A business focused HR professional with 22 years of global experience, Amrita has held HR leadership
roles in high growth environments with a track record of successfully leading and implementing people
programs that drive transformation and business efficiency.She is passionate about mentoring high performing teams and working as a leadership coach for senior management in defining and leading their people strategy for acquisitions, new business integration, talent development and organization change.

Currently, Amrita leads a 30 member global HR team as Senior Director HR Valvoline Global Products
supporting businesses across North America, Europe, China, India, Rest of Asia, Latin America, Australia
& New Zealand, Middle East and Africa. Amrita is also serving as the Supervisor Board member in the Valvoline Cummins Joint venture board in China.

Amrita’s strong background in Organization design and development and her experience in multi-
cultural business environments helps her provide inclusive and dynamic partnership to the business.
Amrita earned her MBA from India and started her career working across various roles in HR before
moving on to supporting global businesses for Valvoline in Asia and Europe. In 2018 she moved to the
United States to lead the global HR operations and has been enjoying the experience of assimilating into
a new culture and way of life. Passion for travel experiences and fondness for experimenting with world
cuisines helped make the transition great fun . A deep personal commitment to the cause of cancer cure
motivated Amrita to associate with the Leukemia Lymphoma society where she is currently serving as
part of the 2022 Leadership committee for the Ohio Valley chapter.

Loretta currently manages the Future of Work and Collaboration business for HP Commercial PCs, which includes driving the strategy, new product and services categories, strategic partnership, and Go-to-Market.  She has 30 years of experience in HP and has held numerous executive and management positions across functions and businesses. Previously, she was the Director of Go-to-Market Strategy and Analytics, as well as Emerging Markets Strategy for PPS in the WW Sales Strategy organization. Prior to this role, Loretta was the Americas PSG Business Strategy and Customer Intelligence Director.

Loretta joined HP as an R&D Engineer and has held a number of management positions throughout HP in R&D, Marketing, Strategy and Ops, Supply chain, and Sales both at the group and business unit level. She spent much of her time in the Enterprise Business, including building the ISS Hyperscale business unit.

She holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Davis, and an MBA from Santa Clara University.

Loretta is based in Palo Alto, CA.

Cindy currently serves as VP of HR Transformation at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Having reached her 24-year anniversary with GSK, Cindy is both thrilled and humbled to be leading the HR organization through this transformation. We are striving to be a best-in-class HR function, partnering with business leaders to drive impact in talent, leadership, culture and capability.

Each day, I am amazed at the level of HR talent we have in our organization who are working hard to protect our license to operate and create the right employee services with user-friendly support. My goal throughout the transformation is to make sure everybody in the function feels supported and equipped to lead through the change.

Peter Cappelli is the George W. Taylor Professor of Management at the Wharton School and director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources.  He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA, served as Senior Advisor to the Kingdom of Bahrain for Employment Policy from 2003-2005, was a Distinguished Scholar of the Ministry of Manpower for Singapore, and was Co-Director of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce from 1990-1998. He was recently named by HR Magazine as one of the top 5 most influential management thinkers, by NPR as one of the 50 influencers in the field of aging, and was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources.

He received the 2009 PRO award from the International Association of Corporate and Professional Recruiters for contributions to human resources and an honorary Doctorate degree from the University of Liege in Belgium.  He is a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal and writes a monthly column for HR Executive magazine. His work on performance management, agile systems, and hiring practices, and other workplace topics appears in the Harvard Business Review. His latest book is The Future of the Office: Work from Home, Remote Work, and the Hard Choices We Face.

Katasha Harley (she/her) is the Chief People Officer at Bravely. Prior to Bravely, she has held the positions of SVP and Head of People and Culture at Food52 and Head of Talent Development at The New York Times. With over 20 years of experience in human resources at companies such as Elizabeth Arden, KIPP NYC Charter Schools, L’Oreal USA, and Time Warner, she is often called upon to offer guidance on organizational design, employee experience and engagement, compensation, talent acquisition, and career development. Prior to her work in human resources, she was a caseworker for foster care and social work agencies. Ms. Harley is also a member of the Society for Human Resource Management and Top Ladies of Distinction, Inc. and has volunteered for Habitat for Humanity as well as various non-profit organizations geared towards education and the arts. Ms. Harley earned B.A. in Psychology from Hampton University, an  M.A. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from New York University.

Joy is an accomplished executive with experience in Human Resources, Operations and Finance. Joy is the Chief Operations Officer for Human Resources for B&V where she is responsible for the global functions of Talent Acquisition, HR Systems, Employee Relations, HR Service Center, and Business HR. Prior to the COO role, she led the HR function for the Global Power business at B&V. She was responsible for development and execution of global workforce strategies and human resource services to support leadership in achievement of business objectives.

For 12 years she held the Vice President Operations role for one of BV’s business units where she led a variety of functions such as general administration, human resources, workforce management, acquisition integration, process development/improvement, policies and procedures, internal communications, IT, marketing, proposals and sales support.

The first 12 years of her career she utilized her accounting degree and CPA where she managed various finance activities including corporate accounting/finance processes such as financial statements, financial reporting, management reporting, budgeting/forecasting, financial analyses, project accounting and billing and collections at three different companies.

Anne Spehar is the IT Global Organizational Change Management (OCM) Lead at Kraft Heinz.

Shashank Bhushan is the  Chief Talent Development Architect at BMC Software.

