Los Angeles 2022 - From Day One (2023)

Mason Williams

Mattel, Inc.

Mason Williams is the Global Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Mattel, Inc.

Hoai Scott

NBCUniversal

Known amongst her peers, colleagues and leaders she supports as an “inspiration for change,” Hoai Scott has made it her passion to inspire leaders and individuals to find their purpose as a means to living a fulfilled and joyful life. As an HR professional in the entertainment industry for 30, she has played a key role in educating leaders in diversity and inclusion, leading with purpose, how to be an ally and how to create a culture of inclusion and belonging in the workplace.

As a refugee from the Vietnam War who came to America in 1975 and is in a bi-racial marriage, she leverages the power of her story to enlighten others on how racial inequity has affected her family in the hopes to engage others to have courageous conversations on racial bias and be a part of the solution. She is committed to fostering work that creates more awareness, changes perspectives and inspires people to take action in the movement towards social equity and justice.

She currently serves as Senior Vice President, Human Resources for NBCUniversal where she supports the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group and provides HR leadership to NBCUniversal teams in Canada, London, EMEA and APAC. She graduatedmagna cum laudefrom the University of Rochester and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and son.

Nicole Husband

Warner Bros. Discovery

Nicole Husband is the Vice President of People & Culture at Warner Bros. Discovery, an attorney and Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (“CPCC”). Nicole graduated from Howard University School of Law in 1996 with a Juris Doctorate and from Ohio State University in 1993 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Business Administration, with a Finance/International Studies double major and Spanish minor.

Nicole studied coaching with The Coaches Institute (“CTI”). Nicole took the five core courses with CTI in 2009, completed her 6-month certification process in 2010 and received her CPCC certification from CTI in January 2012.

Mary Burke

Experian

Mary Burke is the SVP, Head of HR atExperian.

Jennifer Rice

Universal Music Group

Joining Universal Music Group in 2022, Rice has more than two decades of global experience specializing in building culture, learning and organizational development, talent acquisition, employee relations, diversity, equity and inclusion, executive coaching and directing company strategies to support profitable business results through highly engaged employees. As Senior Vice President of People Development and Organizational Effectives for Universal Music Group, Jennifer Rice works to create innovative and inclusive learning solutions to maximize employee potential, growth and performance across business labels, functions and countries.

Passionate about building and evolving culture and leaders to tackle the demands of the future, Rice is spearheading global programs and initiatives to further management and leadership development to create an exceptional employee experience. Prior to joining UMG, Rice was the Chief Learning Officer and Head of Human Resources for Beautycounter in Santa Monica, California. In her role at Beautycounter, she created strategies embedding the mission and values into every day behaviors increasing engagement and learning opportunities for all. To foster inclusion and belonging, Rice launched the first Employee Resource Groups and integrated company benefits to be inclusive of mental and financial health.

Before Beautycounter, Rice was the VP of Human Resources for Hard Rock International overseeing the Café, Hotel and Casino divisions. At Hard Rock, Rice spearheaded a cultural transformation integrating the Seminole Tribe of Florida and Hard Rock International and launched the first mentor programs for underrepresented talent and Women’s Leadership. She also launched a global training program supporting the company mission, values and mottos. Rice served a long tenure as the Global Director of Training and Development at Guess?, Inc. where she implemented dynamic results-oriented blended learning throughout the company. She also led efforts to establish a cutting-edge process designed to enhance customer experience, which was later integrated into all corporate-wide initiatives.

In her spare time, Rice is enjoys spending time with her husband and two children, practicing yoga and going to concerts. Rice graduated magna cum laude from Florida International University with a BA Degree in Psychology and is a certified coach through the International Coaching Federation. She currently resides in Los Angeles, California with her husband, Matthew, daughter, Zoe and son, Desmond.

Dana Brown

City of Los Angeles

Rick Wartzman

Author, “Still Broke: Walmart’s Remarkable Transformation and the Limits of Socially Conscious Capitalism”

Rick Wartzman is the author of the new book Still Broke: Walmart’s Remarkable Transformation and the Limits of Socially Conscious Capitalism, which tells howAmerica’s biggest company began taking better care of its workers–and why such efforts will never be enough.Rick is head of the KH Moon Center for a Functioning Society at the Drucker Institute, a part of Claremont Graduate University. His commentary for Fast Company was recognized by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing with its Best in Business award for 2018. He has also written for Fortune, Time, Businessweek, and many other publications. His books include The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Current Interest and named one of the best books of 2017 by strategy+business; Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History and a PEN USA Literary Award; and The King of California: J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire (with Mark Arax), which won a California Book Award and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.

