for Smile Direct Club. Founded in 2014, this telehealth disruptor has quickly become an international oral care leader. Bill’s team is further establishing the rewards program at SmileDirectClub as they continue to grow the business through their online, Smile Shop, or Dentist partner network. They have a high growth oral care product line inside major retail companies. Through his career, Bill has led total rewards organizations in such companies as Nordstrom, Macy’s, Coca-Cola, and Gap, Inc. as well as performing senior leadership roles at American Express, Citigroup, and Hitachi. He has a passion for well-being and is 100% virtual in his role with SmileDirectClub.

Colleen McCreary is the Chief People, Places and Publicity Officer at Credit Karma. As the first person to hold this position, she is responsible for Credit Karma’s People, Workplace Services, Communications and Events teams. In this role, Colleen leverages both internal and external communications functions to foster a healthy workplace culture, drive long term value for the business and position the company competitively in the market. 

Since joining Credit Karma, Colleen has grown the employee base to over 1,300 employees across offices in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. In her first six months, she worked to evolve the company’s compensation structure to remove bias and variability and drive a culture of individual progress, growth and collaboration. She is also a technical advisor for HBO’s Silicon Valley, and advises and coaches startups.  

In Sumeeta’s role she is responsible for the leadership and delivery of the human capital strategy and capabilities which include: organizational design, strategy and effectiveness, employee relations, talent acquisition, talent management, performance management, decision support, compensation, diversity and inclusion, training and talent/performance management. Previously, Sumeeta was Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) for Babcock and Wilcox (B&W), leading global HR and communications.

Gregory is a Human Resources and Technology senior leader with 20 years of international experience enabling the HR function to be more strategic, innovative, and business-leading. He has lived in France, Switzerland, and the United States, where he is currently located. He partners with HR and IT executive teams at global, zone and market levels to shape and deliver strategies helping HR and the workforce be future-fit. In his current role he is transforming the IT organization to be more agile, performing, and cost-effective; enabled through the successful deployment of the HR Transformation program (H2R) in the US. Gregory is passionate about transforming organizations to enable people and business resilience and growth and leverages technology and human-centered design practices to make a creative difference.

As vice president and global head of talent acquisition at Credit Karma, Ashleigh Anderson oversees recruiting for the entire company. In her role, she is responsible for scaling the company through its next phase of growth. This includes expanding the company’s workforce across offices in Charlotte,LA and the Bay Area, as well as London in the UK.

Ashleigh brings more than two decades of experience in talent acquisition to Credit Karma. She kicked off her career at Microsoft, followed by Blackbird Holdings, a Charlotte software startup. In 2009, Ashleigh joined Zynga, where she built the research recruiting team that was responsible for attracting and hiring 40% of the U.S. based Engineers and Product managers during the company’s growth to 4,000 people globally.

Missy Hallead is a ‘People First’ human resources leader and currently serves as the Senior Vice President for Global Talent and People and Culture for Aristocrat Technologies. With experience across diverse and global industry sectors including technology, gaming, hospitality, and education, Missy is passionate about equipping and encouraging others to reach their potential and attracting and aligning diverse talent to drive business results. Specializing in the areas of leadership effectiveness, talent optimization, organizational development, change management, employee experience, leadership development, executive coaching, executive recruitment, and succession planning, Missy is relentless in her pursuit of enabling others to become the best versions of themselves. In addition, with an emphasis on leading with courage and an attitude of TGIM (Thank God it’s Monday), Missy focuses on diversity and inclusion, growing high performers, maximizing teams, and multiplying the influence of the leaders she engages with. Prior to joining Aristocrat, Missy served for over five years at MGM Resorts International in the roles of Vice President for Global and Corporate HR and Vice President of HR for Luxor and Excalibur Hotel and Casino. Prior to transitioning to gaming and technology, Missy served as Assistant Superintendent and CHRO for a nationally recognized school district providing executive leadership across all aspects of human resource management. She has also served in roles of high school principal, associate principal/athletic director, and high school teacher. Missy received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Education from Central Washington University, a master’s degree in Leadership and Administration from Concordia University, and a Human Resources Management Certification from Portland State University. 

