• June 10-12, 2018
  • DoubleTree by Hilton
  • San Jose, CA
  • Thank You
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WITI Summit Speakers: A Preliminary List

Vanessa Camones - Master of Ceremonies

Founder & CEO, AnyContext

Vanessa Camones has been a strategic marketing and communication consultant in Silicon Valley for over 20 years, first working with Pixar Animation Studios and later managing content in house at Cisco Systems. She has also held management roles with several global communication firms including Niehaus Ryan Wong, Schwartz Communications, and The Hoffman Agency. In 2007 Ms. Camones founded theMIX agency (re-branded as AnyContext in 2016), a Silicon Valley-based firm specializing in integrated communications, digital and content strategy, developer relations, and event production, with satellite offices based in Los Angeles, Manhattan, and Shanghai. Past and present clients include Samsung, Nokia, SendGrid, the Institute for the Future, the Stanford Center of Longevity, TED Speaker Amber Case, PlayFirst, RockYou, and Boku, among many others.

Ms. Camones is an advisor to South by Southwest Interactive, The Design Museum Foundation, and a frequent guest essay contributor to Latina Geeks, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, The Next Web, and Digiday, where she authored "Entrepreneurs Should Say No to Silicon Valley's Bully" about famed former Editor-in-Chief, Michael Arrington. Currently based in Los Angeles, Ms. Camones was born in Lima, Peru, raised in the Bay Area, and holds a double major in Mass Communication /Media Studies and English Literature from Santa Clara University.


WITI Summit Speakers: A Preliminary List

Diana Ackerley

President, Focusing Conversations

169 - Coaching Circle - WHAT WOULD YOUR TEAM SAY ABOUT YOU WHEN YOU LEFT THE ROOM?

224 - Coaching Circle - WHY ARE WE TALKING PAST EACH OTHER?

274 - Coaching Circle - WHAT DOES SUCCESS LOOK LIKE?

321 - Coaching Circle - WHAT DO YOU NEED TO MOVE FORWARD?

377 - Coaching Circle - ONE YEAR FROM NOW YOU ARE DOING EXCEPTIONALLY WELL.

Diana Ackerley seeks to bridge the knowledge between neuroscience and behavioral psychology. Since 1987 she has been working with high achievers and leaders who are Lawyers, Physicians, Business Owners, IT Professionals, Nurses, Teachers, Entrepreneurs, Professors, Writers, Finance Officers, Managers, Directors and more. Her background - a Licensed Psychologist (Ph.D.), Coach Certification (ACPEC) through the College of Executive Coaching, Certified in Results Coaching in Brain-Based Coaching (NeuroLeadership Institute, NYC), and Certification as a C-IQ Conversational Intelligence® Coach, training as an Enhanced Skills Coach in Conversational Intelligence® - allows her to offer a coaching experience that transforms performance and leads to innovation and success.

Dr. Ackerley's areas of expertise include: Strategic Reasoning; Employee Issues; Conflict Resolution; Peak Performance Skills; Navigating Conversations; Engagement; Instinct; Learning Agility; Collaboration; and Presence. She is currently President of The International Coach Federation - Connecticut Chapter, and serves clients nationally and globally.


Gary Albright

Senior Executive Consultant, Kerri Evans Associates

306 - GET READY, GET SET, GET HIRED: SIMPLE WAYS TO STAND OUT AND GET NOTICED

Gary Albright is a Senior Executive Consultant with Kerri Evans Associates (KEA), a female-owned executive search and consulting firm established in 2004, and based in Mountain View. Mr. Albright has extensive Human Resources experience in high-growth business environments. He's been responsible for developing strategies and implementing major initiatives across all areas of Talent Acquisition, workforce development, and HR systems.

Prior to joining KEA, he was the Director of Talent Acquisition at Amazon Lab126. Lab126 is the innovation engine for Amazon's consumer electronics devices including Kindle e-readers, FireTV, and Alexa speech platform devices including Echo, Dot, Tap, and Show. Mr. Albright built the processes, analytics, and recruiting team that enabled the business to grow out of stealth mode, from 240 employees (with one product in the market), to an organization of over 3,000 employees (with over 35 products in the market). Prior to Amazon, he held senior Human Resources positions at BEA, Trovix, Veritas, Cadence Design Systems, Advanced Micro Devices, and The Gap. Mr. Albright holds a Master's Degree in Political Science from the University of Florida and has served on the board of directors of Project Hired, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to assist people with disabilities obtain gainful employment.


Tina Ambrosini

Success Coach, Creativosity

322 - Coaching Circle - EXPECTATIONS vs. AGREEMENTS: HOW TO CREATE A POWERFUL OUTCOME THROUGH COLLABORATION

378 - Coaching Circle - EXPECTATIONS vs. AGREEMENTS: HOW TO CREATE A POWERFUL OUTCOME THROUGH COLLABORATION

Tina Ambrosini is a professional development coach who works with purpose-driven individuals, to enable them to break free from limitations, identify their true passions, and create a roadmap for success to thrive in all aspects of their personal and professional lives. Tina offers customized programs to individuals and small businesses that are ready to take action and achieve rapid and profound change. Within SF Bay Area Coaches, she creates and coordinates events outside of monthly gatherings to add value to the membership, connect with the community, raise awareness about the benefits of coaching, and provide ongoing opportunities for members to collaborate with fellow coaches and grow their skill sets.


Beena Ammanath

Founder, Humans For AI

304 - REAL-WORLD APPLICATIONS OF BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY

353 - VISIONARIES USING TECH FOR GOOD

Beena Ammanath is an award-winning senior executive with extensive global experience in artificial intelligence and digital transformation. Currently the AI Managing Director at Deloitte, Beena is also the Founder and CEO of Humans For AI Inc. Her knowledge spans across e-commerce, financial, marketing, telecom, retail, software products, services and industrial domains with companies such as HPE, GE, Thomson Reuters, British Telecom, Bank of America, e*trade, and a number of Silicon Valley startups. She has co-authored the book "AI Transforming Business."

A well-recognised thought leader and keynote speaker in the industry, she also serves on the Industrial Advisory Board at Cal Poly College of Engineering and has been a Board Member and Advisor to several startups. Beena has been honored several times for her contributions to tech and for her philanthropic efforts, including UC Berkeley 2018 Woman of the Year in Business Analytics, San Francisco Business Times' 2017 Most Influential Women in Bay Area, WITI's Women in Technology Hall of Fame, and several more. Beena thrives on envisioning and architecting how data, artificial intelligence, and technology in general can make our world a better, easier place to live.


Radhika Arora

Autonomous Driving Lead, ON Semiconductor

251 - LOOK, MA - NO HANDS! AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES AND THE FUTURE OF TRANSPORTATION

Radhika Arora is the Autonomous Driving Lead at ON Semiconductor - Image Sensor Group. Prior to that, she held a variety of roles in marketing and management at large semiconductor companies as well as her own start-up company. Ms. Arora holds an MS in Electrical Engineering and a BS in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Rochester.


Sahar Arshad

Co-Founder & COO, CloudMedx

307 - THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW: FUTURE OF DIGITAL HEALTHCARE AND TELEMEDICINE

Sahar Ashad is the Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of CloudMedx - a healthcare AI company that aims to help physicians and patients improve care. Ms. Ashad leads the strategic development, technical execution, recruiting, and day-to-day operations. She is also involved in crafting the company culture and identifying future growth opportunities. Ms. Ashad has a degree in Computer Science and over 13 years of experience in creating healthcare portals, deep data analytics, and managing software and hardware products. CloudMedx is working with some of the best health systems in the country.


Michelle Bailey

203 - Keynote Presentation: TECH'S (UN)CONSCIOUS BIAS PROBLEM: WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE INDUSTRY AND HOW IT AFFECTS BUSINESS

In May 2021, Michelle Bailey became the new Chief Executive Officer of Women in Technology International (WITI), succeeding WITI Founder Carolyn Leighton. Leading WITI's next stage of growth, Michelle will expand the organization's business services to help women, minorities, and technology organizations in realizing a diverse and inclusive workplace.

For the past 25 years, Michelle has advised senior technology industry executives, including CEOs and Board members, Chief People Officers, and DE&I VPs. A specialist in emerging and disruptive technologies, she founded and championed diversity and inclusion research and advisory for the technology sector, with an emphasis on under-represented minority employee insight. Most recently, Michelle was Group Vice President and Research Fellow at International Data Corporation (IDC), and previously Chief Research Officer at 451 Research. Her expertise spans Cloud, Digital Infrastructure, Datacenters, AI, Security, and Talent Management & the Human Enterprise. She holds a B.S. (Hons.) in Mathematical Statistics from Monash University, Australia.


Bonita Banducci

Lecturer, Gender and Engineering, Santa Clara U/Institute for Women's Leadership

172 - Coaching Circle - ENGAGING MEN IN WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP

275 - Coaching Circle - GENDER EQUALITY IN LARGE ORGANIZATIONS

Named one of 100 Women of Influence of Silicon Valley by the 2014 Silicon Valley Business Journal 2014, Bonita Banducci is a coach, consultant, author, trainer and mentor, and university faculty member. She adds a powerful dimension to the development of men's and women's leadership through her Gender Competence and RISE methodology.

Ms. Banducci has worked across Silicon Valley; she represented the Commission on the Status of Women of Santa Clara Country at the UN NGO Forum World Conference on Women in Beijing, leading a workshop on Creating Partnership of Women in Business with Women in Development for Sustainable Global Development. At the 2017 UN Women NGO Parallel Conference, for the fulfillment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Ms. Banducci led a panel workshop, "Realize 50/50: Brilliant Women and Great Men in Partnership." At Santa Clara University, she teaches Gender and Engineering, a Core curriculum course, for the School of Engineering Graduate Program. Ms. Banducci is a founding Board member of the Global Women's Leadership Network, first sponsored by the Leavey School of Business, and a faculty member and coach for the Women Leaders for the World Program.


Hillary Barnhart

Senior Director, Business Operations, ITOM Business Unit, ServiceNow

352 - FUTURE IT AND YOU: ENVISION YOUR POSSIBILITIES!

Entrepreneurial, connected, results-oriented, passionate about innovation and leadership, Hillary is a business operations and program management leader for a global SaaS business. She brings visions to life and gives life to visions. concept-to-market, quote-to-cash, process optimization, business transformation. Hillary founded an intrapraneurial venture in the augmented reality space. Her professional experience includes 20+ years in pivotal roles within engineering, operations, product management, marketing, IT and business development.


Alexandra Barton-Sweeney

Founder & CEO, Razzberry

362 - READY TO WELCOME THE AI REVOLUTION INTO YOUR HOME AND AT WORK?

307 - THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW: FUTURE OF DIGITAL HEALTHCARE AND TELEMEDICINE

Alexandra Barton-Sweeney is the CEO of Razzberry, which is developing novel biosensors with broad reaching applications in personalized healthcare. Prior to Razzberry, Ms. Barton-Sweeney co-founded one of the first mobile agencies in Europe and led consumer product development for major companies and startups internationally, leading to several successful liquidity events.


John Bates

Founder & CEO, Executive Speaking Success

153 - SPEAK LIKE A LEADER BOOTCAMP

252 - EXCITED ABOUT YOUR STORY? TELL IT LIKE A TED PRO

162 - Coaching Circle - SPEAK LIKE A LEADER MINI-BOOTCAMP

211- Coaching Circle - SPEAK LIKE A LEADER MINI-BOOTCAMP

261 - Coaching Circle - EXCITED ABOUT YOUR STORY? TELL IT LIKE A TED PRO

John Bates is the founder and chief executive officer at Executive Speaking Success and is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company, developing the curriculum of the programs, and leading the executive speaking staff. He is internationally regarded as a top communications trainer and keynote speaker, as well as a savvy entrepreneur. John has been actively coaching since 2005, working with CEOs and the executive teams of PlaySpan, Prescience Intl., Motorola, Goldstar, Oculus International, LAZ Parking, Johnson & Johnson Innovation Labs, Janssen Labs, DudaMobile and many others on their presentation, media and business skills.

Prior to his training career, John was involved in helping to found and start up Goldstar, BigWords.com (which raised over $80 million) and VirtualVegas (the first online virtual destination site). He has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital funds, successfully opened resistant markets for new products, and has run the customer service department for a multi- million dollar company. John is also a contributing author to the book World Class Speaking in Action: 50 Certified World Class Speaking Coaches Show You How to Present, Persuade, and Profit, which became a multiple Amazon best seller. He graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in sociology and social psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles.


Sarika Batra

Showrunner & Director, Meet the Drapers

354 - VENTURE CAPITAL: HOW TO TURN THE NUMBERS AROUND FOR FEMALE FOUNDERS AND FUNDERS

Sarika Batra is a media producer, TV host, and entrepreneur who is passionate about igniting change by spreading big ideas globally. As the producer and director of a ground-breaking Silicon Valley VC pitch show, Meet The Drapers, Ms. Batra works with budding entrepreneurs to help them realize their vision. Meet The Drapers airs on Sony Entertainment Television's international stream. Ms. Batra was also the founder, producer, and host of Andaaz, an inspirational talk show on Sony Entertainment Television. The show ran seven seasons in 150 countries to 20 million worldwide viewers in the South Asian diaspora.

In addition to her media ventures, Inspired by Wellness, Ms. Batra runs a video commerce platform called Lavish Life, which curates only safe and effective natural skin care products from around the world. She has also been on the producing team for TEDx San Francisco, Big Ideas for a Better India, Novus, and worked on the planning team for Prime Minister Modi's visit to New York.


Rachel Bell

Vice President, Scores & Analytics, FICO

176 - Learning Circle - CREATING A GRASS ROOTS MENTORSHIP PROGRAM

226 - Learning Circle - CREATING A GRASS ROOTS MENTORSHIP PROGRAM

Rachel Bell leads a high-performance analytic team of consultants and analysts to create and deliver innovative analytic solutions across industries and around the world. Driving multi-million dollar revenue in analytic services and annuities annually, she collaborates in new business development by evaluating analytic and technical design, development scope, data sources and input on client requirements. With more than 20 years' experience at FICO, Ms. Bell has developed and delivered scoring solutions for risk, fraud, marketing, credit capacity, economic impact and stress testing to address regulatory capital allocation requirements. Her team of product managers, data scientists, principal consultants and analytic experts also lead the FICO into new markets such as healthcare and telematics through analytic research and development of new solutions, such as the recently released FICO® Safe Driving Score.

Ms. Bell is also passionate about employee development and spearheaded efforts to create a FICO mentorship program that matches up senior leaders with up and coming women and men to empower their professional growth. She holds a B.S. in Statistics and Mathematics from California Polytechnic University.


Candice Benson

Benson Consulting/Diversify Thinking

244 - WITI PowerTalk - WITI: WHAT'S COMING NEXT?

Candice Benson is the Executive Vice President of Corporate Relationships and Strategy for WITI (Women in Technology International), a leading global professional organization for tech-savvy women. In this role, Ms. Benson develops relationships with organizations globally and ensures WITI's clients are exercising the benefits of their corporate memberships. She explores opportunities to engage WITI's considerable expertise to empower women in the workplace. Leveraging her hands-on corporate consulting background, Ms. Benson helps clients integrate gender-diversity programs and best practices into their organizations, strengthening their businesses. Latest research studies conclude that there are direct correlations between an organization's depth of employee diversity and positive business results.

Ms. Benson is also on the Board of Directors of the New Hampshire High Tech Council, which is building a strong community of female professionals in technology and supporting girls' exploration of STEM as a career. Ms. Benson directs the programming and engages keynote speakers for the organization's monthly TechWomen Power Breakfast, as well as directs their TechWomen|Tech Girls program. She oversees four committees that manage programs to recognize women in tech and to evangelize technology for girls in New Hampshire's schools. In addition, Ms. Benson speaks about gender diversity, innovation, and change management for organizations worldwide.


Cheemin Bo-Linn

President and CEO, Peritus Partners

242 - WITI PowerTalk - AI and IOT: POWERFUL DUO FOR SMART ENTERPRISES AND CONNECTED HOMES

Cheemin Bo-Linn is CEO and President of Peritus Partners, Inc., an analytic platform and business IT consultancy. Leveraging her expertise in digital transformation and application of technology to drive competitiveness, Dr. Bo-Linn was IBM Vice-President and CSO, CRO, and Digital CMO at e-commerce, mobile, finance, and software companies. She has also been appointed to serve on the board Board of Directors and as Audit Chair for global public companies in Canada, US, and Europe, as well as private health IT, energy, digital, and tech firms.

