Andre Joyner is the senior vice president, chief human resources officer at JCPenney, reporting to Marc Rosen, chief executive officer. Andre is responsible for the development and execution of strategic human capital decisions and leads the Company’s human resources functions.

Andre brings more than 20 years of innovative human resources and management experience in retail, health care, and consumer packaged goods industries. Most recently, Andre served as the senior vice president, head of human resources at Victoria’s Secret where he led the brand through its most significant organizational transformation. Earlier in his career, he held HR leadership roles at Merck & Co. and Pepsi-Cola Bottling Group.

Andre holds a Master of Human Resources and Industrial Relations and a Bachelor of Arts in sociology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Committed to lifelong learning through ongoing education, Andre holds designations as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and Society for Human Resource Management Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP).

Ben Jackson is the Vice President HR Technology & Analytics at AT&T.

As Southwest Airlines’ Vice President Culture & Engagement, Whitney Eichinger strengthens and promotes Southwest’s legendary Culture by caring, connecting, and appreciating Southwest Employees in a way that enables them to feel the most engaged with Southwest’s Purpose.

Whitney joined Southwest in 1999 and served as a key media spokesperson and Leader on Southwest’s Communications Team. During her first 15 years at Southwest, she provided strategic guidance ensuring the Company was well positioned in the media during crisis situations, helped share the Southwest story by highlighting the heart and soul of our Employees both internally and externally, and created unique, ground-breaking events for the Company.

In 2014, Whitney and her family moved to Michigan where she expanded her leadership experience by leading a global communications team at Ford Motor Company and then served as the Director of Communications and later Vice President Communications at Bedrock and Rock Ventures—both in Dan Gilbert’s Family of Companies. In 2019, Southwest was excited to welcome Whitney back to lead the Culture and Engagement Department.

Today, Whitney ensures the Culture remains at the heart of Southwest’s business. She oversees Company initiatives designed to better understand Employee sentiment, needs, and expectations in the current environment while increasing Employee engagement throughout all workgroups. She oversees the Company’s awards and recognition strategies, the strategy and vision that guides People through large scale change, and leads the charge to create
meaningful and creative Companywide events. Southwest’s legendary Culture is woven throughout Southwest by putting People first and ensuring they feel cared for, recognized, and valued.

Whitney earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Texas at Arlington. She and her husband, Erik, have a son in high school, Owen. And her youngest child is an Akita named Chief.

Dasha Crosby is the  Senior Vice President, HR Lead at Citi.

Amy Bass Messersmith is Chief People Officer of Builders FirstSource. She is responsible for collaborating with the executive team, senior management, and field leadership to ensure human resources works to meet the needs of our people and our business. Furthermore, Mrs. Messersmith is responsible for championing the Builders FirstSource core value of putting people first, building a culture that fuels strong business results and focusing on how the
company attracts, develops, and retains the right talent.

Prior to joining Builders FirstSource, Mrs. Messersmith served as Chief Human Resources Officer for U.S. Anesthesia Partners. She has also held senior human resources positions at TDIndustries, Pizza Hut, Inc., PepsiCo, Inc., Frito Lay North America, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Accenture Consulting. She serves on the Southern Methodist University CHRO Advisory Board, the SMU Cox School of Business Graduate Program Mentorship Board and the Dallas CHRO Advisory Board. Mrs. Messersmith is also a member of the Dallas Executive Women’s
Roundtable and National HR Masterminds Group. Mrs. Messersmith earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree in management and human resources from Texas A&M University.

Ashley Heis leads American's Team Member Experience team and company's efforts to make culture a competitive advantage within work environment. Ashley began her career with American in 2009 and has held leadership roles in several different capacities across American, including Digital, Sales, Marketing, Customer Experience and Global learning. Prior to joining American, Ashley spent five years with Texas Instruments, and dabbled in the agency world, learning to quickly pivot, adapt, and lead through uncertainty.

Ashley holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Southern Methodist University and received a full athletic scholarship for the Division i women's soccer team. She earned a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Texas at Dallas. She lives in Dallas with her husband Tim, three children and dog, Scout.