Gunjan is Confluent’s Chief People Officer and a 20-year industry veteran, whose teams’ efforts have been widely recognized with an A+ culture rating and a host of awards for diversity, happiness and leadership, among others. Gunjan’s focus has been to help shape cultures that enable employees to learn, contribute and hence grow in their professional lives.

Prior to her current role, Gunjan has served as Chief People Officer at RingCentral and the Chief HR Officer of RELX Group before that. She has also held a variety of leadership positions at Ericsson, Novartis and Unilever. Gunjan holds a Bachelor’s of engineering degree and a Master’s in business administration from JMI and XLRI Universities in India, respectively. In her free time, Gunjan supports volunteering efforts for minority communities and enjoys outdoor time with her family.

Kamal Ahluwalia has extensive experience in scaling and building businesses, software categories and their surrounding ecosystems. As President of Eightfold AI, Kamal is both a pioneer and practitioner of AI Talent Platforms — a breakthrough technology in which any organization can hire and promote talent based on their potential, while simultaneously creating a more diverse, inclusive, and successful workforce. Co-Author of the book “What’s Next for You – The Eightfold Path To Transforming The Way We Hire And Manage Talent”.

Yvette Cameron is Senior Vice President of Global HCM Product Strategy at Oracle. She is also a Co-Founder and board advisory member of Velocity Career Labs, the technology organization behind the Velocity Network Foundation (VNF), an industry consortium delivering the blockchain-powered Internet of Careers.

Prior to her current work with Oracle, Yvette served as Founder and Principal Analyst at NextGen Insights; Senior Vice President of Global Strategy at SAP SuccessFactors; General Manager and Vice President of Learning and Performance at Saba; Vice President of Product at Oracle; HCM Industry Analyst at Gartner; and Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research. She’s an international speaker on innovations in HCM processes and technology and the future of work. Yvette holds a BA in mathematics and applied statistics.

Steve joined Workhuman in December of 2017 as Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) and works with HR leaders and senior management executives worldwide to help build workplaces where every employee feels recognized, respected, and appreciated for who they are and what they do. He champions and promotes the Workhuman movement to inspire HR leaders to embrace more humanity and foster a sense of purpose in the workplace. Steve is focused on building upon Workhuman’s award-winning culture, which has set a new industry standard through its own power usage of recognition and positivity. Before joining Workhuman, Steve served in senior HR executive roles for Walgreens Boots Alliance and Monster.com. A frequent presenter on Capitol Hill, in 2015, he was appointed by U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez to serve on the Advisory Committee for the Competitive Integrated Employment of People with Disabilities. A passionate human rights champion, Steve has made equality, access, and opportunity the foundation of his personal and professional life. He is the author of two books, ‘The Lighthouse Effect’, which highlights the goodness of humanity and empowers people to be a lighthouse to others, and the USA Today best-selling memoir and subject of the film, ‘A Chance in the World’ in which Steve chronicled his extraordinary journey of his search for family. His tireless advocacy for the disenfranchised has earned him numerous accolades – including honorary doctorates from Winston-Salem State University, Mt. Ida College, and Boston College. He received the prestigious Horizon Award by the U.S. Congress, presented to private sector individuals who have expanded opportunities for all Americans through their own personal contributions, and who have set exceptional examples for young people through their successes in life. Steve is a Boston College graduate and serves on several nonprofit boards, including UCAN (Chicago), Boys Hope Girls Hope, and The United States Business Leadership Network.

As the Managing Partner for IBM’s Talent Transformation business, Amy Wright helps IBM clients achieve organizational growth and lasting impact through talent transformation and the application of Cloud and Augmented Intelligence (AI) technology, skills shifts, and new ways of working. Amy leads a global unit, driving diverse talent solutions for clients, through offering leadership development; championing recruitment, integration, and retention of talent; building a culture of engagement; and investing in skills transformation. 