Dr. Bo-Linn was inducted into the Women In Technology Hall of Fame in 2015. She is also a Most Influential Silicon Valley Exec awardee; was named to the Top 100 CEOs in STEM; and has been an invited speaker to the United Nations, Dow Jones, and British Chamber. She attended the University of Houston earning a Doctorate degree in Computer Information Systems, as well as the Stanford University GSB Exec Program. Dr. Bo-Linn was appointed Visiting Professor on digital tech (AI, big data, cyber security) and marketing at the joint Columbia University, London School of Business, and Hong Kong University EMBA/MBA program.


Sue Bohle

Executive Director, Serious Play Conference

112 - DID YOU EVER WANT TO BE "IN" THE STORY? ENTER AR / VR / IR / MR

Before moving into serious games, Sue Bohle had a multi-decade career in technology and consumer PR. She was with Microsoft's first PR agency, launching Epson America, Packard Bell. Other tech clients have included Alienware, PublicVine, SONICblue, DealNews.com, Blackline Systems, Emergent Technologies, BlogWorld Expo. Hers was one of the earliest PR agencies first into tech PR and then early into video games. In that space, was the agency for Atari, built IGN into a top fan site, launched The 3DO Company, played a major role in building GDC into a major industry trade show. Worked on titles for Warner ieBros Interactive Entertainment, Vivendi Universal, Sega, many foreign nationals. Ms. Bohle's mobile game experience includes Spacetime Games, as well as many indie studio and start-ups. All along the way she has closely followed the development of serious games, seeing the value of games in education, training. Now a primary focus, she produces the Serious Play Conference.

Ms. Bohle is a former National Board Member of PRSA and an APR Fellow. As well, she is a counselor on PR go to market and ongoing strategy; has helped start-ups raise money; helped companies go public; and in crisis area, has handled product recalls, lawsuits, attorney general investigations.


Windy Borman

Executive Producer | Director | Filmmaker, Green Mile Pictures

152 - EXPLORING PROFESSIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN IN CANNABIS

199 - MARY JANES: THE WOMEN OF WEED

Windy Borman, MST, is a multi-award-winning film Director and Producer, as well as the founder of DVA Productions. Her recent projects include directing and producing the 10-time award-winning film, "The Eyes of Thailand" (narrated by Ashley Judd), and producing "The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia," which premiered at Sundance and on HBO. Other credits include producing performances for Dr. Maya Angelou and Margaret Cho, directing "The Vagina Monologues," and writing for Kindland, Takepart.com and Indiewire: Women and Hollywood.


Dalana Brand

Vice President, Global Total Rewards, Electronic Arts

293 - DIVERSITY AS A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Dalana Brand is a seasoned corporate executive with significant global leadership experience in various industries. Ms. Brand is currently Vice president, Global Total Rewards for Electronic Arts (EA), where she manages a global team and is accountable for designing innovative reward solutions that engage employees, create a fair and inclusive culture, and help advance the business strategy of the company. Ms. Brand's other corporate experiences include Whirlpool Corporation, Yazaki North America, Comerica Inc., Boeing, Willis Towers Watson, and Ford Motor Company.

Ms. Brand has also served as an adjunct professor and is a certified Professional in Human Resources (PHR), a certified Compensation Professional (CCP), and a certified Global Remuneration Professional (GRP). She is a frequent contributor for industry articles and speaker at various professional associations on human capital, diversity and equality, and leadership topics. She received her BA in Finance from Michigan State University and her MBA from the Eli Broad School of Graduate Management at Michigan State University with a dual concentration in Finance and Human Resource Management.


Andrea Brooks

CEO/Founder, SAVA

152 - EXPLORING PROFESSIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN IN CANNABIS

Andrea Brooks is a cannabis advocate, lobbyist for social change, and entrepreneur with a passion for health and wellness. Following a disabling injury in which cannabis played a crucial role in her recovery, Ms. Brooks was inspired to create a space where cannabis was accessible, how to use it was clear, and where it came from was transparent. In 2015 she founded SAVA, an online marketplace for curated cannabis goods that delivers throughout California.


Elizabeth Brown

Chief People Officer, Unity Technologies

293 - DIVERSITY AS A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Elizabeth Brown is currently the Chief People Officer at Unity Technologies, one of the most popular gaming engines. Prior to that she led the HR function at Trulia, an online real estate site. She spent several years helping grow Trulia, including playing a critical role in the Zillow/Trulia acquisition integration.

Prior to joining Trulia, Ms. Brown spent two years at LinkedIn, leading HR for the Global Sales and Operations group and the HR International team. In this role, she was at the forefront of hyper-growth and led the team to deliver 100 percent year-over-year headcount growth, and open several international LinkedIn offices. She also served as an industry thought leader on recruiting, scaling organizations, culture, and leadership. Previously, she held several HR leadership positions at Microsoft Corporation and Intuit. Ms. Brown received her bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley. She was recently honored one of San Francisco's Most Influential Business Women.


Rian Buckley

Co-Founder & CEO, Fitcode

363 - INSIGHTS FOR INTREPRENEURS AND ENTREPRENEURS

At the age of 26, Rian Buckley started Fitcode - a fashion data company that enhances the shopping experience by focusing on fit, not size. Three years, $3.4M in funding, and 110,000 users (and counting) later, Ms. Buckley is the CEO of an innovative startup that's using technology to solve real problems.

Under her leadership, Fitcode continues to acquire new users and ink partnership deals with the leading denim brands and retailers like AG and Hudson Jeans. Fitcode has also been featured in the likes of WWD, Real Simple, O Magazine, Huffington Post, Refinery29, and more.


S. Jamila Buckner

Head of Human Resources, Golden Gate University

306 - GET READY, GET SET, GET HIRED: SIMPLE WAYS TO STAND OUT AND GET NOTICED

S. Jamila Buckner is the Head of Human Resources for Golden Gate University, which has been recognized for the second consecutive year as #1 for adult leaders in the areas of Business, Law, Tax, and Accounting. Ms. Buckner has over 20 years of experience in HR for all types of organizations, with 15 years as the head of the function. Her specialty has been in Human Resources Leadership, Talent Acquisition, Employee Relations, Employee Recognition and Retention, and HR Technology, as well as HR Best Practices. She has managed small and large teams, and is recognized as developer of her teams and a coach to employees at all levels.


Ingrid Burton

Chief Marketing Officer, H2o.ai

362 - READY TO WELCOME THE AI REVOLUTION INTO YOUR HOME AND AT WORK?

Ingrid Burton is Chief Marketing Officer of H2O.ai. She has led global marketing teams to build brands, create demand, and engage and grow developer communities, recently advising several startups as a brand and demand expert. Previously, Ms. Burton was Chief Marketing Officer of Hortonworks, Inc. There, she was responsible for the Hortonworks global go-to-market strategy, overseeing all corporate product, digital, field and partner marketing functions.

Ms. Burton is an experienced marketing executive and has more than 25 years of technology marketing experience. She served as Senior Vice President of Technology and Innovation Marketing at SAP where she led marketing for a large portfolio of data and analytics products and technologies, including SAP HANA. She also served as Chief Marketing Officer at both Silver Spring Networks and Plantronics, as well as more than 15 years holding senior marketing roles as Senior Vice President and Head of Marketing at Sun Microsystems and software development roles at GTE, Megatek, and United Technologies. She is a Member of the Advisory Board at DriveScale and holds a BA in Math with a concentration in Computer Science from San Jose State University.


Donna Ceriani

Leadership Success Coach, Success Compass

102 - LEVERAGE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS

262 - Coaching Circle - LEVERAGE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS

311 - Coaching Circle - LEVERAGE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS

212- Coaching Circle - LEVERAGE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS

177 - LEVERAGE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS [repeat]

Donna Ceriani is a Leadership Success Coach, helping leaders in technology navigate career choices, enhance their leadership impact, and inspire their teams to achieve their best results.

For more than 25 years, Ms. Ceriani has held senior management roles leading teams across the U.S., Europe, and Asia in the financial services, health care, and technology industries. She was recently the Chief People Officer for SmartBear Software, winning a 2013 "Best Place to Work" award in Boston. Prior to that, she was an Executive Director for Global Client Operations for a company owned by Thomson Reuters and the DTCC, living in Boston, NYC, and Singapore. Ms. Ceriani now brings her vast experience to support her clients on their own journey to achieve their goals. When she isn't immersed in the adventures in today's workplace, she's counting the days until the next snowboarding season.


Rhonda Childress

Vice President and IBM Fellow - GTS Data Security and Privacy Officer, IBM

297 - MEET THE 2018 WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY HALL OF FAME HONOREES

341 - WITI PowerTalk: WHERE HAVE ALL THE WOMEN IN SECURITY GONE?

205 - Keynote Panel: STEM VISIONARIES SHARE SUCCESS IN PRACTICE

231 - LEARNING CIRCLE WITH IBM FELLOW RHONDA CHILDRESS

Rhonda Childress is the CTO of Security Services, an IBM Fellow, and Master Inventor with over 100 granted patents. She is currently responsible for the technical strategy, development, and delivery of professional security services to IBM clients worldwide.

Rhonda's talents are not just limited to technology: one of her hand-made quilts was auctioned and raised $1400 for charity - and her homemade Texas competition chili is guaranteed to place in the top three at just about any cookoff. When she is not obsessing over the cyber security well-being of her clients or pitting her penetration-testing skills against application developers, she can be found hacking into robots or wearing clothing that reacts to tweets - just two of the many STEM-related activities Rhonda shares with future technologists everywhere.


Karyn Cooks

Karyn Cooks | Modern Marketing

152 - EXPLORING PROFESSIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN IN CANNABIS

116 - EXPLORING THE MEDICINAL / MEDICAL / WELLNESS TECHNOLOGIES OF CANNABIS

Karyn Cooks brings decades of marketing, technology, and entertainment experience to her Modern Marketing clients, helping them develop strong foundations while making sense of a fast-changing landscape. As an entrepreneur, she launched a record label, built and sold e-commerce brand BoudoirEssentials, and produced award-winning live entertainment. Last year she came out of the canna-closet to expand her marketing services to support cannabis brands including StrainConnect and Canadian THC Live: Canada's Cannabis Conversation, and launched Ellementa's Palm Springs chapter. Ms. Cooks is a proud member of the CCIA/NCIA and serves on the Board of Directors for a Hollywood-based Arts incubator.


Karen Cornwell

Senior Innovation Strategist, Gender Intelligence Group

364 - GENDER INTELLIGENCE: WHAT, WHY, AND HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU NEED IT?

173 - Coaching Circle - 7 PITFALLS OF WOMEN LEADERS AND HOW TO SWERVE AROUND THEM

279 MANAGING COMPLEX SALES FOR PRODUCT MANAGERS

Karen Cornwell has spent the majority of her career in high tech working in Engineering, Systems, Account Management, Business Development, Product Management, R&D, Sales Training, Product Development, and Marketing. Her lifelong quest to improve the acceptance and utilization of a diverse workforce continues with her current work to offer change management programs to high-tech companies that want to maximize their productivity and innovation by leveraging the differences between genders and making their workplaces inclusive with strong employee engagement.

With a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from Santa Clara University, Ms. Cornwell is uniquely qualified to drive high-tech companies to significantly higher performance levels while engendering high employee engagement. She is also the Network Advisor for the Silicon Valley Network of Women in Technology International (WITI), and volunteers in many community organizations.


Ioana Cozmuta

Co-Founder & CTO, Flawless Photonics

291 - FLY ME TO THE MOON: SUBORBITAL SPACE = THE JUMP POINT FOR SPACE EXPLORATION

Ioana Cozmuta is the co-founder and CEO of Flawless Photonics, an innovative space manufacturing platform. She is responsible for the company's technology direction with a focus on superior product development for terrestrial commercialization. Dr. Cozmuta's innovative concepts have revolutionized the way space technology commercialization is approached. Her work at the intersection of NASA and private sector has transformed the relationship between business and space: it was key to growing the emerging space startup ecosystem, to creating unique partnerships, and to enabling new opportunities for established businesses. Over her 15 year career working with NASA, Dr. Cozmuta has constantly disrupted the status quo bringing in state of the art computational material science and applied physics expertise to projects such as Stardust, Mars Science Laboratory, Orion, and more. She is recognized as one of the most knowledgeable experts on microgravity research and applications in the world today.

Dr. Cozmuta has a broad, hands-on, deep expertise in a wide variety of areas in science, engineering, and business. She holds a Ph.D. in Physics from University of Groningen, The Netherlands, and an M.Sc in Biophysics and Medical Physics from University Babes Bolyai, Cluj Napoca, Romania. She was a Research Postdoctoral Fellow in the Material and Process Simulation Center, Department of Chemistry at California Institute of Technology, and a Research Postdoctoral Specialist at the Genome Technology Center, School of Medicine at Stanford University.


Lizette De Arkos

CEO/Co-Founder, Alzar

106 - INTRODUCTION FOR THE PROFESSIONAL IN CANNABIS

As an innovative entrepreneur, Lizette De Arkos is dedicated to accelerating communities through the promotion of socially and environmentally-conscious businesses. Her dedication to the improvement of communities through third metric enterprises began when she created an ethical apparel and decor line, L D A Y, while attending the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her experience in the cannabis industry began when she developed the first consumer HempCrete kit and brought this innovative building material to the masses.

After working in local government for several years, Ms. De Arkos has rekindled her entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to the cannabis industry through her latest venture, Alzar. As CEO and Co-Founder of Alzar her commitment to social change, environmental stewardship, and public health is actualized, as they use cutting-edge technology to bring premium, veganic cannabis to the Californian market. Ms. De Arkos is also a Public Affairs Strategist at 421 Group, a boutique cannabis consulting firm; and the Program Leader of the 2018-19 San Francisco Cohort of the Startup Leadership Program.


Frank Del Fiugo

Founder, Del Fiugo Consulting

154 - DEALING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE

167 - Coaching Circle - DEALING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE

213- Coaching Circle - DEALING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE

263 - Coaching Circle - DEALING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE

Frank Del Fiugo is the founder of Del Fiugo Consulting, an executive coaching firm that helps today's leaders acquire a psychological understanding of individuals to help drive organizational and personal performance. Mr. Del Fiugo has decades of experience working with emotionally charged situations, addressing and resolving personal and professional conflict, resolving peer disputes, addressing communication deficiencies, and fostering leadership development. He works with public and private companies in Silicon Valley, southern California, and nationally.

Mr. Del Fiugo is a professional speaker and provides training on leadership, stress management, dealing with difficult people, and high impact communication. He is also the author of a book focused upon aggression and anger management. He earned his B.A. in Psychology from the University of Southern California, and his Master's degree in Psychology from JFK University.


Sara DeWitt

Vice President, PBS KIDS Digital, PBS

243 - WITI PowerTalk - HOW DATA ANALYSIS HELPS US IMPROVE DIGITAL EXPERIENCES

277 - LEARNING CIRCLE WITH PBS KIDS DIGITAL VP SARA DeWITT

Over the last 18 years, Sara DeWitt has worked at the forefront of new digital platforms, in an effort to be everywhere kids are: from websites and mobile apps to streaming video, augmented reality, 3D-rendered experiences, and wearable technologies. As VP of PBS KIDS Digital, she oversees the Kidscreen- and Webby-award winning pbskids.org website, PBS KIDS streaming video services, the PBS KIDS portfolio of educational apps for children, and the PBS KIDS for Parents digital experiences. Most recently, Ms. DeWitt led her team through the development of the PBS KIDS 24/7 digital live stream, an integral part of the new PBS KIDS 24/7 services launched in January 2017. In 2014, she was named one of the top 42 Women Leading in Education by the USC Rossier School of Education, and was selected as one of the Top Women in Digital by Cynopsis Media in 2016 and 2017. Ms. DeWitt recently gave a TED Talk about the potential media has to positively affect learning.

Before her career in public media, Ms. DeWitt worked as a preschool teacher, a management researcher, and studied media habits of children in rural areas of the United States. She holds a BA and an MA in English from Stanford University, and holds a certificate from the University's Children, Society, and Public Policy curriculum. She is also a military spouse who has moved with her husband and two young sons four times in the last five years.


