Live 2024: Austin

Jeannie Steele is the head of global talent acquisition at Advanced Micro Devices. At AMD, he works with the global human resources team to attract and hire top talent into the organization. With more than 25 years of corporate and agency recruiting experience, Jeannie is a proven leader with demonstrated ability to build global talent acquisition teams.

Prior to joining AMD in 2016, Jeannie held various TA leadership roles at Entegris, ATMI and Applied Materials. Jeannie has a BS from Texas A&M University and an MS from the University of Houston – Clear Lake along with SPHR and GPHR certifications.  She lives in Wimberley, TX with her husband, 2 children, 4 dogs and a 150 pound tortoise.  In her free time she volunteers for organizations that support children’s education and animal rescue.

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.

Brie Harvey is a talent management leader and digital strategist who writes and speaks about trends within Human Capital Management and the future of work.

Having served in a variety of leadership roles for HR Technology companies over the last decade, she brings expert level knowledge of Total Rewards, L&D, talent acquisition, and how to cultivate workplace cultures that transform employee engagement and the Employee Value Proposition.

Passionate about the intersection between behavioral science, managerial effectiveness and technology, Brie has partnered with some of the world’s largest, most complex organizations to build high performance cultures centered around authentic appreciation, trust and inclusion.

In her role as an Employee Engagement Evangelist, Brie works with the research arm of Achievers, the Workforce Institute, to share data-based insights about how to enhance employee engagement and recognition strategies for a pandemic-era workplace.

Kenneth currently serves as Vice President-Human Resources, Performance Food Group in the Austin, Texas area. Previously, Kenneth served as Managing Director of Human Resources for UTIMCO, also based in the Austin area. He is responsible for leading the efforts of all facets of Human Resources with a keen focus on talent management, leadership development, succession planning, and diversity-equity-inclusion. He is a member of PFG’s Leadership Team. Performance Food Group is the 2nd largest food services distributor in the United States.

Kenneth has approximately 30 years of experience in HR and has led the human resources function for the last 15 years for organizations such as International Nutrition and Wellness Manufacturing (Rosewood Private Investment company), Freese & Nichols, Bell Helicopter, and RadioShack. Kenneth was in the Six Sigma Black Belt Program at Bell Helicopter and also held the role of Vice President of Human Resources for another Textron company, E-Z-GO in Augusta, Georgia. Prior to RadioShack, Kenneth spent 12 years in the energy industry with organizations that included Dynegy Inc., Enron, and Reliant Energy where he served in various corporate HR roles.

Kenneth received his BS and MS from Texas A&M University and has completed most coursework towards a Ph.D. in Human Resources Training and Development. Prior to his corporate career, Kenneth spent seven years in the National Football League with the Philadelphia Eagles and the Cleveland Browns.

Dr. Stephanie Murphy is an experienced people analytics leader with 15 years in internal and external organizational consulting. She has been internationally recognized for her work in employee listening, research, assessments, and analytics, and she has been featured in several publications, podcasts, and conferences. Her experience expands the public and private sector, working with organizations such as UnitedHealth Group, University of Texas at Austin, Dell Technologies, and the U.S. Department of Treasury. Her outstanding achievements have earned her recognition as one of the Top 10 Data and Analytics Professionals, a Top 100 Under 50 Executive & Emerging Leader, and inclusion in the Top 50 Women Leaders in Austin. Stephanie also shares her knowledge as an educator, teaching management courses to graduate students at McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin. She holds her B.S. in psychology from the University of New Orleans and her Ph.D. in industrial-organizational psychology from Louisiana Tech University.

Arun Serikar is the Vice President, Digital HR at Schneider Electric.

Matthew specializes in helping companies meet their talent needs through immigration program creation and management. With a diverse client base spanning industries such as artificial intelligence, engineering, education, manufacturing, and entertainment, Matthew offers tailored counsel on immigration matters, including corporate reorganizations, mergers and acquisitions, enforcement actions, compliance, and increasing access to global talent.

His expertise extends to securing various U.S. work visas (B, E, H, J, L, O, P, Q and TN), green cards across all employment-based categories, and I-9 compliance.

Since August 2022, Mrs. Tiana Carter has been with USAA serving as the AVP, Human Resources Strategy and Planning, DEI (talent) and the HR chief of staff office. She is a visionary and execution architect who moves the business and people forward with innovative solutions and measurable results. Tiana has over a decade of experience leading workforce, culture and diversity strategies across global brands.  

