Dedicated to creating the conscious workplace for tomorrow, Virginia “Ginny” Clarke is a seasoned executive recruiter who has advised at the highest levels of corporate America for decades. A proven expert in driving diverse leadership, she is the former director of executive recruiting at Google, where she led the company’s diversity, non-tech recruiting, and leadership internal mobility teams – finding and hiring senior leaders across the company. She also built a scaled internal mobility program for Google’s senior leaders and designed much of the infrastructure that supports their executive recruiting function today. In speeches, Clarke draws on her unparalleled experience assessing thousands of executives inside corporate C-Suites and boardrooms to bring a unique, holistic five-dimensional approach to true leadership that is essential now more than ever. She delivers “no-holds-barred” discussions on the root causes that lead to a lack of diversity in organizations, and provides the integrated solutions that anyone can use to affect change.

Regarded as the “CEO-Maker,” “DEI Professor,” and the “Cubicle to Corner Office Empress,” Dethra Giles is a workplace and career optimizer who advises organizations and individuals on how to chart their unique paths to success. She is a four-time TEDx speaker who has been named a “Top 100 HR Influencer” by Engagedly, and was selected by HR Gazette’s “HRchat” podcast as one of the “Top 22 Most Influential Figures in HR.” With clients including Kaiser Permanente, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), The Army Corp of Engineers, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the Salvation Army, Giles shares a unique blend of advanced education and industry experience that has been described as “university-tested and industry-approved,” and can be implemented by organizations of any size, and across industries.

A passionate advocate for a more human way of working, Melissa Swift is a seasoned HR thought leader and consultant who serves as VP of workforce and organizational change acceleration at Capgemini Invent, a leading management consultancy that partners with organizations to support them in navigating the present while evolving their businesses for long-term success. Her work helping clients power their workforces for more innovative, higher-performing futures spans across industries and geographies and tackles issues ranging from attracting and retaining top talent to reshaping organizations for greater nimbleness and building futuristic capabilities among today’s employees. She leverages thoughtful data analytics, a humanist view, and a healthy dose of pragmatism to create extraordinary outcomes for organizations.

A globally recognized leader in the field of future of work, Kelly Monahan is the mind behind some of the world’s leading companies’ efforts to bring the workplace of the future into the present. As the Managing Director of Upwork’s Future of Work Research Institute, Monahan is the architect of first-of-their-kind research programs — the findings of which are used to inspire workplace transformation at the world's top organizations and help them radically shift how they think and operate in order to unlock new avenues to success for their talent and business. 

A board-certified physician, award-winning speaker, and nationally recognized wellness expert, Dr. Romie Mushtaq is on a mission to transform mental health and wellness in the workplace. She is the founder of brainSHIFT Institute and advises Fortune 500 leaders, professional athletes, and global associations on performance, leadership, and mental health for individuals and teams. She combines more than two decades of authority and leadership in neurology, integrative medicine, and mindfulness to deliver cutting-edge programs and create tangible cultural change. In addition to founding brainSHIFT, Dr. Romie is the first chief wellness officer for Great Wolf Resorts, where she spearheads programs and initiatives designed to build a wellness-focused culture for more than 10,000 employees, as well as curate unique wellness experiences for guests. As one of the faces of the movement toward a new, more effective concept of workplace wellness, she has been featured in NBC, CBS, FOX, Forbes, NPR, Inc., and Huffington Post, as well as dozens of other national media outlets.

With a master-level understanding of what it takes to survive and thrive in the workplace and how organizations can create more equitable spaces for all, Carice Anderson is a workplace development and success engineer who empowers individuals to strategically navigate their careers and advises some of the world’s top companies on aligning their talent strategies to their business objectives. As a director in leadership and manager development for a leading, multinational asset management firm, her work sits at the intersection of talent and leadership development, workplace evolution, and diversity, equity, and inclusion — helping individuals, teams, and organizations unlock the potential within and consistently perform at the highest levels.

