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AJ Thomas is currently the Chaos Pilot and Head of Talent at X, the Moonshot Factory looking after X’s portfolio of projects. Previously, she served as the Head of People Products and led X’s Human Experience Design (HXD) team made up of people analytics, learning and organizational development, shared services, talent operations, and performance management programs. She is an advisor to a portfolio of startups working in the Web 3.0, sustainable battery technologies, and future of work. Serving in these roles and tours of duty have allowed AJ to be a key contributor to developing talent for the future and has shaped her unique approach to coaching and leadership.

With a passion and responsibility for working on the future, AJ has explored multiple roles as the founder of Infuse Program Foundation, an non-profit providing entrepreneurial education and experiences to underrepresented youth in East Side San Jose and is Chief Explorer and Board Advisor at BrainCandy Labs, powered by Women in Technology International. Her experience includes several roles that have spanned across sales, support engineering, product & design and human resource and leadership. Her unique journey also includes deep experience in executive and leadership capacities, most recently serving as Vice President of People & Culture, CHRO, and Head of Talent roles at several enterprise technology and startup companies like T-Mobile, Adecco, Iron Mountain, HP Enterprise (Nimble Storage), Ten-X and Auction.com.

A lot of what fuels AJ’s interests and passions intersect at bridging the gaps in talent, culture and career. With a dash of creativity and live music! This includes serving as an executive and leadership coach and curating access to education for underrepresented talent. She is also the co-author of an award-winning children’s book Courage Takes Flight (www.couragetakesflight.com). The result of what she does moves people and organizations forward to create a future of infinite possibilities.

Alex has 15+ years of global experience in the People/HR space. He has spent time working in different industries and for companies like Citi, NBCUniversal and WeWork, amongst others. His specific expertise has centered on creating, transforming and building out systems that foster an equitable, innovative and inclusive workplace culture. He has been a full-time Chief People Officer & Head of HR (e.g. GHJ and Control Risks) and is currently focused on fractional clients. He is also a start-up advisor in the HR tech space, currently working with When Insurance, Kindred Minds, and ChangeEngine.

Angela joined Harvard Business Publishing as Senior Vice President, Talent & Chief Human Resources Officer in 2021. In this role, Cheng-Cimini leads the Human Resources and Facilities & Administration units, spearheading efforts to develop a talent roadmap that supports the business strategy and creates a deeply engaged and diverse workforce.

Angela brings 30 years of both generalist and specialist Human Resources experience, having worked across consumer product goods, professional services, and high-tech as well as nonprofits. She has shepherded businesses through start-up, growth, and maturity with key responsibility for helping organizations identify and build the necessary organizational capabilities. Prior to joining Harvard Business Publishing, Angela was at ClearMotion, Inc. an automotive technology startup where she accelerated the evolution of the HR function from administrative to strategic. She also served as the Global Head of Human Resources for Crabtree & Evelyn, where she led an international team spanning four continents and prepared the brick-and-mortar business to go completely digital. Angela sits on the Alumni Board of Directors for Cornell University; serves as an HR Venture Adviser for SemperVirens, an early-stage venture fund that invests in technology transforming healthcare, work, and financial wellness; and is Board Director for the T. Howard Foundation, a mission-driven organization dedicated to increasing diversity in the media industry.

Born and raised in NYC, Arthur started his career in banking before moving into Recruiting/HR.  Over a 20 year journey, he helped scale some of the top quant hedge funds before moving to the Bay Area to help scale tech companies.  Most recently, he led teams at Checkr, Twitch and Yelp through their biggest growth phases before joining Medely in 2022.  As the EVP of People and Talent at Medely, he's working to scale teams and processes to allow the company to revolutionize the healthcare staffing marketplace.  As a people tech nerd, he's an active investor and advisor who loves to tinker with any new technology he can get his hands on.  And while he lives and breathes people and talent, he's also a passionate father and diehard NY sports fan

Balbina Knight currently leads at the VP of People & Culture at Thrive Digital, where she serves as a people experience architect and activist, dedicated to building a better world of work. With over 13 years of experience in technology, Balbina has worked with various marketing agencies, managing growth marketing campaigns for some of the world's most exciting brands and leading top marketing teams in North America to shifting her focus to fuse together business strategy with people strategy to promote organizational growth and resilience. Through her innovative, compassionate, and human-centered approach, Balbina helps workplaces adapt to the ever-changing world by prioritizing the needs of their people.

Carolyn Frey is the Chief People Officer at Hungryroot. Prior to Hungryroot, she was the CPO & Head of Legal at Curology, a leading prescription skincare company. She led them through a fundamental restructure of their operations, and a CEO transition. Previously, she was at Philz Coffee for 6 years as their first ever CPO. Across her tenure, on top of people, she led retail operations & stores, the digital team, marketing and new business development. She started her career at Gartner (fka CEB) where she spent 15 years ($100M-$1B+) in various senior roles, leading sales, account management & product teams. She was well known in the firm for her ability to achieve YOY revenue growth, and develop/retain exceptional talent. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and lives in Santa Barbara with her husband and two kids.

Dom Merritt is an HR-preneurial, enthusiastic, collaborative, and culture-focused People/ HR leader with over 15 years of experience to shape high-performing cultures in fast-growing venture and PE-backed start-ups (Series A-D) as well as established mid-market organizations. Using a People First approach, he helps companies translate business vision into innovative HR initiatives that improve performance, profitability, growth, and employee engagement while developing executable strategies to attract, retain, and develop high-performing talent. His broad areas of expertise include talent management, organizational development, HR management, change management, and communication.

