In the spirit of community and continuously learning from one another, we asked our 2024 Transform speakers what piece of technology or tool is indispensable to them.
It’s clear that mobile phones, calendars (digital and paper), and communication technology are essential.
Check out what all of our thought leaders had to say they couldn’t live without…
Gianna Driver, CHRO, Exabeam
“Lattice. It’s one of the best performance management, engagement, career pathing, and employee sentiment tools I’ve ever used!
Tyrone Smith, Jr. Ed D, Management, HR & People Science Adjunct Teaching Professor, University of Southern California
“A smartphone because of its versatile nature that combines communication, information access, productivity tools, and entertainment. Smartphones have transformed the way I work by enabling constant connectivity, efficient information access, better time management, enhanced networking, seamless remote work, ongoing learning, and increased creativity. Their role in my career journey has been invaluable, contributing to my effectiveness, growth, and ability to adapt to the demands of the modern workplace.”
Vicki Walia, Ph.D., Head of HR for US Businesses & Global Asset Management, Prudential
“I could not live without the Blinklist App – it’s a great way to be well-read and keep pushing myself to learn about things that I don’t encounter on a day-to-day basis.”
Becky McCullough, VP of Global Recruiting & Talent Development, HubSpot
“HubSpot is a hybrid company, and so my team is distributed globally. Slack has made it possible for us to communicate as a team without having to be live all the time. We’ve certainly had some learnings and developed norms on asynchronous communication, but with those norms, we’ve become more effective at problem-solving and decision-making as a globally distributed team.”
Amélie Vavrovsky, Founder & CEO, Formally
“I am a Figma and Figjam power user. It’s such a great platform for design thinking and team brainstorming sessions.”
Paul E. Wolfe, Human First Leadership Advocate
“ChatGPT – so useful for making things more efficient and helping me get started on writing thought leadership pieces.”
Krista Skalde, Operating Partner & Chief Talent Officer, Inovia Capital
“HR analytics tools; it is THE only way that HR can truly be a strategic partner to the business.”
Angela Cheng-Cimini 鄭婷婷, SVP, Talent & CHRO
“My smartphone. I can connect, unplug, work, and play – all from my fingertips.”
Stela Lupushor, Founder, Reframe.Work Inc.
“Miro! It helps me organize discussions, facilitate workshops, and brainstorm with others. There is something about the ephemerality of digital post-its placement on the virtual board that makes it easy to collaborate and capture ideas/conversations/decisions.”
Steven Huang, Social Justice & Equity Officer, Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
“As a business leader, the tool I could not operate without is… therapy! The growing mental health crisis is impacting the bottom line. There is an interest and opportunity in understanding how trauma develops throughout our lives and how it manifests in how we lead teams, build businesses, and impact our communities. I have personally and professionally benefitted from my therapy practice – and I hope to see businesses create access to mental health strategies and understand the ROI for mental health tools at work.”
Barbry McGann, SVP and Managing Director, Workday Ventures
“My cell phone – enhanced communication, simplified information access, ability to transact – very convenient, work anywhere, anytime”
Donald Knight, Chief People Officer, Greenhouse
“Greenhouse, Chezie and Lattice“
David Scott, Chief People & Administration Officer, ADT
“The automatic door on my chicken coop… no chance I would wake up at sunrise every morning to let them out, and as the closest living relative to the T-Rex, you don’t want to make the chickens mad.”
Carolyn Frey, Chief People Officer, HungryRoot
“Slack! It keeps work life and personal life separate”
Julie Turney, Founder & CEO, HR@Heart Consulting Inc.
“I absolutely swear by Calendly. It keeps me organized, and I do not have to stress going back and forth to plan a meeting. People can use the link I share and schedule a podcast recording or coaching session, or virtual coffee at their convenience. I also use it for speaker bookings. I love it.”
Tracie Sponenberg, Chief People Officer, The Granite Group
“At work, it’s our LMS Bridge. It’s simple to use, our people love it, and allows us to seamlessly integrate learning and development. My favorite thing I use at home is my Bose sleepbuds. Sure I love my iPhone, MacBook, AirPods – but they tend to detract from my sleep not aid it. Sleep has such an incredible impact on our overall wellbeing, and as a traveler who wakes easily, I had a hard time sleeping away from home until I tried these. Now, they go with me everywhere.”
