Holly Gordon is the Chief Impact Officer at Participant, overseeing all the company’s social impact campaigns and further strengthening Participant’s mission to create entertainment that compels and inspires social change. These global, multi-year campaigns are driven by the company’s content and powered by strategic partnerships to address the most important issues of our time.

Prior to joining Participant, Gordon co-founded Girl Rising, a global campaign for girls’ education. Selected by Fast Company as a member of the League of Extraordinary Women and named by Newsweek/Daily Beast as one of 125 Women of Impact, Gordon is also an Executive Producer for the Girl Rising film at the center of the movement. Forbes Magazine named the Girl Rising campaign the #1 Most Dynamic Social Initiative of 2012.

Amy Grat is Chief Executive Officer of EXP – The opportunity engine, formerly International Trade Education Programs (ITEP).

EXP helps young people gain experience, unlock doors and build the confidence they need to succeed in school, career and life. In 2018-19, over 400 industry volunteers helped EXP serve 6,400 high school students at 9 Southern California high schools. By bringing schools and industry together, EXP is creating new ways of learning, knocking down barriers and bringing genuine opportunity to every student they can reach.

Named as CEO in August 2010, Amy is responsible for ensuring ongoing sustainability of the organization and effective implementation of its mission, which is delivered through 18 staff and almost 400 volunteers from industry, education and the public sector.

Previously, Amy served as Vice President of Investor Relations for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC), where she was responsible for driving revenue and cultivating the organization’s relationships with Southern California’s business community.   Amy has also held positions in higher education including, Associate Director of International Executive Programs at USC’s International Business Education and Research (IBEAR) Program.  There, she produced executive education programs focused on Asia and Latin America for U.S. and international companies.  She also directed USC's annual Asia/Pacific Business Outlook Conference.  She has also served in program management roles at University of Pennsylvania’s Office of International Programs and the International Visitors Council of Philadelphia.

Amy is active in numerous industry and civic organizations, serving on the Boards of the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce (President, 2018-2020), the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSMP) Southern California Roundtable, the California Partnership Academy (CPA) Advisory Council and the Philosophical Research Society.  She is also a Member of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce World Trade Week Committee and chairs the WTW Education Subcommittee, a Member of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC), and chairs the Partnership Action Network (PAN) of the Los Angeles Regional Coalition for Linked Learning.  She is a graduate of Leadership LA (Class of 2006) and Leadership Carson (Class of 2013).

In 2017, Amy was honored with the prestigious Connie Award by the Containerization and Intermodal Institute.  She was also named Educator of the Year by the Women’s Transportation Seminar – Los Angeles Chapter in 2014.  Under her leadership, ITEP was honored as the Los Angeles Business Journal’s Small Nonprofit of the Year (2014) and received the 2016 Bob Kleist Leadership Award from the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce World Trade Week Committee.

Amy holds an MBA from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, an MA in International Affairs from The George Washington University, and a BA in English from San Diego State University.

Joel Stein was not easy to work with on this bio. The only facts he provided that were verifiable were that he was a staff writer and columnist for Time magazine for 20 years, where he wrote 22 cover stories; that he was a columnist for Entertainment Weekly and the Los Angeles Times; that he is the author of Man Made and In Defense of Elitism: Why I'm Better Than You And You're Better Than Someone Who Didn't Buy This Book. There is no factual basis for his claim that his writing has "saved millions of lives and destroyed many more marriages."

Dean Darnell Hunt, a professor of sociology and African-American studies, is the lead author of the Bunche Center’s Hollywood Diversity Report, an annual series that examines the relationship between diversity and profit in the entertainment industry. The fifth annual report was released in February. Dean Hunt has been a faculty member since 2001. Prior to coming to UCLA, he was chair of the sociology faculty at the University of Southern California. He has written and edited several publications, including "Screening the Los Angeles ‘Riots’: Race, Seeing, and Resistance" and "Black Los Angeles: American Dreams and Racial Realities." He received an A.B. in journalism from the University of Southern California, an M.B.A. from Georgetown University, and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in sociology from UCLA. He is a member of the American Sociological Association and the Association of Black Sociologists. He has served as a member of the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations Academic Advisory Board and as UCLA’s representative to the Association of American Colleges and Universities. At UCLA, he has served on a number of campus committees and was the recipient of the UCLA Academic Senate’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award in 2011.