Raeven Duckett

Co-Founder, Community Gardens Delivery & Distribution

106 - INTRODUCTION FOR THE PROFESSIONAL IN CANNABIS

Raeven Duckett, co-founder of Community Gardens Delivery and Distribution, is a cannabis equity activist and leader within the industry. Community Gardens was the first equity business to be licensed by the State of California for adult use sales of cannabis, based on their participation in the revolutionary City of Oakland Cannabis Equity program. In her role at Community Gardens, Ms. Duckett leads overall business strategy, marketing, and brand development. Community Gardens Delivery believes in the medicinal benefits of the cannabis plant and works within the community to educate on and normalize cannabis. Community Gardens Distribution is focused on providing a path to retail for cannabis cultivation and manufacturing companies owned by underrepresented minorities.

Ms. Duckett is a strong proponent for equity within the cannabis industry and a leader within key activist groups. She works with Green Huddle, a free five-series workshop for equity applicants to learn about local equity laws and to put together the materials needed to apply for a cannabis license. In addition, Ms. Duckett works with the local political group, Oakland Citizens for Equity and Prosperity (O.C.E.P.), to ensure that Oakland's local communities benefit from the growth of the cannabis industry. Earlier, Ms. Duckett spent 7+ years in the public relations and digital marketing space, most notably working on the marketing teams of such companies as Mazda, Adobe, and Pandora.


Tali Eisenberg

Customer Service Manager/Patient Outreach, dosist

116 - EXPLORING THE MEDICINAL / MEDICAL / WELLNESS TECHNOLOGIES OF CANNABIS

Tali Eisenberg has been in the Health and Wellness Industry for the last 20 years. She is a Board Certified Holistic Health Practitioner and Cannabis Educator. For the past two decades, she has worked with youth, adults, and seniors, and currently manages the Customer Department and Patient Outreach Program for dosist, an organization founded with the goal of creating the first cannabis products based on the science behind the plant.

Ms. Eisenberg has created a Senior Cannabis 101 program / manual, which she currently teaches to seniors in the Bay area on the science and medical benefits of cannabis for health and wellbeing.


Ronni Eloff

CEO / Founder, For Alliances

312 - Coaching Circle - LEARNING HOW TO MANAGE PERCEPTIONS

At WITI (Women In Technology International), Ronni Eloff is the Director of Marketing/Social Media and the Co-Founder/Executive Director of the WITI WINs: WITI Industry-Based Networks offering powerful collaboration platforms to give women an additional competitive edge in today's business world.

A seasoned early adopter technologist and advocate leader, Ms. Eloff was voted 2018 Advocate of the Year by the Women in IT Awards USA. Ms. Eloff seeks to help women of all ages in business, technology, and innovation to become more successful and to be recognized for their contributions, bringing opportunities to showcase their accomplishments within their industries.


Carol Evanoff

CEO, Mapping Your Career Success

104 - MAPPING YOUR CAREER SUCCESS

161 - Coaching Circle - HOW TO GET NOTICED WHEN YOU DON'T LOOK LIKE THE BOSS

218 - Coaching Circle - GETTING HELP FROM MENTORS

264 - Coaching Circle - EDGE OUT YOUR COMPETITORS

313 - Coaching Circle - FIRST STEPS TO BEING SEEN AS A LEADER

Mentored 1,095 proteges and 3,000 employees in 40 years. 36 years in Leadership in Aerospace supporting the deployment of the Trident Missiles including: Engineering, Digital Engineering, Model Based Engineering, Manufacturing, Product Assurance, IT, Calibration, Machining, Composites, Electronics, Chemical Processing, Tooling, Maintenance, Transportation, Warehousing, Human Resources, Safety, Security, Explosive Processing for DoD/DoE with 100% Mission Success. 167 consecutive successful Trident Missile Launches. Currently working for Systems Planning and Analysis on strategic planning for the next 60 years of Trident II D5 Missile.


Elizabeth Feinler

Internet Pioneer, Active Volunteer

297 - MEET THE 2018 WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY HALL OF FAME HONOREES

Elizabeth "Jake" Feinler managed the ARPANET and the Defense Data Network, both of which were forerunners of today's Internet. She joined SRI International in 1960, heading up the Information Research Department before starting her work on the Internet as a member of Dr. Douglas Engelbart's Augmentation Research Center. Her group developed the first WHOIS server, along with an early model for today's email systems, as well as the top-level domain naming scheme of .com, .edu, etc.

After leaving SRI, Ms. Feinler worked as a contractor for NASA Ames Research Center, helping to bring networking to the large NSF and NASA telescope sites. She is a founding member of the Internet Engineering Task Force. Now retired, she remains active as a volunteer historian for the Computer History Museum. She is dedicated to preserving for future generations the history of what has become one of the greatest inventions of the modern world: the Internet.


Jennifer Ferguson-Mitchell

Spokesperson/Head of Media Relations, International Telecommunications Union, United Nations

253 - BRIDGING THE DIGITAL GENDER DIVIDE

303 - WITI PowerTalk - BRIDGING THE GROWING DIGITAL GENDER DIVIDE: BRINGING TECH TO WOMEN AND GIRLS, AND WOMEN TO TECH

324 - Learning Circle - BRIDGING THE DIGITAL GENDER DIVIDE WITH THE EQUALS GLOBAL NETWORK PARTNERSHIP

Jennifer Ferguson-Mitchell is an international communications expert with more than 15 years experience providing strategic and tactical communications and public relations support to United Nations agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and non-profit organizations striving to "do good." She currently serves as Head of Media Relations and official Spokesperson for the International Telecommunication Union, the UN specialized agency for information and communication technology.

Prior, Ms. Ferguson-Mitchell served with the UN Environment Programme as global Communications lead for the UN-REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) Programme. She also served for two years as Communications Director with the World Wide Fund for Nature, and for more than eight years with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), leading HQ-based communications staff and overseeing all IFAW conservation communications activities worldwide.

Earlier, Ms. Ferguson-Mitchell was based in Nairobi, Kenya, where she worked as an international journalist in the East Africa bureau of Visnews. She also established her own communications company in Nairobi, Chanler Marketing & Publishing, and was hired by United Nations International Drug Control Programme to lead their public information activities for Eastern and Southern Africa. Ms. Ferguson-Mitchell holds an MA in Communications from Marist College in New York; a BA from Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts; and has also studied at Paris IV University (La Sorbonne). She is a dual US/France national and speaks English and French.


Jill Finlayson

Director of Mentorship & Ecosystem Partnerships, Singularity University

253 - BRIDGING THE DIGITAL GENDER DIVIDE

Jill Finlayson is Director of Mentorship and Ecosystem Partnerships for SU Ventures programs at Singularity University, whose mission is to educate, inspire, and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address humanity's grand challenges. She has 20+ years of experience as a strategic leader building online communities, growing thought leadership, and leading marketing and branding for Silicon Valley nonprofits and startups.

She ran the Toys category for five years at eBay, managed a community of social entrepreneurs at the Skoll Foundation, led marketing at various startups, and consulted for the World Bank. She has also mentored TechWomen from around the world, coached entrepreneurs, and judged student startup competitions. Ms. Finlayson is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley.


Amy Foley

Vice President, Product Innovation & Delivery, Johnson & Johnson Health & Wellness Solutions

302 - BREAKTHROUGHS IN LEADERSHIP: HERE'S HOW I GOT TO THE TOP

As Vice President of Product Innovation & Delivery, Amy Foley leads the Johnson & Johnson portfolio of health and wellness capabilities, including new product and service innovation, creation, implementation, operations, customer service and compliance & quality. With her team, Ms. Foley helps to ensure delivery of innovative solutions that solve real health and well-being challenges in the market while providing an optimal experience for all the company's products and services. As an innovation leader and cancer activist, Ms. Foley was named Johnson & Johnson 2017 Working Mother of the Year.

Prior to joining Johnson & Johnson, Ms. Foley held various positions at Express Scripts (formerly Medco), including Vice President, Digital Strategy. In that role, she led growth strategies around conversion to home delivery, medication adherence, and consumer self-service, creating and launching several leading-edge capabilities and employing behavioral science to drive desired business results. Prior to her nearly 17 years at Express Scripts and Medco, she led the Creative Services and Interactive Media organization at PSE&G. Ms. Foley holds a B.A. in Communication from the University of Scranton, PA, and an M.A. in Corporate and Public Communications from Seton Hall University.


Chris Galy

Founder, NextPlay HR

361 - INSIDER GUIDE TO HIRING

Chris Galy's global human resources leadership experience spans more than 20 years in the military, internet, software, e-commerce, network infrastructure, semiconductor, and real estate technology industries. Currently, Mr. Galy is the Founder of NextPlay HR, a hands-on product management and design thinking consultancy built specifically for HR teams and practitioners. In his last two roles at Ten-X and Intuit, Mr. Galy helped lead cultural evolutions based on building core competency in product and design thinking. He now wants to take these lessons and methods into Human Resources teams so they too can help lead the future of their companies.

Outside of work and when not coaching one of his kids' sports teams, Mr. Galy gives back by serving as a Board Member to Vets in Tech (www.vetsintech.co) and his local workforce board (www.novaworks.org). He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and received a Master's in Human Resources & Organizational Development from the University of San Francisco. Other accomplishments of career significance include Army Flight School, Army Adjutant General Advanced Officers Course, and World at Work Certified Compensation Professional.


Andrew Gardiner

Co-Founder, The Hire Key

306 - GET READY, GET SET, GET HIRED: SIMPLE WAYS TO STAND OUT AND GET NOTICED

351 - BE SELECTIVE, GET SELECTED: HOW TO UNDERSTAND AND NAVIGATE THE SELECTION PROCESS

361 - INSIDER GUIDE TO HIRING

Andrew Gardiner is a Talent Acquisition (TA) and HR subject matter expert with over 25 years of hands-on experience helping employers address their unique pain points across all disciplines of TA recruitment/hiring, sourcing, retention, and employer branding platforms and solutions. As the founder of BAJobs.com, San Francisco Bay Area's popular job board, Mr. Gardiner is able to feed his passion for connecting companies with the right candidates by prescribing his diverse clientele with the most creative, strategic, and cost-effective TA solutions. He keeps abreast of relevant trends and emerging technologies in both TA and candidate-facing platforms to ensure his insights are both relevant and strategic.

In addition to several hundreds of TA-related demos, Mr. Gardiner comes by this impressive body of knowledge and expertise through a unique combination of running his own recruitment ad agency (ADVANCE Recruitment Solutions), founding a job board (BAJobs), and personally pounding the pavement to ensure he understands and meets each client's unique hiring goals, wants, and needs. A close-to-the-heart endeavor is helping our Veterans transition into the civilian workplace through support of organizations like BraveHire, WorkForWarriors, and VetsInTech. Mr. Gardiner is also a proud sponsor and supporter of the Women In Technology International (WITI) Summit.


Gail Gessert

CEO, Gessert Media

112 - DID YOU EVER WANT TO BE "IN" THE STORY? ENTER AR / VR / IR / MR

255 - VIRTUAL REALITY (WHAT IS THE REALITY?): SOCIAL, BUSINESS, AND ENTERTAINMENT

Gail Gessert is a CEO with a long history in applying the newest marketing venues in promoting entrepreneurial companies in Education, Healthcare, and Technology. Having built and ramped big brands nationally, as well as internationally, Dr. Gessert is widely known as a strategic lead. She is now proprietor of her own Cross Platform Ad Agency, along with furthering along her entrepreneurial efforts in Education; as well, she owns GG Arabians, a horse breeding and showing business. She has assisted companies in healthcare including Neurological Recovery, to championing one of the first VR companies based out of Germany, to helping start an internationally recognized enterprise SEM company, to more recently impacting the Direct Response Television Industry by combining streaming, mobile, and Internet with TV campaigns. Dr. Gessert has been both a pioneer and leader of market trends to capitalize on the best and brightest avenues to foster and develop new brands.


Usha Guduri

Mars 2020 Subsystem Lead, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

291 - FLY ME TO THE MOON: SUBORBITAL SPACE = THE JUMP POINT FOR SPACE EXPLORATION

Usha Guduri is the Planning and Sequencing Subsystem Manager for the next Mars mission launching in 2020. As a Software Systems Engineer, she also managed and architected several software projects for missions including Cassini, SMAP, and Mars Science Laboratory in the last three years at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Over the past couple years she has been working on her own startup: Silent Legends, building games that redefine the Collectible Card genre and leverage the medium to make learning fun and transparent to kids.

Ms. Guduri has 15 years experience in Software Development and Technical Leadership - building secure, scalable, and performance-optimized systems to support websites visited by hundreds of thousands of users each month, including several in the TripAdvisor portfolio. As if she cannot find enough to keep her challenged at work, she goes about giving NPOs a Cyber presence in her own time. Ms. Guduri also loves wrangling with data and is known for winning Hackathons with her novel visualizations. During her days off she is generally camping and hiking at one of the National Parks or parked with a good book in hand, and is looking forward to sharing the outdoors with her 18-month old daughter.

Ms. Guduri is an alumna of BITS (Pilani), a premier institute in India, and USC's Viterbi School of Engineering.


Isabelle Guis

VP Product Marketing | Sales Cloud, Salesforce

362 - READY TO WELCOME THE AI REVOLUTION INTO YOUR HOME AND AT WORK?

Voted among the Top 100 Most Influential B2B Tech Marketers in North America in 2016 and the first woman Chief Strategy Officer in a cloud company, Isabelle Guis is passionate about developing and bringing to market innovative SaaS solutions leveraging analytics, machine learning, and block chain technologies to solve business-critical problems.

She was the Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at Egnyte, leading portfolio and market expansion with the creation of a new content governance solution. She previously served as EMC's VP of Marketing for the Public Cloud Solutions Group and Enterprise Storage Division. Ms. Guis helped companies shape and grow the Software-Defined Networking industry and was part of the executive team at Big Switch Networks, one of the pioneering SDN start-ups. She was founding Chair of the Market Education committee at the Open Networking Foundation (ONF). Prior, she managed the P&L of Avaya's Small and Medium Enterprise Communications Business Unit as its General Manager. At Cisco, she was instrumental in the post-acquisition integration of the WLAN start-up Airespace with Cisco Go-To-Market and also led several Mobile Vertical Solutions from design and testing to launch. Ms. Guis holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Supelec in France and an MBA from Harvard Business School.


Nikki Hallgrimsdottir

Co-Founder & Chief Evangelist, Algomus

362 - READY TO WELCOME THE AI REVOLUTION INTO YOUR HOME AND AT WORK?

Nikki Hallgrimsdottir is a co-founder and Chief Evangelist of Algomus, where she works with enterprises in the manufacturing, distribution, and retail sectors to leverage Artificial Intelligence and Big Data for exponential ROI.

Ms. Halgrimsdottir believes that pairing Human and Machine Intelligence is imperative to the growth and success of any company in today's world of rapid change and technological innovation.

She has worked for over a decade with clients of all sizes to utilize automation technology in both hardware and software. Ms. Halgrimsdottir knows enough to be dangerous in the areas of Big Data, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, IoT Hardware, Machine Vision, Supply Chain Traceability, Industrial Automation, and Multiphysics Simulation, to name a few.


Amanda Healy

Senior Marketing Manager & Social Media Storyteller, TIBCO Software

113 - HOW TO BUILD A PERSONAL BRAND & THOUGHT LEADERSHIP WITH LINKEDIN

214- Coaching Circle - MAKE LINKEDIN WORK FOR YOU

265 - Coaching Circle - MAKE LINKEDIN WORK FOR YOU

314 - Coaching Circle - MAKE LINKEDIN WORK FOR YOU

Amanda Healy is an award-winning B2B marketing manager and social media expert, national speaker, and syndicated blogger. She currently works as a Marketing Manager for TIBCO Software, overseeing a global budget of $1.5M+ and leading a team of three to devise and execute multi-touch, multi-dimensional campaigns for lead generation. She runs all corporate social media accounts for TIBCO, as well as the company's internal social advocacy platform, PostBeyond. Ms. Healy also writes for PersonalBrandingBlog.com, interviewing thought leaders and celebrities such as Jonah Berger and Michelle Phan. The site has over 100,000 monthly readers and is syndicated by AOL, Yahoo!, Business Insider, and Entrepreneur magazine, among others.

Prior to TIBCO, Ms. Healy managed a $1M+ marketing budget for Akamai Technologies and spearheaded the company's delivery of the 2013 Winter Olympics. Previously at CA Technologies, Ms. Healy created the first-ever social media training academy for the firm's 14,000+ employees. She was recently featured in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal best-selling author Dan Schawbel's book "Promote Yourself" and was spotlighted by the Washington Post.