Amy’s unique perspectives on the future of work developed from her time as the HR VP for IBM’s Global Business Services unit, a worldwide organization of over 125k employees. Over the past two decades, Amy has led multiple workforce strategies such as creating a global delivery network of centers, the shift to a learning-based culture, the creation of an early professionals program, and introducing cognitive into talent programs. In 2015, Amy was awarded a U.S. patent in the field of predictive analytics in workforce management. 

Amy is an expert in the HR domain, most recently co-authoring two IBM Institute of Business Value research studies: “Accelerating the journey to HR 3.0: Ten ways to transform in a time of upheaval,” published in October 2020 and “The enterprise guide to closing the skills gap: Strategies for building and maintaining a skilled workforce,” released in September 2019. She regularly speaks at industry and HR forums on IBM’s research on HR 3.0, HR in the age of AI, closing the skills gap, employee engagement, and culture change. 

David Ludlow is Group Vice President, Portfolio Strategy for SAP SuccessFactors. He leads a team focused on the identification of market trends and the development of solution strategies and priorities that span the SAP SuccessFactors’ Human Experience Management (HXM) suite of solutions. His team works with customers, partners, industry analysts, and development to ensure SAP is delivering the best HXM solutions for its customers. David has been with SAP for over 20 years and has more than 25 years of experience in the HR solution space. David was named one of the Top 100 Tech Influencers by HRE and the HR Technology Conference in 2019.

Dani is Co-founder and Principal Analyst for RedThread Research. She has spent the majority of her career writing about, conducting research in, and consulting on human capital practices and technology.

Before starting RedThread, Dani led the Learning and Career research practice at Bersin, Deloitte. Her ideas can be found in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, CLO Magazine, HR Magazine, and Employment Relations.

Dani holds a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Brigham Young University.

RedThread is a human capital research and advisory firm with a passion for questioning the status quo when it comes to people management practices. Their research focuses on DEIB, employee engagement, learning, people analytics, performance, and the technologies that support them, to provide talent leaders with high-quality, unbiased, and actionable insights to inform their decision-making.

Biomedical engineer turned analytics & process improvement nerd. SteFan switched over to HR 6 years ago, when he realized that the most interesting problems are the ones tied to people. Now, as Head of Talent Operations, his team is working to strategically position Noom as a leader in the identification, attraction, and hiring of talent. They accomplish this by partnering with stakeholders to introduce human-centric processes and technologies to disrupt the talent acquisition industry.

Rebecca (Becky) Savikas has over 20 years of HR and commercial experience across multiple industries and geographic regions. She is currently the Senior Vice President, HR Business Partner Organization, Enterprise Change and Labor at Highmark Health, a $22B national blended health organization. Since joining in 2019, she has held various roles, but her current teams are responsible for supporting the business on leadership, culture, talent and organizational management with the outcome of attracting, retaining, and developing world-class talent. Prior to Highmark Health, Becky spent four years as the global HR director for PPG Industries, where she oversaw a $40M HR transformation project and supported the $4B Automotive OEM Coatings and Specialty Coatings Materials business units and $9B Procurement function. Becky also spent 16 years with Eli Lilly and Company and two years with Altria. In her HR capacity, Becky delivered large scale business initiatives and positive P&L impact. In her commercial experience, Becky has delivered $35M in sales over her career. Outside of work, Becky enjoys giving back to the community through various organizations, physical and mental wellness, travel and family. 

Stephen is responsible for the diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy of YouTube. He works directly with senior leadership and Employee Resource Groups to ensure that YouTube is the most inclusive company to work for. He has been at YouTube for 5 years. He was previously with Goldman Sachs for 23 years, with his last role there as the head of diversity in the Asia Pacific region. Prior to joining the diversity world, he spent eight years (1993-2001) at Goldman Sachs in the technology division, building trading surveillance systems, and technology solutions for private clients. He also dedicated three years in the compliance division, primarily running large projects responding to the changes in regulations in Europe from 2002-2005. In addition to his work, he is on the board of Community Business, an Asia Pacific non-profit that runs the HK LGBTQ Corporate Equality Index. He was also previously on the Women on Boards Advisory Council in Hong Kong. In 2021, Stephen was named one of the ‘50 Impactful DE&I Leaders Driving Change in 2021’ and on the ‘Attitude 101’ list of LGBTQ+ Trailblazers. 

