Diane Psaras is executive vice president and chief human resources officer for VITAS Healthcare, the nation’s leading provider of end-of-life care. Appointed to the position in October 2018, she is responsible for the entire HR function for the company’s more than 10,000 employees in 14 states and the District of Columbia.

As a member of the senior executive leadership team, Diane is responsible for bringing the VITAS vision and mission to life through its people. Charged with setting the strategic direction for the HR function, she is a champion for VITAS talent and culture, both of which are critical for a successful healthcare services business.

Diane brings to VITAS more than 26 years of human resources experience, including global and domestic responsibilities across multiple industries. Her corporate experience, leadership and accomplishments span numerous HR initiatives and processes—cultural transformation, performance management, talent development, improvements in employee retention and engagement, and the development of talent metrics and scorecards.

Before joining VITAS, Diane was chief human resources officer at wound-care provider Healogics Inc. in Jacksonville, Florida. She also served as senior vice president of human resources at Red Lobster and was an officer of the parent company, Darden Restaurants Inc. At Red Lobster, Diane developed a successful human resource strategy to support more than 700 restaurants, 65,000 employees and $2.6 billion in annual sales. She also spent 14 years in progressive HR roles with Avery Dennison, including her role as global HR vice president of the Specialty Materials and Converting Group.

In 2023, Diane was a finalist for both HRO Today’s CHRO of the Year and Healthcare HR Leadership Award presented by IBM. She is a member of the exclusive HRO Today Executive Network C-TEN. In 2010, Diane received the Coca Cola Spirit Award for HR best practices, and she was recognized in 2011 and 2012 by People Report™ Best Practices. Diane’s efforts to drive culture and employee engagement at Red Lobster supported Darden’s designation as one of FORTUNE’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2011 and 2012.

Diane earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from Youngstown State University and a master’s in business administration from Rollins College. She is a former board member for Orlando’s Big Brother Big Sister organization and is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management.

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.

Marie Potter has always gravitated towards working with people and supporting their development, believing that life is about choosing a positive attitude, being creative, leading with curiosity, and making a difference. After 15 years in higher education and student services, she made a bold career transition into human resources and the corporate world, shifting from helping students prepare for their careers to helping professionals thrive in them. She joined Getty Images in 2017 where she currently serves as Senior Director of Culture & Development, leading a global team that champions the experience, engagement, and development of employees enterprise-wide. With a focus on learning and development, diversity and inclusion, and people insights, the team is forever guided by their motto, “We shape and tell the story of our people”.

A strategic leader with decades of experience, Knuth is passionate about connecting people with an organization that inspires them. At Quantum Health, she enjoys creating a team that is motivated by a shared purpose: navigating members through their very personal healthcare journeys — no matter how simple or complex they may be. She believes employees should feel they are an integral part of Quantum Health’s vision and mission.

Knuth specializes in creating a culture that is inclusive and puts its employees first. This equips and empowers them to be their best — both personally and professionally. Knuth fosters transparency and open communication to ensure dynamic and productive dialogue and interactions.

Prior to joining Quantum Health, Knuth led highly successful teams as vice president of human resources at several diverse companies, including CoverMyMeds, Victoria’s Secret and La Senza. She enjoys extending meaningful leadership relationships in the community, where she is involved with organizations focused on boosting equity and capability.

Tyler is the Vice President of Talent Analytics at Marriott International. He is leading the charge to create, champion, and progress solutions that address the company’s most significant human capital challenges. Prior to Marriott Tyler served as the Global Innovation Evangelist and Head of Partnerships and Strategy at HiredScore, a startup that delivers a leading ethical and compliant AI for talent among the F100. Tyler began his professional career at Intel where he took on a number of roles including leadership of Analytics and Automation for Talent Acquisition and HR Data Science. Tyler’s PhD dissertation research was in Biophotonics and nonlinear optics and, although he hasn’t touched a laser in years, he still relies on first principles and an obsessive curiosity to approach human capital problems.

Casey has been committed to improving the world of work for more than a decade. In 2010, he founded a tech recruiting firm with the lofty ambition of fixing recruitment on a global scale. Over the next few years that company became EQIQ, and Attuned one of its keystone businesses, all with a combined mission of blending humanity with data to create purposeful and frictionless work lives.

Casey holds an MBA, is fluent in Japanese, produced the first startup-themed feature film in Japan (Startup Girls, released in 2019), and is the author of two books of interviews with Japanese entrepreneurs,  2015’s #1 best-selling  未来をつくる起業家 (Eng. The Quiet Comeback) and  2018’s 未来をつくる起業家 vol 2.  His top three intrinsic motivators are competition, rationality and autonomy.

