Carlos Cubia is the SVP, Global Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer at Walgreens Boots Alliance.

Lise Vesterlund is the professor and co-author of The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women's Dead-End Work at the University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Salima Bhimani is the Chief Equity + Inclusion Strategist for the Other Bets at Alphabet. She leads, partners with and enables the Bets to achieve equity, inclusion and increased representation through systemic change.

She came to Alphabet as an award winning equity, inclusion and diversity (EID) practitioner of 23 years having worked in the public, private, international and academic sectors. Some of her work highlights include: designing and leading a project on remodeling the Canadian Federal Government’s resourcing channels by exposing racial profiling and structural racism in education systems; leading efforts on women’s human rights through NGOs in the global south; creating racial and gender equity policy frameworks for large scale institutions.

Prior to her role at Alphabet she was the CEO and Founder of Relational, a boutique firm dedicated to empowering organizations on the path of EID.

Her secret sauce as an EID expert comes from merging her praxis as a systemic change designer, advocate, strategist, researcher, educator and consultant. She holds a PhD In Education with a focus on transforming racial and gender social exclusion in communities and institutions. She also has a Master in Environmental Studies (Globalization and Women), Bachelor of Education and Honors Bachelors in Anthropology and Women and Gender Studies.

In her other lives she is a trained North Indian dancer, an avid taiji sword student and a playwright.

Laurie Weingart is the Professor and co-author of The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women's Dead-End Work at Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business.

Keturah Hallmosley is the Head of People Experience at Seattle Children's Hospital.

Supporting private, government and health organizations on their diversity, inclusion and accessibility journey.

Passionate about promoting equality and creating opportunity for all, James believes in a world where difference, disability or language are no longer barriers. With lived experience of Neurodiversity and over a decade of experience in the tech space, James advises companies on tools and strategies to improve workplace inclusion.

Yuri Ramirez is the Director of the Global Employee Engagement Program Office at Intel Corporation.

Emma Hinchliffe is a senior writer for Fortune, where she covers women in business and gender issues across business, politics, and culture. Emma is a co-author of the MPW Daily newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women and co-chair of the Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership. Before joining Fortune, she worked as a reporter for Mashable and the Houston Chronicle. She is a graduate of Georgetown University.

Heather Tinsley-Fix is a Senior Advisor at AARP, where she leads the organization’s work on employer engagement and helps drive AARP’s focus on providing workers 50+ with the tools they need to thrive in today’s work environment.  With a background in marketing, innovation, and program management, Heather works with employers and job seekers, external partners, and academics to provide thought leadership on 50+ labor market issues and create practical resources that enable employers to build age-inclusive organizations that capitalize on the value of experience.  She holds a B.A. in English Literature and an M.A. in Literary Theory, both from the University of Exeter.

With more than 25 years of progressive experience in inclusion and diversity, health equity, community relations, and corporate social responsibility, Bridget Hurd has worked in the health care industry helping to facilitate stronger linkages among the community and health care institutions, addressing health inequities and fostering a culture of inclusion in the health care community and among employees.

Ms. Hurd is the vice president, Inclusion and Diversity, and Chief Diversity Officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan where she is responsible for leading and executing the corporate inclusion and diversity strategy for Blue Cross and its subsidiaries and shaping a culture of inclusion.  She also leads the Office of Health and Health Disparities with a vision of Better Health for All which focuses on achieving health equity in the delivery of, quality and access to care. Ms. Hurd also facilitates the enterprise’s Diversity Leadership Councils and oversees diversity and cultural competency learning opportunities for employees, Inclusion and Diversity coaching programs, 15 employee resource networks and the integration of an inclusion and diversity lens in providing service to members and customers.

She currently represents Blue Cross on the Michigan Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities, appointed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer in April 2020. Hurd is a recipient of the national DentaQuest 2020 Health Equity Heroes award which recognizes individuals working to achieve equity during this time of coronavirus. In 2021, she was also recognized as a Top 100 Diversity Officer by the National Diversity Council.

Kelly Yamanouchi is a business reporter covering airlines and the airport for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She started at the AJC in 2008, joining the paper from The Denver Post. She has also worked as a business writer for newspapers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Honolulu. She has a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and a master's degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

Tonya Echols is the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Strategist and a faculty member at The Institute of Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC).  An award-winning international Executive Coach and Leadership Development Consultant, Tonya has over 27 years of experience in corporate management, digital and traditional media, technology, finance, coaching, leadership development, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. She works with organizations across a variety of industries on organizational and leadership development with a special focus on issues of diversity and intercultural competency. With a master's degree in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga University and as a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Tennessee in Business Administration-Accounting, Tonya is a doctoral candidate in Leadership Psychology from William James College.