Gabrielle Hildebrand

Principal, Wild and Brilliant

216 - Coaching Circle - STANDING YOUR GROUND IN EMOTIONALLY CHARGED SITUATIONS

316 - Coaching Circle - RELEASING THE GRIP OF YOUR INNER CRITIC

Gabrielle Hildebrand has coaching certifications from the Hendricks Institute and Bay Non-Violent Communication. At the Hendricks Institute, she co-directed the Leadership and Transformation Program and provided advanced skills sessions. In addition to her private coaching practice, Ms. Hildebrand teaches and sponsors Hendricks-based workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her forte is translating cerebral concepts into tangible experiences that generate epiphanies.


Roz Ho

Senior VP and GM, Consumer & Metadata, TiVo

297 - MEET THE 2018 WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY HALL OF FAME HONOREES

Roz Ho is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Consumer and Metadata teams at TiVo. She has extensive experience managing engineering teams and key product launches. With more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry, Ms. Ho holds numerous patents in software and hardware innovations.

Ms. Ho served as Vice President and Head of Product Management at Ericsson, where she was responsible for product strategy, roadmap, and business models, and for managing a development team of approximately 300 engineers. Prior to Ericsson, Ms. Ho held several key roles at Microsoft, including engineering roles in Microsoft Office, General Manager of the Macintosh Business Unit, and Corporate Vice President of Premium Mobile Experiences.


Caroline Hubbard

Corporate Strategist, LinkedIn

363 - INSIGHTS FOR INTREPRENEURS AND ENTREPRENEURS

Caroline Hubbard, an east coast native, attended Harvard University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude in the department of History and Literature. During her time at Harvard, she wrote for the Harvard Crimson and pursued her passion for the performing arts acting in numerous plays and dance performances. She also served as president of AMBLE (Aspiring Minority Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs), where she facilitated five networking conferences for students across industries including Consulting, Finance, Media, and Tech. After Harvard, Ms. Hubbard moved to San Francisco to join LinkedIn's Strategy and Analytics program, and currently works on the Consumer Product Growth team, which is responsible for the growing the network's membership platform. She also serves as the Head of External Partnerships for LinkedIn's Black Inclusion Group, and facilitates partnerships between external organizations to sponsor conferences, networking events, and executive roundtables.

Outside of work, Ms. Hubbard is the founder of a website called Threadbred, which targets young professionals and provides information on how to navigate the work world and establish a professional brand directly out of college. It also encourages readers to pursue meaning in their professional and personal lives through advocacy and giving back. Ms. Hubbard is passionate about creating equal opportunity for people of all races and genders in the tech space, and desires to make technology more inclusive for people of color and people from underprivileged socio-economic backgrounds.


Stephanie Hubert

Instructor, Apparel Merchandising & Product Development, University of Arkansas

205 - Keynote Panel: STEM VISIONARIES SHARE SUCCESS IN PRACTICE

Stephanie Hubert is an apparel merchandising and product development instructor in the School of Human Environmental Sciences at the University of Arkansas. In 2017 she received the Outstanding Honors Faculty Mentor Award, having mentored three students to degree completion last spring. She mentors student research in the areas of 3D printing and the application of other technology in the fashion industry. Students under her direction received awards at the International Textile and Apparel Association Annual Conference in St. Petersburg, FL. Under Ms. Hubert's direction, students designed and produced a 3D printed crop top, from Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), on the University of Arkansas's 3D printers. Their design walked in the Annual AMPD Enclothe fashion show and was featured in Discovery Magazine.

In addition to helping students pursue interests in 3D design and innovative apparel, Ms. Hubert teaches pattern drafting and computer aided (CAD) pattern drafting of apparel. One of her many contributions to the University, the Annual AMPD Enclothe fashion show, features collaboration with other departments across campus, including Electrical Engineering, Horticulture, Computer Science/ Computer Engineering, and the Walton College of Business. This year's student-designed garments featured lights and biomedical sensors.


Pushpa Ithal

Founder and CEO, MarketBeam

155 - THOUGHT LEADERSHIP FOR ALL

174 - Coaching Circle - TRANSFORMING FROM A SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT TO A THOUGHT LEADER

326 - Learning Circle - TRANSFORMING FROM A SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT TO A THOUGHT LEADER

Pushpa Ithal is the Founder and CEO of Advo.Ninja, an enterprise social marking platform. She is a strong supporter of women entrepreneurship and is passionate about building great products that help solve everyday problems. Ms. Ithal had worked for startups and large companies in Silicon Valley in engineering, product management, and marketing roles before starting Advo.Ninja.


Radhika Iyengar-Emens

Managing Partner, DoubleNova Group

304 - REAL-WORLD APPLICATIONS OF BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY

355 - DEMYSTIFYING CRYPTOCURRENCIES AND INITIAL COIN OFFERINGS (ICOs)

Radhika Iyengar-Emens is Managing Partner of DoubleNova Group, a Silicon Valley-based blockchain consultancy and ICO advisory. She is a TEDx speaker, a Silicon Valley Woman of Influence, a serial entrepreneur, a crypto investor, and an expert in blockchain, digital health, and global entrepreneurship. She is raising a new blockchain VC fund named StarChain Ventures focused on foundational blockchain technology and enterprise blockchain solutions.

Multilingual in 9 languages, Ms. Iyengar-Emens is a global business advisor to high-tech startups and digital health companies from Europe, Israel, Asia, and Latin America. She is an expert in ICO and Silicon Valley fundraising, international expansion and business acceleration. As well, Ms. Iyengar-Emens is an advisor to governments and has set up and run accelerators and US market access programs for top startups. She has raised over $100 million for advised startups. A passionate advocate for women in technology and diversity, Ms. Iyengar-Emens is an Advisory Board Member at Women in Technology International (WITI) and an active speaker on Women in Blockchain panels and at global women's conferences. She holds an A.B. from Bryn Mawr College and an MBA from Chapman University.


Gail Jacobs

Senior Director, People Center of Excellence, Guardant Health

361 - INSIDER GUIDE TO HIRING

Gail Jacobs is Senior Director, People Center of Excellence, at Guardant Healthcare where she enables and optimizes Guardant's processes in Talent Acquisition, Total Rewards, HRIS, and HR Operations. Ms. Jacobs firmly believes that a high level of customer service, combined with process and systems optimization, creates a better candidate experience and engaged workforce. Previously, she led recruiting teams for three global companies including Risk Management Solutions (RMS), CDM Smith, and Sensata Technologies.

Ms. Jacobs presented a flight risk model at the ERE Talent Analytics Conference in 2016 and contributed to "The Future of University Credentials: New Developments at the Intersection of Higher Education and Hiring," by Sean Gallagher (Harvard Education Press, 2016). She has an MS in Industrial and Labor Relations from the University of Rhode Island, and an MA in Social Relations and a BA in Government from Lehigh University.


Meredith Jacobson

Network Director, WITI LA

342 - WITI: WHAT'S COMING NEXT

Meredith Jacobson is the Business Development Manager for North Highland, a Global Consulting firm specializing in IT, Finance, and Engineering positions in LA and across the country. Ms. Jacobson has been involved professionally with sales and recruiting for the past 13 years. She has developed client relationships with businesses large and small, placing hundreds of employees and temporary personnel over the years.

Ms. Jacobson has been passionate about WITI since her first meeting in 2004 and is very excited about working with the WITI LA Team. Additionally, she is actively involved in the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and Temple Aliyah synagogue. She volunteers at the Jewish Federation on Super Sunday and at the Los Angeles Jewish Home Walk of Ages.


Sudha Jamthe

Author & CEO, IoT Disruptions

251 - LOOK, MA - NO HANDS! AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES AND THE FUTURE OF TRANSPORTATION

Sudha Jamthe is the CEO of IoTDisruptions.com and a globally recognized entrepreneurial business leader, with 20 years of digital transformation experience from building organizations, shaping new technology ecosystems, and mentoring leaders at eBay, PayPal, Harcourt, and GTE.

Ms. Jamthe is the author of three IoT books: "IoT Disruptions," "IoT Disruptions 2020" and "The Internet of Things Business Primer," as well as the recent book "2030 The Driverless World" about the junction of autonomous cars and cognitive IoT. She teaches the first IoT Business course at Stanford Continuing Ed School. She is the producer of "The IoT Show" on YouTube. Ms. Jamthe is a champion for STEM programs and Girls Who Code, and hosts mentor programs for kids at Devcamps and Hackathons.

She has been a venture mentor at MIT and a Director at Bay Area Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ Meetups. As a respected Technology Futurist, she actively contributes to TechCrunch, Mashable, GigaOm, Venturebeat, and blogs at HuffingtonPost. Ms. Jamthe serves as the chair of the strategic advisory of Barcelona Technology School. She has an MBA from Boston University.


Janet Janssen

Principal, Sales Consulting & Coaching Services

168 - Coaching Circle - POWER UP YOUR SALES

222 - Coaching Circle - CHANGING HABITS WITH KAIZEN WAY, HYPNOTHERAPY, AND NEUROLINGUISTIC

319 - Coaching Circle - SEVEN SECONDS TO MAKING A GREAT AND LASTING IMPRESSION

Janet Janssen is a distinguished Toastmaster International speaker, coach, and trainer. She has provided successful coaching circles with WITI for five years and in her Power Play Purpose business for nine years, helping project managers, leaders, and everyday professionals learn the skills on how to go after what you want in life-career. Her programs include sales and goal achievement strategies and tactics, positive mindset principles, and public speaking and storytelling skills. Her work uses positive psychology, neurolinguist, and practical hands-on practices. She is a member of the Women's Networking Alliance since 2012, Scotts Valley Chamber of Commerce Board member, and monthly Strictly Business columnist, at the Press Banner.


Jovita Jenkins

Executive/Leadership Coach, GOOYOW GROUP

371 - Coaching Circle - SHIFT YOUR MINDSET: EMPLOYEE vs. ENTREPRENEUR

266 - Coaching Circle - LASER COACHING FOR WOMEN ON THE RISE

Jovita Jenkins is a global executive/leadership coach, peer coaching group facilitator, strategist, author, and speaker. Jovita supports and collaborates with aspiring and seasoned leaders as they come up to speed more quickly in new roles, adapt to rapidly changing global environments, and discover ways to raise their levels of confidence, executive presence, influence, and effectiveness. As a speaker, seminar leader, author, and west coast aerospace "hidden figure," Jovita inspires audiences to shift their mindsets and overcome their success roadblocks.


Monika Jo

VR Marketing Consultant

112 - DID YOU EVER WANT TO BE "IN" THE STORY? ENTER AR / VR / IR / MR

Monika Jo is currently adapting a young readers' book into a virtual reality experience to be piloted at an art-infused school. Her story has been picked up by the London Financial Times, CNN, Dateline, USA Today, Vice.com, and National Geographic. Ms. Jo was a curator of content for the VR Museum for a temporary installation at 2015 SVVR, to enhance engagement to delight the Virtual Reality community. She has been instrumental in using VR for healthcare startups using audience development, and in conducting user interviews for pain management application of virtual reality technology.

Ms. Jo was the producer and bride of the world's first wedding conducted using virtual reality (VR) technology. She has developed a direct response marketing program - for a sales executive in the alternative energy sector - that helped to increase sales production by 100% from Q3 to Q4 of 2015.


Silvia Johnson

Vice President, Global Talent Organization, Symantec

306 - GET READY, GET SET, GET HIRED: SIMPLE WAYS TO STAND OUT AND GET NOTICED

Silvia Johnson is the Head of the Global Talent Organization at Symantec Corporation. Sitting on the HR leadership team, Ms. Johnson oversees the end-to-end talent cycle from attract, to hire, retain and develop. Born in El Salvador, Ms. Johnson and her family immigrated to the U.S. when she was only two years old. Her tenacity and drive have served her throughout her life as well as her career where she now brings over 15 years of industry experience working with executives at all levels.

Prior to Symantec, Ms. Johnson had founded her own consulting firm, Outside the Cubicle, where she worked with leaders to develop strategic plans to grow their businesses. Earlier, Ms. Johnson had a four-year stint at Intuit as a Human Resources Business Partner for the Quickbooks organization, and five years at Xilinx as a Human Resources Manager overseeing mergers and acquisitions, college recruiting, and HR shared services. Ms. Johnson holds a B.S. in Psychology from the University of California, Davis.


Melissa Jurkoic

Sr. Solutions Architect, Amadeus Hospitality

342 - WITI: WHAT'S COMING NEXT

Melissa Jurkoic is currently a Senior Solutions Architect for Amadeus Hospitality where she and her team operate at the intersection of business and technology to support enterprise clients in realizing their strategic objectives.

With over two decades' experience as a technologist, her mix of technical savvy and business strategy is unique for a former software engineer. Melissa's fusion of technology and conversational techniques connect with both technical and business audiences to lead strategic initiatives to the best outcomes.
Melissa earned her BS in Computer Science from the University of New Hampshire, holds an Executive Certificate in Management and Leadership from the MIT Sloan School of Management and is currently a certified SAFe Program Consultant (SPC4).

Extremely passionate about making a positive impact on the decline of women in STEM education and careers, she volunteers with several committees in the Northeast region to educate and encourage women and girls to pursue careers in technology. Melissa has always lived in the Northeast and now makes her home in Newmarket, New Hampshire with her family.


Coleen Kane

Innovation & Engineering Center of California, Volkswagen Group of America

299 - Hall of Fame Awards Induction Banquet

Coleen Kane brings more than 20 years' professional experience in Recruiting, Staff Augmentation, and HR, specializing in technology in the autonomous driving space. She heads up Talent Acquisition for the Volkswagen Group of America, Electronics Research Lab - the R&D arm for the brands - where she leads efforts to effectively manage internal and external resources while defining strategy and policy.

Ms. Kane has been closely involved with the WITI organization for 10 years and serves as the Membership and Events Chair. She brings to WITI solid expertise to further enhance existing memberships, partnerships, and services while working to establish new relationships that support regional and national growth. Ms. Kane holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Reed College and an MBA from Chaminade University.


Lilli Keinaenen

Founder, Changemaker Creative

106 - INTRODUCTION FOR THE PROFESSIONAL IN CANNABIS

Lilli Keinaenen is Founder and Designer of Changemaker Creative, a design and marketing agency aimed at designing the world for the better. The company works with environmental and social justice nonprofits, sustainable green products, female entrepreneurs, misfits, makers, creative thinkers, and the cannabis industry. Services range from branding and packaging to websites and marketing campaigns and beyond. Ms. Keinaenen is a classically trained designer and font nerd, having earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. Previously she was a business bosslady for a decade, and worked at ad agencies and startup companies both in the Bay Area and Europe.


Ahalya Kethees

Founder, Lead with Brilliance

219 - Coaching Circle - DEVELOPING MALE ALLIES AND COMMUNICATING EFFECTIVELY WITH MEN

270 - Coaching Circle - DEVELOPING MALE ALLIES AND COMMUNICATING EFFECTIVELY WITH MEN

Ahalya Kethees is a facilitator and certified coach who works with executives and emerging leaders in the tech industry. She helps her clients add more value through a clear and compelling vision and strategy; high-performing teams; and an inspiring culture. Her Silicon Valley clients include Google, Facebook, NetApp, Oath (a Verizon company), Equinix, Amplitude Analytics, and Plaid. Before moving to the Bay Area, Ms. Kethees worked with clients from a range of industries including GE, Cadillac Fairview, Teranet, and Deloitte. She did this work as the youngest consultant at the fastest-growing human capital consulting firm in Canada.

Ms. Kethees has completed over 4,000 hours of coaching and trained over 1200 leaders on influence, communication, executive presence, and productivity. She has also interviewed and facilitated sessions with over 500 executives on their business strategies and top leadership challenges. She became a certified coach through the Coaches Training Institute in her mid-20s and brings over a decade of experience in organizational development and executive coaching to Silicon Valley's leaders. Ms. Kethees graduated from the Ivey School of Business in Canada and is an active member of the International Coaches Federation - SF Bay Area Chapter and the Forbes Coaches Council.


Neeru Khosla

Co-Founder and Chair, CK-12 Foundation

205 - Keynote Panel: STEM VISIONARIES SHARE SUCCESS IN PRACTICE

241 - WITI PowerTalk - DON'T BE AFRAID TO DO SOMETHING BECAUSE YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW TO!