Reporting directly to the Chief Human Resources Officer, Mrs. Carter serves as Chief of Staff, using over a decade of human resources and client services experience to drive a high- performing team through a culture of connectivity, innovation and collaboration. Tactically, she oversees board operations, change management, HR's budget and business operations.  

Prior to USAA, Mrs. Carter worked at WM Inc. (NYSE: WM) serving as Senior Director of Culture and Social Impact (equivalent to Chief Diversity Officer). She designed and lead execution of WM's pioneering employee engagement, DEI and social impact strategies focused on making the company of nearly 50,000 employees an employer of choice and a great place to work. In 2021, Mrs. Carter was the recipient of the CEO's Circle of Excellence Award, granted to the highest performers across the company. 

Prior to WM, Tiana served as the Vice President of Innovation and Business Development at Skills for Chicagoland's Future's a social impact organization based in Chicago, Illinois. Her work focused on creating strategic diversity and workforce solutions for Fortune 500 and other major brands like Ulta Beauty, Anthem, Gap Inc., W.W. Grainger, CDW, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, United Airlines, Walgreens, and Exelon. She is a recognized thought leader and her work has been featured by local and nationally recognized newspapers (NBC, Chicago Business, The Chicago Tribune, and the Sun-Times to name a few) and has sat as an expert on numerous panels or has served as a keynote. 

Tiana resides in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband and two daughters. She holds a Master of Arts in Organizational Psychology and Counseling from the Adler University and a Bachelors in Psychology and Communications from Converse College. 

Ross McCammon is deputy editor at Texas Monthly and has held senior editorial positions at Men’s Health, Esquire, GQ, and Medium. He’s written features for Wired, Elle, Bloomberg Businessweek, Cosmopolitan, Entrepreneur, and The Wall Street Journal. His book Works Well with Others (Dutton) investigates the relationship between workplace behavior and career success.The New York Times calls it ”charmingly finicky.” Nick Offerman says it’s “hilarious and true.” The Today show’s Jean Chatzky says it’s “the perfect balance of practical and motivational.” It’s called The Impostor’s Handbook in the UK, and it’s been translated into five languages. He lives in Austin with his wife and two children.

Patrick Felder is the senior vice president of Employee Success at Salesforce.

Liane Hajduch is the Head of Employee Experience + Tech HR at Doordash.

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.

As the Global Director of Innovation and AI at Robert Walters, Faye leads the strategic vision and execution of innovation and AI initiatives to enhance customer experience, operational efficiency, and revenue growth. With over 20 years in the recruitment industry, she specializes in AI, recruitment tech, and talent marketing, driving transformative solutions for clients and stakeholders.

With over 20 years of HR experience in various domains, Carla has a passion for improving how organizations' work gets done by integrating technology into business processes and leveraging data to drive decisions and actions. She enjoys helping clients transform their HR function and create a more seamless and data-driven experience for their employees.

With extensive experience in government agencies, for-profit development, and real estate finance, Jerryck Murrey has dedicated his career to tackling the housing crisis. His mission to promote affordable housing was shaped by his own childhood experiences of housing insecurity, moving frequently until college. This deep understanding of housing’s impact on quality of life inspired him to found Annum, a company revolutionizing corporate benefits by providing access to housing. Together with his highly skilled team, Jerryck aims to make "Housing as a Benefit" a standard that enhances the lives of workers everywhere.

I work with organizations to leverage their education benefits in a strategic way to align with their talent strategy. 
 
I believe in the power of education and its ability to transform the lives of individuals, families, and communities. 
 
When you invest in learning, training, and skill-building, you help your people unlock their individual potential. When you do it strategically, you also drive organizational performance, culture, and retention—and boost your ability to compete and win as an employer of choice.

Steven T. Collis researches and teaches on religion law, productive discourse, and other First Amendment topics. He is the founding faculty director of the Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center and its Law & Religion Clinic. Before joining Texas Law, he was a Research Fellow in the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School. His scholarly work has been cited by Supreme Court justices and published in various law reviews and in his book Deep Conviction. Professor Collis is also the author of The Immortals, Praying with the Enemy, and Habits of a Peacemaker, which provides habits for developing the skill to engage in productive discourse about hard topics. The American Library Association has praised him as "a much needed voice of reason and compromise."

Penelope brings over 15 years experience to EarnIn as their VP/GM of the B2B business. Before joining, she was a GM at DoorDash leading whitelabel businesses, and one of which, Voice Ordering, was the fastest growing B2B business at the company, which she grew by 50x, while establishing ARR to be in the tens of millions.