Kelly McCulloch

Taco Bell

As Global Chief People Officer, Kelly McCulloch leads the human resource management teams for Taco Bell, which employs more than 260,000 people globally.

For more than 15 years, Kelly has served in leadership roles within the Human Resources function across Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell and Yum!, focusing on turning business strategies into action plans, specifically in the areas of organizational effectiveness, leadership development, employee engagement, talent acquisition, employee relations, diversity and inclusion, and total rewards. She is passionate about cultivating an authentic culture where everyone can thrive.

Kelly has a Master’s degree in Human Relations and Business from Amberton University, and a Bachelor’s degree in English from Abilene Christian University.

Kelly and her husband, Lewis, live in Orange County, Calif., with their two children.

Alissa Lieppman

National Football League

Alissa brings 17+ years of experience in consulting, digital marketing, strategy development and relationship management.After spending a decade building a consulting group to support the 32 NFL clubs through the rise of digital and social media, she pivoted into a leadership role with focus on people and strategic operations in early 2020.She now focuses on advancements in team culture, improved internal communications, community programs and works in partnership with staff and senior leaders to champion key initiatives across the NFL, including the office relocation efforts for NFL’s brand-new Inglewood location.She is a proud alumnae of USC Marshall School of Business andlives in Long Beach with her husband, 3 year old daughter and chocolate lab. She also enjoys singing with the all-female a cappella group she founded in 2011 (Lolas Music), traveling and exploring new coffee shops.

Jonathan Landrum

The Associated Press

Jonathan Landrum Jr. is an award-winning writer, editor, producer and mentor covering the entertainment industry for The Associated Press in Los Angeles.

Margot Roosevelt

Los Angeles Times

Margot Roosevelt covers California economic, labor and workplace issues as a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times. A former environmental reporter for the Times, she previously wrote for TIME magazine as a foreign and national correspondent, for the Washington Post on the Congressional beat, and for the Orange County Register focusing on business and the Southern California economy.

Stacie de Armas

Nielsen

Stacie M. de Armas is Senior Vice President Inclusive Insights & Initiatives and a Leader within Nielsen’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion practice. She is an inclusion & identity researcher, consumer behaviorist, and subject matter expert on diverse communities. Specializing in data at the intersection of community, advocacy & entertainment, she is responsible for producing inclusive thought leadership and new research initiatives on diverse consumers and audiences.

She joined Nielsen in 1998 and has served in many roles related to multicultural marketing. She sits on the Hispanic Marketing Council Board of Directors as well as Google’s 21st Century Multicultural Marketing Council and has been the recipient of industry honors for her work in diversity marketing.

Stacie is an adjunct professor of qualitative research at California State University Los Angeles and California State University Northridge. She received her Master’s degree in Business Administration with a focus on marketing from Texas A & M. Stacie is a first-generation Cubana and lives in Los Angeles with her two children.

Jeremy Schiff

Recruitbot

Jeremy Schiff earned an undergraduate in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 2005 and a PhD in Applied Machine Learning in 2009 from The University of California, Berkeley. In 2006, Jeremy co-founded FotoFlexer.com, an online photo editing company that powered companies including MySpace and Photobucket. In 2009, Jeremy joined Ness Computing as VP of Product and Machine Learning, which was sold to OpenTable in 2014. While working at OpenTable, Jeremy saw first-hand the opportunity to transform the way that recruiting works through machine learning and automation, and founded RecruitBot in 2017 to spearhead the mission to automate recruiting

Alison Brower

Insider

Alison Brower is Insider’s LA bureau chief, leading a new team that covers the business of entertainment and the digital transformation of Hollywood.

Previously, she was the deputy editor for arts and entertainment at the Los Angeles Times, where she spearheaded cultural and business coverage as well as investigative features on celebrities and longstanding L.A. institutions. From 2014-2019, as deputy editorial director at the Hollywood Reporter, she led entertainment, culture, and news coverage and was the architect of the magazine’s high-wattage power lists and other special projects.

