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.

Gordon Trujillo is our Vice President of Enterprise Learning & Development. Gordon overseas our Learning team – encompassing DaVita University, Redwoods, and the new Learning Center of Excellence. He leads the effort to transform learning in the Village to support Employer of Choice and key business objectives. Gordon is a 24+ year veteran of the learning and development industry, most recently serving as founder of Visa University and as the Global Head for HR Systems where building a culture of learning and belonging was his primary focus. Prior to Visa, he held a variety of leadership roles at a large, global professional services firm where he led Accenture and Accenture’s clients through capability transformations that centered on learning and development strategy to drive organization and business results.

Melissa is a passionate people leader, leveraging her superpower of creating synergy to cultivate inspirational, inclusive environments where high-performing teams thrive.

Committed to unlocking the boundless potential of others, Melissa has several coaching designations; she is an ICF Associate Certified Coach (ACC) Certified Executive Leadership Coach (CELC), Executive Emotional Intelligence Coach (CEIC), Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach, and Hogan-Certified Coach.  She also acts as an advisory council member to enhance and promote learning and mentoring for the George Washington Women in Leadership Program.

Since joining Zurich North America  in 2011, Melissa has held various roles.  Her dedication to creating collaborative, inclusive cultures and developing others led her to her current role as VP, Head of Leadership Development.  Over her career she has developed high performing teams and partnered with leaders, providing coaching, consulting and perspective, to deepen their leadership skills and management practices.

Maryjo Charbonnier is the Chief Human Resources Officer of Kyndryl, one of the largest startups
in corporate history. Kyndryl is the world’s leading IT infrastructure services provider. With the
industry's most experienced talent and 4,600 customers, Kyndryl is uniquely positioned to help
organizations build strong, secure, resilient, and adaptive digital capabilities.

Harnessing her deep experience in large corporate transformation, Maryjo is leading the global
initiative to make Kyndryl the employer of choice in the more than 60 countries where the company operates. She at the helm of the company’s massive renovation of all HR systems and processes to support the company’s nearly 90,000 people to advance their skills and careers as they deliver for customers. Maryjo is also leading the company’s global effort to create and advance its differentiating culture – The Kyndryl Way.

Maryjo joined Kyndryl from Wolters Kluwer, where she served as Chief Human Resources Officer for the global provider of professional information, software solutions and services for professionals since the start of 2015. She drove the design and implementation of all human resources strategies, policies, and processes. Prior to joining Wolters Kluwer, Maryjo served as Chief Human Resource Officer at Broadridge Financial Solutions, a global Fintech company, for seven years. Earlier, she was an HR executive in a variety of leadership roles at PepsiCo, including Vice President for Talent Sustainability for PepsiCo Foods Americas, a unit with $30 billion in revenues and more than 120,000 employees. A native of the Detroit area, Maryjo is a graduate of Catholic University in Washington, DC, and earned her MBA at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas. She was named "CHRO of the Year", in the Netherlands for 2019.

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.

Sean Conley is the Chief Learning Officer at Baker Hughes.

Kathryn Coleman is the Senior Vice President, Talent, Learning & Insights at 3M.

Steve graduated Yale University with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and was elected captain of the baseball team. He spent several years as a closing pitcher after being drafted in 2008 by the Detroit Tigers. Following baseball he spent time as an Intelligence Officer for the Department of Defense, completing embassy tours as a diplomat in Cairo and Abu Dhabi. He attended
Columbia Business School, graduating in 2015 with his MBA, it was then he Co-Founded blockparty, which changed the way tailgating partnerships are developed Division 1 colleges. While building the company in Dallas, TX, he received a direct commission into the US Navy as a Reserve Intelligence Officer, where he currently serves as a Lieutenant.

Steve is an investor and advisor in technology companies including, Moon, Preeta, Flyline, and Life Style Plan. Steve moved back to NYC area at the end of 2020 and started OneRange with the goal of providing efficient upskilling and training to companies and
their workforces.

Matt Poepsel is the author of Expand the Circle: Enlightened Leadership for Our New World of Work and host of the Lead the People podcast. He serves as VP, Enterprise Solutions at The Predictive Index. He holds a PhD in Psychology, an MBA, and a Harvard Business School Certificate of Management Excellence. Matt has more than 20 years of leadership experience as a software executive and consultant. He’s also a US Marine, an Ironman triathlon finisher, and a student of Buddhist philosophy.

