Representative Ro Khanna represents California’s 17th Congressional District, located in the heart of Silicon Valley, and is serving his third term. Rep. Khanna sits on the House Committees on Agriculture, Armed Services, and Oversight and Reform, where he chairs the Environmental Subcommittee. Additionally, Rep. Khanna is the Deputy Whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus; serves as an Assistant Whip for the Democratic Caucus and is the Democratic Vice Chair of the House Caucus on India and Indian Americans.

Rep. Khanna is working to ensure our nation is focused on creating new tech jobs across the country, particularly for American left behind, and investing in science and technology to win the 21st Century. This includes job training programs, economic development initiatives, re-wiring the U.S. labor market, and debt-free college to help working families prepare for the future. He is also committed to advancing a foreign policy of military restraint and diplomatic engagement. Instead of spending trillions on wars overseas, Rep. Khanna believes we should invest in priorities at home like Medicare for All, Debt Free College, and a new 21st Century infrastructure.

A dedicated political reformer, Rep. Khanna is one of only a few members of Congress to refuse contributions from PACs and lobbyists. He also supports a 12-year term limit for Members of Congress and a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

Rep. Khanna was born in Philadelphia, PA, during America’s bicentennial, to a middle-class family. Both of his parents immigrated to the United States in the 1970s from India in search of opportunity and a better life for their children. His father is a chemical engineer and his mother is a substitute school teacher. Rep. Khanna’s commitment to public service was inspired by his grandfather who was active in Gandhi’s independence movement, worked with Lala Lajpat Rai in India, and spent several years in jail for promoting human rights.

Prior to serving in Congress, Rep. Khanna taught economics at Stanford University, law at Santa Clara University, and American Jurisprudence at San Francisco State University. He wrote the book Entrepreneurial Nation: Why Manufacturing is Still Key to America’s Future and worked as a lawyer specializing in intellectual property law. Rep. Khanna served in President Barack Obama’s administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Commerce. In 2012, California Governor Jerry Brown appointed him to the California Workforce Investment Board. He has also provided pro bono legal counsel to Hurricane Katrina victims with the Mississippi Center for Justice, and co-authored an amicus brief on the fair housing U.S. Supreme Court case, Mount Holly v. Mt. Holly Gardens Citizens in Action, Inc.

Rep. Khanna graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in Economics from the University of Chicago and received a law degree from Yale University. As a student at the University of Chicago, he walked precincts during Barack Obama's first campaign for the Illinois Senate in 1996. In his free time, Rep. Khanna enjoys cheering for the Golden State Warriors, watching movies, and traveling. He and his wife Ritu call Fremont, CA, home.

Jayana Garvey the Vice President, Global Performance Advisory at Marriott.

Scott is responsible for partnering with all parts of General Dynamics Information Technology to advance toward the highest levels of diversity, equity and inclusion. He and his team are the enables of GDIT’s DEI strategy, working broadly across the company to build inclusive leaders and put diversity to work in teams; while aligning policies and systems to be equitable and fair, and holding the organization accountable through data and measurable business outcomes.

Scott also oversees two foundational culture-sustaining programs, GDIT Cares and our Employee Resource Groups. Together they foster cultural awareness, allyship, volunteerism and community impact. GDIT Cares programs mobilize the time and talents of our employees to give back in communities nationwide. Our nine volunteer-led ERGs offer multiple events every week that further inclusion, wellbeing and connectivity across our global employee base of 28,000 team members.

Over Scott’s fifteen-year tenure with GDIT, he held leadership positions in client-facing consulting and corporate headquarters roles. His areas of expertise include post-M&A strategy, organizational performance, leadership development and executive coaching.

Scott holds a B.S. in Biology from Penn State University. He completed executive coaching training at American University and is pursuing sustaining credentials. He is also a certified facilitator. Outside of GDIT, Scott is a Board and faculty member at the Leadership Center for Excellence, an Arlington, Virginia-based non-profit organization building leadership capacity in the D.C. metro area through development, civic engagement and DEI programming.

Brian Bennett is the Senior White House Correspondent for Time magazine. During two decades as a reporter, Bennett has broken major stories, covered wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and written about intelligence, immigration and the fallout of major disasters.

He’s written more than a dozen Time magazine cover stories, including an in-depth look at Trump’s plan to feed and harness voter outrage for his reelection campaign. Other cover stories include the analysis of Trump’s Russia problem that ran with the startling image combining Trump and Putin’s face, as well as a deeply-reported cover story called “The Riskiest Show on Earth” that analyzed Trump’s impulsive foreign policy after attending Trump’s summit in Singapore with Kim Jong Un. Bennett also wrote a cover-length profile of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his struggle to hold on to power as the country’s longest-serving leader.

Bennett previously reported for Los Angeles Times, writing national security, immigration and terrorism stories for the paper’s Washington bureau. He exposed a pattern of excessive force by the Border Patrol, revealed the first time a Predator drone helped police make an arrest on U.S. soil, and covered the 2015 San Bernadino attacks, the devastation from Super Storm Sandy and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

During an earlier stint at Time magazine, Bennett started as a reporter in Hong Kong in 2000 and reported from Pakistan and Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He was the magazine’s Baghdad bureau chief in 2003 and 2004, and embedded with U.S. forces during the invasion and other battles, wrote about the occupation’s reliance on private security firms and uncovered a pattern of secret executions by the Iraqi government. He became a Washington correspondent for Time in 2005, covering the FBI, DHS and the State Department, and continued to travel to Iraq on reporting trips.

He lives in Washington with his wife and son.

Matt Stoller is the director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project. He is the author of the Simon and Schuster book Goliath: The Hundred Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy, which Business Insider called “one of the year’s best books on how to rethink capitalism and improve the economy.” David Cicilline, Chairman of the House Antitrust Subcommittee, has called Stoller’s work “an inspiration.” Stoller is a former policy advisor to the Senate Budget Committee.