Before moving to Los Angeles in 2014, Brower was the founding editor-in-chief of Dr. Oz: The Good Life at Hearst and worked in the editorial leadership of magazines including Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and Seventeen. As a writer and editor, she has contributed to publications from O: The Oprah Magazine to Popular Mechanics; she began her journalism career at Adweek. Brower grew up in New Jersey and graduated from Princeton University.

Marissa Waldman

Leaderology

Lauren Ptak

New York University Tandon School of Engineering

Lauren architects and implements marketing strategies to grow NYU Tandon’s brand awareness and reputation by amplifying the school’s research, innovations, and opportunities to a diverse set of audiences — including industry partners, peer school collaborators, students, alumni, and the local Brooklyn community.

Born and raised outside Boston, Lauren headed South to earn her bachelor’s degree in economics from Duke University before subsequently joining the marketing agency world in New York. Prior to joining NYU Tandon, she spent 15 years advising for-profit and nonprofit organizations including American Express, Charles Schwab, Cognizant, NYU Stern, and Cornell Tech on branding, communications, and digital strategy.

Jon Greenawalt

15Five

Jon Greenawalt is the SVP of Customer Transformation at 15Five, and is accountable for the growth, expansion and delivery of the Transform education and coaching practice for leadership and management development, a key component of the company’s holistic, continuous performance management solution.

Jon is a people and culture expert, executive and strategic advisor with over 25 years of global, cross-industry experience working with management teams to build culture, values, leaders, and teams through progressive people strategies that accelerate and support business performance and organizational growth.

He is also the former Chief People Officer at SharkNinja, innovators of the popular Shark and Ninja household appliance brands, where he redesigned the global HR team to deliver the human capital strategy for IPO readiness. He modernized the function, helped re-positioned the global workforce for scale, created the Talent Development team, and was the chief architect and facilitator of the company’s core leadership development and team performance programs.

Jon received his MBA from the Duke University Fuqua School of Business, and his BA from the University of Pennsylvania.

Britt Bartolini

Blueboard

Britt Bartolini is the Senior Enterprise Account Executive at Blueboard.

Faith Pinho

Los Angeles Times

Faith E. Pinho is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, and the creator and host of a narrative podcast the Times is set to launch in Spring 2023. Faith has covered a dynamic range of stories, from California wildfires to weird-looking fish.Her reporting on the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election and the Jan. 6 insurrection earned national attention and awards. Faith is also an active member of her union and a mentor to student journalists. Aside from journalism, Faith is co-founder of the Crimson Community Mentorship Program, an organization to connect high school students with mentors in her hometown of Everett, Massachusetts.

Shane Combest

Hone

Shane Combest is Hone’s Head of Product, or the mastermind defining the product experience for all of our L&D admins, learners, and coaches. Shane leads Hone’s Product Management and Design teams, which help him oversee every new product feature and release from ideation to launch. He sets Hone’s overall product vision and strategy, while always ensuring that building a user-friendly learning experience remains at the core of everything we do.

Shane is no stranger to the world of L&D and tech. Having spent the last few years working for people engagement software company Glint, Shane has a passion for building and scaling products that help workplaces invest in their employees.

Erica Graham Jordan

Benevity

Erica Graham Jordan is the Area VP of Sales, Mid-Market at Benevity.

Tran Andrada

Hibob

Tran Andrada has over 25+ years in the HR and Technology space. She started her professional career in APJ as an HR Specialist and over the course of her career has been an HR Analyst, Solution Consultant, Account Executive, and People Leader leading cross functional teams. Tran has experience with and managed business applications such as PeopleSoft, UltiPro, ADP’s myriad of systems (EV4, EV5, PayForce, WFN, Vantage) and services. Last but not least, Workday’s full Suite of HCM solutions. She has worked in many industries which include: airlines, banking, retail, PEO, and technology. She now leads the Sales Engineering Team at Hibob for the Americas and ANZ.

Odessa Jenkins

Emtrain

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.