Carolina A. Miranda has been a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times since 2014, where she covers art and architecture, as well as broader stories about popular culture. This includes in-depth reports on the intersections of art and race, the urban design of Los Angeles, innovations by Pritzker Prize-winning architects, developments in international film, and issues of art and gentrification in Boyle Heights.

Prior to joining The Times, she was an independent magazine writer for a variety of regional and national media outlets, including Time, ARTNews, Architect, Art in America, Budget Travel, Lucky Peach, Florida Travel + Life, Lonely Planet and Fast Company. In those roles, she reported on the use of biotechnology in contemporary art, the growing intersection between fine art and video games, the design radicalism of architect Oscar Niemeyer, and the burgeoning food scene in Lima, Peru.

For three years until 2012, she served as a contributing art critic at New York Public Radio sister stations WNYC and WQXR and produced reports for programs such as NPR’s All Things Considered, Weekend Edition and PRI’s Studio 360. In Los Angeles, she has done reports for KCRW and is a regular contributor on Press Play with Madeleine Brand.

Prior to working as a freelancer, Miranda was a general assignment reporter at Time, where she covered culture, education and social issues, in addition to many other subjects. During her time there, she interviewed Al Gore about his global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth, reported on the burgeoning industry of skatepark design and was part of the team that broke the news of irregularities in FEMA director Michael Brown’s resume in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

She was named a fellow in the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program twice — in 2008 and 2011. In 2017, she was named a winner of the Rabkin Prize in Visual Arts Journalism, a national award. She has also received awards from the L.A. Press Club and the Society for Features Journalism.

In 2018, Miranda was part of the team of journalists who helped establish the Los Angeles Times Guild, the first employee union at the Los Angeles Times in its 137-year history — a labor campaign that made national headlines. Since that time, she has served as co-chair of the Los Angeles Times Guild.

Miranda is a graduate of Smith College, where she majored in Latin American Studies. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, automotive writer Ed Tahaney.

Kristena D. Hatcher, PHR, is an HR Executive focusing on Inclusion & Diversity (I&D) at leading entertainment, media, and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA). She partners with leadership to solidify the overall I&D business strategy to foster an inclusive environment, ensuring CAA continues to attract, develop, and retain more diverse voices, from diverse backgrounds across the workforce.  Most recently, she’s leading sessions of CAA Inclusion & Diversity’s Embracing Our Differences, conceived to leverage the diversity of thought and collective genius across the organization. As a member of the Entertainment Industry College Outreach Program’s Advisory Board, Hatcher serves as a trusted resource helping fulfill the organization’s mission to be the conduit that bridges the gap between top qualified diverse candidates and the desire and commitment of the entertainment industry to develop a culturally and ethnically diverse workforce. Prior to overseeing I&D, Hatcher focused on talent acquisition and recruitment, establishing and managing internal and external collaborative partnerships, and developing and implementing staffing plans and strategies with a focus on building diverse, high-caliber applicant/candidate pools within the Motion Picture, Television, and Foundation client groups.

Prior to joining CAA in 2014, Hatcher was an Executive Recruiter for Morgan Samuels, a retained executive search firm, where she was responsible for placing senior executives and C-level talent across industries including digital media and entertainment, consumer packaged goods, and engineering and construction. She actively volunteers her time with organizations including Step Up, Dress for Success, and Hire Heroes USA.

Hatcher holds a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, in Criminal Justice from the University of Alabama. She received her Professional in Human Resources (“PHR”) Certification through the HR Certification Institute and completed coursework in Human Resources Management at UCLA.

Bernie is currently Senior Vice President, Global Benefits & Well-being, with AECOM, who have 53,000 employees worldwide located in 50 countries.

He is the Corporate COE leader responsible for health care, retirement, group, voluntary, lifestyle, perks, well-being and wellness benefits programs and benefits communications, benefits compliance, benefits delivery and M&A benefits activities globally.

He has previously worked at many large global employers including Yahoo!, Hilton, Gap, Accenture and Bank of America to name a few.

He is a Moderator, Speaker and Panelist at various professional benefits related events managed by Institutional Investors, both in the U.S. and Europe

He has been the Chair of The Corporate Board of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (IFEBP) and has attained his Certified Employee Benefits Specialist (CEBS) designation and spoken at numerous conferences offered by them.

