Lori McLeese - Global Head of Human Resources, Automattic | WordPress.com
Lori McLeese is the global head of human resources at Automattic Inc (the company behind WordPress.com and so much more!). She and her team focus on making Automattic the best place to work for the 650+ Automatticians that work from 59 countries around the globe. Prior to Automattic, Lori was the chief people officer at international non-profit Room to Read where she led human resources and operations for the San Francisco headquarters and eight field offices in Africa and Asia. She’s worked in human resources for the past 15 years in the retail, non-profit, and technology sectors. Prior to that, she taught elementary students in the public school system in San Francisco and abroad in Kuwait, Egypt, and South Korea.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lori-mcleese-gphr-shrm-scp-9b73251/
Maria Cuba - Global Diversity Program Manager, Airbnb
Maria Cuba is a Massachusetts native who was raised in Puerto Rico with a multicultural background. She is one of Airbnb’s earliest employees and the founder of their Latino Employee Group “Juntos”. Her multiple passions have taken her from Law School to Interior Design School where she cultivated her love for words and the arts.
Maria works as a Global Diversity Program Manager for Airbnb’s Experiences platform, focused on creating a diverse marketplace and bringing equitable opportunities and representation to all communities. Always a champion of Inclusion, she is committed to nurturing new pipelines for minorities in Tech and believes that Tech is key to social equality.
Maria loves birds, puzzles, big trees and a story with a good plot. Her future paths lead to public and social service.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariacubasantiago/
Maurice Wilkins - Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Program Manager, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
Maurice is a former urban education leader turned Diversity and Inclusion advocate. He currently leads Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. He also is the founder of TechNColor, is an alliance for underrepresented people of color in tech that aims to create an inclusive and diverse community. Prior to joining CZI, he was a leader at Outco, a job search and interview prep accelerator for software engineers. Maurice is a 2011 graduate of Morehouse College and native Washingtonian.
Max Masure - Co-Founder & COO, Argo Collective
Max Masure (he/him) is strategist and creative director at Argo Collective. As a trans-masculine gender inclusion facilitator, Max draws on his personal experience as well as his extensive background in design thinking. Max develops the blueprints for organizations to use creativity, empathy and collaboration to tackle gender inclusion challenges.
For over a decade Max served as an award-winning UX Designer for startups and Fortune 50 companies including Talkspace, Goldman Sachs and IDEO. As vice president of the Paris-based organization Girlz in Web, he promoted women in STEM. Max continues the vital work to improve safety for all identities working with D&I teams from innovative companies around the world.
Meagan Pi - Vice President, Google gTech Velocity
Identifying as a “modern geek,” Meagan Pi leads gTech Velocity, an organization that is working to transform the mobile web experience and bring Search and the Assistant to more surfaces. Meagan started her career at Google in 2002 as an engineer before becoming a manager and leader in Google’s technical account management teams. A strong advocate for her team and their customers, Meagan believes investing in trust-based relationships and diverse team leads to the greatest success.
Outside of Google, Meagan enjoys running, skiing, and spending time with her two kids. Fun fact: Prior to University, Meagan had a fun stint as a flight attendant!
Melissa Llorente - Facilitator and Instructional Designer, Google
Melissa designs and facilitates leadership workshops for Google’s talent all over the world. Human connection is at the center of all her work. She focuses on helping Google’s managers reimagine their role as leaders and guiding the workforce to understand the intersection of their passions and talents, so they can make meaningful career decisions over the course of a lifetime.
Melissa also serves on the Board of Directors for California School Age Consortium, a non-profit that builds professional networks to provide training, leadership development and advocacy to ensure that all young people have access to high quality out-of-school time programs and to create a more equitable future for California.
Noah Love - Head of Community and Engagement, Jet.com/Walmart.com
Noah leads the Community team at Jet and Walmart.com. They focus on building a culture where well-being, giving back, diversity and inclusion and opportunity are at the forefront of the employee experience.
Rajkumari Neogy – Creator of the Disruptive Diversity framework
Rajkumari Neogy is the author of The WIT Factor: Shifting the Workplace Paradigm by Becoming Your Optimal Self. Hir unique framework culminates from 6 powerful methodologies that facilitate change within organizations swiftly, sustainably and permanently. S/he weaves humor and vulnerability into science and psychology to tell the powerful story of our basic human need to belong, especially at the workplace.
Over the last 20 years, s/he has worked with organizations worldwide, including Trumaker, Walt Disney Animation Studios, HopSkipDrive, Wells Fargo, Shuddle, Cisco Systems, Facebook, Sony, Adobe, JVC and Amazon. In 2013 s/he founded iRestart to address issues of team dysfunction, imposter syndrome, and feelings of exclusion.