276 - LEARNING CIRCLE WITH CK-12 CO-FOUNDER NEERU KHOSLA

Neeru Khosla is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of CK-12 Foundation, a non-profit organization which aims to provide K-12 learning material that is customizable, personalized, aligned to requirements, and free for all, in the US and worldwide. These include digital textbooks, individual concepts, and learning pathways.

Mrs. Khosla currently serves on several advisory boards, including the Board of Directors for High Tech High School's Graduate School of Education, the Advisory Board for the Wikimedia Foundation, the Advisory Board for DonorsChoose, the Advisory Board for IDEO.org, and the Advisory Board for Stanford University's School of Education. She is one of the founding members of the K-12 Initiative of the Design School (Hasso Plattner Institute of Design) at Stanford University, and a former member of The Nueva School Board of Trustees.

Mrs. Khosla holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Delhi University/San Jose State University, a Master of Science degree in Molecular Biology from San Jose State University, and a Master of Education degree from Stanford University.


Santosh Kurinec, PhD

Rochester Institute of Technology, Professor of Electrical & Microelectronic Engineering

297 - MEET THE 2018 WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY HALL OF FAME HONOREES

Santosh Kurinec is a Professor of Electrical & Microelectronic Engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. She is a Fellow of the IEEE, a member of the New York State Academy of Sciences, and an IEEE Electron Device Society Distinguished Lecturer. She is a recipient of the 2012 IEEE Technical Field Award. Dr. Kurinec was honored as the Engineer with Distinction by the Rochester Engineering Society in 2013. In 2016, she received the Medal of Honor from the International Association of Advanced Materials.

Dr. Kurinec has over 100 publications in research journals and conference proceedings and was the recipient of a major grant from the National Science Foundation to prepare students for the frontiers of nanotechnology.


Michele Kyrouz

Host, Smarter Cars Podcast

251 - LOOK, MA - NO HANDS! AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES AND THE FUTURE OF TRANSPORTATION

Michele Kyrouz is a lawyer based in San Francisco. She is a former partner at Latham & Watkins and has more than 20 years of experience handling legal and regulatory matters. Ms. Kyrouz hosts the Smarter Cars podcast about autonomous vehicles, and also writes about autonomous vehicle regulatory issues. She is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley in political science and has a law degree from Columbia University.


Morgan Lai

Investor, Founder Capital

354 - VENTURE CAPITAL: HOW TO TURN THE NUMBERS AROUND FOR FEMALE FOUNDERS AND FUNDERS

Morgan Lai is an investor at Foundation Capital, joining the firm in 2018. She is passionate about helping hungry and ambitious founders build legendary companies, especially in the areas of AI/ML, B2B software and deep tech. Ms. Lai started her career at Flux Factory, helping enable architecture professionals to activate data to dramatically improve construction. From there, she joined Loop AI Labs Cognitive Computing as an AI scientist, working on developing its cognitive platform. Before joining Foundation, Ms. Lai founded and led HearInsights, an AI-enabled meeting assistant that uses voice capture to automatically generate meeting notes.

Ms. Lai holds a Master of Engineering in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence from MIT, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.


Bill Lamond

Human Potential 2.0

294 - PERSONAL STRATEGY: YOUR TURNING POINT

For more than 30 years, Bill Lamond has been a champion of women in leadership. He is the inventor of Fulfillment-based Thinking (FBT), which transforms the commitment-driven, working-harder ethic into one that is based on passion, partnership, and the intuitive and heartfelt way of thinking that women are famous for.

Mr. Lamond's clients are women who want to produce sustainable results in the style that women cherish: one of growing, developing, loving, acknowledging, and sustaining. His clients have included a Tony-nominated Broadway producer, a championship bodybuilder, a founder of a national breast cancer non-profit, a nationally recognized visionary architect, thousands of women business owners, saleswomen, and executives from such leading companies as Microsoft and Google.

As a featured speaker at the Microsoft Global Women's Conference, Mr. Lamond's talk on developing and using a powerful Voice was broadcast to the 20,000 women of Microsoft around the world. In his own words, "Voice is not a rehearsed speech. It is the ability to develop your own deepest relationship with yourself and to announce it to the world around you in ways that have magic happen for anyone listening."


Charu Lavania

Director, Digital Technologies, Kaiser Permanente

307 - THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW: FUTURE OF DIGITAL HEALTHCARE AND TELEMEDICINE

Charu Lavania is a Director of Engineering at Kaiser Permanente IT, where she currently leads the engineering teams that are responsible for developing Kaiser Permanente's website. Ms. Lavania has over 20 years of experience of working in the IT industry, most of it with the healthcare domain. She is very passionate about the pace at which the healthcare industry is evolving, and finds that the domain keeps her excited about coming to work every day. Ms. Lavania has been leading delivery teams for over 10 years now.

Apart from work, as her children move out and become independent, Ms. Lavania would like to devote her time towards social causes.


Renessa Boley Layne

Founder, Perfect Work Academy

309 - GO FROM BORED, BURNED OUT, UNFULFILLED IN YOUR CAREER TO DOING WORK YOU LOVE

225 - Coaching Circle - CONVERSATIONS IN THE FAST LANE: INSIDER SECRETS TO REDESIGN YOUR SUCCESS

Renessa Boley Layne is author of the book Fast Lane, Wrong Direction: Insider Secrets to Redesign Your Success. She takes high-achieving women who have grown bored, burned out, or unfulfilled in their current career and helps them create their "Perfect Work" - be it radically changing careers, starting a business, or bringing a big idea to life. Renessa's mission is to equip women everywhere to discover, design, and get highly paid doing work they love!

Renessa has appeared as a leading authority on ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX TV affiliates across the country. She has also been featured in publications such as Career Builder, CNN.com, Heart & Soul magazine, and The Washington Post. Renessa holds an Industrial Engineering degree from Stanford University and brings 20 years of corporate and entrepreneurial success to her training. Her skill set ranges from keynotes and facilitation to career and life design coaching.


Jennifer LeBlanc

CEO & Founder, ThinkResults Marketing

354 - VENTURE CAPITAL: HOW TO TURN THE NUMBERS AROUND FOR FEMALE FOUNDERS AND FUNDERS

363 - INSIGHTS FOR INTREPRENEURS AND ENTREPRENEURS

273 - Coaching Circle - MAKING IT EASY: MANAGING CHANGE IN YOUR ORGANIZATION

318 - Coaching Circle - MAKING IT EASY: MANAGING CHANGE IN YOUR ORGANIZATION

Jennifer S. LeBlanc is the best-selling author of Launching for Revenue: How to Launch Your Product, Service or Company for Maximum Growth, and curator of Changing Tides: Powerful Strategies for Female Founders. She is also the founder and president of ThinkResults Marketing, and owns the publishing house, HAL House. Her speaking and workshop events are designed to galvanize her audiences into action.

In her private coaching work, Ms. LeBlanc works with female founders, entrepreneurs, and change agents to provide them with the tools and connections they need to succeed. Silicon Valley Business Journal gave Ms. LeBlanc its Silicon Valley Women of Influence Award in 2016, and ranked her company, ThinkResults, as the 10th Fastest Growing Private Company in Silicon Valley in 2017. Under her leadership, ThinkResults has also been recognized as one of the top Silicon Valley agencies (2013-2018). Ms. LeBlanc has been an advisor to President Obama, Congress, and the SBA via the National Women's Business Council. She is an advisor to Women's Startup Lab and Founders Network.


Carolyn Leighton

Founder/Chairwoman, WITI

202 - WELCOME and OPENING INSIGHTS

227 - LEARNING CIRCLE WITH WITI FOUNDER & CEO CAROLYN LEIGHTON

Carolyn Leighton founded WITI in 1989 as a worldwide e-mail network for women in all technology sectors. At the time WITI was established, Ms. Leighton was President of Criterion Research, a research consulting firm for the high tech industry which she founded in 1984, as well as chair of the Core Competency Database Project at Stanford University.

Due to Ms. Leighton's leadership and vision, WITI has grown to be the premiere brand and worldwide organization dedicated to empowering women worldwide to achieve unimagined possibilities and transformations through technology, leadership and economic prosperity.

Ms. Leighton has 35 years of experience as an educator and entrepreneur. In addition to WITI, she founded four start-ups in the high-tech, legal sectors and, most recently, the pet industry. She attended the University of Michigan and has a bachelor's degree in human development from Pacific Oaks College. Ms. Leighton has received numerous accolades, twice named as one of the "Top 100 Women in Computing." More recently, she was named one of Fast Company Magazine's "Most Influential Women in Technology."


Yanbing Li, PhD

Senior Vice President and General Manager, Storage and Availability Business Uni, VMware

297 - MEET THE 2018 WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY HALL OF FAME HONOREES

Currently Senior Vice President and General Manager, Storage and Availability Business Unit (SABU) at VMware, Yanbing Li is a globally minded high tech executive with extensive leadership experience in general management and engineering, both in the US and in China.

Dr. Li is responsible for the P&L for a rich portfolio of products in software-defined storage, hyper-converged infrastructure vSphere storage, data protection, and storage and availability services for the Cloud. She leads product development, engineering, and go-to-market of this high growth business at VMware. Under her leadership, SABU became the fastest growing business for VMware in the past two years. Prior to VMware, Dr. Li worked at Synopsys (a leading electronic design automation software maker) for nine years in various research, development, and engineering leadership roles.


Suzanne Livingston

Director, IBM Food TrustTM Offering, IBM

304 - REAL-WORLD APPLICATIONS OF BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY

As the IBM Food TrustTM Offering Director, Suzanne Livingston is bringing transparency in the food chain, accountability, and traceability to retailers, suppliers, farmers and more, using the power of blockchain and with an exceptional global team of scientists, engineers, designers, inventors, growth hackers, and more.

Prior to IBM Blockchain Solutions, Ms. Livingston led day-to-day operations of product management, from assessing market needs to identifying user-focused solutions to working with engineering to turn concepts into reality.


Susan Lucas-Conwell

Executive Vice President, CSIRO US

291 - FLY ME TO THE MOON: SUBORBITAL SPACE = THE JUMP POINT FOR SPACE EXPLORATION

Susan Lucas-Conwell is a global business executive with a successful track record of driving innovation and accelerating revenue growth. Currently Executive Vice President for CSIRO, she is responsible for opening the innovation center in Silicon Valley and managing the US / North American entity. CSIRO has longstanding relationships with Global 1000 corporations and world class philanthropic institutions, as well as governmental entities that include Boeing, The Gates Foundation, DOD, The World Bank, and many more.

Previously Innovation Advisor to Siemens Technology to Business, Ms. Lucas-Conwell collaborated with internal and external teams at Siemens to deepen strategic relationships with the innovation ecosystem and help drive corporate growth through external innovation. As Innovation Advisor to KLA-Tencor, she helped structure and grow their innovation partner program. As Global CEO at Great Place to Work Institute, Ms. Lucas-Conwell re-positioned the brand and increased annual revenues by 30%. As CEO of SVForum, she established long-term relationships with corporations such as Microsoft and IBM, government entities such as Innovation Denmark and Austrade, leading venture firms such as Norwest Venture Partners and Accel, and global service providers such as PWC and Accenture. Throughout her career, Ms. Lucas-Conwell has advised hundreds of early stage startups in addition to sitting on advisory boards, and has also spoken at a TedX Youth Conference about "ordinary people doing extraordinary things."


Lauren Maffeo

Senior Content Analyst, GetApp, A Gartner Company

251 - LOOK, MA - NO HANDS! AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES AND THE FUTURE OF TRANSPORTATION

352 - FUTURE IT AND YOU: ENVISION YOUR POSSIBILITIES!

Lauren Maffeo has reported on and worked within the global technology sector. She started her career as a freelance journalist covering tech trends for news sites including The Next Web and The Guardian. She has also worked with CEOs at pre-seed to profitable SaaS startups on editorial strategy. Lauren currently works as a senior content analyst at GetApp - a Gartner company - where she covers the impact of emerging technologies such as AI and blockchain on small and midsize business owners. Ms. Maffeo's writing has been cited by Forbes, Fox Business, The Atlantic, and more; she has been featured on LeanIn.org, BBC Capital, and Inc.com.

In 2017, Ms. Maffeo was named to The Drum's 50 Under 30 list of women worth watching in digital. That same year, she helped organize the Women Startup Challenge in London, which was Europe's largest venture capital competition for women-led startups. Ms. Maffeo holds an MSc from The London School of Economics and Political Science, and earned a certificate in Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy from MIT's Sloan School of Management.


Jim Malcolm

GM, HumanEyes Technologies

255 - VIRTUAL REALITY (WHAT IS THE REALITY?): SOCIAL, BUSINESS, AND ENTERTAINMENT

Jim Malcolm is CEO/CMO of HumanEyes Technologies. He is a Consumer Products Leader with a track record of using market insight to build currently great brands, scale organizations and deliver shareholder value. Mr. Malcolm is widely considered a key strategic player and regularly called upon to provide thought leadership in the creation, development, and implementation of mission-critical initiatives with domestic and global implications.

Mr. Malcolm is adept at identifying and capitalizing on synergies that accelerate business growth through reducing product lead times, increasing market capacity, feeding direct sales infrastructure, and improving cash flow. He is a professional, accomplished, and versatile communicator with a track record for instilling customer confidence and promoting internal and external business relationships that have proven to fortify, drive, and sustain sales and market share while growing profit contribution.


Diane Malnekoff

Principal, DM Consulting

171 - Coaching Circle - MASTERING GENDER COMMUNICATIONS AND INTERACTIONS

Diane Malnekoff brings a powerful combination to executive coaching, first as a corporate executive in the aviation industry then as a business psychologist. By combining what executive experience brings to the table with an in-depth savvy of human behavior, she can provide a unique perspective, providing expertise in both contexts. Dr. Malnekoff has built DM Consulting over 20 years, coaching C-level executives, senior leaders, VC's and smart, successful professionals. Dr. Malnekoff's Mastering Gender Communications & Interactions coaching and workshops offer concrete tools and techniques to work with both men and women in a smarter way.

Dr. Malnekoff holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, Palo Alto University. She is a graduate of the Executive Coach Academy and holds a coaching certification from the International Coach Federation. She is a licensed psychologist and expert in leadership & human behavior.


Ashley Malone

Senior Recruiter, Talent Acquisition, Dine Brands Global

351 - BE SELECTIVE, GET SELECTED: HOW TO UNDERSTAND AND NAVIGATE THE SELECTION PROCESS

Ashley Malone works in recruiting and talent acquisition at Dine Brands Global, franchisor of two of the world’s largest full-service restaurant brands - Applebee's (established in 1980) and IHOP (founded in 1958).


Coleen McCray

Executive/Career Coach, Paragon Coaching Group/Industry Experience

220 - Coaching Circle - TRANSFORMING YOUR INTERACTIONS, TEAMS, AND CULTURE ONE CONVERSATION AT A TIME WITH CONVERSATIONAL INTELLIGENCE® (C-IQ)

271 - Coaching Circle - TRANSFORMING YOUR INTERACTIONS, TEAMS, AND CULTURE ONE CONVERSATION AT A TIME WITH CONVERSATIONAL INTELLIGENCE® (C-IQ)

373 - Coaching Circle - AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP

With over 30 years of leadership experience in IT VP and Director roles and an expert bridge builder, Coleen McCray currently is responsible for Acquisition Integration at Inmar where she leads a corporatewide team that works to join acquired firms with Inmar and achieve exponential growth. In prior roles in the financial services and law firm software industries, Ms. McCray led the realignment of software development organizations to meet product demand and built trusted organizations that engendered cooperation and genuine alliances between IS organizations and their stakeholders needed to achieve maximized value-based results.

Expert in developing leaders and assisting seasoned leaders with path formation to their goals, Ms. McCray is a Board Certified Coach (BCC) and an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC). She is also an Executive Coach for the WITI PowerSource Coaching Program, the CIO Executive Council Pathways program, and President of her own company, The Paragon Coaching Group. She holds an MBA from Wake Forest University, an MS in Counseling from Stetson University, and a BS in Economics from Duke University. She is a graduate of the College of Executive Coaching and a member of the International Coach Federation (ICF) and the NeuroLeadership Institute. As well, Ms. McCray is a Certified Facilitator for Meyers Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI) as well as for Conversational Intelligence™, The Results System™, EQI 2.0/EQI 360, and Center for Creative Leadership Suite of Assessments.