He was a faculty member for World at Work and has attained his Certified Compensation Professional (CCP) designation and spoken at numerous conferences offered by them.

He also served on the Board of the Council on Employee Benefits (CEB).

Bernie has been featured in numerous industry publications, articles, webinars and recently earned both The EBN Advisors of the Year and the BenefitsPRO Luminary awards, both in 2023.

Alex brings over 15 years of HR experience with him and has worked for companies as diverse and varied as WeWork, Blue Shield of California, NBCUniversal, Time Inc., Ogilvy & Mather and Citi.

His HR career really began at Citi, where he spent almost 5 years within the Global Wealth Management division, as an Assistant Vice President of Human Resources, supporting Private Bankers and their sales support teams.

He then joined Ogilvy & Mather, a global advertising agency for a little over two years, where he supported the North American business and some global offices, from both a HRBP and recruiting perspective.

After Ogilvy, Alex spent almost four years as an HR Director at Time Inc., formerly the publishing division of Time Warner and now part of the Meredith Corporation. He supported various leadership teams, with Global Technology being his largest and primary client. Leveraging his experience from his prior companies, Alex also acted as a diversity lead and advisor, overseeing its employee resource groups and developing key internal diversity initiatives and external partnerships.

Prior to making a cross-country move, he spent almost two years at NBCUniversal, a well-known multinational media conglomerate, as an HR Director supporting various Corporate Functions.
From there, he joined Blue Shield of California (BSC), a mission driven not-for-proflt health plan provider, where he was a Senior Director, HR Business Partner and ran the Employee Relations function.

In 2019, Alex moved back to the East Coast to join WeWork as Senior Director, Global HR Business Partner, where he headed up HR for the Development and Real Estate functions globally.

Currently, he is Partner, Head of HR, Americas for Control Risks, a specialist risk consultancy that helps to create secure, compliant and resilient organizations in an age of ever-changing risk. Working across disciplines, technologies and geographies, everything they do is based on their belief that taking risks is essential to their clients’ success. He is based out of their Los Angeles office.

A graduate of Cardiff University in Wales, Alex holds a Bachelor’s degree in Politics & History. While he has called the US home for almost 16 years, he comes from a truly international background and perspective- he is half British, half Swiss and was born & raised in Hong Kong, so traveling for work and pleasure is second nature.

Emtrain founder and CEO Janine Yancey is a passionate advocate for healthy workplace cultures. Janine’s unique approach blends technology, behavioral science, data analytics, and social media-inspired interactions to help inform and improve workplace behavior. Janine presides over a team of experts and an extensive library of content including courses, video, resource guides, checklists and analytic reports that define the modern workplace.

Janine is a proponent of neutral, third-party guidance and problem-solving. By orchestrating a publicly-accessible community interface for employee questions and concerns, Janine stays at the forefront of real-world, real-time harassment, bias, discrimination, and ethics issues.

A tireless visionary, Janine writes extensively, has provided expert testimony and advice to state legislatures, and helps leading companies implement harassment prevention, diversity, ethics, and compliance programs. Janine is a sought-after speaker and has been published and interviewed in the mainstream media including The Washington Post, Fast Company, USA Today, Bloomberg Business, TechCrunch, and Startup Grind. She’s presented at Society of Ethics and Compliance; Techstars FounderCon; Founders Network, and The Club.

Prior to founding Emtrain, Janine was a partner at Employment Law Partners where she specialized in solving labor and employment problems for high tech firms including Google, Intuit and a variety of start-ups. Janine also worked as counsel at Liebert Cassidy Whitmore, served as Board Member of the Northern California Human Resources Association, and authored The HR Handbook, designed to help young tech companies navigate workplace laws.

Janine earned her JD at the University of California Hastings School of Law and a BA in English and Political Science at the University of California Berkeley.

Elizabeth A. Morrison joined Live Nation Entertainment in June 2017 as the Vice President Diversity & Belonging to lead the company in building a global workforce reflective of its fans & artists & to create a culture where employees are empowered to be their authentic selves & do their best work.

Her strategy is driven by a strategic focus on communications, analytics, the ability to quantify value & a highly creative approach to program development.  In her time at Live Nation, she’s established Diversity & Belonging as a core culture driver, talent attractor/retainer & strategic business partner.  She’s also launched the company’s first-ever global day of belonging, KidNation.  Live Nation’s rock star version of Take Your Daughter & Son to Work Day, KidNation welcomes kids, parents & families into the office/venue/amphitheater to get a peek at culture, future careers and party like rock stars to live performances by young artists & entertainers.