Tonya is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) credentialed by the International Coach Federation (ICF), of which iPEC is an accredited institution.

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.

As CEO, Shilpa Pherwani collaborates with leaders to develop innovative, engaging solutions to dismantle systemic inequities and leverage diversity for success. An organizational psychologist by training, she builds trusting, long-term relationships through deep listening and meeting people where they are. Pherwani helps her clients—which include American Airlines, Google, ESPN, Microsoft, Xerox, Gannett/USA Today, Sun Life Financial and University of Missouri—push boundaries to creatively move DEI dialogue to the next level while creating a culture of accountability. Her solutions are scalable, global and sustainable.

As an entrepreneur and thought leader, Pherwani has developed a leading proprietary tool for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) assessment, the Inclusive Organization Framework, which rates fourteen different areas of organizations to gauge where strategic focus can ensure the most progress. She also drives behavioral change at the individual level. Under Pherwani’s leadership, IBIS creates thousands of unforgettable learner moments every month. Booming client demand for Interactive Theater and Instructor-Led Training has matched interest in the firm’s award-winning E-Learning on racial equity and unconscious bias.

Her experience as an immigrant from India, which has guided her to value what she brings to the community rather than assimilate to a dominant culture, is a cornerstone she’s impressed upon her own children as well as her business. Since 1999, Pherwani has led IBIS to partner with powerful companies and universities as they run DEI assessments, develop strategic diversity action plans, and create and deliver nimble, ever-changing DEI curriculum.

“I approach DEI with an abundance mentality,” says Pherwani. “Inclusion signals scarcity to some, but the end goal is equity for all. It takes being intentional about culture to make the shift from ‘us versus them’ thinking. I work with clients to transform the workplace environment from one that tolerates differences to one that truly leverages them—where everyone feels a sense of belonging and can ultimately thrive.”

Keyla Waslawski is our Vice President, Sales and Marketing and Secretary. She oversees all of our sales and marketing processes and projects. Keyla also leads our business development, communications, client relations, and technology initiatives. Keyla graduated from Michigan State University with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and earned her M.B.A., Financial Accounting at Wayne State University in Detroit. She enjoys applying her analytical skills and eye for numbers to support and lead the Sales & Marketing team at the Cultural Intelligence Center. Keyla’s hobbies include gardening and home improvement projects, but what she enjoys most is spending time with her husband and two children.

Shalin Kothari is the VP of people & DEI strategy at Schneider Electric, a French multinational company that specializes in digital automation and energy management, with operations in more than 100 countries. Based in the Chicago area, Shalin has worked for the company for more than 25 years, holding leadership positions in HR, talent acquisition, global rewards, and supply-chain management. He earned a BBA in finance from Loyola University Chicago and a masters in computer information systems from Northwestern University.

McKendree supports the development and direction of our facilitation team. She has a Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, with a research focus on conviction, women’s leadership development, and developmental experiences in the workplace. She has delivered leadership training at over 300 companies and led learning and development at the fully remote company, InVision.

Stacia Okoh is the Account Executive at SeekOut.

Todd Davis is the Researcher for Executive Recruiting at ServiceNow.

For over the past 20 years Nick Ferraiolo made his way from an entry-level manufacturing position to Senior Leader in Supply Chain and Manufacturing which gave him the unique quality of connecting with all levels of an organization.

He found his passion for coaching when he was asked to help an employee whose anger was interfering with the functioning of the workplace. The company brought Nick in as their last effort to help this employee keep his job. Nick coached him to find the root of his insecurities and this employee went from a performance improvement plan to a promotion.

Nick started his gender transition in 2008, he struggled with his desire to be true to himself in an environment where colleagues made assumptions about him based on his gender identity. This experience of bias, insensitive colleagues and the fear that came from knowing he could lose his job, was a painful time. However, it inspired Nick to want to help create workplaces where people can be seen for who they are, rather than the way other people assume them to be.

He has presented his story “Transitioning in the Workplace” to Proctor and Gamble, HR.com and SHRM. Nick shares his story to help people understand the challenges a transgender employee faces in the workplace and to inspire others to live true to who they are.

In 2020 Nick founded Elm City Coaching and began training on diversity and Inclusion to help guide corporations to create an inclusive environment for all employees.   Nick’s light-hearted storytelling style creates an environment that allows his audience to feel comfortable to ask questions.  Nick strongly feels that knowledge is the first step to silence bias around the LGBTQ+ community

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.