Sjoerd Gehring

Sjoerd Gehring is J&J’s Global Head of Talent Acquisition and Employee Experience overseeing the company’s global recruiting and redesigning the end-to-end employee experience for candidates, employees, retirees and alumni – at the moments that matter most in their interactions with J&J. Sjoerd is responsible for developing the global talent acquisition strategy and devising innovative and progressive sourcing, selection and assessment processes to ensure J&J continues to attract and retain a globally diverse pipeline of talent.

Diane Vavrasek

Diane Vavrasek is currently the VP of HR for Jet.com and Walmart U.S. eCommerce Retail. Diane joined Jet.com in December of 2015 where she led HR for corporate functions. She assumed her current role upon the acquisition of Jet by Walmart in 2017. Prior to Jet, Diane spent 9 years at General Electric where she held various HR role including Executive of HR Operations & Analytics for the $18B Oil & Gas business. Prior to GE, Diane was an Associate Financial Auditor for PricewaterhouseCoopers.Diane holds a BS in Accounting from Pace University and a Masters in Industrial & Labor Relations from Cornell University.

Dennis Mortensen

Dennis is the CEO and Founder of x.ai. He’s a pioneer and expert in leveraging Data and a serial entrepreneur who has successfully delivered a number of company exits on that theme. Dennis’s long term vision of killing the inbox triggered the formation of x.ai and the creation of an artificial intelligence personal assistant to schedule meetings. He’s an accredited Associate Analytics Instructor at the University of British Columbia, the Author of Data Driven Insights from Wiley and a frequent speaker on the subject of AI, intelligent agents, and the future of work. A native of Denmark, Mortensen currently calls New York City his home.

The Honorable Penny Pritzker

Penny Pritzker is an entrepreneur, civic leader and philanthropist with more than 30 years of experience in numerous industries. Pritzker is the Founder and Chairman of PSP Capital Partners and Pritzker Realty Group, a global private investment firm that takes a long-term, fundamental approach to investing in and building market-leading businesses in sectors such as professional services, real estate, technology, agriculture, industrial services and consumer products. From June 2013 through January 2017, Pritzker served as U.S. Secretary of Commerce in the Obama Administration. Pritzker was a core member of President Obama’s economic team and served as the country’s chief commercial advocate, leading the Administration’s trade and investment promotion efforts. She also served on President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and his Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Currently, Pritzker is a member of the board of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a member of the board of Microsoft, a member of the Aspen Strategy Group and the Aspen Economic Strategy Group, a member of the board of the Obama Foundation, a member of the board of the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics and on the advisory council of The Hamilton Project. Pritzker earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Harvard University and a Juris Doctor and Masters of Business Administration from Stanford University.

Elana Krieger

Elana Krieger is a human capital leader with over 15 years’ experience and a background in human development, law, and organizational effectiveness. Elana recently joined Via as Head of People. She previously held HR and Legal roles at Rent the Runway, Boxed, Viacom and Clifford Chance. Elana received an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, JD from Georgetown University Law Center and BS from Pennsylvania State University.

Freada Kapor Klein

Freada Kapor Klein is an entrepreneur, activist and pioneer in the field of organizational culture and diversity.

As a Founding Partner at Kapor Capital, Freada invests in seed stage tech startups that create positive social impact by closing gaps of access, opportunity or outcome for low income communities and communities of color.  Often, the founders are drawing on their lived experience to create a business that solves real needs.

Freada is a founding member of the Commission, a group of leading executives in entertainment and independent experts in Hollywood dedicating to fighting gender inequality.

Freada is on the Advisory Trustee of the U.C. Berkeley Foundation and is a founding team member at Project Include, a community of women in Silicon Valley working to provide practical, effective diversity and inclusion recommendations for tech companies. She is also the author of Giving Notice, which details the human and financial cost of hidden bias in the workplace.