Prior to joining Splunk, Dustin was the Global Head of TA Tech and Process Transformation at AWS where his team was responsible for optimizing recruiting technology, process, policy, and selection science strategy for the org that runs about half of ‘the cloud’. A self-proclaimed ‘talent acquisition and technology geek’, Cann’s passion lies with applying technology solutions to the biggest and most strategic recruiting challenges. Prior to AWS, Cann also worked for several HR technology providers. 

Shannon is responsible for all Human Resources activities for the 6000+ employees in the US. Prosegur is a global leader in the private security sector. Across its three business lines – Prosegur Security, Prosegur Cash, and Prosegur Alarms – Prosegur provides companies and households with reliable security services using the most advanced market solutions. Its company headquarters are based in Madrid, Spain with business interests worldwide. Prior to joining Prosegur, Ms. Hughes Swayney occupied the position of Senior Human Resources Manager with Aramark Leisure East Region supporting a diverse portfolio of accounts along and beyond the East coast. In her ten years with Aramark, she has worked in numerous lines of business for Aramark including Healthcare and Higher Education. Before coming to Aramark, she has over 15 years’ experience providing and directing HR services in both private and public sectors including the transportation industry, public utility, parks and amusements, and real estate. Shannon earned her M.S. in Human Resources from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville with a specialization in Training and Development, and a B.A. in Organizational Communications from University of Lynchburg-Lynchburg, Virginia. She completed her SPHR-SCP Certification in 2010 and plans to obtain her J.D. in Employment Law in the future. She has also been published in various trade publications and journals, serves on various volunteer boards, local SHRM chapters, and teaches human resources classes at the local community college when time allows.

Dr. Chris Mullen, PhD, SPHR, SHRM SCP is the executive director of The Workforce Institute at UKG, the leading workplace think tank focused on the frontline employee experience. In his role, Dr. Mullen leads the Institute’s education and research initiatives, which focus on empowering organizations with meaningful strategies to improve employee engagement by delivering a modern work experience. His insights have been featured in publications including Harvard Business Review, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, HR Magazine, and NBCNews.

Krishnan Raju Vijay is Vice President in the newly formed Nissan Global People Services organization. He is responsible for Nissan’s next generation Human Resource services across the enterprise.  

The future of Mobility will introduce a major shift in our ways of working. Our Talent landscape is quickly shifting from a faceless aggregation of numbers to a micro-targeted consumer, based on insightful information driven by a single version of the truth.  

The vision for Global People Services is to take the moments that matter in an employee’s lifecycle with the company and make them simple, standardized, digitized and compliant across the HR function. 

Global People Services will take a transformational approach to modernizing our ways of working and providing end-to-end services within HR globally.

Sam drives Global Learning Technologies & Learning Analytics at ConvaTec. During the past 20 years, Sam developed ways to make, manage, and measure training faster and more effectively. He honed these methods working as a consultant for companies as diverse as: Google/YouTube, Deloitte, ADP, Robert Half International, Sunrun, AAA, Del Monte Foods, StrongLoop, and Silicon Valley Bank.

Colleen Stratton is a human resources executive with over 20 years of comprehensive human resources experience including recruitment and retention, conflict resolution, change management, labor relations, benefits, and compensation administration. She possesses a broad knowledge of human resources in a variety of sectors including union and non-union environments with a large number of exempt and non-exempt team members. Colleen began at Premier Bank and Bankcard more than six years ago as the director of corporate benefits and compensation, and now serves as the associate vice president of compensations and benefits. 

Chad Sowash, a former Army Infantry drill sergeant, cut his teeth in online recruitment in ’98 with an outfit called Online Career Center before it launched in ’99 as Monster.com. He went on to build DirectEmployers from the ground up, steer RecruitMilitary toward revenue as CXO and build Randstad’s first military veteran hiring program. Today, you can find him behind the mic at events, and/or working his ass off challenging the norm on HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast.  