Russell Ladson - CEO, Drop Software Inc.
At Drop, he leads a team of designers, human-computer interaction researchers, and engineers who are obsessed with the way people will search, interact, and discover information in immersive computing environments e.g. virtual and augmented reality.
After a close call with mortality in a near fatal accident, he finally understood the sanctity of life and doing what one loves so he co-founded Drop. He spent his postgraduate years as an investment banking analyst at two leading Wall Street firms - Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Rice Financial Products Company.
Most of his free time is spent hiking, practicing vinyasa yoga, or playing chess.
He graduated from Morehouse College with a B.A. in Economics.
Sean Cervera - Senior Manager, Inclusion + Diversity, Twilio
Sean Cervera is an LGBTQ Activist, Inclusion Recruiting Subject Matter Expert & Champion of Social Equality. From being a Diversity Advisor & Contributor on Business Insider to an Inclusion Recruiting Programs Manager at LinkedIn, Sean has built a career in creating inclusive workplaces & recruiting strategies. Being openly gay, having a disability & being born and raised in a biracial, half-Latino immigrant family, Sean has learned the power of intersectionality & diversity first hand. Since joining Silicon Valley in 2011, Sean has leveraged his experience in Academia & his unique perspective to build world-class programs at companies like Apple, Google, SpaceX, Uber & LinkedIn. In addition, Sean continues to advise startups on integrating diversity strategies early on & publishes content on the art of inclusion recruiting. Sean is motivated in creating a world where the calibration of talent is based on skill, potential & passion, not pedigree.
Shannon Schuyler - Principal – Chief Purpose Officer, Responsible Business Leader at PwC and President of the PwC Charitable Foundation, Inc.
A strong voice in the global business community, Shannon is working to infuse Purpose into PwC’s core business strategy by elevating the global conversation on building trust, collaboration and acting with intention and meaning in every practice, service offering and engagement. She serves as a managing editor of Huffington Post's What's Working initiative and is helping to redefine the role of Purpose as a critical vehicle for driving organizational performance.
Shannon is a graduate of the University of Michigan and resides with her husband and son in Chicago.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonschuyler/
Valerie Williams - Inclusion & Diversity Lead, Stripe
Valerie Williams is a diversity champion and practitioner with over 12 years of experience advocating for fairness and equity across industries. She is currently the Inclusion & Diversity Lead at Stripe where she recently joined to help build and scale their inaugural diversity programs. Prior to Stripe, Valerie helped build the foundational diversity programs that supported internal diversity at Airbnb and advised on strategy for external programs aimed at preventing discrimination on the platform and promoting access to communities of color. Valerie has an extensive executive, G&A and tech recruiting experience at Google, Airbnb, and Russell Reynolds, as well as 4 years of supply chain and operational experience as HP.
She holds a B.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Georgia Tech, and an M.B.A. from Emory University.
Vaneeta Sandhu - Facilitator, Lifelabs Learning
Dr. Vaneeta Sandhu has specialization in communication, motivation skills, including a particular focus on diversity and inclusion, as well as millennials and their experience in the workplace. She has a doctorate degree in psychology from John F. Kennedy University and has worked as a professor, consultant, and clinical psychologist. As a facilitator with LifeLabs Learning, Vaneeta has been teaching coaching and leading leadership training for innovative companies (like Etsy, Squarespace, Tumblr, and Warby Parker).
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vaneetasandhu/
Willie Jackson - Director of Diversity & Inclusion, Equity Impact Group
Willie Jackson is an inclusion strategist who empowers thoughtful organizations and the leaders who run them. He is the Director of Diversity & Inclusion at Equity Impact Group, Founder and Publisher of Abernathy, and a frequent speaker on the topics of workplace equity, global diversity, and multicultural millennial leadership. A graduate of Florida State University (Information Technology), Jackson lives in Oakland, California.
Y-Vonne Hutchinson - Founder & CEO, ReadySet
Y-Vonne Hutchinson is the founder of ReadySet, a diversity solutions firm based in Oakland, CA, and a co-founder/ advisor of Project Include. Prior to launching ReadySet she worked as an international labor and human rights lawyer for nearly a decade. She has worked with foreign national governments, the US Department of State, and the UN. She is a member of Harvard Law’s Institute for Global Law and Policy network and an expert on labor relations and diversity in the workplace. She’s presented on diversity, inclusion, and labor issues at Harvard Law, MIT Sloan, and UC Berkeley, as well as conferences around the globe. She holds a JD from Harvard Law School. She also serves on the Women of Color Council for the Anita Borg Institute.