In her previous role, she led global Diversity & Inclusion at Campbell Soup Company in Camden, NJ.  Prior to Campbell, Elizabeth spent eight years in progressive positions at Comcast driving employee engagement and culture. Early in her career she managed public relations for the American Red Cross and events at B101 FM Radio (WBEB Philadelphia).

Elizabeth is passionate about social justice, mentoring, movies, family, her dog Buster and cat Romeo and 4 nephews ages 6 months to 17 years.

Dr. Rebecca Port leads the HR team for the finance and operations functions at Netflix – one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies, according to Forbes. Rebecca is an experienced HR leader who has worked across the globe and is passionate about creating work environments where people can be the best version of themselves.

Rebecca’s career started in the UK, as an academic. With a PhD in Occupational Psychology Rebecca created a master’s program in Business Psychology at City University in London. On leaving academia Rebecca went into consulting with the global consulting company DDI, initially in the UK before moving to Mumbai, India to set up their India operation. From India Rebecca moved to Singapore where she joined Standard Chartered Bank and held several senior HR roles including global head of talent & learning, head of HR risk and compliance, and head of HR Europe and Americas.

Rebecca’s work has focused on helping leaders facilitate the success of their teams. She has won numerous awards for her work especially for helping build gender diversity in finance.

CEO of the Iclif Leadership and Governance Centre, author of the Wall Street Journal and Amazon best seller Open Source Leadership (McGraw Hill 2017), Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders (Simon & Schuster 2011), co-author of Be the Change (McGraw Hill 2014) and a regular writer for Forbes, Rajeev is an out-of-the-box thought leader on leadership, management and corporate governance.  He has extensive global experience in leadership and organizational consulting, with a particular focus on uncovering personal and organizational “leadership energy.”

Rajeev’s professional roots are in industry. He has been Chief Learning Officer of both Coca-Cola and Morgan Stanley, and has formerly held senior positions at American Express and Goldman Sachs. At Goldman, Rajeev helped found Pine Street - the firm’s acclaimed leadership academy - and headed Pine Street for Europe and Asia. In his early career he was a banker and currency trader.

He has provided speaking, coaching, consulting and advisory services globally. His clients include Allianz, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Great Eastern, HSBC, Indian Railways, Johnson & Johnson, MetLife, Mitsubishi, Maybank, Mohammad bin Rashid School of Government Dubai, Nike, Nestle, Permata Bank Indonesia, PwC, Prudential, Sinarmas Indonesia, US Treasury, US Securities & Exchange Commission, Zurich Insurance and many more. He also serves as guest faculty at leading business schools in the US, Europe and Asia.

Rajeev is a sought after international speaker and has been widely featured in international media platforms such as Bloomberg TV & radio, CNN, Knowledge@Wharton, European Financial Review, National Public Radio (NPR), Harvard Business Review, CNBC, Fast Company, Leader to Leader, American Management Association (AMA) magazine, Leadership Excellence magazine, The Times of India, The National Dubai, The Mint and the Conference Board.

In 2014 and 2017 he was named one of Top 100 Global Thought Leaders for Trustworthy Business by ‘Trust Across America.’  Rajeev and his family have lived in fourteen cities in eight countries.  He currently splits his time between Kuala Lumpur Malaysia and Seattle WA where he is President of Leadership Energy Consulting LLC.

Ronald Reeves, CDP is currently Head of Diversity & Inclusion for the United States, Canada, Latin America & Caribbean for AIG. He has been in his current role for three years and has worked for AIG for 20 years. He is responsible for partnering with AIG’s leaders, managers and employees to design, develop and implement a sustainable and measurable D& I strategy that focuses on talent, workplace and the marketplace. Ronald is a Certified Diversity Professional.

Under Ronald’s leadership, AIG has been named to the 2019 DiversityInc’s Top 50 List. AIG has also been recognized as one of the Best Places To Work for LGBT Equality by the Human rights Campaign for eight consecutive years.