Joel Cheesman has over 20 years experience in the online recruitment space. He worked for both international and local job boards in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. In 2005, Cheesman founded HRSEO, a search engine marketing company for HR, as well as launching an award-winning industry blog called Cheezhead. He has been featured in Fast Company and US News and World Report. He sold his company in 2009 to Jobing.com. He is the founder of Ratedly, an app that monitors anonymous employee reviews. He is co-host of The Chad & Cheese Podcast. He is married and the father of three children, and lives in Indianapolis.

Isabelle Roussy is a Solution Expert with UKG. She brings over 10 years of HCM experience with a passion for innovation. Prior to joining UKG three years ago she spent time at ADP and Oracle; gaining a wide perspective of differing models in the industry. 

Dirk’s passion for people analytics started during the financial crisis in 2007, when companies needed to make big decisions in short timeframes. Today, Crunchr supports companies around the world to build people analytics capabilities through a unique combination of self-service platform and an expert customer success team. Prior to Crunchr, he worked as a consulting actuary in New York and Amsterdam.

Dirk combines a unique background of actuarial sciences, years of corporate restructuring experience, six sigma process optimization and data governance, to make people analytics accessible and actionable. His areas of interest are workforce planning and top potential identification. Currently he is conducting research in using artificial intelligence to predict talent attrition and to find new ways of visualizing data. IT research and advisory company Gartner named Crunchr ‘cool vendor in Human Capital Management’, Dirk was named Dutch entrepreneurial top talent by the Dutch Financial Times, awarded as Actuary of the Year and featured in The CEO Magazine and The Economist. He regularly speaks at international conferences and is covered in newspapers with expert opinion. Crunchr provides the world’s most intuitive enterprise platform for self-service people analytics, HR dashboards, and strategic workforce planning. Using Crunchr, large enterprises get a clear picture of what’s really happening in their workforce and organization. The company’s people analytics platform has been adopted by companies around the world, including MetLife (49,000 employees), AkzoNobel (32,000 employees) and Rabobank (41,000 employees).

In 2021, Crunchr saw 130% net revenue retention. Which means that its roster of multinational customers are staying, realizing the value of the platform, and growing. The people analytics platform works on top of existing HR systems, it collects workforce data into one secure, integrated platform, improves its quality, and makes it accessible for everyone that needs it — not just data scientists — democratising workplace insights for sustainable business impact. This enables HR leaders and teams to produce strategically meaningful people strategies, and to greatly improve decision making and workforce planning.

Marilyn Pearson Hendricks, co-founder and Managing Partner of WorkTech Advisory Inc. a global consultancy that helps founders and their leadership teams achieve their revenue and growth goals, specializing in strategic repositioning and full-stack go-to-market. Marilyn has over 20 years of senior leadership, strategy, sales, marketing, alliances, and subject-matter expert roles in HR SaaS providers including Cornerstone OnDemand, Peoplefluent/Vector VMS/Affirmity (now LTG portfolio), Lawson Software (acquired by Infor) along with HR strategic leadership consulting PDI Ninth House (acquired by Korn Ferry) and SAP SuccessFactors implementation firm 3D Results (acquired by Rizing). Marilyn is a graduate of the University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management, and also holds an MBA from the University of Massachusetts, Isenberg School of Management.

Amy Gannon drives operational excellence through Cielo’s transformation office, most recently leading a large scale, enterprise-wide initiative implementing a new technology stack in a compressed timeline. With more than 9 years of recruiting, training, and leadership experience, Amy brings a wealth of knowledge and thought leadership in a range of industries, including Healthcare, Commercial Brands, Life Sciences, and Manufacturing. She has developed and implemented talent strategies and programs that improved operational outcomes and enhanced team performance. She is an advocate for Cielo and clients alike, demonstrating true partnership through strengthening client relationships and empowering Cielo to deliver unbeatable results. She’s not afraid to challenge “the norm” and shift paradigms, as her passion for continuous improvement and innovation exudes.

Ryan is a seasoned product marketing leader with over 10 years of experience working in both public and early-stage enterprise software companies. Ryan currently leads product marketing and GTM efforts for Eightfold Talent Acquisition and Contingent Hiring solutions. Prior to Eightfold, Ryan spent 7 years at Salesforce where he launched and scaled Service Cloud’s Digital Channel portfolio. 