As an inclusion professional, speaker, coach, and talent development consultant - Dr. Ryan has a mind for business and a heart for people. Having successfully led teams in finance, healthcare, and non-profit, and commercial real estate organizations, Ryan brings a unique mix of practical experience and professional research. His areas of expertise include virtual teaming, diversity and inclusion, and leadership development. He uses those skills
while serving as Global Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at CBRE responsible for Advisory, Real Estate Investments, and Corporate lines of business. Additionally, he is a professor at a Warner University teaching MBA students Organizational Behavior, Strategic Talent Management, Diversity and Inclusion, and Compensation courses.

Allison Lyons, SHRM-SCP is a VP of Human Resources (HR) at Frontier Communications. Allison has worked in HR for 27 years.  She previously worked at the world’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase along with the investment banking organization, Robert W. Baird & Company. Additionally, she worked at healthcare companies Tenet Health and Mayo Clinic and the car manufacturer Toyota North America. Allison had led in many facets of HR including Talent, Employment Branding, Contingent Workforce, Recruitment Strategies, HR Business Partner Teams, Diversity, Compensation, Benefits, and Talent Development. Allison has led HR work Globally and across the United States.

Allison earned a Master of Science in HR from the University of North Florida and Bachelor of Science in Business Management from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She has the National HR Certification, as a Senior Professional in HR-SHRM-SCP. She was honored to present at one of  LinkedIN’s National Conferences, and selected as a Top Talent Acquisition Leader to watch Nationally. She has served on the Board of Directors for the United Way of Northeast Florida and the Dallas HR – SHRM organization.

Allison is married to Brian Lyons, a Director of Diversity in Plano ISD and a former High School Principal. She has two children, Brooke 11 years-old and Christian Lyons 16-years-old. She’s a diehard Green Bay Packers Fan.

Dr. Wendy Whittington has spent 30+ years in healthcare in clinical, administrative, and consulting roles. Throughout her career, she has been passionate about changing healthcare for the better. That desire to make a difference led her to Cariloop as a board member in 2018 and now as their first Chief Care Officer. Cariloop is a caregiver support platform and service with a mission to relieve the stress and anxiety felt by all caregivers.

Dr. Whittington is a board-certified pediatrician and practiced in both the inpatient and outpatient settings. She began the transition into the information technology and business sides of healthcare as a physician champion for EHR adoption in the 1990’s and has held various positions in the acute care and industry settings including CMIO, CIO and CMO. She brings her broad healthcare, information technology and teaching background to Cariloop knowing that family caregivers are integral to the health and wellbeing of their loved ones and deserve our recognition and support. A long-time student of healthcare policy and process, she is thrilled to help articulate how supporting family caregivers is not only the right thing to do but solves some of our healthcare system’s biggest problems, particularly over-spending while seeing suboptimal outcomes.

Dr. Whittington completed the Masters of Medical Management degree program at Carnegie Mellon University in 2009.  She received her MD degree in 1990 from Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. Having experience in healthcare delivery, administration, revenue cycle, consulting and academia, she brings a diverse point of view to the national discussion around how we best support caregivers. Recent roles include telehealth strategy, clinical effectiveness, healthcare process optimization and clinical decision support consulting.

Emtrain founder and CEO Janine Yancey is a passionate advocate for healthy workplace cultures. Janine’s unique approach blends technology, behavioral science, data analytics, and social media-inspired interactions to help inform and improve workplace behavior. Janine presides over a team of experts and an extensive library of content including courses, video, resource guides, checklists and analytic reports that define the modern workplace.

Janine is a proponent of neutral, third-party guidance and problem-solving. By orchestrating a publicly-accessible community interface for employee questions and concerns, Janine stays at the forefront of real-world, real-time harassment, bias, discrimination, and ethics issues.

A tireless visionary, Janine writes extensively, has provided expert testimony and advice to state legislatures, and helps leading companies implement harassment prevention, diversity, ethics, and compliance programs. Janine is a sought-after speaker and has been published and interviewed in the mainstream media including The Washington Post, Fast Company, USA Today, Bloomberg Business, TechCrunch, and Startup Grind. She’s presented at Society of Ethics and Compliance; Techstars FounderCon; Founders Network, and The Club.

Prior to founding Emtrain, Janine was a partner at Employment Law Partners where she specialized in solving labor and employment problems for high tech firms including Google, Intuit and a variety of start-ups. Janine also worked as counsel at Liebert Cassidy Whitmore, served as Board Member of the Northern California Human Resources Association, and authored The HR Handbook, designed to help young tech companies navigate workplace laws.