Omer Glass is CEO and Co-Founder of GrowthSpace, the world’s first skill mastery platform. Omer’s passion for upskilling began with his first startup, Careerology, an online school for career development. Following this, he became aManagement Consultant at Shaldor, Israel’s leading management consulting firm, where he focused on business strategy.

Omer holds an MA In behavioral economics, he is a graduate of Seth Godin's altMBA, and the co founder of "Hands of Light", a non profit that provides alternative therapy to ALS & Cancer patients.

Shivani Dhir is the Assistant Dean of Digital Learning at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. She has extensive expertise in launching and growing innovative and inclusive graduate and professional education programs that align with the workforce needs of high-growth industries, including healthcare and technology.

Shivani has created professional development content for students across undergraduate, graduate, and executive programs and is a frequent presenter at higher education events such as the Executive MBA Council (EMBAC) Annual Conference. She holds a B.A. in Sociology & Economics from the College of Arts & Sciences at NYU and an MBA from the Stern School of Business at NYU.

Charlotte Evans is a Solutions Consultant at Coursera.

Megan Wheeler is the Director of Facilitation at LifeLabs Learning. She holds a Master’s degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Her current area of focus is in leadership development and coaching for distributed leaders. Prior to joining LifeLabs Learning, she served as the head of L&D at Huge and managed the leadership development program at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Leadership Academy. Megan is a published author on individual assessments and job selection in the Journal of Applied Psychology, and speaks internationally on management. 

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.

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.

Carly Porter is the Global Vice President, Citi Markets Learning Advisory at Citigroup, Inc.

Dror Yaacobi is a seasoned HRBP and Organizational Development professional, currently VP of Global HR at Similarweb in London, with a wealth of experience in optimizing talent strategy, acquisition, and fostering a culture of excellence.

A partner at RHR International, Dan Russell oversees two areas integral to the firm’s ability to serve clients—assessment and RHR’s Products, Data & Insights Lab. Dan is exceptionally adept at identifying clients’ most pressing needs and creating value-enhancing, data-backed programs to help solve them.

With more than 20 years of hands-on experience as a business consultant, Dan’s expertise includes global talent management, people analytics (machine learning, regression, and predictive modeling), leadership development, succession planning, talent assessment and development, and more. He has worked with Fortune 100 companies in a wide variety of industries across the U.S., Southeast Asia, Australia, and Europe.

Curious and thoughtful, Dan relishes the opportunity to analyze data gleaned from RHR’s decades of work in the leadership development field to discover new insights and practical applications to help leaders and businesses thrive. A charismatic presenter, he also welcomes opportunities to cultivate relationships with others doing similar work and share RHR’s research and learnings through conferences, white papers, articles, and other professional mediums. Dan received a master’s degree in industrial and organizational psychology from Virginia Tech and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Austin Peay State University.

He is a Chartered Psychologist and associate fellow with the British Psychological Society and an associate credentialed coach with the International Coach Federation. Outside of work, Dan enjoys spending time with his family, gardening, and lifting weights, and he usually has at least one DIY home-improvement project in the works.

Sarah began her career in Human Resources at companies like SiriusXM, Coach, and Gilt Groupe before transitioning to the role of Head of Sales at Gilt City—the company’s luxury lifestyle experiences arm. In this role, Sarah ran a 65-person sales team, managed $60 million in yearly revenue, and expanded the brand to top cities across the U.S. It was there that she identified the direct correlation between culture and the bottom line—when employees failed to address their issues with colleagues and managers, revenue suffered.

Before co-founding Bravely, Sarah launched an EdTech company (accepted into the acclaimed 500 Startups accelerator) that helped educate kids on the importance of environmental and wildlife conservation.
Sarah’s experience in HR, team management, and tech—combined with an ongoing obsession with helping people gain the confidence they need to find meaning in their work—inspired her to co-found Bravely in 2017.

Romesh Ratnesar is a member of the editorial board of Bloomberg Opinion, where he writes on national security, immigration and education issues. He is also a contributing editor at Washingtonian magazine and a New America fellow. Previously, Ratnesar was deputy editor of Bloomberg Businessweek and an editor and foreign correspondent for Time. He has served in the State Department and is author of “Tear Down This Wall: A City, A President and the Speech that Ended the Cold War.

Dan White is the Leadership Development Specialist at EZRA. Dan works in EZRA’s Lab, looking at the relationship between coaching and performance. He has spent 20 years working with managers and leaders to develop capability and culture in organisations across many industries and countries.