Bryan leads the professional learning operational agenda to standardize, simplify and optimize process and delivery while enhancing the learner experience for over 275K employees. He has a passion for delivering innovative solutions to employees for a personalized & frictionless learning experience. As owner of the global learning tech ecosystem, Bryan was responsible for the evaluation and implementation of PepsiCo’s Learner Experience Platform to accelerate the culture of learning, drive continuous reskilling/upskilling and Raise the Bar on Talent and Diversity.

Bryan has been driving learning and collaboration implementation & strategy across multiple industries and organizations throughout his career including nearly 20 years in leadership roles with PwC and Accenture. As a trusted advisor, he harnessed the power of digital to build high-performing teams that drive positive culture and behavior changes.

Growing up they always told us to find what our passions were – and to go do it! Austin has been fortunate to be part of a true Center of Excellence in Cincinnati, OH working for a Global Leader in Flexible Packaging with ProAmpac where he gets to dive into his passions every single day.

Austin is the HRIS Manager/PMO for ProAmpac where he drives continuous improvement by spending time at the intersection of technology and ProAmpac’s most important asset – People. As a passionate leader in the HRIS space Austin believes that data in HR is becoming increasingly prevalent in the forefront of business analysis, and an understanding of the tools and knowledge in this realm are invaluable.

Josh serves as Chief Marketing Officer for Paradox, responsible for driving the company’s brand, digital, and experiential marketing efforts, while also supporting sales enablement and product marketing. Prior to Paradox, he led marketing and product at SmashFly, which was acquired by Symphony Talent in November 2019. Josh is passionate about helping companies better communicate their story — who they are, what they believe, and how they help a particular market solve real, meaningful challenges. Prior to SmashFly, Josh founded his own marketing agency and helped grow Boston-based venture capital firm OpenView into one of the world’s top venture capital brands.

Ravi Swaminathan is a seasoned technology executive who is wildly passionate about creating products with social impact that can change the world for the better. He drives the TaskHuman vision forward every day. 

Joe Kleinwaechter is the Vice President of the Global User Experience team. His team is responsible for the design of experience across all ADP.

Joe joined ADP in 2019, where he first led the National Accounts UX team. In his current role as head of Global UX, Joe is working to develop products that our clients trust to deliver their best possible experience, helping them to crush their jobs on a daily basis.

Joe comes from the FinTech world where he was the Vice President of Innovation and Design for two of the world’s largest FinTech companies, bringing the Design Thinking mindset and other innovation practices to life.

Joe is a musician most noted for ruining many homecomings, proms and weddings by playing Muskrat Love by Captain and Tennille

Joe has a BS in Electrical Engineering from the Milwaukee School of Engineering. You can learn more about him in his leadership blog called The Stranded Starfish. He is based in Atlanta.

Tom Banton has been at Eightfold for over 3 years in charge of the Solutions Engineering team and has used Eightfold Talent Acquisition to grow his team from 3 to 40. Tom has been in Presales for 25+ years and worked at Eipcor, Oracle and Conga but states that Eightfold is by far the best technology he has ever worked with.

Reggie Clairville is a Globalization Partners Platform Sales Engineer based in Boston, Massachusetts. Having been with the company for 4 years, Reggie has watched the company grow exponentially. In that time he has come to know the ins and outs of the Global HR Platform Globalization Partners provides to their customers.

Laura has spent her 25+ year career developing talent programs that solve challenging business issues so that companies can drive profitable, sustainable growth. During her time in professional services, she has had both internal and client-facing roles. She has consulted cross-sector with global fortune 500 companies. Some of her favorite projects include: creating an onboarding program impacting 80,000 new hires per year; developing a configurable digital skills academy to modernize the workforce of a Fortune 50 pharmaceutical company; creating an enterprise curriculum for a large healthcare organization; developing an end-to-end talent model for a large Utilities company that included role profiles, competency and skill assessment, performance management, coaching, training, and staffing; and, developing recruiting, onboarding, staffing, and training solutions to quickly scale a State Department of Public Health as they quickly responded to the Covid pandemic by hiring 2,000 contact tracers, case investigators, and supervisors.