Deborah Kuness

Workday

Debs is a UK-based business psychologist, and has worked within the field of Employee Engagement for over a decade. As an experienced consultant, facilitator and executive coach, Debs has deep expertise across the employee experience lifecycle, and has used this to support organisations across sectors and geographies. This includes the application of psychological theory and best practice to Employee Engagement, individual, team and organisational development, organisational culture and change. Previously, Debs worked in the field of clinical psychology, and holds a Masters degree in Forensic Psychology.

Darren Chiappetta

Sony Pictures Entertainment

Darren Chiappetta is the Vice President, People, Employee Relations & Policy at Sony Pictures Entertainment.

TeNita Ballard

TeNita LLC

TeNita is an impressive powerhouse of a woman with 18+ years’ experience in HR, diversity & inclusion, and leadership development. She wears many hats as a Diversity & Inclusion Leader, Coach and Speaker, but the common thread is her commitment to SERVICE. TeNita follows Christ’s lead and allows Him to direct her path. She was groomed to be the STRONG One by her life experiences being a Black girl growing up in the Inner-City of Los Angeles, attending Magnet Schools outside of her community, the oldest of three and working in Corporate America per the “Bring Your Full Self to Work” days. She found herself advocating for everyone around her yet found that she lost her own voice. She had to realize that everyone IS NOT her assignment to find her OWN voice.

As a Coach and Speaker, she empowers leaders with the tools they need to advocate for themselves, prevent burnout, walk in purpose, and live a life of abundance with her Signature Framework. If you’re ready to Live Your Passion, let’s connect!

Adam Gefkovicz

Untapped

Adam discovered his passion for creating equal access while navigating how to get internships in college. After an internship at LinkedIn he saw the opportunity to create a platform that better served the underrepresented and early in career community. For the last five years he’s been building Untapped, an all-in-one recruiting platform, which is on a mission to make the world more equitable by broadening access to transformative careers. He currently serves as the company’s Co-CEO and Co-Founder.

Pamela Avila

USA Today

Angie Maizlish

Coursera

Angie Maizlish, currently Senior Account Manager with Coursera, has over 20 years of experience as a strategic leader empowering Fortune 500 global companies with HR Tech software. Previous to Coursera, she led Digital Learning Services for Adobe where she consulted some of the world’s most recognized brands on transformative enablement. Earlier at Cornerstone OnDemand, she was an award winning Regional Sales Manager for the US West, where she formed long-term relationships at various levels within client organizations.

Angie has always been passionate about the intersection of technology and people, and for ten years ran her own Career Coaching business that resulted in over 300 individuals securing new career opportunities. She was a frequent guest speaker at The University of Utah’s MBA program as well as Careerbuilder and Indeed.com.

When not working she loves spending time with her family, skiing with friends, hiking with her Dachshund, and traveling as often as possible. She is passionate about championing customer success, bringing out the best, achieving together, and innovating every day.

Mark Allen, Ph.D.

Pepperdine University

Dr. Mark Allen isan award-winning educator, speaker, consultant, and author who specializes in talent management, corporate universities, and human resources.He is the author ofAha Moments in Talent Management,The Next Generation of Corporate Universities, andThe Corporate University Handbook. In 2017, he was honored with theGlobal Training and Development Leadership Award by the World Human Resource Development Congress in Mumbai, India. He was recently named one of the Top 100 Human Resources Influencers by Engagedly.

Dr. Allen is a Professor atPepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management, where he also serves as Academic Director of the Master of Science in Human Resources program and where he previously served as Director of Executive Education. He was awarded Pepperdine University’s Howard A. White Award for Teaching Excellence in 2021 and the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School Teaching Award in 2020. Mark is a senior faculty member of the Human Capital Institute, a senior associate with the Kiely Group, and has taught for Vatel University and the American Management Association.

He has consulted with or delivered executive development programs for 3M, Alpha Natural Resources, AT&T, Boeing, Caesars, Farmers Insurance, Kaiser Permanente, the Los Angeles Police Department, Samsung, Northwestern Mutual, Southern California Edison, the government of Taiwan, Verizon, and many other global organizations. He has done Strategic Workforce Planning engagements with Baxter International, Orange County Transportation Authority, and AltaMed Health Services.

Kevin Meyer

BetterUp

Kevin Meyer is the VP, People Insights atBetterUp.