Kathryn Lundstrom is ADWEEK’s commerce and sustainability editor, covering the retail media boom and the advertising and marketing industry’s response to the climate crisis. Before joining Adweek in 2019, she wrote about politics for The Daily Donut, analyzed policy at the Texas Capitol and checked facts at Sports Illustrated. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a master’s in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and a master of global policy studies from the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

Dr. Martin Payne is the chief commercial officer for Empowerly, the leading solution for helping students and families navigate the complicated college admissions process. Prior to Empowerly, Martin spent over two decades working with innovative early-stage venture capital-backed organizations and large publicly traded companies in the HR, Education, and Wellness spaces. His approach focuses on collaboration, influence, and innovation, which has led to a proven track record of operational excellence and revenue growth.
Martin holds a BA in Psychology from New College of Florida, an MBA from Nova Southeastern University, and a Doctor of Education (EdD) in Organizational Change and Leadership from the University of Southern California.

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.

Jen has over 27 years of Human Resources experience including Talent Acquisition, Leadership Development, Learning and Development, and Operations. She most recently has coached leaders and executives in both start-up as well as large company environments and expects to have her ICF Certification (International Coaching Federation) in early 2025.

In her career, Jen has led large, complex programs and projects as well as teams of over 50 employee’s including the leadership of people managers. This leadership experience has included a lot of feedback and coaching over the years – something Jen has been very passionate about.

Most recently, Jen was the global director of Emerging Talent Recruiting responsible for branding Dell Technologies as a great place to work specifically with students. Engagement, collaboration and building trust with vendors, universities, and diversity organizations was critical to her team’s success. Also critical was understanding changes in the marketplace, trends and the key data that would provide the highest ROI. Prior to this role, Jen had a variety of roles over a 21 year time period with Dell including Professional Recruiting people leader, Leader Development program lead, Leadership program design and facilitation, and HR Operations. In 2010, Jen launched, led and grew Dell’s global talent attraction and employment brand team. In this role, Jen and her team partnered with various Dell teams including Corporate Communications, Executive Sponsors, and Marketing to create rich employee advocacy programming as well as consistent approaches to measuring employee as well as market sentiment. 

A passionate advocate of transparency in the workplace, Jen was voted one of the top Talent Warriors by Glassdoor in 2014. She has sat on advisory board for CareerXRoads, Glassdoor and Universum. She has been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, CNET.com [cnet.com], Forbes.com [forbes.com], Inc.com [inc.com], Fastcompany.com [fastcompany.com], shrm.com [shrm.com], Industry Week and AmplifyTalent. She has also been interviewed on various podcasts including: Hiring Humans, The intership show, Hire Scholars, Eightfold, Undercover Recruiter, Link Humans, Neon Noise, The Social Recruiting Show, the Yonder podcast and RecruitingLive. Jen has also presented as well as sat on panels at a variety of events including TalentNet, Hire Scholars, NACE, EB Con, Employment Brand Strategies, SRSC, Universum, Indeed Interactive, Top Talent Summit, Bersin by Deloitte WhatWorks, ERE, CareerArc, HR.com [hr.com].

Prior to Dell, Jen was with a variety of Austin, TX based start-up companies including pcOrder.com [pcorder.com] (a spin-off of Trilogy), eLaw.com [elaw.com] and Ignite! Learning in various HR roles including Recruiting and HR Generalist. She started her career after graduating from Austin College in Sherman, TX and earning her Master’s degree in Business from the University of Dallas with executive search firm, Heidrick & Struggles.

Kelsey Bradshaw is the Newsletter Editor at City Cast Austin.

Emil Kresl  the founding director of the Learning & Development office for The University of Texas at Austin. He believes learning is the load bearing pillar of well being. It is his mission to teach people how to follow their curiosity. Through personal coaching and group development Emil helps people realize their goals. He specialize in adapting otherwise complex professional concepts and tools for use in everyday life. His book, Self-leadership: The Art and Science of Control, examines behavioral and cultural issues that often hold people back from realizing their full potential. It provides accessible tools and concepts that will help people overcome obstacles to be more effective reaching their goals. Emil holds two masters degrees in Community and Regional Planning and Public Affairs. 

Haeli Harris is the director of clinical operations at Nivati, a licensed mental health therapist, yoga instructor, health and wellness coach, and mindfulness practitioner dedicated to helping others through holistic health and healing. She takes a client-based, solution-focused approach helping the client to find their own solutions that are within them and building on their own strengths. Haeli has specialized training in combining yoga and mental health including using a trauma-informed lens when working with her clients. She is also a mother to teenagers and a lover of chocolate and dancing!