Rekha Gurnani Chowdhury is the senior director of global compensation and people analytics at Box, the cloud-based, content-management company. Previously, she held leadership roles in HR and financial analysis at Symantec, Aon, Safeway, HSBC, and Liberty Mutual Insurance. She earned a bachelor’s degreee in business at Babson College, a master’s in industrial-organizational psychology at San Francisco State University, and has studied at the Wharton School and Harvard.

Barb Dehn is a practicing Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner, award-winning author, and nationally recognized health expert. She holds a B.S. from Boston College and earned her Master's degree at the University of California, San Francisco. She is certified by the North American Menopause Society and is a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.

Traci Wicks is the SVP, Talent and HR Consulting and Executive Sponsor, Pride ERG at Discover Financial Services.

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.

Kristy has 15 years of experience as a Strategic Human Resource Leader, Change Manager and Organizational Development Expert. She has served in senior leadership positions throughout her career – most notably with Pearson Education and Constant Contact. Kristy brings a big picture perspective and a hands-on, tactical approach to her leadership that she is now bringing to life with SkillCycle (where she is the CEO & Co- Founder). Kristy’s goal is to help and educate companies to meet their ultimate goals by empowering their employees to take ownership of their career.

Rob Catalano is WorkTango’s Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer. Rob has spent the last 20 years building HR Technology companies. He was on the founding team at Achievers, where he spent the majority of his 10+ year tenure leading their Marketing function as well as the final few years leading their global expansion out of the UK. Rob’s passion for improving the employee experience led to him co-founding WorkTango in 2015 to help companies collect and act on authentic employee feedback. He has been named as a top 101 Global Employee Engagement Influencer every year since 2017, and has had the privilege of speaking to HR leaders at conferences in over 45 cities. Rob is an avid hockey fan, traveler, once played guitar in a metal band, and is a self-proclaimed ‘pointaholic’ – collecting loyalty points for anything and everything. Get in touch with Rob at rob@worktango.com.

Erald Minga is the Vice President of HR, North America at MediaMonks. 

For the past 20 years, workplace health pioneer and thought leader Richard Safeer, M.D., has assessed cultures, trained leaders, and conducted and explored research on the intersection of individual and organizational behavior. 

Dr. Safeer currently serves as the Chief Medical Director of Employee Health and Well-Being for Johns Hopkins Medicine where he leads the Healthy at Hopkins employee health and well-being strategy.  Previously, he was the Medical Director of Preventive Medicine for CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield in Baltimore, Md.

In January 2023, with publisher Wiley, Dr. Safeer released A Cure for the Common Company: A Well-Being Prescription for a Happier, Healthier, and More Resilient Workforce. Dr Safeer is the first author to provide a step-by-step roadmap for creating a well-being culture that integrates science with practical solutions as demonstrated by the numerous real stories from successful companies. 

He is a fellow of the American Academy of Family Medicine, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, and the American College of Preventive Medicine. He serves on the New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst Insight Council and previously served on the board of directors for the American College of Lifestyle Medicine.

You can learn more about Richard’s work at RichardSafeer.com or follow him on LinkedIn.

Jeni Mayorskaya is the founder and CEO of Stork Club, a next-generation benefits provider that helps enterprises attract diverse top talent, drive better clinical outcomes and reduce their largest area of healthcare cost — maternity care. Stork Club has raised over $32M and is backed by leading healthcare investors, including General Catalyst, Bowery Capital and Slow Ventures. Before founding Stork Club, Jeni co-founded Bookmate, an award-winning cross-platform e-library, and served in several strategic marketing and consulting roles. Jeni brings more than 15 years of strategic leadership experience to the Stork Club team and is inspired by her personal connection to the cause: early in her career, she was diagnosed with reproductive health disorders that carried a risk of infertility. After hearing this same story from hundreds of other women, Jeni started Stork Club with the mission to enable people to take control of their reproductive health and be empowered to build a family on their own terms.

Kelly Bourdet is the founder of Apparata Media, a content studio that works with health and technology brands and publications. She is the former Managing Editor of CNN Business and was the editor-in-chief of the technology and science publication Gizmodo. She was also the Deputy Editor of Refinery29, where she founded the site’s health and technology sections. 

As E4E Relief’s Vice President of Marketing and Partnerships, Ashley enjoys working with a determined group of (mostly female!) leaders, as well as thoughtful organizations around the globe to spread the word on why employee relief programs are good for people and good for business. A born and bred Tarheel, Ashley graduated from UNC Chapel Hill with degrees in organizational communications and romance languages.  Her love for language and all things sports is now mostly practiced with her two kids.  Serving on community boards including the YMCA, U.S. Airways Education Foundation, and the Ballard Food Bank have been significant opportunities for her to participate in advancing meaningful missions.

