Deborah Sengupta Stith is a Reporter at the Austin American-Statesman.

As Vice President of Talent Acquisition, Israel oversees the recruiting team and larger recruiting strategy efforts at Axios, a news and media company based in D.C. Prior to Axios, Israel has been recruiting in the media and ad tech space for over a decade. Serving as Director of Talent Acquisition at The New York Times, leading Tech, Data and Marketing recruiting efforts and a team of 30+ recruiters. He also led recruiting at Dotdash (now Dotdash Meredith), leading a team of five across all business functions. Israel also served on the board for Latino Tech, a non profit in New York City focused on facilitating networking opportunities for underrepresented talent and big tech. After living in NYC for 14 years, he now resides back home in Texas.

Elsa Zambrano is Senior Vice President of Global Talent & Culture at NXP Semiconductors. Most recently, she developed and implemented flexible work and well-being strategies to address the effects of the pandemic on NXP’s global workforce. She also partnered with senior executives to define NXP’s purpose, evolved values and behaviors to energize the workplace culture and engage the team.

Elsa joined NXP in 2019 and led the global country HR teams and Operations HR. Prior to that, she held various HR leadership positions with ISS, Sitel, Dell and Applied Materials. She is a strategic HR executive, with a career spanning 30+ years focused on driving business results in the technology and service industries. She has led global HR organizations in 21 countries with more than 60,000 employees, supporting business GMs with $20B+ global organizations. Additionally, Elsa has implemented enterprise-wide, centralized HR structures, and created centers of excellence. She has operated in numerous business environments, including high-growth, turnaround, acquisition integration and restructuring.

Elsa’s specialty areas include people strategies, compensation, HR generalist, staffing, development and change management.

She earned her bachelor’s degree from San Jose State University and her master’s from the University of San Francisco. She currently resides in Austin, Texas, and is a board member of the Andy Roddick Foundation.

Joanna Daly is Vice President, Compensation and Benefits for IBM.  In this role, she has global responsibility for the design and delivery of all compensation and benefits programs in addition to HR for acquisitions and divestitures, and Corporate Health and Safety.  She is responsible for compensation matters at the Board level, and led IBM’s pandemic response, as well as the spinoff of Kyndryl, IBM’s managed infrastructure services business, in 2021.

Joanna has served in a number of leadership roles in Human Resources in IBM.  Prior to leading Compensation and Benefits, Joanna was the Vice President, Talent, with global responsibility for talent acquisition, people analytics, employee experience, performance management, and careers & skills.  She has held past leadership roles for HR as the CHRO for IBM’s Consulting business in Europe, for new business ventures in software, in addition to various Compensation leadership roles.

She has lived and worked in New York, Bangalore, London, Madrid, and Singapore, and currently is based in Austin, Texas.  Joanna is a frequent speaker at conferences and in media on automation in HR, diversity and inclusion, skills, and the future of work. She holds an MBA from Syracuse University and is a Certified Compensation Professional.

Carmen joined Yelp in 2022 to lead People Operations. She is an accomplished human resources executive with over 20 years experience helping employees and global organizations succeed. Prior to Yelp, Carmen served as Vice President of Global People Operations & Development at eBay. She was also a Human Resources Director at Home Depot where she provided strategic direction for a variety of operational and corporate functions. Carmen holds a B.A. in Spanish and International Relations from Colby College, an MBA in International Business from Bentley University, and is certified in Executive Coaching through Columbia University.

As the head of inclusion and belonging for Keller Williams Realty International, Julia Lashay Israel advises, trains and coaches leaders, team members, and agents to recognize and address diversity, equity and inclusion opportunities and challenges across the organization.

Named Texas’ Top 100 Professionals to Watch in 2022, Julia Lashay helps real estate leaders and other industry professionals all across the country grow their businesses through training, coaching, and strategic career development. Over the past 20 years, Israel has trained and coached thousands of professionals. Julia Lashay is the co-founder and owner of Refocus University, a real estate training firm, focused on career development and diversity and has instructed and authored continuing education courses on diversity, career development, and leadership. Her energy, upbeat personality and in-depth knowledge has resulted in her students consistently ranking her 5 out of 5 as a preferred instructor and speaker.