Ronald is a seasoned financial services industry training & leadership development professional. With over 20 years of insurance industry experience, he has extensive global leadership and management development experience. He has traveled to over 20 different countries in the Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific facilitating leadership, management and professional development programs. He is a skilled presenter, facilitator, sales trainer, instructional designer, project manager, executive/sales/life coach & learning officer. Ronald has deep expertise in sales training/coaching, business/technical training as well as management, leadership and professional development. He holds numerous learning & development certifications such as Achieve Global, DDI, Wilson Learning, Results Coaching Systems, MBTI and Facet 5 to name a few.

Ronald also has experience writing state training grant proposals as well as administering million dollar grants. He is a former award winning Sales Agent & Sales Manager for Allstate Insurance Company. Ronald is passionate about diversity & inclusion, leadership/executive development as well as improving sales revenue/production. He received his B.A. in Journalism from San Jose State University. Ronald resides in Los Angeles.

Liji Thomas is head of diversity and inclusion, Southern California Edison.

Liji began her career lobbying on Capitol Hill for an increase in housing for low income women and children. In 2005, Liji joined Countrywide as a Project Manager and quickly rose through the ranks to become Assistant Vice President of Compliance and Risk Management. In this role, she oversaw compliance and risk assessment in Countrywide’s offshore operations and authored Countrywide’s Model for Offshore Compliance, a cross functional, global, risk-based approach to the company’s compliance efforts. In 2008, Liji joined the Internal Audit Department of Southwest Airlines. During her time in Internal Audit, Liji led the company’s first Capitalization of Labor Audit and published an article advancing thought leadership in the space in the 2010 issue of Internal Auditor magazine. She then assumed a role as Manager of Business Strategy, implementing new business initiatives impacting over 3,600 individuals. These initiatives included strategies to increase revenue, improve customer experience and realize process efficiencies. In the first six months of 2012, Liji impacted revenue generation in excess of $40 million. In late 2012, Liji Thomas was shoulder-tapped to help build diversity and inclusion efforts for Southwest Airlines. In this role, she informed all aspects of diversity and inclusion for the nations’ largest domestic airline and helped align Southwest Airlines culture with an award-winning diversity and inclusion strategy. After consulting with several Fortune 500 clients, Liji now leads the diversity and inclusion journey at Southern California Edison, the largest subsidiary of Edison International, a Fortune 250 company at the forefront of creating the clean energy future.

Liji is married and is the proud mom of two girls. In her spare time, Liji contributes to various charitable and civic causes. She is a Former Jesuit Volunteer and a 1998 graduate of Vanderbilt University. She has an MBA in Finance, a Master’s degree in Accounting and a Master’s degree in Information Technology Management and Consulting and holds CPA, CIA, CRMA and SHRM- CP designations. She was chosen to deliver her graduate school commencement address and is a graduate of the Leadership Dallas Class of 2017.

Marion Brooks is Vice President & US Country Head, Diversity & Inclusion at Novartis Pharmaceuticals.

Marion Brooks has over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, of which 19 have been with Novartis Pharmaceuticals. Over the years, Marion has taken on roles of increasing responsibility and diversified his experience to include Sales, Training & Development, Sales Leadership, Marketing, and Patient & Specialty Services.

He is currently the Vice-President and US Country Head of Diversity & Inclusion for Novartis, where he leads the development and implementation of the diversity and inclusion strategy for all Novartis companies in the US. Most recently, he held the position of Sales Director West for Xolair, where he led his sales team that covers the West half of the U.S. to #1 for two consecutive years.

Over the years, Marion has demonstrated outstanding performance winning numerous awards including Director of the Year, ABL of the Year, Training Excellence, World Wide Franchise Award, and numerous Business Excellence Awards.

Homegrown in Texas, Marion has remained committed to people and their development. He stays true to this passion through his volunteer work in the community and numerous mentoring relationships. As chairman of the African Ancestry ERG, he developed the Owning Your Career Workshop and the AACE Mentoring program both designed to develop and retain key talent. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sunshine’s Open Door Foundation, an organization focused on supporting foster children.

In addition to his work at Novartis, Marion is an internationally certified executive coach, and best-selling author of What You Don’t Know IS Hurting You: 4 Keys to a Phenomenal Career.

Marion has a 21 year old daughter, and three nieces who he has raised as his own.

