July Virtual: Innovative Benefits That Support Healthy Families and Caregivers

Responsibilities: Brian Copeland is Fannie Mae’s Vice President of Total Rewards, reporting to the Senior Vice President of Total Rewards and HR Operations. In this role, Copeland is responsible for the leadership of compensation, benefits, promotion, and recognition programs targeted at attracting, retaining, engaging, and rewarding talent in support of Fannie Mae’s Total Rewards strategy.

Experience: Prior to joining Fannie Mae, Copeland was in PwC’s Workforce Transformation practice where he served 100+ clients in global compensation, job architecture, benefits, sales compensation, payroll, talent management, and performance management design across many industries. He advised management and compensation committees on total rewards design, governance, and compliance. He successfully worked with over two-dozen M&A and pre-IPO companies in establishing HR-operating models and total rewards value propositions.

Education: Mr. Copeland has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Bucknell University and has his Senior Professional in Human Resources certification.

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.

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.

Emily Oster is a professor of economics at Brown University and the author of The Family Firm: A Data-Driven Guide to Better Decision Making in the Early School Years; Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool; Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong—and What You Really Need to Know, and most recently, The Unexpected: Navigating Pregnancy during and After Complications. She writes the newsletter ParentData and her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Bloomberg.com. She and her husband have two children.

Liz Pittinger is the Vice Prsident of Global Customer Success for Stork Club Family Building Benefits.  She has been working with HR leaders for the past 7 years specifically on how to include digital healthcare solutions to their benefits portfolios and over 9 years experience managing accounts both domestically and internationally.  She has experience working closely with HR teams with jumbo, enterprise, and mid-market employers across industries and geographic locations to help understand trends HR leaders face when choosing, implementing, communicating, and achieving value from their benefit solutions. She was an international project manager for the federal government, has Fortune 100 experience, holds two master’s degrees (Political/Economic Development; Exercise Physiology/Health Promotion), and enjoys working with start-up companies to create customer-centric account management teams.  Liz currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her family. 

Isha is the VP of Employer Growth at Maven Clinic. She’s an expert commercial operator, focused on launching and scaling go-to-market teams at high-growth startups. She has led commercial teams at pre-seed ventures as well as late-stage startups with top investors across industries, primarily higher education, e-commerce, and digital health. Isha lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and 3-year-old daughter.

Julia Cohen Sebastien is the Co-founder and CEO of Grayce, the leading global family care navigation solution.  Prior to founding Grayce, Julia held executive roles in digital health companies, multiple roles at Aetna including SVP of Accountable Care Solutions, The Boston Consulting Group, and The Advisory Board Company / Optum.  She holds an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania as a Howard E. Mitchell fellow, and a BA from Dartmouth College.

As Head of HR OpEx and PMO, Mindy leads the HR function through governance and processes that drive efficiencies, and effectiveness and collaboration. She also has the role of HR Director, where she partners with our Legal, EHS and Government Relations executives to execute people strategy in support of Air Product’s role in generating a cleaner future.

Mindy most recently served as the Director of Diversity Culture and Engagement. In this role, she built and led the functions of employee engagement, talent attraction and marketing, and diversity, inclusion, and belonging. She played a pivotal role in the success of executive leadership development, advancing diversity KPI's and achieving results through signature DEI programs. Mindy also executed employee engagement surveys that enhanced work culture.

Additionally, she served as the company's EEO officer and authored the people and culture sections of the Air Products’ Sustainability Report. Mindy was also a Director of the Air Products Foundation focusing on talent and diversity giving.

Prior to Air Products, Mindy accumulated over 20 years of experience in the oil, gas, and chemical industries across multiple geographies. She led departments in learning and development, talent management, people strategy, and project management within HR. She also served on the Deepwater Horizon incident response team leading competence assessment programs and delivering learning and leadership programs at site locations.

Dionne Adams is the Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging at Pacific Gas & Electric Co., headquartered in Oakland, CA. She has been with PG&E for over 20 years and served in roles of increasing responsibilities within human resources, supply chain responsibility, regulatory affairs, and customer care line of business functions.

In her current role, Dionne provides strategic oversight of the company’s DEIB strategy focused on creating and sustaining a work environment where every member of their 25,000 person workforce feels known, loved and proud to work with and for PG&E.

n the community, she serves as an elected City Councilmember for her hometown of Pittsburg and as an Advisory Board Member of Tri-Delta Transit. In these roles Dionne works to drive equity and inclusion for members of the community in the areas of job creation, housing, public safety and accessibility.

Dionne is a California native and holds a Master of Public Administration from Golden Gate University and a Bachelor of Science of Business with an emphasis in Marketing from San Francisco State University.

Rachel Marling, CCP, is Vice President, Total Rewards at NewYork-Presbyterian. In this role, Ms. Marling is responsible for leading the strategic review, design, implementation, and communication of benefits, compensation, and retirement services at NYP, in order to attract, retain, and engage team members as well as to prepare for future workforce trends. She oversees evaluation of broad-based, physician, and executive rewards programs to ensure maximum value to employees, compliance with regulatory and legal requirements, and alignment with NYP's mission, vision, and values as an organization. 