A community leader and homeownership advocate, Israel is a founding member and past president of the Twin Cities National Association of Real Estate Brokers - the oldest Black trade association in the country. She also serves on the National Association of REALTORS Diversity Committee and numerous other real estate boards and committees. In 2020, Israel received the Exceptional Service award conveyed by the Minneapolis Area REALTORS.

Julia Lashay Israel was recognized as a 2021 & 2023 RISMedia Newsmaker, Real Trends 2022 Emerging Leader. She has been featured on several news and radio stations including Fox 9 News, Kare 11, the Star Tribune, REALTOR Magazine, Texas Business Journal and guest appearances on HGTV.

Janet Etlinger is the HR Vice President, HPE Compute Business at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Lya Icaza currently leads USAA’s Talent Marketplace, where Talent Development and Talent Acquisition meet through career development and internal movement. Among several things, Lya’s team offers training and assistance for internal placements. She
has an outstanding record for creating and driving Talent Development strategy and with measurable business results in Forbes top 200 companies and global organizations. She specializes in transformational and innovative leadership in various
industries including financial, manufacturing, and consulting.  

Lya earned a bachelor's degree in Education from the University of Memphis, a master’s in psychology from University of Phoenix.  She is also a Certified Performance Technologist, maintains her SPHR, and holds a certificate in Organizational
Development from DePaul University. 
  
Lya is originally from Nicaragua. She also lived in Peru where she met her husband, Eric. Eric and Lya have two adult children: Sebastian and Samantha. As a family, they love traveling and are involved with Sam's Covers, a non-profit organization that delivers hand-made blankets to children at risk. Sam's Covers, a 501c, was founded by Samantha when she was twelve years old.

Emmy award-winning journalist Tom Miller anchors KXAN News Today. Tom joined KXAN in 2018, before being named to his current role in 2020.

During his time in Austin, Tom’s coverage has included the devastating Highland Lake floods where Tom walked side by side with homeowners whose homes were sitting in feet of water. Tom was also a key contributor to KXAN’s award-winning save our student’s series, which focused on improving the mental health of students. Within days of being named morning anchor, Tom field anchored outside Austin City Hall as local leaders announced the coronavirus had made its way to Central Texas.

Prior to KXAN, Tom worked in Sacramento where he covered some of the most destructive wildfires in California history. He later won Emmy and AP awards for his breaking news coverage, along with a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award in the Excellence in Innovation category.

Dr. Ramona Arora is the Vice President of Global Talent Development at Dell Technologies serving as the organization's Chief Learning Officer, overseeing the consultation, design, development, and deployment of leading-edge learning solutions aimed to elevate the capabilities of 135K+ team members, people leaders and executives across the company. With a vision for continuously infusing a modernized and measurable approach to learning, Ramona’s leadership pushes the boundaries on learning and development, inspiring her team to transcend traditional classroom and virtual learning practices to create learning that incorporates the use of AI and chatbot technology, behavioral science, kinesthetic and simulation-based experiences, and even film. Ramona was recently recognized as the 2022 Chief Learning Officer of the Year by CLO Magazine and Better Media Group. From her roots as a high school teacher and Division 1 varsity boys basketball coach, Ramona brings over twenty-five years of experiences focused on helping people maximize their potential and supporting organizations in developing their people in meaningful ways. Having worked in a global capacity for the past two decades, she is often called a “talent tinker” and “career connector,” and applied her keen interest in how talent intersects with career mobility to her doctorate degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Here she studied the impact of (socio)economics, migration, and cognitive decision-making on human capital trends through a critical lens and uncovered how nations and organizations cultivate, leverage, and sustain diverse talent to meet the changing economic and strategic landscape of their workforce. Today, Ramona often finds herself in the learner seat as she interacts with the world through her three children – ages 10, 6 and 3.  