Janine earned her JD at the University of California Hastings School of Law and a BA in English and Political Science at the University of California Berkeley.

Odessa Jenkins is the Founder of the Women’s National Football Conference (WNFC), and sought after executive leader. She most recently served as the Head of Business Develop for Parity, and VP of Support/Ops at YourCause. An in demand national speaker, Jenkins is also the founder of multiple nonprofits. She is a recognized market leader in CSR, DE&I, Team Dynamics, and SAAS technology with multiple years of leadership experience in private funded start-ups, joint ventures and fortune 100 public companies. Jenkins served for several years as an executive leader at YourCause, a start-up which helped to revolutionize the CSR industry.

As a disrupter in sports, Jenkins is paving the way to create inclusion and equity in sports for women and girls. She was an inaugural participant in the NFL’s first Women’s Career in Football Forum and is one of the first women to obtain the coveted NFL Bill Walsh Diversity Internship in an on-field position (Running Backs Coach – Atlanta Falcons). Featured on Fox, Sport Illustrated, CBS, ESPN, Yahoo Sports, The Undefeated and more, Jenkins was recently recognized as one of the most influential and powerful women in sports by Sports Illustrated (Unrelenting).

Jenkins has 22 years of coaching and leadership experience, is a Hall of Fame, a 5X National Champion, 2X USA National Team captain, 2X Gold Medalist, and heralded as one of the top leadership experts in the country.

Vijay Swaminathan is the Co-Founder & CEO of Draup, an AI-Driven Reskilling and Talent Intelligence Platform. Vijay has extensive experience in the areas of Product Ideation, Concept to Productization, and Platform enablement. He brings a wealth of expertise in the areas of Data Analytics, Operations Research, and Strategic Management. He has developed numerous quantitative models and heuristics related to global talent, business analytics, and strategic business initiatives.

Vijay is also the co-founder of Zinnov (a leading research & advisory firm) and TalentNeuron (acquired by CEB a Gartner Company (NYSE:IT)). Prior to co-founding Zinnov and TalentNeuron, Vijay held senior positions at Hewitt Associates and KPMG Consulting. He is passionate about translating business ideas into tangible Intellectual Property.

Rob Schneider is currently Managing Editor-Events for the Dallas Business Journal. He oversees the editorial components for the Business Journal's live events, including writing, editing, visuals, photo and video. Previously he was Creative Director of the Dallas Business Journal.

Prior to that, Rob was Presentation Director for The Dallas Morning News in charge of design, graphics and illustrations for the publication. He has led successful redesigns of the DMN, The Providence Journal and various other print and digital products.

In his career, Schneider has been an editor, designer, writer, photographer, copy editor and sports editor for newspapers in Missouri (St. Joseph News-Press and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch) and Nebraska (Omaha World-Herald.) His work has been awarded by The Society for News Design, Malofiej, Communication Arts, Illustrator’s Annual, PRINT magazine and other state and regional journalism competitions.

Rob is a past president for The Society for News Design and has been a regular volunteer since 1997. He's served as speaker at seven SND annual workshops and has been a three-time judge at SND's creative competition. Rob has organized and hosted several SND Quick Courses in Texas and has been a featured speaker for SND and other organizations at events around the country.

April Simpson joined the Center for Public Integrity in October 2020 as a senior reporter covering racial equity. She was previously the rural issues reporter at Stateline, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Before joining Pew, April was associate editor of Current, where she covered public media and won recognition for her #MeToo investigation of a veteran reporter. April was a U.S. Fulbright fellow in Botswana, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo fellow with the International Women’s Media Foundation and Innovations in Food and Agriculture fellow with the National Press Foundation. April is a graduate of Smith College and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Michelle Hicks serves as director of communication, strategy and engagement, for the Diversity, Equality and Inclusion team at Micron Technology, a world leader in innovative memory and storage solutions. In this role, Michelle works to elevate Micron’s DEI voice with leaders, team members and external stakeholders to drive greater diversity and inclusion at Micron and across the global semiconductor industry.