Until her recent retirement, Margot Roosevelt covered California economic, labor and workplace issues as a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times. A former environmental reporter for the Times, she previously wrote for TIME magazine as a foreign and national correspondent, for the Washington Post on the Congressional beat, and for the Orange County Register focusing on business and the Southern California economy.

Willie (he/him) is a keynote speaker, consultant, and facilitator who helps organizations advance vital conversations that unlock connections across differences. His belief in the transformative power of media to change narratives led him to found Abernathy, a magazine for black men backed by companies like Mailchimp, Atlassian, and WeWork. In its four-year run, Abernathy published 400+ articles and produced a series of curated events for diverse professionals across the nation.

Willie served as Founding Technical Lead of Seth Godin’s altMBA program for high-performing individuals who want to level up and lead, and CTO of The Domino Project, an award-winning publishing company founded by business luminary Seth Godin and powered by Amazon.com. He's been featured in documentaries (I’m Fine, Thanks), on HGTV (House Hunters International), and in print (Icarus Deception). Willie is an avid houseplant aficionado and loves to spread the gospel of self-watering planters whenever possible.

Brittany Hill is the CEO of Accelerist, the partnership intelligence SaaS platform where some of the industry’s most prolific brands and nonprofits prospect, value, access and measure their events and partnerships with each other. As a passionate data seeker and trend translator, Brittany specializes in using analytics and innovations to support B-corporations and Fortune 1000 companies as well as enterprise and federated nonprofits in their pursuit of sustainable events and partnerships. In her role, Brittany spearheads social impact product development and leads a talented team who has supported 100s of customers in effectuating social change.

Brittany holds over 15 years of experience in the entertainment, nonprofit and agency sectors, with a consistent specialization and commitment to purpose-driven work. Throughout her career, Mrs. Hill’s portfolio of work ranges from building multi-channel partnerships and award-winning campaigns between blue-chip nonprofits and companies, to helping entertainers and celebrities find their social purpose, and producing social activism events.

Brittany’s trendsetting insights have been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, TIME, and MSN.com. She is a seasoned speaker on the topics of data-driven cause partnerships, social impact measurement, industry trends, sponsorship valuation and cause partnership sales, with previous engagements at Sustainable Brands, SXSW, Association of Fundraising Professionals and Engage for Good

Industry Experience: 34 years of refining industry experience including roles in all aspects of engineering, process safety, maintenance, and operations. Worked for Amoco/BP for 28 years where he held leadership positions in Maintenance, Operations, EH&S, and Technical

Education: BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois

Home Town: Twin Lakes, WI

Chris leads Vitamin Angels’ CSR partnership program where he oversees the organization’s corporate relationships and their respective CSR platforms. Prior to joining Vitamin Angels, Chris worked for the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. He coordinated efforts between NGOs, governments, and the private sector to align on multistakeholder development goals. Now, eight years later, Chris utilizes this experience in his current role to ensure that Vitamin Angels’ corporate partners align with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and yield measurable results for investors, employees, and other stakeholders.

Karen is a talent strategist, organizational development consultant and designer of leadership experiences with over 18 years of experience across the professional services, technology, financial services, oil and gas, healthcare and waste management industries. Early in her career as a human capital consultant, Karen gained extensive exposure the challenges of driving change in organizations and the psychological impacts these transformation efforts had on people. Karen developed a deep interest in the untapped potential of leaders to enable change in others and shifted her focus to leadership development, where she spent 10 years designing leadership experiences, succession management, and high potential programs. Karen is passionate about bringing innovation and experimentation to HR and was an early adopter of design thinking to drive an employee-centric approach to talent programs. At BetterUp, Karen leverages her breadth of experience in human capital and passion for innovation to help talent executives envision new approaches to catalyze business growth through people growth.

Karen earned a Master of Business Administration degree from the London Business School in the United Kingdom and a Bachelor of International Business from Carleton University in Canada.

Stacy Perman is an enterprise staff writer for Company Town covering the business of the film industry at the Los Angeles Times. A former writer and correspondent for Time and Businessweek, her work has appeared in a number of publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Inc. and the Hollywood Reporter. She has written about the Getty, the nasty implosion over the deal to buy Aman Resorts; profiled Martha Stewart, Samantha Bee, and a Hasidic rabbi who is also a Malibu surfing legend, and has investigated Uber’s strained relationship with women and the murder of her childhood best friend and her family. She is also the author of three books including the New York Times bestseller In-N-Out Burger: A Behind-The-Counter Look at the Fast-Food Chain That Breaks All the Rules.