Emma Harvie leads the Customer Success team at Achievers APAC,  developing long-term partnerships
and providing support to businesses to create better culture through Employee Voice and Recognition.
As an AWI Advisor, Emma works closely and consultatively with customers to help create a culture of
belonging where employees feel welcomed, known, included, supported and connected.

Arthur Lane is head of marketing at Stork Club Fertility Benefits. He has over 20 years of experience in marketing and product development driving position change and growth in healthcare information technology, care management, and mobile health. He has extensive experience in all aspects of healthcare strategy and marketing, including product development, competitive intelligence, partnership development, and software solutions.

Arthur earned his Bachelor of Science in Marketing at Portland State University. He resides in Nashville, TN with his family and is an avid skier.

Sahar Chmais is the Staff Writer at Austin Business Journal.

Rebecca Warren is the Director of Talent Centered Transformation, at Eightfold AI and has been in and around the TA space for 15+ years at a variety of organizations and industries in both full-time and consulting roles. She has been at Eightfold for just over a year in customer success and the president of the Arizona Recruiters Networking Community (part of the Recruiters Network) and is passionate about helping people succeed.

Mayerland Harris, Group VP of HR for H-E-B, is a dynamic, influential leader and team builder with over 31 years of retail experience in HR and store operations - more than 27 of those years with H-E-B. She leads an impressive team of HR professionals including Field HR Managers, Recruiters, Training & Development Managers and Organizational Talent Managers. Mayerland received her BBA from University of Texas at Austin and her MBA from Texas A&M University. She currently sits on the boards of the Houston Food Bank, HR Houston, and the Strategic HR Advisory Board at Rice University. Mayerland is a lecturing Corporate Fellow for the MBA program at the University of Houston-Downtown.

Dan Goodgame is Texas Monthly’s editor in chief. A Pulitzer Prize finalist and best-selling author, Goodgame joined TM in early 2019, after serving as a vice president at Rackspace, a cloud computing company based in San Antonio. Before that, Goodgame was editor in chief of Fortune Small Business magazine, whose subscribers were more than a million owners of entrepreneurial companies. He earlier worked for Time magazine as White House correspondent, Washington bureau chief, and assistant managing editor. He is coauthor of the book Marching in Place, about the first President Bush. Goodgame previously worked for the Miami Herald, including as a correspondent in the Middle East, covering the Israel-Lebanon and Iran-Iraq wars. A native of Pascagoula, Mississippi, Goodgame earned a bachelor's degree at Ole Miss and an master’s in international relations at Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.

Michael Lind is a columnist at Tablet Magazine and a fellow at the think tank New America, which he co-founded. He is the author of many books, most recently Hell to Pay: How the Suppression of Wages Is Destroying America.   

Madhukar Govindaraju is the Founder & CEO of Numly, Inc. As an experienced Tech. Entrepreneur, Madhukar brings more than two decades of experience in the software industry as a GM/Product Executive, CTO, SVP Engineering, and business leader, at some of the world’s leading software companies, including VMware, Microsoft, TriNet HR Group, Saba Software, SAP / Business Objects, Hyperion Solutions, HP, IBM, and several successful startups. He also has several patents pending in the Talent Management, Innovation Network Analytics and AI-4-HR space.

Marty Mickelson is a Sales Executive at AXOMO. 

Merrily McGugan is Vice President at WorkTango, the only holistic Employee Experience Platform built for the modern workplace that enables meaningful recognition and rewards, offers actionable insights through employee surveys, and supports alignment through goal setting and feedback. Prior to helping organizations improve (work) lives at WorkTango, Merrily led teams at B2B technology companies LogicMonitor, Khoros, and dataxu (acquired by Roku in 2019). Merrily has also previously held positions at Omnicom’s Communispace; Accenture – Sydney, Australia; and Havas’ Arnold Worldwide, where she won two Hatch awards for her work on the award-winning truth™ and Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey accounts. Merrily is a published author and holds a B.A. with honors from Harvard University.