He also worked for a member of the Financial Services Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives during the financial crisis. While a staffer, he wrote a provision of law mandating a third party audit of the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending activities. He also helped cut part of a $20 billion subsidy to large financial institutions. His 2012 law review article on the foreclosure crisis, The Housing Crash and the End of American Citizenship, predicted the rise of autocratic political forces, and his 2016 Atlantic article, How the Democrats Killed their Populist Soul, helped inspire the new anti-monopoly movement. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Fast Company, Foreign Policy, the Guardian, Vice, The American Conservative, and the Baffler. Stoller writes the monopoly-focused newsletter Big with tens of thousands of subscribers, which you can subscribe to here.

Jo Linda Johnson is the Vice President, Head of DIB Strategy & Equity at Capital One.

Adrian Taylor is the  Chief Learning Officer at National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.

Danny Dickerson is the Director, Diversity & Inclusion at National Institutes of Health.

Jessica Bonjorni is the Human Capital Management Chief at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

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.

Krissah Thompson is the first Black woman to hold the title of Managing Editor at the Washington Post, where she oversees the newsroom’s diversity and inclusion efforts, its hiring and recruiting operation and the Features and Climate coverage departments. She began her career at The Washington Post in 2001 and has held multiple roles including intern, Business reporter, covering presidential campaigns and writing about civil rights and race. Before becoming an editor in the Style section, she covered the first lady’s office, politics and culture. She is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism and College of Liberal Arts Plan II honors program. She also earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland.

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.

Sally Bartas is the Vice President, HR Corporate at Stanley Black & Decker

Lin Burton is the Chief Learning Officer at the U.S. Department of Justice.

David Malmborg is VP of Marketing & Community at Nivati, a leading mental health platform for employees. He serves on the Board of Directors of Utah Digital Marketing Collective, a non-profit organization promoting marketing education in the intermountain region. He has over 15 years of experience in various marketing initiatives. Previous to his role at Nivati, David ran agency operations and performance marketing at two different marketing agencies focused on travel and tourism and has worked with multiple world class ski resorts, and convention and travel bureaus.

Dr. Gracie Lawson-Borders is Dean and Professor of the Cathy Hughes School of Communications at Howard University. She is the past President of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication (ASJMC), and a member of the Board of Directors, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). She is also a member of the Policy Board, Howard Journal of Communications; Maryland/Delaware/DC Press Foundation Board (MDDC); Editorial Board Member, the International Journal on Media Management, and Advisory Board Member, BlackPast.org at the University of Washington. She is the recipient of the Spirit of Diversity Award from the Journalism Institute of Media Diversity at Wayne State University. Last year she was inducted into the Advancing Diversity Hall of Honors with MediaVillage in New York. She has held office in community and national organizations such as Habitat for Humanity.

Dr. Lawson-Borders is a former associate dean and professor in the College of Arts and Sciences/Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of Wyoming. She is also former Director of the African American and Diaspora Studies program at Wyoming; where she has taken students to Ghana as part of study abroad. Dr. Lawson-Borders won the Jason Thompson Commitment to Diversity award while at Wyoming. She also previously served as a faculty member at Kent State University and Southern Methodist University. She received her Ph.D. from Wayne State University, M.A. from Northwestern University and B.A. from Michigan State University. She a former journalist, who has worked as a reporter and editor at the Akron Beacon Journal, The Oakland Press and The Chicago Tribune.

Merrick Krause is the Deputy Chief Human Capital Officer & Director & Director, Human Capital Strategy at U.S. General Services Administration.

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!

Andy Rosa is the vice president of care, supporting customer service delivery across the Accolade product and solution suite. He joined Accolade in 2019 and previously led the large strategic/enterprise account management team. Before Accolade, Andy led various HR functions at AmeriGas and Comcast, buying and enabling Accolade solutions for both organizations. Outside of work, Andy enjoys spending time with his family and traveling. He is also a passionate sports fan and coach.

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.

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.

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.

Sam Fulwood III is dean of American University’s School of Communication and a prominent journalist, public policy analyst and author, whose work addresses key issues of media influences on American life. He has written and lectured extensively across the United States and internationally on U.S. race relations, data-driven journalism, and the intersections of media, technology and democracy.

In addition to his work at SOC, Fulwood is a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he was a senior fellow and vice president for race and equity programming. He was also the former director and founder of American Progress’ Leadership Institute, a program to assist with the advancement of people of color in public policy.

Earlier in his career, Fulwood was a metro columnist at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio, the last stop in a nearly three-decade journalism career that featured posts at several metropolitan newspapers. During the 1990s, he was a national correspondent in the Washington, D.C., bureau of the Los Angeles Times, where he contributed to the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

He has also worked as a business editor and state political editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution; as an assistant city editor, business reporter, editorial writer, and Johannesburg, South Africa, bureau correspondent for the Baltimore Sun; and as a police, business, and sports reporter at The Charlotte Observer.

Fulwood is the author of two books: Waking from the Dream: My Life in the Black Middle Class (Anchor, 1996) and Full of It: Strong Words and Fresh Thinking for Cleveland (Gray & Company, 2004). Fulwood earned a Bachelor's in Journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Hannah Denham is a reporter at the Washington Business Journal covering Amazon, higher education, transportation and data centers. Much of her reporting focuses on themes of workforce development, skills training and the local talent pipeline in the Washington, D.C. metro area, where she lives. She’s previously covered national breaking business news at the Washington Post as well as business news at the Tampa Bay Times, and her work has been recognized through awards from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Virginia Press Association. She graduated from Washington and Lee University in 2020.