Sumit Gupta, CTO – US Innovation Lab at PandoLogic, is a seasoned technology executive with over 20 years of experience in the enterprise software space. He has an extensive background in creating platforms and frameworks for scale with a particular interest in startups and bringing cutting-edge innovation and products to market. In prior CTO roles, Sumit has scaled out teams and technology in AI, voice recognition, and fintech. At PandoLogic, he heads up the US R&D center, setting technology direction and spearheading innovation in AI for recruitment. 

Alanoud has over 5 years of experience as a solution advisor in tech industry, where she aims to shape the future by advising enterprises on how to run better and achieve better business results through digital transformation. Alanoud mainly consults customer in the human experience area to create a workforce ready to take on any challenge and to take the best of traditional Human Capital Management (HCM) and move to Human Experience Management (HXM). Alanoud holds and engineering degree majoring in networking and security engineering and minoring in software engineering and she’s passionate about making the technology work for people and organizations.

Willy began his career at Terminus, managing product marketing for the industry leader in ABM. After a few years in marketing technology, he transitioned to Momentive to help put people at the heart of organizations. At Momentive, he is launching Employee Experience solutions like Guided Employee Experience and Workplace Equity IQ.

Elaine Orler has helped companies worldwide transform their recruiting organizations with actionable strategies and technology implementations since 1993. In her latest role as Managing Director–Consulting at Cielo, Orler is a globally-recognized thought leader who is passionate about improving HR and talent acquisition, validated by her founding of Talent Function and co-founding of Talent Board, the organization which leads the CandE award program. One of the talent acquisition industry’s most sought-after thought leaders, Elaine has helped global organizations transform their recruiting processes with actionable strategies and technology implementations that optimize talent acquisition for HR professionals, hiring managers, job candidates and the company overall. Elaine is always tuned into the latest trends, works with practitioners and serves as an analyst to the solution provider community to shape the way talent management and recruiting solutions are delivered.

John Tauzin is an experienced consultant and sales engineer specializing in process improvement and customer success. With over 20 years of experience as an IT professional and over 12 years of experience in the digital workplace and collaborative arena, John has worked with hundreds of companies large and small.

John is the Director of Presales for North America at LumApps where he works with some of their most strategic accounts to create long-lasting partnerships, fostering communication, collaboration, culture, and connectivity within the workplace. John holds a BS in Finance from Virginia Tech.

Mary Grace Hennessy, co-founder, and CEO of GraceBlocks was previously an operations, sales, and product leader at SmashFly (acquired by Symphony Talent). Prior to this she held product management roles and helped establish SaaS enterprise applicant tracking systems BrassRing (acquired by IBM) and Taleo (acquired by Oracle). Originally from Memphis, TN, she earned her Bachelor’s at Eckerd College and Masters from The George Washington University. Through work and school, she lived in many North American cities including Washington DC, San Francisco, St. Petersburg, and Quebec City, before settling in the Boston area with her husband/co-founder Michael and their family.

As Toptal’s Director of Business Development & Sales Gary is accountable for creating and maintaining a world-class experience for all Toptal clients through hiring, developing, and retaining our top talent on the sales development team. Previously, he served as a recruiter and executive working in engineering testing. His 10+ year career has included leadership roles across startups, agencies, and large companies including the Department of Defense spanning multiple industries. Gary holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in leadership science and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in organizational leadership.

James is a forward-thinking, engaging and dynamic leader with over 30 years of experience in the technology space. As the VP, Global Leader of the Pre-Sales function at SmartRecruiters, James is passionate about how he can help customers see what their futures can look like when they can attract, select, and hire people at scale and within budget. In his personal time, he enjoys running, even when he isn’t being chased.