Renee McKaskle

CIO, Hitachi Vantara

204 - WITI PowerTalk - DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION: TIPS FOR LEADERS IN TECH

228 - LEARNING CIRCLE WITH HITACHI VANTARA CIO RENEE McKASKLE

As Chief Information Officer, Renee McKaskle is responsible for developing and implementing information technology initiatives that align with the Hitachi Vantara mission. She supervises the information systems and communications network of the company and directs the planning, implementation, and continuous improvement of technology solutions in order to improve cost effectiveness, service quality, and mission development.

Ms. McKaskle was CIO of Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) and prior to that, she was CIO and vice president of business process and technology at SC Johnson & Sons. She previously served as CIO and VP of IT governance services at Symantec Corporation. She also held senior IT leadership roles at Oracle and PeopleSoft.

Ms. McKaskle holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a master's degree in information systems from the University of Texas. She is a strong advocate of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) programs and careers for girls and women to give them the confidence to do what inspires them.


Katie McMahon

Vice President & General Manager, SoundHound

292 - VOICE-FIRST TECHNOLOGY: WOMEN LEADING THE WAY

Katie McMahon is a tech industry veteran with entrepreneurial successes that include building and launching one of the most downloaded and engaged mobile apps of all time, Shazam. She currently serves as Vice President and General Manager at SoundHound Inc., which spent ten years developing the ground-breaking Speech-to-Meaning(TM) technology and the Houndify voice and natural language interface platform.

Ms. McMahon is known for her ability to bring to market and scale new technologies and globalize brands, and in 2002 was recognized as the first foreign woman to launch a tech company in Japan.


Kim Meninger

Executive Coach, Your Career Success

115 - USING SELF-PROMOTION STRATEGIES TO ADVANCE YOUR CAREER

164 - Coaching Circle - MAXIMIZE YOUR SEAT AT THE TABLE

215- Coaching Circle - GROW YOUR CONFIDENCE, GROW YOUR CAREER

267 - Coaching Circle - USING SELF-PROMOTION STRATEGIES TO ADVANCE YOUR CAREER

315 - Coaching Circle - MAXIMIZE YOUR SEAT AT THE TABLE

Kim Meninger is an executive coach, TEDx speaker and host of the Impostor Syndrome Files podcast. She helps individuals/organizations to understand and embrace the human experience at work to reach their full leadership potential. Kim has coached hundreds of clients and has presented on career advancement and leadership topics to corporate, non-profit and academic audiences. She leverages her psychology degree, MBA and over a decade of experience as a high-tech leader to empower professionals to lead themselves and others more effectively. Kim is especially passionate about helping women and members of other historically marginalized groups to become more confident, visible and influential leaders.


Kim has a BA in psychology and an MBA from Boston College. She is an ICF Professional Certified Coach and CCE Board Certified Coach with certifications in confidence, career, executive and leadership development coaching. Kim also holds a certificate in Executive Leadership from Cornell University.


Amelia Merrill

People Strategy & TA Leader, Guardant Health

361 - INSIDER GUIDE TO HIRING

Amelia Merrill is currently the VP of People at Guardant Health. Prior to Guardant Health, she was the SVP of People Strategy at RMS, Head to Talent Acquisition/Management at Juniper Networks, WebMethods, and held a variety of HR related roles at VeriSign. Her HR career has varied greatly from leading the People function, creation, development and implementation of M&A, and workforce reduction programs to Talent Acquisition Leader. Ms. Merrill is also an advisor for Wepow, RolePoint and HROnboard.


Bradley Metrock

CEO, Score Publishing

292 - VOICE-FIRST TECHNOLOGY: WOMEN LEADING THE WAY

Bradley Metrock is CEO of Score Publishing, which owns and operates the global podcast network VoiceFirst.FM, heard by tens of thousands of tech professionals across 48 countries worldwide. Mr. Metrock hosts This Week In Voice, the weekly news commentary podcast which has become essential listening for those interested in voice technology.

Score Publishing produces The Voice of Healthcare Summit (Aug 7, Harvard Medical School, Boston MA), Digital Book World (Oct 2-4, Nashville TN), and The Alexa Conference (Jan 15-17, Chattanooga TN).


Carolina Milanesi

Founder, The Heart of Tech

293 - DIVERSITY AS A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

302 - BREAKTHROUGHS IN LEADERSHIP: HERE'S HOW I GOT TO THE TOP

Carolina Milanesi has over 15 years of experience in the consumer technology industry, most recently as the President and Principal Analyst at Creative Strategies, where since 2016, she has been focusing on a broad range of consumer technologies and services, including those that profoundly impact user behavior in an enterprise context. Her passion for user engagement and user experience drove her to increasingly spend time analyzing the future of work and employee engagement, especially as it relates to collaboration and workflows. In 2019, Carolina founded The Heart of Tech. Her newest endeavor aims to help technology providers with their corporate social responsibility efforts. Two areas are particularly dear to her because of the impact on society: education and diversity and inclusion. Between 2013 and 2016, Carolina was Chief of Research at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, where she drove thought leadership research by marrying her deep understanding of global market dynamics with the wealth of data coming from ComTech's longitudinal studies on smartphones and tablets. Prior, Carolina spent 14 years at Gartner, most recently as their Consumer Devices Research VP and Agenda Manager. In this role, she led the forecast and market share teams on smartphones, tablets, and PCs. Carolina is a regular contributor to Forbes, Fast Company, and Italian daily La Stampa. She is often quoted as an industry expert and commentator in publications such as The Financial Times, Bloomberg, The New York Times, NBC News, and others.


Laurel Mintz

CEO, Elevate My Brand

297 - MEET THE 2018 WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY HALL OF FAME HONOREES

230 - Learning Circle - HOW TO HANDLE A BRAND IDENTITY CRISIS: MARKETING YOURSELF & BUSINESS

With a J.D/M.B.A from Rutgers University, Laurel Mintz's background has uniquely prepared her to run a successful agency. Inspired by the innovative consulting work she executed early in her career with such brands as Le Bec Fin, Public House Restaurant Group, Bassett Furniture, and Julie Hewett Cosmetics, Laurel knew she wanted to play bigger. A decade later, she has created an agency family serving both startups and blue chip global brands like Facebook, Verizon Digital Media Group, PAW Patrol and Zendesk. Laurel's favorite saying is FIOGID: Figure it out, get it done.

Laurel sits on the Board of Directors for NFTE (Network for Teaching Leadership), the Women Founders Network, and the UCLA Restaurant Conference. She is a mentor for The Women's Global Leaders Initiative and advises LAVA (Los Angeles Venture Association). Laurel wrote a weekly Inc. Magazine column appropriately entitled "On Brand” for three years. Her published work can be found in Entrepreneur, USA Today, The American Marketing Association and C-Suite Quarterly Magazine. Laurel and the agency have recently won the W3 Silver Award for the PAW Patrol Road Patrol Campaign, the 2017 Patrick Soon-Shiong Innovation Award, the LABJ Women in Business Award, Comerica and LA Lakers' Women's Business Award, amongst others.


Mandy Mock

VP & GM, Product Engineering Solutions IT, Intel Corporation

302 - BREAKTHROUGHS IN LEADERSHIP: HERE'S HOW I GOT TO THE TOP

Mandy Mock is an Intel Vice President, and General Manager for Product Engineering Systems IT. Ms. Mock joined IT in 2010 as the Director of Flex Services and rotated to become the Director of Finance Information Services in 2014. She was selected as General Manager for PES IT in 2016. Prior to joining IT, Ms. Mock was the program manager for Visual Adrenaline, Intel's software developer program for gaming, graphics, and media. She also managed Intel's Software Products Services division, supporting the delivery of software products to market.

Ms. Mock is an advocate for customer satisfaction and building strong organizations. She has a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon, an MS in Computer Science from the Oregon Graduate Institute, and an MBA from the University of North Carolina.


Tavia Morra

Interactive Engineer, Motion Graphics, Obscura Digital

112 - DID YOU EVER WANT TO BE "IN" THE STORY? ENTER AR / VR / IR / MR

Tavia Morra is an American multi-disciplinary artist and engineer. As an illustrator, animator, art director, narrative designer, performer, and developer she explores the depths of many mediums. Often spotted charting trends across disciplines, she develops creative and technical language to glue the conceptual to the actualization of experiential art, video, image, and choreography. Using color, composition, texture, lighting, movement, and humor she doles out mystique and sparkle on the world.

A graduate of The University of Texas at Austin's Video Production program, Ms. Morra cut her teeth in editing, videography, photography, and screenwriting before moving professionally into motion graphics animation and 3D design. She's travelled the world to work with clients such as Marvel, Verizon, Dell, Adidas, Toyota, Urban Outfitters, Madison Square Garden, San Francisco Parks Department, MGM, and more. As a young woman she studied concert percussion, marching percussion, and steel drum percussion. Most recently, Ms. Morra joined the Obscura Digital software team, where by day she engineers mutli-server playback systems on monumental-scale architecture for interactive experiences, dances aerial acrobatics, and cares for her succulents.


Jeanne Nangle

Soul Coach, Jeanne Nangle Consulting

269 - Coaching Circle - FEELING CONFIDENT IN DIFFERENT SITUATIONS

317 - Coaching Circle - GAINING CLARITY IN YOUR LIFE

376 - Coaching Circle - GET COMFORTABLE!

Soul Coach Jeanne Nangle seeks to empower high-achieving professionals to live with purpose, depth, and power. Her belief is that once we tap into the power of our Soul, we are unstoppable. Ms. Nangle began her career in technology, working in sales for IBM for 13 years. "While at IBM, I doubted myself constantly, even though I was extremely successful and received numerous awards. I've found that high-achievers often have high self-esteem, but also carry feelings of inadequacy. When I tapped into the power of my own thinking and the power of my Soul, I overcame my insecurities." Now, as a Soul Coach, Ms. Nangle helps others do the same - empowering people to overcome their negative thinking and limiting beliefs so they will fulfill their Soul's potential.

Ms. Nangle is the author of two books: The Butterfly Silhouette, a story of grief, personal transformation, and destiny; and The Thought Store, about the power of our thinking. Her writings have helped thousands of people all over the world uncover the essential part of themselves we call the Soul.


Myra Nawabi

Senior Project Manager, Lockheed Martin Space Systems

253 - BRIDGING THE DIGITAL GENDER DIVIDE

291 - FLY ME TO THE MOON: SUBORBITAL SPACE = THE JUMP POINT FOR SPACE EXPLORATION

Myra Nawabi is a Senior Project Engineer at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, working with rocket scientists to develop next-generation space equipment. Originally from Kabul, Afghanistan, as a young refugee to the U.S. she found many challenges as well as opportunities. Taking advantage of available access to education, her first instinct was to give back as an educator by teaching middle school students the joy of mathematics. Ms. Nawabi currently facilitates the largest Lean In circle in Northern California, allowing her to indulge in two of her passions at once: help women to increase their self-confidence, and give back to her community.

Ms. Nawabi holds a BA in Liberal Studies and an MS in Educational Leadership from California State University, East Bay, with minors in Mathematics and History and options in Early Childhood Development and Urban Teacher Leadership.


Barbara Nelson

GM & VP, Cloud Services & Software for Consumers, Western Digital

302 - BREAKTHROUGHS IN LEADERSHIP: HERE'S HOW I GOT TO THE TOP

From start-ups to billion-dollar technology businesses, Barbara Nelson brings over 20 years of experience in executive leadership. She currently is VP/GM of consumer cloud services and software products at Western Digital.

Ms. Nelson has a strong entrepreneurial track record, growing businesses from concept to over $100M four times in three different companies. She was EVP/GM of IronKey by Imation, a cloud enterprise security business. She has been a CEO twice, most recently at Element Labs, a market leader in high-end video software and lighting systems for entertainment and architecture. Prior she was CEO of NeoScale systems, a pioneer in enterprise storage security. She has led tape, media, and hard drive businesses at Quantum and memory businesses at Intel. Ms. Nelson has a BSEE from Stanford University. For fun, she's traveled to over 80 countries with her husband and plays keyboard in a rock band.


Michael Neuendorff

President, Bay Area Executive Coach

308 - BUILD TRUST, IMPROVE TEAMWORK, AND TRANSFORM YOUR ORGANIZATION WITH C-IQ

372 - Coaching Circle - RAISE THE QUALITY OF YOUR CONVERSATIONS WITH C-IQ

Michael Neuendorff, PCC, is the president of Bay Area Executive Coach. The firm provides coaching, training, and assessments for small and mid-size businesses that are committed to excellence in leadership, and organizational health. Mr. Neuendorff has been in the professional development field since 2008; he is certified by the International Coach Federation and is a Master Certified Coach Trainer via the Center for Executive Coaching.


Minette Norman

Vice President, Engineering Practice, Autodesk

202 - WELCOME and OPENING INSIGHTS

229 - LEARNING CIRCLE WITH AUTODESK VP/ENGINEERING MINETTE NORMAN

Minette Norman serves as Vice President of Engineering Practice at Autodesk and is responsible for a collaborative culture and state-of-the-art engineering practices. Ms. Norman spearheaded "radical collaboration" -- initiatives that recognize engineers who contribute to one another's code, designs, and tests. Previously, she gained international attention by transforming Autodesk's localization team through best-in-class automation and machine translation.

Before joining Autodesk, she held a variety of technical communication and management positions at companies including Symantec and Adobe. Named in 2017 as one of the "Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business" by the San Francisco Business Times, Ms. Norman is a recognized industry expert with a unique perspective.

Ms. Norman has a broad approach to community service, working with local, national, and international non-profit organizations. She serves on the Board of Directors of D-Rev, a non-profit devoted to developing medical technologies for impoverished and vulnerable populations worldwide. Ms. Norman also works with GirlsWhoCode and YesWeCode, national organizations that help under-represented populations succeed in the technology sector. She holds degrees in Drama and French from Tufts University and studied at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris.


Manuela Pauer

Career & Leadership Coach, Pauer Coaching

223 - Coaching Circle - GET TO THE NEXT LEVEL IN YOUR CAREER

268 - Coaching Circle - DISCOVER YOUR IDEAL CAREER

320 - Coaching Circle - DISCOVER YOUR IDEAL CAREER

374 - Coaching Circle - GET TO THE NEXT LEVEL IN YOUR CAREER

Manuela Pauer is a Career and Leadership Coach in Silicon Valley. She works with professional women in their mid-career who are craving more meaning, fulfillment, and happiness. Through her signature "Create a Career and Life You Love" program, she helps them uncover their purpose, passions, and strengths and clearly define what they want to do, so they can create a fulfilling career and life they love. Manuela has over 20 years of experience in helping professionals thrive in their life and career. She is an ICF-certified Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from UC Berkeley. She had a successful corporate career spanning Strategy Consulting at Bain & Company, Product Management and Strategic Development at a Silicon Valley startup, and Executive Director of Product Management and Strategic Planning at AOL.


Cathy Pearl

Head of Conversation Design Outreach, Google

292 - VOICE-FIRST TECHNOLOGY: WOMEN LEADING THE WAY

Cathy Pearl is the author of the O'Reilly book "Designing Voice User Interfaces." She is currently Head of Conversation Design Outreach at Google, where she helps people add voice to their product. Previously, Ms. Pearl was VP of User Experience at Sensely, whose virtual-nurse avatar, Molly, helps people engage with their healthcare. She has worked on everything from NASA helicopter-pilot simulators to a conversational iPad app in which Esquire magazine's style columnist tells users what they should wear on a first date. During her time at Nuance and Microsoft, Ms. Pearl designed VUIs (Voice User Interfaces) for banks, airlines, and Ford SYNC.

Ms. Pearl holds a BS in Cognitive Science from UCSD and an MS in Computer Science from Indiana University. She also enjoys getting her Amazon Echo & Google Home to talk to each other (see YouTube icon above).


Judy Peebles

Principal, The Knowledge Series

166 - Coaching Circle - What Are You REALLY Communicating? 11 Assumptions in the First 7 Seconds

Judy Peebles - an international speaker, trainer, and coach - is creator of The Knowledge Series™, High Heeled Haven™, The Journaling Jenius™, and Journaling Jems™. An NLP Master Results Coach and Performance Consultant, Ms. Peebles is known for her dynamic and playful style while delivering interactive presentations and trainings designed to be not only informative, but transformational.

After a successful corporate career, Ms. Peebles now works with driven, tenacious individuals and groups, who are committed to their own success, and looking for that extra edge and guidance to assist them to reach the next level.