Since 2004, Arley Baker has overseen the Port of Los Angeles’ cargo and tourism-related marketing communications, community relations, media relations, branding and executive communications.  On a daily basis, his organization facilitates port-related events, communication deliverables, sponsorships, and stakeholder engagement activities.

Over the past 30 years, Arley has developed award-winning communication strategies for a variety of companies and organizations that include EarthLink, Bank of America, United Airlines, American Suzuki Motor Corporation, The Irvine Company, Taco Bell/Yum Brands, and the British Columbia Ministry of Tourism.

Arley is currently active on the boards of the Historic Downtown San Pedro Business Improvement District and the Think Earth Environmental Education Foundation. He is a Southern California native, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in English and minored in political science at the University of Redlands.  Arley and his wife Melissa live in Long Beach with their teenage daughter and son, Morgan and Matthew.

After her own experience with workplace harassment, Neta Meidav founded Vault in 2018, with Rotem Hayoun-Meidav, to empower victims to report misconduct.

Rather than merely digitizing old solutions, Neta and her team developed a powerful tool that can help employees to overcome the fear of reporting, and inject trust in the workplace. Vault is a trust-enabling, risk-mitigating technology for companies in the self-regulation era. In the wake of the #MeToo and TIME’S UP movements, Vault is rapidly defining a new category of HR technology known as “TrustTech.”

Having identified the lack of adoption and ineffectiveness of old workplace harassment “hotline” systems, Neta led Vault to design a sophisticated solution that puts employees at the core. With Vault, enterprise employers gain an end-to-end platform, which consists of an employee app, corporate case management hub, and data and analytics. Vault’s solution supports cultures of trust and diversity while driving out harmful workplace behaviors such as bias and harassment, as well as fraud and corruption, mitigating significant risks to the enterprise. Neta is excited to be changing work culture for good.

Ilit Raz began her journey with D&I with one mission: How could she improve the lives of women and minorities in the workplace?

Raz started her journey in tech at the age of 18. From serving in the 8200 Intelligence Unit in Isreal to working at various startups and earning her Executive MBA. As Raz conquered her career, she was used to the isolation and gender bias that comes with being one of the only women in the room. In early 2016, after 14 years in the industry, she decided to finally do something about those hurdles. That’s when she founded Joonko.

As a champion for making an impactful and lasting difference, Meagan has spent her career bringing light to timely issues, in a variety of roles. With over a decade in journalism at ABC News, to working with state lawmakers and staff on key policy issues on behalf of the National Conference of State Legislatures, followed by a significant career in corporate communications for Denver Public Schools and Verizon, Meagan drives what’s important. With her added experience in Corporate Social Responsibility and Philanthropy, Meagan has raised, managed and allocated millions of dollars to nonprofits partners that have helped to make an impact in the lives of social entrepreneurs, first generation college students, survivors of domestic violence and all students seeking a career in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). Today, Meagan leads social good, internal communications, employee engagement and culture for Visible. She continues to sit on a statewide coalition to end domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking in Colorado and volunteers with Special Olympics.

Zev is Syndio’s founder and Chief Data Scientist. Dr. Eigen has been at the forefront of cutting edge HR technology for more than a decade. He combines his uniquely overlapping areas of expertise in labor economics and employment law with deep experience in data science, predictive modeling and economic sociological research. He is responsible for all aspects of research & development to ensure that Syndio’s products provide unbiased and accurate results to inform the very best organizational decisions.

Zev writes and speaks about subjects related to pay equity methodology, HR tech, data science and legal compliance in the workplace. He has authored more than a dozen scholarly articles and books and is an internationally recognized expert in these fields appearing in the media frequently (Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, NPR, Bloomberg News, Reuters, Chicago Tribune, NBC, CBS, FOX, etc.).
He holds a PhD from MIT, a JD from Cornell Law School, and a BS from Cornell University’s School of Industrial & Labor Relations (with honors). We can try to summarize his experience by name dropping just a few of the organizations for whom he has worked: Northwestern, Yale, NYU Law, 20th Century Fox.