Ms. Marling joined NYP in 2018 as Director, Compensation. Earlier in her career she worked for over a decade as a management consultant at the Hay Group and Korn Ferry focusing on the design and implementation of total rewards programs and developing broad-based and executive reward programs to enhance the linkage between organizational strategy and employee value.

Ms. Marling holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute. She is a Certified Compensation Professional with World at Work.

Jessi Hempel is the host of the award-winning podcast Hello Monday, and a senior editor-at-large at LinkedIn. For nearly two decades, she has been writing and editing features and cover stories for magazines including Wired, Fortune, and TIME about work, life, and meaning in the contemporary age. She has appeared on CNN, PBS, MSNBC, Fox, and CNBC, addressing the culture and business of technology. Hempel is a graduate of Brown University and received a master’s in journalism from UC Berkeley. She lives in Brooklyn with her wife and children.

Corrinne M. Hobbs (she/her) currently serves as the Vice President of Business Development at Ovia Health where she is focused on partnerships and new business development. Corrinne is a changemaker with a passion for health equity, innovation and development of strategies that lead to improved health outcomes, market share and profitability.

Corrinne has nearly 20 years of healthcare experience within Fortune 50 corporations, federal government, health systems and the tech industry to include CVS Health / Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Publicis Sapient, Booz Allen Hamilton and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Corrinne is a proud graduate of Clark Atlanta University (BA) and University of Maryland's Smith School of Business (MBA). She is also a wife and mother of two.

Dhruv Vasishtha sits on the ianacare clinical advisory board. He is a healthcare product leader and was most recently the founding SVP Product at firsthand, a GV backed tech-enabled value based care provider that supports individuals living with serious mental illness. Prior to that Dhruv led product at PatientPing, a national care coordination platform that was acquired by Appriss Health (now known as Bamboo Health).

Carolyn A Romano, JD has nearly 30 years of experience supporting working parents and caregivers of children with disabilities and aging loved ones. Trained as an attorney, her early mentors were grassroots parent advocates and writers of the first special education law in the country—folks who understood better than most the importance of a family-friendly workplace. A lifelong advocate for vulnerable populations (both two-legged and four), she is no stranger to the world of care – both as a caregiver and care recipient many times over.  She believes in humanity’s ability to figure anything out, the responsible use of technology to improve life, and the key role that compassionate leadership plays in shaping successful businesses today. Carolyn is a product leader at LifeSpeak where she drives the vision, strategy, and roadmap for the Torchlight Parenting & Caregiving SaaS solution, now 13 years strong.

Dani Fischer is the Vice President of Global Benefits, Rewards and Wellness at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. In her 20-plus year career in Human Resources, Dani has primarily focused on the strategy, design and oversight of benefits and well-being programs.

As a leader in total rewards, Dani understands the important role these offerings play in attracting and retaining talent at HPE. Throughout her 10 years with the organization, Dani has worked to create an environment that fosters innovation, streamlining and simplification that allows team members to take care of what matters.

Bahamia Ulysse is the Director of Care Navigator Programs at ianacare, working closely to provide caregivers 1-1 guidance through their most challenging moments. With experience working as a licensed nurse for over 17 years, Bahamia has worked closely with caregivers and experienced her own caregiving journey with her mother.

Rachel Peterson is the Vice President of Marketing at Upwards, the tech-enabled childcare benefits solution solving care for good. After a decade spent in advertising and marketing technology, she shifted her focus to mission-driven organizations that harness the power of technology to solve socioeconomic challenges. Prior to Upwards, she led the marketing function at Fountain, an AI-powered hiring solution serving the needs of the hourly workforce. In her spare time, Rachel leads a chapter of the non-profit organization Together Women Rise, a powerful community of women and allies dedicated to achieving global gender equality. She lives in the midwest with her husband Ken and their exceedingly fluffy dog Olive.

Lesli Stasiek is a human resources leader with 20+ years of human and animal health commercial experience. She is currently Senior Director Human Resources, MWI Animal Health supporting the MWI executive leadership team and organization guiding talent, culture and change strategies to advance the business forward. 

Previously, Lesli spent nine years at Elanco Animal Health in both marketing and human resources roles, most recently as the HR Strategic Business Partner supporting the US Commercial and Global Marketing organization. In this role she developed and led execution of people strategies for the US Commercial Farm Animal and Pet Health organization and led organizational design efforts as part of the Bayer acquisition. Prior to joining Elanco, she worked in sales and marketing at Eli Lilly and Company and AstraZeneca.

Lesli holds a Bachelor of Science in Management from Purdue University in Lafayette, Ind., and a Master of Arts in Clinical Counseling from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology.  

Lesli is passionate about developing current and future female leaders and creating a culture that empowers women to achieve success. She is proud to have been actively involved in the foundation of WILMAH served as a board member since its’ inception. Her passion has grown as a result of her favorite role of raising her two beautiful girls Adeline and Gwendolyn and her desire for them to pursue their dreams without glass ceilings.

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.