Michelle graduated from Boise State University and started her career in broadcast journalism as reporter and anchor for Boise’s NBC affiliate. Michelle first joined Micron more than 20 years ago as HR communication manager. A decade later, she transitioned to a career in HR communication consulting for Fortune 500 companies across a variety of industries, including agribusiness, automotive, entertainment, health systems and more before returning to Micron in 2020 to join the DEI team.

Michelle has received multiple journalism and communication awards, and the Idaho Business Review recognized her as one of 50 Women of the Year. She is passionate about creating an inclusive workplace culture and believes when employees bring their authentic selves to work, they are more likely to speak up, contribute and have a positive impact.

Michelle lives in Boise with her husband Anthony and their three spoiled dogs where she volunteers as a youth mentor and plays an occasional game of pickelball.

Abbie Cowan serves as Global Chief Diversity Officer for Atos, a global technology company with 112,000 employees across 71 countries. Abbie is responsible for leading the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion strategy across the organization to drive an inclusive culture and deliver sustainable, positive change. Within this role Abbie is
focused on programs and initiatives that engage Atos’s people, clients, and partners, creating an environment where diversity is celebrated, and individuals can thrive. Immediately prior to being named as Global Chief Diversity Officer in January 2022, Abbie was Chief HR Officer for Atos North America, responsible for enabling the
success of 11,000 people in the business as they engage and collaborate with clients to drive digital change.

This role came after a series of regional and global HR leadership roles across Atos in which Abbie has led people practices and programs. Abbie also has significant experience in acquisitions and people transitions alongside expertise in employee relations, compensation and benefits, employee engagement, and talent acquisition.

Abbie is a member of the UK’s Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and is a certified executive coach and mentor. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Warwick and a master’s degree from Birmingham City University. She is an NLP Master Practitioner and a graduate of executive leadership programs at HEC Paris and INSEAD.

Abbie is passionate about lifelong learning and inspiring people to achieve their full potential professionally and personally. Always looking for an opportunity to learn and expand her knowledge, she is currently completing her Yoga Teacher Training. She’s an avid reader and loves the arts, having originally majored in theater. She’s a
frequent traveler and has visited over 30 countries. In her free time, she is happiest being outdoors cycling, swimming, hiking with her two dogs or skiing with her family.

Hendrik led a learning and memory research lab in the pharmaceutical industry for many years. He also has extensive teaching experience. Hendrik joined getAbstract five years ago to focus on corporate learning. He leads getAbstract’s Custom Summary Service, which brings the proven readability and engagement of getAbstract summaries to corporate clients’ own content. As Managing Editor Science & Technology, Hendrik oversees getAbstract’s scientific and technological content.

Amanda Conway MS RDN is the SVP of Employer Strategy at Talkspace, the leading Mental Health brand for employers. She oversees the strategy, sales and relationship management of Talkspace's Direct to Employer business. Amanda has worked with digital health companies for the last 10 years in a variety of roles including B2B sales, marketing and clinical product development, with a focus on expanding access to quality care through telehealth. Amanda is a registered dietitian who specializes in behavior change therapy for chronic disease prevention and health lifestyle maintenance.

Steve has spent the last ten years of his career building technology that helps people to learn, grow, and connect. Before starting Campfire, he spent 5 years at Instructure building a talent management platform focused on career development and human performance. He worked with product, marketing, sales, and strategy teams to grow the business from the ground up to $27 million in annual revenue. While with Instructure, he worked with teams at Disney, Tesla, Lululemon, Johnson and Johnson, and other global brands to strengthen their talent management practices.

Now, Steve is focused primarily on finding ways for people to learn and grow through connected learning experiences called Campfires. The business has strong investment and is responsible for training hundreds of managers in the key skills needed to effectively lead teams. Steve’s experience in technology, content, facilitation, and talent management provide a rich mix of skills for solving these challenges.

Campfire was founded in 2020 at the very beginning of the pandemic and has benefitted from the changes and shifts that allow for us to consider new ways of connecting and working with each other. Steve has three co-founders - Todd, Taylor, and Marinne - who are all passionate about the mission of providing universal access to connected learning experiences.

Rilee is a competitive, problem-solving achiever—or that’s what Clifton Strengths reports. She grew up in Idaho and always felt out of place. Her first time abroad was to India at 19, and it completely changed her life. She left knowing her heart belonged everywhere else but home.