Sarah Townsend is the Kenneth King Stonier Assistant Professor of Business Administration and Assistant Professor of Management and Organization at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. Her research reveals the dysfunctional behaviors and physiological costs that can result when individuals’ cultural beliefs collide with the dominant cultural beliefs of organizations. She studies these “cultural divides” in the context of diversity in organizations, differences in meritocracy beliefs, social class, gender, and race. Her work demonstrates how cultural divides can be both a source of and solution to inequality.

Dr. Townsend has a B.A. in psychology and comparative studies in race and ethnicity and an M.A. in Psychology from Stanford University. She also has a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California Santa Barbara. Her work has been published in numerous scholarly and mainstream outlets, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Science, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Harvard Business Review, and Politico.

Anoop is the CEO and co-founder of SeekOut, a startup with a mission to provide companies a competitive edge in recruiting hard-to-find diverse talent. He started SeekOut after a 20-year career at Microsoft which began with the acquisition of his first startup, VXtreme, in 1997. During his tenure, Anoop was the Corporate Vice-President of the multi-billion dollar Unified Communications group. He also was TA to Bill Gates advising on technology and product strategy, and as Distinguished Scientist at Microsoft Research he helped lead work on Telepresence and Natural User Interfaces. Prior to Microsoft, Anoop was a tenured professor at Stanford and holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.

Rob Antrobius serves as senior vice president, market officer, Los Angeles for Prologis and is responsible for Prologis’ 32 million square foot Los Angeles / Orange County California portfolio occupied by over 400 customers. He was one of the original team members to open the Cerritos office in 2005 which now serves as the headquarters for Prologis’ Southwest Region.

Prior to joining Prologis, Mr. Antrobius was senior vice president at Trammell Crow where he was repeatedly recognized as part of the national top producer circle for the company. He was named one of Los Angeles’ top 25 “Power Brokers” by CoStar and honored by the American Industrial Real Estate Association for completing the most industrial transactions in Southern California five years in a row. He began his industrial real estate career as an industrial broker with Colliers International in 1989; on three occasions he was honored with making the most transactions companywide in a calendar year.

Mr. Antrobius currently serves on the SIOR Los Angeles chapter board of directors, the NAIOP SoCal chapter board of directors and the American Industrial Real Estate Association board of directors. He has a bachelor’s degree in real estate finance from the University of Southern California.

Mandy built her career in Tech across numerous functions, including Sales and Operations, most recently as a senior leader at New Relic running the Americas Sales Development team. She has been a lifelong student of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion as she has built her career in an industry where she was in the minority, and sought to bring others up through her leadership. Also, she is an avid supporter of non-profits with a focus on marginalized student and employee groups. Two years ago, she took over leadership of New Relic’s DE&I team full time.

Mandy uses her business background to ground DE&I efforts and metrics in the understanding of how the business operates and what is required to make the business more successful. She uses her expertise in selling to influence and coach senior leaders at New Relic and enable them to take up the mantle of Diversity and Inclusion throughout the organization. Her ability to help executive leadership see "what’s in it for them" has helped create true impact within her partnerships.

Mandy is a trained yoga and meditation instructor, certified in essential oils, student of astrology, former NCAA Division I Varsity Water Polo athlete, and life long piano player.

Rachel Uranga is a business journalist, most recently of the Los Angeles Business Journal, where she covered trade, retail, and manufacturing. A graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and California State University, Northridge, she has worn several hats in the journalism world. She was a foreign correspondent in Mexico, an opinion writer in Southern California, and has covered a range of issues from immigration and criminal justice to transportation and logistics. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, son, and their felines.

Driven to draw a direct connection from building an exceptional culture to financial results, she writes, speaks and works directly in the space of that connection. With both Fortune 50 and a string of high growth start-up success stories, her experience on how to pull the right levers on the People team for high impact results is universal for companies of all sizes.  As a consultant, she specializes in leading cultural climate change for high-growth companies including attracting, growing and retaining the right talent.

Stacie works with high performing People teams to optimize how the function can most directly have an impact on the business while efficiently and effectively moving the needle on top priority initiatives.  To stay relevant as an industry leader—and to share her expertise—she constantly absorbs, writes, and speaks about the tangible actions leaders can take to build a purpose-driven/values-based company that impacts top-line growth and bottom-line success.

Stacie also is a regular speaker/panelist and author of articles for Forbes Magazine, LinkedIn, her blog on staciemallen.com as well as her podcast www.thestoryofwe.me  that can be found on Spotify and iTunes.