Brian Elliott

Brian Elliott is the General Manager of Platform at Slack, where he oversees Platform strategy and execution. Slack integrates with leading ISV partners like Google, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, and ServiceNow along with more than 1,000 other software products. It also enables teams to easily build their own custom internal integrations. Previously, Brian was GM of Google Express, Google’s commerce platform. Brian previously led Monsoon Commerce, a software platform that services thousands of online businesses, and was CEO at Alibris, a global ecommerce marketplace. Brian received a BA from Northwestern University and an MBA from Harvard’s Graduate School of Business.

Amber Grewal

Amber Grewal is the Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition at IBM, with 20 years of experience in the art and science of talent attraction and management. She has served in several leadership roles in GE, Microsoft, Symantec and KPMG, where she led the transformation of talent acquisition in the digital era. At IBM, Amber oversees the strategic vision for talent acquisition and is responsible for building strong, consultative departmental functions, talent technology, sourcing and onboarding strategies, workforce demand, and employer branding in competitive and emerging markets globally. Amber also leads numerous activities supporting diversity, inclusion, and gender equality.

Rajeev Behera

Rajeev Behera is CEO of Reflektive where he leads the company’s innovation, growth and business development strategies, as well as sets the tone for culture. With a focus on evolving performance management from a broken annual event into a lightweight, real-time, agile process, Behera has not only guided the company in raising more than $100 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and TPG Growth, but he has also overseen Reflektive’s market leadership as the real-time performance management platform of choice for over 400 customers. Reflektive’s mission is to reinvent people management processes to empower employees to thrive at work.

Chris Louie

Chris leads Nielsen’s People Analytics and Talent Acquisition organizations globally. Over the past two years, he has re-invigorated Nielsen’s talent marketing, launched diverse slates, and helped streamline the recruiting process. Chris’s earlier roles at Nielsen included leading strategic planning for its media business and product marketing for its marketing effectiveness group. Previously, Chris was a consultant at McKinsey & Company and an analyst at Lucent Technologies. He has a MBA from Columbia Business School and a Bachelors in econ from Penn (Wharton), and is a CFA charterholder. He resides in NYC with his wife, two daughters, and pet collie.

Marjorie Ajero

Marjorie is an HR executive with over 15 years of experience within the digital media, tech, eCommerce, and publishing industries. She helped create the Group Nine Media company, built the HR organization, and led the merger and integration of its four brands: The Dodo, NowThis, Thrillist, and Seeker. Outside of work, Marjorie loves to travel and is a founding member of the Post’d networking group aimed at bringing together people professionals to network, inspire, and learn.

Toby Hervey

Toby Hervey is CEO and Founder of Bravely, a platform offering confidential guidance and coaching for employees navigating issues in the workplace. Based in New York, Toby previously served as the VP of Operations and General Manager at Pager— a mobile platform delivering on-demand healthcare. Toby has also directed strategy and business development at companies like TimeHop, Waywire and Gilt Groupe, and currently serves as President of the Board of Directors for Out in Tech.

Joel Martinez

Joel leads the HR organization for a number of critical businesses within Amazon’s Consumer business. These businesses include Retail Systems and Services, Treasure Truck and High Value Actions and covers nearly 7,500 employees across 10 countries and 15 sites. Prior to joining Amazon, Joel was the EVP of HR for Red Ventures, a rapidly growing technology and digital sales marketing company. Joel was also with Capital One for 13 years focusing on HR consulting, change management, culture and values, recruiting and diversity. Mr. Martinez graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in Psychology and an MBA. He resides in Seattle, WA with his wife Leigh and their 4 children, Mackenzie, Karissa, Paxton and Dario.

Jessica Lin

Jessica is a Co-Founder and Partner at Work-Bench, focusing on investments in future of work and teams. Jessica previously was a Learning and Development Manager at Cisco Systems, where she worked with the Engineering org on Agile transformation, innovation and culture. Jessica is a graduate of Harvard University and developed Harvard’s first aspirational design and experiential education summer fellowship program in Cape Town, South Africa & Paris, France. Jessica is actively involved with the education and workforce development community, as an advisor to LaGuardia Community College and a longtime GED educator. Jessica received a BA from Harvard University in Government and African Studies.