Dr. Steven’s work focuses on the design and deployment of technology-enabled processes to improve workforce agility, productivity, engagement, experience, and well-being. An industrial-organizational psychologist by training, he has played a central role in creating HR solutions that have positively influenced millions of employees working for thousands of companies around the globe. Dr. Steven regularly speaks on topics related to the changing nature of jobs, organizations, talent management, and the experience of work. He has written hundreds of articles and several books on strategic HR methods

Pragya Sinha is the Senior Director, HRBP- Clinical Franchises & Marketing at Quest Diagnostics Incorporated.

Caitlynn Sendra, Ph.D., is an Organizational Psychologist and EX Product Scientist at SAP SuccessFactors. Before her current role, Caitlynn served as a Research Analyst on the SuccessFactors Growth & Insights team, where she conducted original applied research on such topics as employee well-being, DE&I, and Dynamic Teams. Now, in her current role, Caitlynn works to translate psychological research and principles directly into SuccessFactors product offerings. Prior to joining SAP, Caitlynn several years in the consulting industry conducting applied research on the topics of leadership and organizational culture. Caitlynn earned her Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Wayne State University.

Bryan Walsh is an editorial director at Vox overseeing the tech, climate, and world teams, as well as the editor of Vox’s Future Perfect section, which covers the policies, people, and forces that could make the future a better place for everyone. He is the author of the 2019 book End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World, which is about existential risks like AI, pandemics, and nuclear war, and isn’t really all that brief. Previously he worked at Axios as the Future Correspondent and worked at TIME magazine for 15 years as a foreign correspondent in Asia, a climate change writer, and as the international editor.

Joanna Riley is an entrepreneur, advocate, and mentor for diversity in technology, and the CEO and Co-Founder of Censia. Censia was built to transform the way enterprise companies hire talent, its platform is a true system of intelligence for the enterprise, predictively matching the most in-demand people to opportunities at scale, powered by AI.

Prior to Censia Joanna was the co-founder and CEO of 1-Page, a SaaS solutions provider in the Talent Acquisition sector. In 2014 she led 1-Page to a successful IPO, and onto the S&P/ASX 300 by 2016.

Before 1-Page, she experienced two successful acquisitions of her companies, was part of the International Training Unit for the FBI, was a national rower, and earned her BA degree in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia where she was a full scholarship athlete. She is part of the Presidents Program at Harvard Business School where she is receiving her MBA.

Jo has been featured in Fortune, Fast Company, Inc, WSJ, Financial Times, Bloomberg, Huffington Post, NYSE, TechCrunch, Business Insider, and others. Jo has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Women in Tech, awarded the Most Powerful and Influential Woman Award by the California Diversity Council, and the Power ‘30 Under 30’ for Professional and Community Excellence, and as CEO has led her previous company to a successful IPO.

She currently sits on the Board of Directors for Young Presidents Organization (SF Bay Chapter) and is an active angel investor in early-stage companies. She sits on the Advisory Boards of CerraCap Ventures (http://www.cerracap.com), Veterati (https://www.veterati.com), Perksy (http://www.getperksy.com), DroneShield Ltd (DRO.asx), and is a mentor at Singularity University (https://su.org) and Founder Institute (https://fi.co).

Melynda McConnell is the Head of Human Resources (US & Mexico) at Mammoet.

Julia has been at the cross-section of organizational culture and technology for over a decade, developing deep expertise in employee engagement, management excellence, leadership development, and People strategy. She has worked with hundreds of People Teams across industries and company sizes, pushing them to find their best and learning from the outcomes.

Julia joined Lattice in 2020 to found the Lattice Advisory practice, combining research, experience, and ongoing client work to inform recommended practices in People Strategy. Before that, she founded and led the Employee Practice at Medallia, an experience management platform. In the years leading up to her time at Lattice, Julia was also part of the team at Talentism, a remote-first coaching company, as both a leader and an Executive Clarity Coach. Julia has her BA in Cultural Linguistics and Cognition from Cornell, and her MBA from Stanford Business School.

Rebecca brings her years of experience in the HR and People space to SkillCycle as the first official employee and Co-Founder. Throughout her 10 years in HR, she developed programs that optimized talent acquisition, employee retention, upskilling/reskilling, employee engagement, employee experience, succession planning, and more. She used this expertise to build People strategies that made her companies successful and protected their most valuable asset – the people. At SkillCycle, she works cross-functionally to deliver solutions and experiences that push learners beyond their perceived limitations to unlock their potential. She aligns with key stakeholders to ensure they see ROI and continue making learning more accessible within their organizations. Her goal is to empower people to invest in themselves and their teams, to increase employee engagement, retention, and performance.

Christian Murphy serves as Chief Executive Officer for Catharsis Productions where he oversees the strategies and implementation of the company vision, mission, and its core values. Mr. Murphy focuses primarily on the aesthetic and creative content of the programs.

He serves as a major contributor to the online training designs, in particular, U GOT THIS! Mr. Murphy also served as the founder and original Artistic Director of Voices in Harmony, a Los Angeles-based non-profit organization that paired urban youth with theater and film professionals to collaborate one-on-one in creating and performing personal stories. He has been trained as a certified rape victim advocate through Chicago’s Rape Victim Advocate program. He designed a peer-education training program on gender issues for Lambda Chi Alpha and its undergraduate fraternity members. He served as the co-chair on the MEN (Men Endorsing Non-Violence) subcommittee for Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence and co-created its highly successful Male Ally Pilot program for students at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  He is happily married to Lauren Murphy, co-owner of Laurenceleste, makers of some really hip, organic personalized baby blankets.

Lydia Dishman is Fast Company’s senior editor for growth and engagement. She has also written for CBS Moneywatch, Fortune, The Guardian, Popular Science, and the New York Times, among others.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz at Work, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.