She is the co-founder and CEO of Donde, a HR tech startup that helps employers offer travel as a benefit. The mission is to make travel more accessible; to reduce the barriers that prevent people from taking time away from the office to recharge and reconnect through travel. She’s excited about the “future of work” and the renewed focus on improving work-life balance and the employer/employee relationship.

Rilee has a background in advertising and a master’s in Sociology. She’s married to her cofounder and a mom to two girls, sparkly Blue, and baby Frida Rose.

Will Maddox is the senior writer for D CEO magazine and the editor of D CEO Healthcare. He's written about healthcare fraud, Texas’ slow march toward marijuana legalization, and the future of healthcare in North Texas.

Jason Wheeler is the Anchor/Reporter, WFAA-TV, Editor, Right on the Money Co-host, Y'all-itics Texas Political Podcast at WFAA.

Kimberly Ardo-Eisenbeis currently holds the role of Regional Director, Human Resources for Allied Universal, a global security solutions provider with more than 800,000 employees internationally working in more than 90 countries.  As an organization, Allied’s purpose is to “There for You,” serving and safeguarding customers, communities, and people around the world.  She utilizes her passion to develop others to provide HR leadership support to over 30,000 employees and leaders within the Central Region to fully live out that purpose.

Prior to joining Allied Universal in early 2021, Kimberly has held HR leadership roles with leading retail and logistic organizations such as Blockbuster Entertainment, Federated Department Stores, The Home Depot, and Core-Mark International over her 25+ year career.

Kimberly holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial sociology from Florida Atlantic University with a focus on Human Resources.  She also earned a master’s degree in Organizational Leadership from Nova Southeastern University, during which she became a Situational Leadership Trainer from the Center for Leadership Studies.  Interestingly, she also has spent time as a Certified Addictions Counselor coupled with her HR experience to give back to those who suffer from the disease of addiction.  She lives in Fort Worth with her husband Chris, her 10-year-old son Zachariah, and their family dogs.

Donald Knight is Chief People Officer at Greenhouse Software. He leads with a people-first mentality hoping to unlock the potential of Greenhouse talent globally. With a laser focus on the connection between people and the processes that serve them, Donald and his team create proximity by building bridges focusing on enhanced experiences that nurture culture and develop people.

In his role leading the People team, Donald works to help Greenhouse create an environment for people to do the best work of their lives. He is responsible for providing global strategy and leadership in developing, overseeing, and administering people programs. With expansion top of mind, the team delivers a scalable people strategy that enables the organization to expand globally. Before Greenhouse, Donald served as Senior Vice President of Global Talent for Edelman. He helped shape the HR brand as a proactive, insightful, and collaborative solution provider in this role. Donald has held numerous senior leadership roles for Southern Company Gas, a subsidiary of Southern Company (NYSE: SO), and the Defense Commissary Agency.

A native of Virginia, Donald holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Virginia Commonwealth University and a master’s degree in human resource management from the University of Richmond. Donald is also a graduate of the project leadership program at the engineering school of Cornell University for business executives. He and his family reside in the Greater Atlanta area.

Eujin Ahn is the Director, L&D at One Medical.

Brittany Hill is the CEO of Accelerist, the partnership intelligence SaaS platform where some of the industry’s most prolific brands and nonprofits prospect, value, access and measure their events and partnerships with each other. As a passionate data seeker and trend translator, Brittany specializes in using analytics and innovations to support B-corporations and Fortune 1000 companies as well as enterprise and federated nonprofits in their pursuit of sustainable events and partnerships. In her role, Brittany spearheads social impact product development and leads a talented team who has supported 100s of customers in effectuating social change.

Brittany holds over 15 years of experience in the entertainment, nonprofit and agency sectors, with a consistent specialization and commitment to purpose-driven work. Throughout her career, Mrs. Hill’s portfolio of work ranges from building multi-channel partnerships and award-winning campaigns between blue-chip nonprofits and companies, to helping entertainers and celebrities find their social purpose, and producing social activism events.

Brittany’s trendsetting insights have been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, TIME, and MSN.com. She is a seasoned speaker on the topics of data-driven cause partnerships, social impact measurement, industry trends, sponsorship valuation and cause partnership sales, with previous engagements at Sustainable Brands, SXSW, Association of Fundraising Professionals and Engage for Good