Described as America’s most widely recognized medical expert after Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Vin Gupta, MD, MPA is a tech visionary who operates at the heart of disruption to develop solutions to the most-complex challenges in commerce, communication, healthcare, and society — now, and in the future. Close to two decades of experience as a renowned health policy expert and clinician have led Dr. Gupta to his current role as chief medical officer, Amazon Pharmacy, where he spearheads cutting-edge programs that are leading us into the interdependent futures of healthcare and technology. A uniquely public-facing figure keeping the world in the know about what’s happening now and next, Dr. Gupta’s forward-looking insights inspire leaders and their organizations to embrace change, think outside the box to break new ground, and create new inroads to innovation and success.

James is a founding member and board chair at Directors Academy, a national not-for-profit organization with the mission of identifying, developing and advancing the next generation of diverse board members and leaders. Previously, he was Chairman, President, and CEO of Jamba Juice, which he transformed from a smoothie shop to a leading global, healthy active lifestyle brand. Prior to joining Jamba Juice, he held senior executive roles at Safeway Stores, the Gillette Company, Nestle-Purina, and Coca-Cola. James currently serves on the boards of leading brands including The Honest Company, Affirm, Medallia, Simply Good Foods, Schnuck Markets, and Bay Club. James is a passionate champion for diversity and inclusion and has been recognized with numerous awards including the American Heart Association Corporate Citizen Award (2014) and Junior Achievement’s Northern California Lifetime Achievement Award (2013). In 2010 the San Francisco Business Times named Mr. White as the Bay Area’s Most Admired CEO.

Future-of-work strategist Heather E. McGowan helps leaders prepare their people and organizations for the post pandemic world. As a keynote speaker, Heather gives lucidity to complex topics through her research rich, graphic frameworks, and powerful metaphors. In 2017, LinkedIn ranked her as its #1 global voice for education and in 2020 McGowan was listed as one of the Top 50 Female Futurists in Forbes. NYT columnist Thomas Friedman describes her as “the oasis” when it comes to insights into the future of work. McGowan is the coauthor of The Adaptation Advantage (April 2020) and the Empathy Advantage (March 2023).

Lindsey Pollak is a New York Times bestselling author and one of the world’s leading career and workplace experts. She was named to the 2020 Thinkers50 Radar List, which honors the top global management thinkers whose work is shaping the future of how organizations are managed and led. Lindsey’s next book is a response to the COVID crisis: "Recalculating: Navigate Your Career Through the Changing World of Work." Her other books include "The Remix: How to Lead and Succeed in the Multigenerational Workplace," "Becoming the Boss: New Rules for the Next Generation of Leaders," and "Getting from College to Career: Your Essential Guide to Succeeding in the Real World." Her audiences and consulting clients have included over 250 corporations, law firms, conferences and universities, including Citi, Estee Lauder, GE, JP Morgan, LinkedIn, PwC, Shearman & Sterling, Yale, Harvard, Wharton and Stanford. Often called a translator among generations, she provides a roadmap for the future of work, sharing her insights into how to navigate and thrive in the ever-changing world of work.

Renowned psychology expert and Stanford University professor Michele Gelfand is one of the leading researchers and writers on culture and the impact of culture on behavior. Gelfand uses field, experimental, computational and neuroscience methods to understand the evolution of culture and its multilevel consequences for human groups. Her work has been cited over 50,000 times and has been featured in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, National Public Radio, Voice of America, Fox News, NBC News, ABC News, and The Economist, among other outlets. Most recently, she is the author of "Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire the World."

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., SHRM-SCP, is President and Chief Executive Officer of SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management. With over 300,000 members in 165 countries, SHRM is the largest HR professional association in the world, impacting the lives of 115 million workers every day. As a global leader on the future of employment, culture and leadership, Mr. Taylor is a sought-after voice on all matters affecting work, workers and the workplace. He is frequently asked to testify before Congress on critical workforce issues and authors a weekly column, "Ask HR," in USA Today.