Tal Gilbert

Tal Gilbert is passionate about building profitable businesses that improve health. His background is in innovation and product development, using behavioral economics and digital health tools to develop insurance-linked products that help make people healthier. He is the CEO of Vitality USA, a division of Vitality Group working with US employers and Health Plans. Previously, Mr. Gilbert led Vitality’s innovation and marketing in the US, developed partnerships with life insurers John Hancock and Manulife, and helped to set up and grow Vitality’s international businesses in the UK and Asia. Mr. Gilbert is a Fellow of the UK Institute of Actuaries and a graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand, and has a Master’s degree from Oxford University.

Shannon Spanhake

Shannon Spanhake is the Founder and CEO of LUCY, a health-tech company that helps working parents successfully manage their transition to new parenthood. Shannon has led engineering and marketing teams at various companies, one of which was founded with her patented technology. Shannon was named as “100 Women Innovating Science and Technology” by the Grace Hopper Foundation and holds Expert status with the United Nations. She serves as an economic and labor policy advisor to the UN Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA).

Kathryn Minshew

Kathryn Minshew is the CEO & Founder ofTheMuse.com, a career platform used by over 50 million millennials to navigate their careers, and by hundreds of companies looking to attract, hire and retain great talent. She’s also the author of “The New Rules of Work,” a Wall Street Journal national bestseller, and an Operating Partner at XFactor Ventures, a venture capital fund investing in the next generation of female founders. Kathryn has spoken at MIT and Harvard, contributed to the WSJ and HBR, and appeared on TODAY and CNN. She has also been named to SmartCEO’s Future50 Visionary CEOs and Inc.’s 35 Under 35. Kathryn worked on HPV vaccine introduction in Rwanda with the Clinton Health Access Initiative before founding The Muse, and was previously at McKinsey & Company.

Meghan M. Biro

Like most people who gravitate toward HR, Meghan loves people. Early in her career, Meghan realized she was a rare people person who understood the power of tech. As a high tech recruiter, Meghan worked with hundreds of companies, from early-stage startups to global brands like Microsoft, IBM and Google. Meghan founded TalentCulture in 2008 to lead a conversation about the future of work with her peers. These days, she is consistently included in lists of top online influencers and writes about HR tech and people management at Forbes.com, SHRM.org and a variety of other media outlets. She is a sought-after personality and is a regularly featured speaker at global business conferences and serves on boards for leading HR and technology brands.

Bernard Coleman

Bernard is the Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) and he drives the D&I programs through meaningful relationships, both internally and externally, as well as promotes Uber as a leader in ride sharing, and as a forerunner in D&I engagement. Prior to Uber, Bernard led Hillary for America’s D&I and HR initiatives, as the first ever Chief Diversity and Human Resources Officer in U.S. history for any presidential campaign and political party. Bernard’s written for Forbes, Catalyst, SHRM and his insights have appeared in the Nasdaq Government Clearinghouse and the Huffington Post. Bernard holds an M.B.A. from Trinity University, a B.A. in psychology from Hampton University, a Strategic Diversity and Inclusion Management certification from Georgetown University, and is a graduate of the University of Virginia’s Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership.

Jude Komuves

As Collective Health’s Chief People Officer, Jude brings more than 15 years of high-growth technology startup and leadership experience on all things people. Her portfolio includes talent acquisition, human resources, and corporate facilities. Jude’s teams ensure that Collective Health has the talent, resources, and programs in place to grow and succeed. Prior to joining Collective Health, Jude was the Operations Lead at an early-stage social consumer startup, Vice President of People at Square, and Head of People & Recruiting Programs at Google. Jude holds dual Bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and Anthropology from UCLA. She lives in the Bay Area, and on most weekends can be found hiking in the hills with her family, including her darling son Max, and two furry pups.