Laura has spent her 25+ year career developing talent programs that solve challenging business issues so that companies can drive profitable, sustainable growth. During her time in professional services, she has had both internal and client-facing roles. She has consulted cross-sector with global fortune 500 companies. Some of her favorite projects include: creating an onboarding program impacting 80,000 new hires per year; developing a configurable digital skills academy to modernize the workforce of a Fortune 50 pharmaceutical company; creating an enterprise curriculum for a large healthcare organization; developing an end-to-end talent model for a large Utilities company that included role profiles, competency and skill assessment, performance management, coaching, training, and staffing; and, developing recruiting, onboarding, staffing, and training solutions to quickly scale a State Department of Public Health as they quickly responded to the Covid pandemic by hiring 2,000 contact tracers, case investigators, and supervisors.

Over the past 20 years, Steve has traveled the globe (29 countries) on his mission to help businesses improve the way they manage their frontline workforce. He is one of the leading experts in workforce management – which includes AI-powered optimization, time & attendance, employee engagement, and task management. Steve has worked in a range of sectors including hospitality, logistics, manufacturing, healthcare, and retail – where he worked with the globes’ largest retailers to help them save time, money, engage and retain their frontline workers. During his time in South Africa, Steve lobbied and negotiated fair scheduling policies between the country’s largest retailers and union leadership. By introducing new scheduling technologies, his efforts led to the country’s first set of scheduling labor regulations including minimum & maximum working hours, days, shifts, and time between shifts. With over two decades of leadership experience, Steve has held leadership positions at UKG (Kronos), SAP, and founded two workforce management companies: optimized scheduling (Simplified), task (thinktime.com), and is an advisor at www.avoiceai.com in the Voice AI space. Steve currently leads the sales engineering teams at www.quinyx.com. 

Gabriella Spallone is a Solutions Consultant for Enterprise teams at Gem. Through her role, she helps companies realize their recruiting potential and where Gem would fit in their Human Resources stack. Prior to being a Solutions Consultant, Gabriella was a founding Customer Success Manager at Gem and has a seasoned career in the customer success space. 

Mark Brandau is Global Vice President, Portfolio Marketing for iCIMS. He is currently responsible for global go-to-market strategy and execution of iCIMS Talent Cloud, including all of its applications, solutions, and cloud platform. Mark is an industry veteran in Human Capital Management. Prior to iCIMS Mark was Principal, and Head of Forrester Research’s HCM Practice, where he led research and advisory services for Human Capital Management (HCM) including: Core HR and Payroll, Workforce Planning, Recruiting and Onboarding, Performance and Talent Development, People Analytics, and Total Rewards. He also participated in research on Employee Experience, ERP, and the Future of Work. Prior to Forrester, Mark worked for SAP, as a Senior Vice President on SAP SuccessFactors product leadership team where he was responsible for the global go-to-market (GTM) strategy and execution of SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite, Cloud Platform Tools & Technology, Industry GTM and Initiatives, such as Diversity & Inclusion, Wellbeing at Work, and Employee Experience with SAP ERP, SAP S/4HANA and the SAP Intelligent Enterprise. Mark came to SAP via their acquisition of SuccessFactors. Prior to SuccessFactors, Mark led product go-to-market activities for Plateau System’s (acquired by SuccessFactors), talent management solutions. Before Plateau, Mark was Vice President at Visual Mining, which focused on next-generation business intelligence solutions. His early career work includes leadership positions at Softek (acquired by IBM), and Legato Systems (acquired by EMC). Mark holds an M.B.A., Magna Cum Laude, from Marymount University, Arlington, Virginia.

David started his career as a technology recruiter, and spent a decade exploring the role people play in shaping the sector, before being asked to step into the role of Group Technology Evangelist for the Harvey Nash Group; he is responsible for helping share the best thoughts and insight from across the Harvey Nash Group with the wider market.

A regular event speaker, host and moderator David regularly writes for industry publications, appears on and hosts technology-focus media channels and hosts our own podcast, Tech Talks.

Tech Talks is a regular member of the Apple Podcast top 50 tech podcast chart, attracting thousands of listeners each month from a diverse community of tech enthusiasts and entrepreneurs. To date over 450 episodes have been published.

His voice and standing in the sector was recognised in 2018, with David being named Computing Magazine’s Digital Ambassador of the Year.

He has a passion for tech, sci-fi, Newcastle United and truly awful films.