Chalisa Prarasri

CEO / Co-Founder, Opter

307 - THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW: FUTURE OF DIGITAL HEALTHCARE AND TELEMEDICINE

Chalisa Prarasri is CEO and Co-Founder of Opter, creators of the wearable Opter Pose, which tracks and improves posture, fitness, sleep, ultraviolet exposure, and more. Previously, Ms. Prarasri was Editor-in-Chief of UCLA's health magazine, Total Wellness, and also served as a researcher in the W. M. Keck Center for Neurophysics and the Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research. She holds a B.S. in Neuroscience from UCLA.


Shilpa Pulipaka

Technology Leader / Architect / Consultant

352 - FUTURE IT AND YOU: ENVISION YOUR POSSIBILITIES!

Shilpa Pulipaka is a creative technology leader with experience architecting and directing strategic, high-value technology transformation projects. She works with startups advising on ideation and evolving MVP (Minimal Viable Product) for consumer services and products.

Ms. Pulipaka founded and operates a non-profit organization funding treatments for children with cancer in India, Africa, and the US. (www.bluepixies.org)


Rashmi Rao

Global Head, Advanced Engineering, CoC User Experience, Harman

297 - MEET THE 2018 WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY HALL OF FAME HONOREES

251 - LOOK, MA - NO HANDS! AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES AND THE FUTURE OF TRANSPORTATION

Rashmi Rao is Global Head, Advanced Engineering, CoC User Experience at HARMAN, the connected technologies company for automotive, consumer, and enterprise markets. At HARMAN, Ms. Rao is responsible for defining the company's technology strategy and roadmap to drive breakthrough user experiences in next-gen connected cars. She oversees the direction and management of the advanced engineering organization. Ms. Rao effectively leads a team of engineers responsible for developing various software components in infotainment, including audio, radio tuner, embedded systems, and vehicle interface. Her team creates solutions focused on combining cutting-edge technologies with advanced user experience design and human-machine interactions, from entry level to high-end and luxury vehicles.

Ms. Rao is a very active member of the Society of Information Display (SID) and currently holds several executive positions on the SID board. She is a strong advocate of STEM education and actively lobbies for diversity in technology work places. She is the author of over 19 US and global patents and many pending patents, two book chapters, and several peer-reviewed journal and conference papers.


Peter Relan

Co-Founder, The Knowledge Network

355 - DEMYSTIFYING CRYPTOCURRENCIES AND INITIAL COIN OFFERINGS (ICOs)

Peter Relan is a parallel entrepreneur: Co-Founder of The Knowledge Project; an early investor in Discord; Founder of YouWeb Incubator; and a mentor for 25+ start-ups. He is currently running Got It.


Claudine Rezek

Senior Manager, University Recruiting, Ellie Mae

306 - GET READY, GET SET, GET HIRED: SIMPLE WAYS TO STAND OUT AND GET NOTICED

Claudine Rezek is an advocate of inclusion and belonging in the workplace. She believes that Talent Acquisition is not just about growing a great team and building a bright company; it's about inspiring the story of our collective corporate experience and elevating the new narrative we're creating together. Ms. Rezek has served Human Resource teams ranging from startup to Fortune 50, and knows this to be true: always value making authentic connections.


Sarah Richson

CEO, Richemele International Consultants

353 - VISIONARIES USING TECH FOR GOOD

Sarah Richson is CEO of Richemele International Consultants; Co-founding Director at Yusudi (Youth) Africa; and a Network Co-Director at WITI. As well, she is a Certified Executive Coach, International Speaker/Trainer, Growth Strategist, and Thought Leader in Human Development. Earlier, Ms. Richson was Global HR Director at Techno Brain Group, a fast-growth IT firm overseeing 20+ geographies across UK, USA, Asia, and Africa.

She is an ardent promoter of Women Empowerment which inspired her to begin a program for women working in technology dubbed "Pink Potential," culminating in the launch of "IT Women Rock Conference" aimed at demystifying the industry for women while celebrating and advancing real success stories for women in IT. Ms. Richson currently mentors several professionals globally in a variety of life phases, from youth to top leadership positions.

Some of her notable recent work with women includes mentorship, capacity development keynote speaking at various forums such as UN Women Empowerment Principles events, Kenya Institute of Management (KIM), annual Women in Leadership Summit, OWIT panel at World Trade Organisation in Geneva, Digital Woman, General Motors Women Forum, AWAK (Association of Women Accountants in Kenya) IHRM (Institute of Human Resource Management), KCB Women Biashara, Nairobi University Women in Entrepreneurship, Strathmore University Women in Leadership program and Communications Authority Women Forum. This year she was nominated for a "Woman of Excellence" Award at the Women Economic Forum. As well, Ms. Richson is the proud mother of five beautiful children.


Kristy Rogers

Founder & Leader, KristyRogersConnects

217 - Coaching Circle - EMPOWERING WOMEN IN BUSINESS: HOW TO PARTNER BUSINESS MODE AND FRIEND MODE

375 - Coaching Circle - EMPOWERING WOMEN IN BUSINESS: HOW TO PARTNER BUSINESS MODE AND FRIEND MODE

Kristy Rogers leads the Be Business Friendsâ„¢ movement. She's not talking about being friends-at-work; she's talking about raising your consciousness to honor results and relationships when interacting with others. Her Business Friends Philosophyâ„¢ comes from 24 years of leading and producing monthly networking events, 15 years of learning partnership distinctions, and 6 years of success mindset studies. Kristy Rogers is connecting personified. Who would guess that she once felt shy, insecure, and a bit socially ungraceful? Now an influential, award-winning community leader, Kristy was recognized as one of the Silicon Valley Business Journal's Women of Influence, named Managing Director of the Year for her work with the San Jose eWomenNetwork chapter, and voted Royal Schmoozer by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Chamber of Commerce. She was named one of the "Best Business Connectors in the San Francisco Bay Area" by the US Small Business Conference. In 2017 she was awarded a Peacemaker Award from the Global Prosperity and Peace Initiative. Kristy holds a B.S. in Business Administration, International Business from San Jose State University, where she was an Alpha Phi.


Helena Ronis

Co-Founder & CEO, VoxSnap

354 - VENTURE CAPITAL: HOW TO TURN THE NUMBERS AROUND FOR FEMALE FOUNDERS AND FUNDERS

Helena Ronis was born in the Soviet Union, raised in Israel, and served in the Tech Unit of the Israeli Air Force. She came to the US in 2010 as a student, loved the Bay Area and stayed. Since then she has worked in product management and marketing, started a location-based social networking startup (ventureout.co), and worked as a product manager at a venture-funded startup, Vyu Labs.

Last year Ms. Ronis created a new startup: voxsnap.com - a voice marketing automation solution for marketers and brands, including an audio library for listeners to enjoy educational content in career-oriented categories (voxsnap.com/library).


Sheryl Root

Director/Assoc. Professor, Carnegie Mellon, President and CEO, RootAnalysis

114 - WHAT'S UP WITH BIG DATA, AI, AND ML?

Sheryl Root is currently Director/Professor for the Masters in Technology Ventures and Professor for Masters in Software Management at Carnegie Mellon University, Silicon Valley. Ms. Root is a strategy, marketing, and product development executive with over 18 years of experience at Hewlett-Packard Company and 10 years of software systems experience and leadership in the financial and computing industries. Her strategic and program leadership experience focused on the definition and delivery of technology-based products and solutions, and her marketing operations experience has been in creating new business models, organizational structures, cost reductions, and revenue generation programs. She has demonstrated proven leadership in business strategy development/execution, marketing operations, and software systems delivery working across departments, functional areas and geographic regions.

In addition to her work at CMU, Ms. Root is President/CEO of RootAnalysis, and consults in business strategy creation and execution, program management, and marketing effectiveness for companies including HP, PeopleSoft, Santa Clara University, Novell, and Philips.

Ms. Root sits on several boards, including Sloan School of Business, WITI (Women in Technology International), Teach for America, and the Stanford Institute on Research in Women and Gender. She holds a Sloan Master's in Business from Stanford University.


Meeta Roy

Head of Operations, Bose AR

112 - DID YOU EVER WANT TO BE "IN" THE STORY? ENTER AR / VR / IR / MR

Meeta Roy is the Head of Operations for Bose AR where she is responsible for setting, defining, and implementing strategic objectives and ensuring the team is firing on all cylinders to execute on goals. Prior to Bose, Ms. Roy was the Chief of Staff at Jawbone where she was a strategic partner to the executive staff & senior leadership in driving operational excellence, innovation, and program execution.

Ms. Roy is also the founder of MERORA, an apparel and accessories brand reclaiming the word geek. She created this line to encourage a culture of innovation, advocacy, and activism. Her designs range from celebrating women in tech, to advocating for equality and rising up together, to promoting inclusion and diversity in STEM fields. MERORA wants you to wear it loud and wear it proud that you are a geek! A portion of the profits goes to organizations that support the advancement of education in STEM fields.


Suzanne Rumsey

Head of Global Talent Management, TiVo Corporation

351 - BE SELECTIVE, GET SELECTED: HOW TO UNDERSTAND AND NAVIGATE THE SELECTION PROCESS

Suzanne Rumsey is Head of Global Talent Management at TiVo Corporation. She is the member of TiVo's HR leadership team responsible for most aspects of TiVo's Employee Experience, including talent lifecycle processes, executive, leadership and employee development, organization development, change enablement, and diversity, inclusion and belonging strategies and programs. She also consults to TiVo executives on specific people aspects of business strategies.

Prior to TiVo, Ms. Rumsey led talent and organization development strategies and execution at Blue Shield of California. She has extensive experience as both an internal talent practitioner and external consultant, and is passionate about architecting employee experiences that bring out the amazing in everyone.


Parna Sarkar-Basu

CEO and Founder, Brand and Buzz Marketing

155 - THOUGHT LEADERSHIP FOR ALL

174 - Coaching Circle - TRANSFORMING FROM A SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT TO A THOUGHT LEADER

326 - Learning Circle - TRANSFORMING FROM A SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT TO A THOUGHT LEADER

A tech evangelist, Parna Sarkar-Basu serves as a strategic advisor to transformational leaders and technology pioneers, and helps them launch and reinvent companies. Her expertise includes changing industry perception, building market relevance, corporate (re)-positioning and new market entry as well as helping companies raise funds and navigate the digital era. Recipient of multiple awards, Parna has been instrumental in turning experts into thought leaders and propelling tech companies into innovation leaders in highly competitive markets, including artificial intelligence, enterprise software, storage systems, robots, consulting services. A Forbes contributor, she regularly hosts executive sessions on emerging technologies and frequently speaks on a range of topics, including cognitive robotics, innovation for social good, digital transformation, AI, and impact on the workforce.


Diane Schrader

Founder & CEO, thirdACT

355 - DEMYSTIFYING CRYPTOCURRENCIES AND INITIAL COIN OFFERINGS (ICOs)

Diane Schrader is the founder and CEO of thirdACT PBC, a real estate finance technology company. She is recognized for her support of entrepreneurs (advisor to hf.cx, the largest association of technical founders in the world), her decade-plus dedication to the advancement of women (BOD for 100women.org, wynema.org, thehawthornclub.com), and for leading the nation as the first blockchain company to be a Public Benefit Corporation.

Ms. Schrader is known for her rookie smarts and self-determination. She studied figurative painting at SJSU, taught herself to code and began her career as an animator in the computer games industry. Her work included the infamous Dungeons and Dragons series. In the decade following, without any prior experience in training or education, she was tasked with developing a new talent base to seed global commercial sales for digital animation and effects software. Her work took her to over 50 countries. In doing so, she created products and services that transformed a cost center to a global profit center. Then, leaning back again on her software skills, Ms. Schrader leapt into institutional finance, where she developed systematic trading platform for index futures. Deeply moved by the financial crisis, she was drawn towards finance + sustainability. She since has become a pioneer in real estate finance, blockchain and planet tech for cross-sector impact. Ms. Schrader is the mother of two spirited daughters, whom she encourages to have a point of view, and to be insatiously curious about everything, big and small, near and far.


Jillian Scott

Director, TechWomen Program, Institute of International Education

253 - BRIDGING THE DIGITAL GENDER DIVIDE

Jillian Scott is the Director of the TechWomen program at the Institute of International Education, leading the U.S. State Department's mentorship and exchange program for emerging women leaders in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) from 22 countries in Africa, the Middle East, and South and Central Asia. She has led international, women-focused programming for a decade, designing and managing a portfolio of ICT, mentorship, leadership, and education programs in more than 25 countries. Passionate about supporting women to empower themselves through technology and create sustainable change in their communities, Ms. Scott works to build and scale STEM programs with the aim of advancing development outcomes. Herself a science geek, Ms. Scott earned a undergraduate degree in human physiology and a masters degree in public health.


Arjita Sethi

Co-Founder, Equally

353 - VISIONARIES USING TECH FOR GOOD

Arjita Sethi is the co-founder of Equally, a Public Benefit Corporation with a purpose to improve access to education and opportunities for everyone. Its first product, School of Games, is an early childhood AR, Literacy platform. It became one of the semi-finalists in the Global Literacy Challenge by XPrixe and sponsored by Elon Musk.

Ms. Sethi is currently serving on the Young Executive Advisory Board on the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center in San Francisco. She is also the co-founder of Startupindia.in - a startup based in India that is providing tools and resources for grassroot entrepreneurs in India to create impactful startups. Ms. Sethi is a passionate social entrepreneur who completed her Master's in social entrepreneurship from Hult international Business School. She speaks actively on Inclusion, Equality, and Social Entrepreneurship, and was a speaker at TEDx San Francisco in 2015. Ms. Sethi trained over 250 women at the Women Tech Makers Conference in NYC, Cambridge, and Nigeria in 2017. She also headed the first Milestone Maker Program of Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center in India.


Anna Shen

Startup Advisor, Ecosystem Builder & Journalist

354 - VENTURE CAPITAL: HOW TO TURN THE NUMBERS AROUND FOR FEMALE FOUNDERS AND FUNDERS

Anna Shen is an advisor to startups, and writes about venture capital, startups, technology, and innovation for Huffington Post, Fortune, and others. She also speaks frequently at conferences on issues related to female entrepreneurship and gender. Most recently, she was invited by the government of Taiwan to speak on the view from Silicon Valley for women. Her involvement in gender is deeply rooted in a global perspective, as she began her career at the World Bank and United Nations. Ms. Shen received an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.


Raejeanne Skillern

VP, Data Center Group & GM, Cloud Service Provider Platform Group, Intel Corporation

206 - WITI PowerTalk - LEAD WITH COMPASSION: FIND YOUR OWN LEADERSHIP STYLE

232 - LEARNING CIRCLE WITH INTEL VP/GM RAEJEANNE SKILLERN

Raejeanne Skillern is vice president in the Data Center Group and general manager of the Cloud Service Provider Platform Group at Intel Corporation. She manages Intel's business, roadmap, and customer engagements for public cloud infrastructure deployments and leads the team responsible for working closely with the world's largest cloud service providers to optimize Intel's data center solutions for their unique needs.

Before assuming her current position in 2014, Ms. Skillern was director of marketing for big data and cloud computing at Intel. She was responsible for creating new business opportunities, developing and optimizing products, and establishing industry thought leadership for Intel in these segments. During her six-year tenure in that role, she spearheaded the creation of the Open Data Center Alliance, a global IT consortium intended to serve as the voice of IT requirements for open data center technology, and led the team that successfully extended the Intel brand to cloud services through the Powered by Intel Cloud Technology program. Earlier in her Intel career, Ms. Skillern held various leadership roles in product marketing, strategic analysis, demand creation, and business development. She also spent two years with Intel Online Services, an Intel subsidiary that provided co-location and managed hosting services. Ms. Skillern earned her bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science from Pepperdine University and her MBA from Marylhurst University.


Liz Slocum

Founder, Sudocat

251 - LOOK, MA - NO HANDS! AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES AND THE FUTURE OF TRANSPORTATION

Liz Slocum Jensen is a connected car expert who consults on car app development and the future of transportation. She founded two connected car startups, Driven Computing and Road Rules, with the mission to make car app development easier and to make driving safer, respectively.


Bonnie Snyder

National Business Director, VoiceXP

292 - VOICE-FIRST TECHNOLOGY: WOMEN LEADING THE WAY

A pioneer in the Voice space, Bonnie Snyder is the National Business Director at VoiceXP. She started this career path as just an idea ... could an Alexa skill be designed for a direct marketing campaign for CenturyLink, where she played the role of Business Director in the Midwest Region of the US? The answer was YES. Her business partner Bob Stolzberg brought the idea to life. Ms. Snyder is a creator of business solutions, with an exceptional ability both to identify and articulate a solution. During her tenure at CenturyLink and AT&T she passionately led teams to success and creatively launched many new platforms as a first in the industry. She is doing the same at VoiceXP, which is 100% focused on the Voice Experience™.