Michael Watson is a talent acquisition expert and artificial intelligence enthusiast who is dedicated to using cutting-edge technologies to revolutionize the world of work. Michael's passion for work began in his early life, as he grew up with military parents who instilled in him the values of hard work, dedication, and service to others. His father dropped out of high school at 16 to join the Navy, and his mother served in both the Air Force and Marines, so Michael knows firsthand the importance of having a strong work ethic and a sense of purpose.  After years of experience in corporate HR and talent acquisition for companies such as Aerotek, Robert Half, Polycom, Western Digital, Workday, Rambus, and Gigamon, Michael joined the artificial intelligence startup Eightfold.ai. As a former customer of Eightfold.ai, he has unique first-hand knowledge of how AI is being used to hire and retain talent.

At Eightfold, Michael is part of a team that is using AI for good, mapping skills to opportunities and enabling the right career for everyone in the world. As the Head of Global Customer Evangelism for Eightfold's products and solutions, Michael frequently interacts with business leaders, customer executives and government officials to amplify the power of Eightfold’s artificial intelligence (AI) and their vision to use artificial intelligence for good and enable the right career for everyone in the world. Michael believes that AI has the potential to help individuals find fulfilling and meaningful work, and he is dedicated to ensuring that everyone has access to the right career opportunities. He is passionate about helping individuals find work that aligns with their unique skills and interests, and he believes that AI can be a powerful tool to help people achieve their career goals.

Michael is a thought leader in the field of talent acquisition and artificial intelligence, and he is committed to using his expertise to help organizations and individuals navigate the rapidly changing world of work. He is the author of 2 books; Career AI: Navigating the Job Market in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and The AI-Powered HR Professional. He is a frequent speaker and writer on topics related to AI, talent acquisition, and career development, and he is always looking for new and innovative ways to use technology to improve people's lives. Michael attended Fresno State University where he studied Criminology.

When he is not working, Michael is busy working on his family's farm and dedicates a lot of time to coaching youth baseball and softball in his community. He is married and has two children.

Adam Bouse is a Performance Coach at 15Five, leveraging data and dialogue to help managers and leaders identify critical opportunities and challenges in their organizations. He holds an MA in organizational leadership and is a certified Brain-based Coach through the NeuroLeadership Institute. Adam works with global businesses and local organizations across every industry, coaching at every level of organizations, from the C-suite to frontline managers. In his coaching practice, he specializes in emotional intelligence, resonant leadership, difficult conversations, manager development, and empathy. Adam’s goal is to help people unlock their own potential and overcome obstacles to achieve high performance and powerful engagement.

Ken Mitchell is a certified Physician Associate with over 28 years of clinical experience overall and with over 25 years of experience in male erectile and sexual dysfunction. Ken authored and implemented an innovative treatment protocol The Surgical Impotence Management Strategy (SIMS©) protocol that includes comprehensive patient education and delivery of care for men undergoing Prostate Cancer treatment. Ken has served as a co-investigator in sexual dysfunction research and continues to be active in this area. Ken actively promotes men’s health and has participated in community outreach programs to educate men about sexual and overall health. He has lectured both nationally and internationally on the subject of Men’s Health and sexual dysfunction. He is a co-author of the AUA Consensus Statement on Advanced Practice Providers (APP) and has given multiple presentations and published articles on the subject of integration and utilization of APP’s in a urology practice. His practice interests include general men’s health and male sexual dysfunction.

Ken received his B.S. in Biology from Dana College (1988), and his Master’s in Physician Assistant Studies (MPAS) at the University of Nebraska Physician Assistant Program (1995). Ken is currently a Fellow of the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA), the Urological Association of Physician Assistants (UAPA), associate member of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America, Past Chair of the AUA APP Membership Committee, Past President of the Urological Association of Physician Assistants (UAPA) completing two consecutive terms as President, Past Chair of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America APN/PA Affairs Committee, and board member at-large of the American Society of Men’s Health (ASMH). Ken was inducted into the Pi Alpha Physician Assistant National Honor Society in 2016 and is the recipient of the American Urological Association (AUA) APP of the Year 2023. Ken is the Founder and President of GUYnecology® Men’s Health Association a non-profit organization dedicated to Men’s Health research, provider training, consumer education, and health promotion. Ken is currently practicing at Erlanger Urology in the Men’s Health & Reproductive Medicine Clinic in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Sophie McMillan is the Senior Program Manager, Community & Diversity Engagement at Blue Cross NC.