Meica, Senior Learning Solutions Strategist, partners closely with L&D and HR professionals to design development programs that grow key behaviors and reinforce organizational goals, culture, and values, while yielding measurable results. In short, Meica helps learning leaders to communicate their organizational impact.

Before joining Hone, Meica was Vice President, Talent Development Partner for EDGE - Where Leadership Begins (a high-touch consulting firm), where she focused on executive and mid-level leadership development and organizational development across industries, including oil and gas, healthcare, finance, and non-profit. Before consulting, she worked as a Human Resource Generalist at Jockey International, Inc, where she supported retail store manager development, designed and executed recruitment strategies for key corporate roles, and partnered with retail leadership to implement performance management strategies.

Meica earned a Master's in Administrative Leadership and Adult Education from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a Master's in Human Resource Management and Organizational Leadership and Change from National University. Meica is certified in Everything DiSC by Wiley, Situational Leadership II by Blanchard Companies, and Human Resources by both SHRM and HRCI. 

Aidan is the Director of Employer Sales at Talkspace, the leading online mental healthcare company. She and her team support Benefit leaders when choosing a mental healthcare partner. With a background in HR, specifically employee wellness, L+D, and benefits administration, Aidan joined Talkspace 2.5 years ago with a keen understanding of the many roles HR leaders must take on to support their people. She has been a long-time therapy goer and mental health advocate, passionate about destigmatizing mental health and making therapy more accessible.

She is currently making strides to become a licensed therapist herself! As a sales leader, Aidan is specialized in scaling and managing high-performing sales teams while maintaining an empathetic, collaborative, and mission-driven team culture.

When not leading her team and talking about therapy – she is snuggling her cats, going on long walks, exploring the Catskills, and renovating her nearly 100-year-old cottage.

Laraine McKinnon is a Talent and Culture Strategist at Emtrain.

Leesa Askew is an Enterprise Account Executive at Emtrain.

Mark Pearson is Corporate Vice President, Talent and Organizational Capabilities at Advanced Micro Devices. Pearson joined AMD in 2008. His responsibilities at AMD include leading the global Human Resources functions of Talent Acquisition, Talent Management, Learning and Development, Organization Development, Talent Analytics/Insights, and Diversity, Belonging and Inclusion.  With over 25 years of experience in Human Resources, Pearson is a results-oriented organization and training development executive with broad based experience in building and implementing highly successful internal education programs and processes for all levels of personnel (from small businesses to Fortune 25 companies). His experiences include the design of leadership programs, Diversity and Inclusion strategy development and implementation, Creating and execution of effective talent management strategies, interventions and consulting to senior executives on organization development issues and initiatives, global facilitation, and executive coaching.

Mel Faxon is the COO & Co-Founder of Hey Mirza.

Will Anderson is editor in chief of Dallas Business Journal, overseeing a newsroom reporting on one of the most dynamic economies in the country. He leads a staff of about a dozen covering business, real estate, finance and much more in the nation’s fourth-largest — and soon to be third-largest — metro. He previously spent more than seven years at Austin Business Journal, a sister publication.

Susanne DiCocco is a Principal of Human Capital at Deloitte. 

Jerry has been with BountyJobs since the very beginning and has played key roles in every aspect of the business. With nearly 30 years’ experience across product and technology roles, he’s supported companies ranging from venture-backed startups to the Fortune 500. What he really loves is how BountyJobs creates value for both employers and agencies while allowing them to work more effectively together. When he isn’t at work, he can be found enjoying the Austin outdoors with his teenage sons.

Based in Austin and passionate about health & wellness and making a positive impact in the world.  Driven and fueled by working in high growth technology companies that are deeply rooted in supporting the overall health and wellness of their members. When Matt isn’t in the office, he enjoys being active outdoors and having adventures with his family.