Nikila Srinivasan

Product Lead, Ads Growth & China Ads, Facebook

293 - DIVERSITY AS A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Nikila Srinivasan leads the Ads Growth team at Facebook and is responsible for helping millions of small businesses become successful on the platform, and for international business growth in key markets (including China). She graduated with a CS engineering degree from Chennai, India, and was an entrepreneur before moving to Silicon Valley. At Facebook, she championed the need to invest in emerging markets and as a result of her advocacy, the team green-lit a large investment out of the London office. Ms. Srinivasan was drafted to be a site builder in London and established an Emerging Markets ads team before moving back to California to assume her current position as head of small business and China ads.

As a woman of color with diverse experiences, Ms. Srinivasan is a passionate advocate for diversity in the workforce - and in how we approach product development and technology. She's also a published author, speaker at international events including the Cannes Advertising Festival, keynote at the Ada Lovelace Festival in Berlin, Product Tank, Fortune Global CEO Forum, and was one of India's Olympic torchbearers.


Niharika Srivastav

307 - THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW: FUTURE OF DIGITAL HEALTHCARE AND TELEMEDICINE

Niha Srivastav is the Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of Sanovatech, a services company focused on simplifying cybersecurity for non-techies, business managers, and executives. Niha has extensive experience in information technology and is very passionate about educating people on cybersecurity threats and risks. She is associated with various non-profit organizations in the Bay area that work towards the education of underprivileged children.


Tracy Stone

Global Leader, Tech Women @ Intuit Initiative, Intuit

205 - Keynote Panel: STEM VISIONARIES SHARE SUCCESS IN PRACTICE

Tracy Stone is a Principal Technical Program Manager at Intuit, where she currently leads the Tech Women @ Intuit initiative and is responsible for developing the strategy and impactful programs to attract and recruit, retain, and advance technical women. Ms. Stone has a Bachelor of Science in Computer and Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and has several years of engineering experience at Adobe, HP, and Intel, including leading software development teams and technical program management.

Before joining Intuit, Ms. Stone paused her tech career to take care of her kids for five years. During that time, she co-founded the non-profit girlSPARC, which is dedicated to increasing the number of girls exposed to STEM at the elementary and middle school level.


Mica Syjuco

Director, Technology Leadership, Avanade

352 - FUTURE IT AND YOU: ENVISION YOUR POSSIBILITIES!

325 - Learning Circle - HOW TO TRANSITION SUCCESSFULLY TO SCRUM

Mica Syjuco is the Industry Network Director for Agile and DevOps at Women in Technology International (WITI). She is also the Global Agile Capability and Delivery Director at multinational company Avanade, the joint venture between Microsoft and Accenture. She was the first woman to take on the role of Global Head of DevOps and Agile Coaching at the organization as well. For over 17 years, Mica has led the successful delivery of complex product development for multiple clients -- some of which are counted among the biggest companies in the world (Fortune 500). She has a strong expertise in implementing and leading both Traditional and Agile / Scrum based development and delivery processes supporting distributed teams on medium to large-scale .NET based enterprise projects.


Mica graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in Information Technology and completed Wharton Executive Education's Leadership and Management Certificate Program. She is based in Chicago, and works with teams located across the globe -- from North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America. She is a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST), Professional Scrum Master, Professional Scrum Developer, Professional Scrum Product Owner, Professional Agile Leader, and certified in Scaled Professional Scrum, Professional Scrum with Kanban, and Professional Scrum with User Experience. She is also a Certified SAFe Program Consultant (SPC) and certified in Microsoft Dynamics 365.


Gwen Takagawa

Assistant Director, Green Rush Consulting

152 - EXPLORING PROFESSIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN IN CANNABIS

Gwen Takagawa wins government licenses for cannabis businesses. In an industry shaped by heavy regulation and limited license numbers, impeccable attention to detail is critical to getting a foot in the door. In her previous life, Ms. Takagawa combined grantwriting, data analysis, and academic writing on behalf of the Human Security Report Project. She now leads a team of writers and project managers winning cannabis licenses from coast to coast, including Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington.


Tamara Thompson

CEO, Serious Take Productions

112 - DID YOU EVER WANT TO BE "IN" THE STORY? ENTER AR / VR / IR / MR

Tamara Thompson is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, a female director who has a background in digital filmmaking and a graduate of the Seattle Art Institute. She has produced for online continuing education platforms, and for high-end corporate companies such as Microsoft, Safeway, and Starbucks.

Ms. Thompson is passionate about building relationships and connecting with others to help tell the right story for brands, individuals, and events through creative visuals. She has directed music videos, and directed her own web series interviewing artists who appeared on American Idol, and NBC's The Voice. Ms. Thompson enjoys directing documentaries, TV episodes, and sharing her expertise across stages all over the world to impact other businesses to take action with video. She is currently working with Bloomberg TV directing episodes for New Frontiers, involving well-known actor William Shatner.


Carrie Tice

CEO & Co-Founder, Octavia Wellness

116 - EXPLORING THE MEDICINAL / MEDICAL / WELLNESS TECHNOLOGIES OF CANNABIS

Carrie Tice founded Octavia Wellness after seeking information about cannabis products that might help with her mother's diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease, two years ago. As they began researching the best cannabis treatment options, the discovery process left them frustrated, overwhelmed, and confused. Ms. Tice began educating herself and sourcing the best cannabis products for her family and friends.

Within a year, she and her mother had created a network of people who were all being helped or were helping others gain safe access to reliable, trusted cannabis products. Ms. Tice resigned from her career in high tech, and she and her mother sold their Victorian home on Octavia Street in San Francisco to start up Octavia Wellness. Today, Octavia Wellness is a premier, in-home, direct sales cannabis choice, dedicated to serving multiple generations of people who want to feel better with cannabis products.


Howard Ting

GTM Leader for High-Growth Companies

361 - INSIDER GUIDE TO HIRING

Howard Ting is the former CMO of Zscaler and previously spent 5 years at Nutanix, helping to build the fastest growing infrastructure company of the past decade as CMO. Before Nutanix, he was head of corporate marketing at Palo Alto Networks for 4 years. Earlier in his career, Mr. Ting held marketing, product, and corporate development roles at Microsoft, Cisco, RSA Security, and several startups.


Ized Uanikhehi

Community Evangelist, DigiClan Africa

253 - BRIDGING THE DIGITAL GENDER DIVIDE

Ized Uanikhehi is a Digital Media Consultant with a mission to optimize digital marketing efficiency for organizations in Africa. She is convener of the DigiClan Africa community - a community of African digital media marketers and enthusiasts in careers spanning all aspects of digital media, who share latest trends and insights, and connect and leverage massive opportunities together).

Ms. Uanikhehi speaks and trains on Digital Media best practices; Strategy, Crisis Communication and Marketing are her forte. She is currently a social producer with CNN Africa.


Imo Udom

Co-Founder & CEO, Wepow

351 - BE SELECTIVE, GET SELECTED: HOW TO UNDERSTAND AND NAVIGATE THE SELECTION PROCESS

Imo Udom is the Co-founder and CEO of Wepow, a video interviewing and talent engagement platform that helps hundreds of organizations improve recruiter productivity, deliver engaging candidate experiences, and make the right hires.

Prior to Wepow, Mr. Udom held a number of posts at Lockheed Martin, including Deputy Lead Systems Engineer and Proposal Manager, where he managed a diverse team and evaluated project success. Mr. Udom received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering and his M.S. in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.


Devon Valencia

Vice President, Enterprise Program Delivery, Blue Shield of California

352 - FUTURE IT AND YOU: ENVISION YOUR POSSIBILITIES!

Devon Valencia is Vice President of Enterprise Programs for Blue Shield of California. She is passionate about bringing healthcare into the digital age and creating healthcare "worthy of our family and friends."

Ms. Valencia is active in Blue Shield's Women's Leadership program and is President of the Board for The Center for Violence Free Relationships.


Dale Thomas Vaughn

Co-Founder, Better Man Conference, Director of DEI, Good Men Project

103 - THE ALLY'S JOURNEY: 5 STEPS TO BECOMING AN INCLUSIONARY LEADER

Dale Thomas Vaughn is an activist for gender equality and healthy masculinity. If you've seen NEVERTHELESS, the award-winning #MeToo documentary, you will remember him as the guy who says "sexism is the anchor that is holding society back." As co-founder of the Healthy Masculinity Initiative and the Better Man Conference, he has presented alongside leaders like Gloria Steinem, Sheryl Sandberg, and Tony Porter.


Genil Washington

Director, Talent Acquisition, Dignity Health

351 - BE SELECTIVE, GET SELECTED: HOW TO UNDERSTAND AND NAVIGATE THE SELECTION PROCESS

Genil Washington has been on a mission to transform the candidate experience. A native of the Bay Area, she understands the competitive landscape and importance of a streamlined candidate experience. With over 20 years of progress human resources and talent acquisition experience, Ms. Washington has held leadership positions in talent acquisition and workforce planning in multiple large organizations. She is currently a Director of Talent Acquisition at Dignity Health and an Adjunct Professor at Golden Gate University. She previously served on the Board of Women in Cable Telecommunications.

Ms. Washington holds a graduate degree in Human Resources Management from Golden Gate University, an undergraduate degree from California State University - Hayward in Health Care Administration, and an Employee Relations Certification from Cornell University.


Grant Weinberg

Vice President, Global Talent Acquisition, TriNet

306 - GET READY, GET SET, GET HIRED: SIMPLE WAYS TO STAND OUT AND GET NOTICED

Grant Weinberg studied Finance in South Africa before joining the Gaming Industry. After an eight-year career in Casinos in various management roles, he decided to transfer his Human Capital skills into the Recruitment Sector. His career has covered Agency, Onsite, In-House recruitment and HR Management across multiple sectors with a strong focus on Recruitment Business Partnering excellence.

Grant is currently the Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition at TriNet. His skill set combines both strategy and operational excellence across Talent Acquisition/Management, combined with HR best practice, all underpinned by a strong business acumen. In 2013 Grant was independently recognized as one of the 11 most influential In-House Recruitment professionals in the UK.


Kesha Williams

Software Engineering Manager, Chick-fil-A Corporate

254 - FACIAL RECOGNITION IS CREEPING INTO DAILY LIFE

292 - VOICE-FIRST TECHNOLOGY: WOMEN LEADING THE WAY

Kesha (pronounced KEY-SHA) Williams is an award-winning software engineer with over 20 years' experience specializing in full stack web application development using Java, Spring, Angular, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). She's trained and mentored thousands of software developers in the US, Europe, and Asia while teaching Java at the university level. She did her summer internship with the National Security Agency (NSA); how cool is that?

Ms. Williams most recently won the Ada Lovelace Award in Computer Engineering from Look Far and the Think Different Innovation Award from Chick-fil-A for her work on investigating how emerging technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can enhance restaurant operations and customer experiences. In her spare time, she leads the Georgia chapter of Technovation, speaks at technical conferences across the globe, serves as a mentor with the New York Academy of Sciences, and conducts free "Hour of Code" workshops for children at her local library.


Dea Wilson

Founder, Lifograph

354 - VENTURE CAPITAL: HOW TO TURN THE NUMBERS AROUND FOR FEMALE FOUNDERS AND FUNDERS

Dea Wilson is the Founder of Lifograph, "The Wiki of People" - a free people search engine with 500K profiles and 1.2M connections, matching people and companies based on their needs, skills, interests, and real-life relationships. Ms. Wilson is a serial entrepreneur and Managing Director at Silicon Valley Incubator. She is also an Angel Investor at the Wharton Alumni Angels and Tech Angels, her investment interest being in consumer, mobile, and SaaS startups. Ms. Wilson is also a big supporter of female founders and investors and currently leads a community of almost 1,000 women leaders and entrepreneurs. A big car racing fan, she is currently serving on the Board of Directors of the Ferrari Club of America, Pacific Region.

As an Executive Director at The VC Network and LifographTV, Ms. Wilson interviews many prominent VCs, angels, executives and founders in Silicon Valley and tech. Earlier in her career she worked at two Fortune 100 companies, Microsoft and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Ms. Wilson earned a Master's degree from University of Washington on a full scholarship, and an MBA degree from the Wharton School of Business (University of Pennsylvania), majoring in entrepreneurship.


Nancy Wojtas

Partner, Cooley LLP

355 - DEMYSTIFYING CRYPTOCURRENCIES AND INITIAL COIN OFFERINGS (ICOs)

Nancy Wojtas is a partner of Cooley LLP and has served as counsel in connection with corporate governance matters, acquisitions, dispositions, mergers, private and public offerings, joint ventures, venture capital and bank financings, proxy contests, cryptocurrency offerings, and going private transactions. She began her career with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the division of Market Regulation and later served as counsel to the Chairman of the Commission.

Ms. Wojtas was recognized as Lawyer of the Year in Corporate Governance in Palo Alto by The Best Lawyers in America in 2013. She has been recognized as a leading lawyer by The Best Lawyers in America in Corporate Governance from 2007-2018 and in its 2016 "Women Lawyer of the Year" awards. She is a member of the Opinions Committee of the California State Bar. Formerly Ms. Wojtas was the co-chair of the Corporations Committee of the Business section of the California State Bar.


Jorden Woods

Founder, StarChain Ventures

304 - REAL-WORLD APPLICATIONS OF BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY

355 - DEMYSTIFYING CRYPTOCURRENCIES AND INITIAL COIN OFFERINGS (ICOs)

Jorden Woods is a Managing Partner at DoubleNova Group, a blockchain consultancy and ICO advisory based in Silicon Valley. He is a successful 3-time serial entrepreneur with exits, and a pioneer in globalization strategy and technology. Mr. Woods is also an investor in tech and blockchain companies, is raising a new blockchain VC fund named StarChain Ventures, and actively publishes blockchain articles on Medium.


Heidi Yu

CEO, BOOSTO.io

355 - DEMYSTIFYING CRYPTOCURRENCIES AND INITIAL COIN OFFERINGS (ICOs)

Heidi Yu is CEO and Founder of Boostinsider and BOOSTO. She is a serial entrepreneur and an MBA graduate from Seattle University. After exiting the e-commerce platform Pocomaru, in 2014 Ms. Yu founded Boostinsider, providing in-depth data analytics for 350,000 active social media influencers covering 2 billion followers. In 2017, Boostinsider launched SocialBook, a comprehensive influencer data analytics platform with AI technology. SocialBook allows brands and influencers to view the demographics and psychographics data of the audience of any YouTuber and Instagrammer, as well as enabling social media listening and competitor tracking.

BOOSTO.io brought the influencer perspective to the blockchain community, where it tries to build an influencer-driven decentralized App Store, connecting developers with influencers. BOOSTO.io also built a crypto influencer community (cryptoinfluence.io) and hosted the world's first crypto influencer award.


Sohila Zadran

Neuroscientist, Venture Capital & Private Equity

362 - READY TO WELCOME THE AI REVOLUTION INTO YOUR HOME AND AT WORK?

Sohila Zadran completed her undergraduate studies in Molecular Cell Biology and Neurobiology at UC Berkeley, and her doctoral studies in Neuroscience and Neuro-engineering at the age of 23 under National Academy of Sciences member, Dr. Richard Thompson. She subsequently completed her post-doctoral fellowship in Systems Neuroscience, Bioinformatics, Computational Modeling at the California Institute of Technology as a National Institute of Health fellow. By the age of 25, Dr. Zadran had published over a dozen first-author publications in leading scientific journals in the field of genomics, cancer biology, neurobiology, systems biology, cancer stem cells, and computational modeling of cell state transitions.

Dr. Zadran teaches a course on Artificial Intelligence and Neural Networks at Stanford University. By the age of 30, she had founded three biotech and digital health companies, one of which was in partnership with the California Institute of Quantitative Biology (qb3), the Johnson and Johnson Innovation Centers (Janssen Labs), and one in partnership with the Fogarty Institute of Innovation. Dr. Zadran currently serves as an advisor to several biotech, digital health companies and several Silicon Valley accelerators including UC Berkeley's accelerator Skydeck and qb3. She has also worked for leading Venture Capital firms, including Pacific Capital Hong Kong, BCG Digital Ventures, and Khosla Ventures.


Speakers and Sessions are Subject to Change