Emily Chardac, Chief People Officer, ONE
“I love my paper notebook :)”
Jennifer Oswald, Head of People Strategy (CPO) , Goodtime.io
“Brighthire. It’s doing for the recruiting industry what Gong and Chorus have done for GTM Teams. It saves us hours of time and uplevels our recruitment process tenfold by being able to validate candidate’s answers and calibrate interviews.”
Tigran Sloyan, Co-Founder & CEO, CodeSignal
“GPT-4. Just like life used to be different before scientists and researchers had access to early computers/calculators (most of your days were spent on manual and painful math) life before before GPT-4 was spent on a lot of small manual tasks that I can now easily outsource to GPT-4.”
Joy Samanta, Head of People Success, Solarwinds
“At a fundamental level, I would say any communication platform like Slack, Teams, etc. that maintains information flow and connectivity. Otherwise, I would say the most used technology is any Program management tool like MS Project, Asana, Jira, or Trello that helps manage, track, and execute multiple projects under a single umbrella.”
Coco Brown, Founder & CEO, Ethena
“Athena Alliance :). Truthfully, I am not just the founder and CEO, I am a member. I rely on this community to keep me relevant, in the know, on my toes and always moving forward. It’s a wonderful collection of humans from all over with every possible variety of goals and interests and one uniting factor – we want to be the change we wish to see in the world. We want to lead, inspire, invest, build, and steward the future.”
J.P. Sanday, Partner, Menlo Ventures
“iPhone — it’s my gateway to all my apps and has the single best view into my work and personal habits to use for improving my workflows.”
Kaitlin Christine, CEO & Founder, Gabbi
“Pen & Paper–Digital tools are great and I use many of them daily (Notion, Google Docs, Monday.com) but nothing beats good ‘ol pen & paper: it is reliable and always works.”
Cole Napper, Ph.D., VP, People Analytics, Orgnostic
“Calendars. I know it sounds trite, but calendars rule my life – personal and professional.”
Melissa Doman, Organizational Psychologist, Melissa Doman LLC
“iCal! It helps me keep all aspects of my life organized.”
Irene Liu, Founder & CEO, Hypergrowth GC | Executive in Residence, UC Berkeley School of Law
“My mobile phone: It’s my gateway to the Internet and I use it all the time for work and personal use, including listening to my favorite podcasts and reading e-books.”
Kate Terrell, CHRO, Menlo Security
“Probably my iPhone because it is often a major player in my connection to work, friends, and family.”
Jeremy Edmonds, VP, People & Culture, Snooze an A.M. Eatery
“There is no better tool than Culture Amp. It has revolutionized the way engagement is measured and provides the tools that allow a business to create effective action plans. Through the use of their People Scientists, they have tapped into what makes a person “tick” at work. Their “Develop” product allows you to easily create development plans. Their “1:1” tool has changed the way our leaders think about 1:1’s and creates the space for real connection between employees and managers.”
Virginie Raphael, Founder & Managing Partner, FullCircle
“AirTable! It is the most cost-effective, flexible CRM tool with a robust set of automations and workflows, as well as dashboards that are easy to set up for internal and external reporting.”
Brandon Sammut, Chief People Officer, Zapier
“ChatGPT – It’s rocket fuel for many of the tools that I already use, including Zapier for automation.”
William Tincup, President & Editor-at-Large, Recruiting Daily
“At this point in my life, I can’t live without Google. That game is over, Google won.”
Keely Cat-Wells, Founder & CEO, Making Space
“rev.com – It effortlessly enables me to offer accurate and equitable transcripts & captions to every member of my team.”
Dan Riley, Co-Founder, RADICL
“Maps: I simply can’t live without Google or Apple maps. In the woods or mountains, I am a pioneer of navigation. Never get lost. In unfamiliar cities, I have absolutely no idea which direction to go! :)”
Angela Howard, CEO & Organizational Psychologist, Call for Culture
“Canva has been a life-saving tool for our business to ensure we’re creating valuable and beautiful content for our community and audience! I also love ProcessStreet and Monday.com for all things frictionless process and project management.”
Get a chance to connect and start a conversation with all of these top people-first leaders live at Transform 2024 on March 11-13, 2024 at Wynn Las Vegas. Save your seat now.