Dom is currently the Chief People Officer for dscout, a SaaS video research platform that helps major brands gather, manage, share, and analyze millions of in-context moments submitted by people around the world. He has also held senior leadership roles at several high-growth SaaS companies such as Uptake, Sprout Social, and several others.  

In addition to his HR work, he is also a Senior Lecturer for Loyola University Chicago where he teaches management and communication courses and serves on the Faculty Advisory Board.

Dom obtained his Master of Science Degree in Organizational Communication Studies from Northwestern University as well as a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Management and Organizational Psychology from Loyola University Chicago.

Evan leads People at Pivot Bio. Prior to Pivot Bio, Evan was the Head of Leadership Development at Google and held executive leadership positions at several of Silicon Valley’s most recognized and successful companies including Box and Hewlett Packard. Most recently, he was Chief People Officer for Ancestry.com, the world leader in genealogy and consumer genomics, with $1B+ in annual revenues and 1500 employees globally. Evan received his BA with Distinction in Psychology and English Literature from Swarthmore College, and his M.B.A. with Honors from the Wharton School.

Heather has spent 15+ years in People roles and is currently the Chief People Officer at Brex. Prior to Brex, she was CPO at Gem, where she led all things People and Talent and the CPO at Newfront, where she established and scaled people programs, ultimately leading them through a successful merger that took Newfront from 300 to 700 employees. Previous to her CPO roles, she led the HR Business Partner team at Dropbox and held roles in Recruiting, Compensation, and HR Business Partner at Microsoft. In addition to her day job, Heather holds a number of angel investments and advisory roles across early stage startups.

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Karen is an organizational psychologist with expertise in leadership development, change management and executive coaching. She’s been privileged to work with executives and high-tech leaders to build and align high performance teams, scale organizations, and accelerate leaders’ growth to meet strategic challenges, For ten years, Karen served as Google’s vice president of People Development, heading up the company’s leadership development, L&D, talent management and career development teams across the globe. Prior to joining Google in 2010, Karen founded and led two organizational consulting firms, both with successful exits. Karen has a deep interest in mindfulness and meditation and is a frequent interviewer, contributor and advisor to Wisdom 2.0. She also serves as an advisor to Wisdom Ventures and their portfolio companies.

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Karen earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in industrial and organizational psychology at U.C. Berkeley and received her B.A. in psychology from Mills College. Karen served on the Mills College Board of Trustees for 10 years leading up to the merger with Northeastern University and is a past president of the Mills College Alumnae Association.

Mark serves as Chief People Officer at Nativo, overseeing the company’s people strategy and operations and delivering forward-thinking people solutions. He is passionate about cultivating a purpose-led, values-driven, inclusive culture, balancing new technology with the human touch to create an inspiring people experience. Before joining Nativo, Mark served as Chief People Officer for Zovio (Nasdaq: ZVO), an educational technology company, leading a team responsible for redesigning all aspects of the company’s people and culture strategy and leading efforts to drive organizational transformation. Mark also has served in senior human resources roles at ResMed (NYSE: RMD) and commercial leadership roles at Metagenics, Shire Regenerative Medicine, and Bard Peripheral Vascular. Mark is a graduate of the University of Southern California.

Maureen is the Chief People Officer at Saatva, the Smarter Luxury Sleep Company. Maureen is a certified HR practitioner and executive coach, with certifications from HRCI and Assenter Coaching. She holds a BA in Business Administration from Fordham University and an MBA from the University of Connecticut.

Bringing 20+ years of experience in HR across high tech, healthcare, and medical device industries, Shane’s passion is creating a culture of high performance for companies in growth mode. For nearly seven years, Shane played a key role in the global expansion, merger and acquisition, and integration work for Omniture, helping to guide the company through a successful acquisition by Adobe for $1.8 billion.                                      

Looking to broaden his industry knowledge, Shane joined Edwards Lifesciences in 2011 and played a key leadership role in the 100%+ year over year growth for the Utah site.                

Shane joined Domo in 2013 to assist in developing its talent and culture as the company grew at 100%+ year over year. His side hustle at the time was as a product evangelist for the Domo platform, and he spent every free minute on demo calls with the Sales team.        

Sensing it was time to try his hand at small startups again, Shane joined Banjo in 2019 to guide them on their rapid, organic growth. The company more than doubled in the short time he was there, during which time Shane was able to implement a number of programs to help the company scale and keep the core culture strong.            

Shane has admired Ancestry from afar for some time now, and was thrilled to have the opportunity to join the team in 2020. In his first role with the company, he led the Talent Management, Talent Development and Talent Operations functions, focusing on connecting the dots across the employee lifecycle to ensure a cohesive and meaningful employee experience. In October of 2021, Shane took on leadership of the global People & Places function and has been guiding the company through the next chapter in its product vision to build Ancestry for all.                                        

Shane is a Utah native and enjoys being part of the growth of Silicon Slopes. He holds a Master’s Degree from the University of Utah and lives in South Jordan with his wife and four children.

Suzy Walther is the Chief People Officer at FalconX responsible for scaling FalconX and building the infrastructure critical for employee engagement and retention that will drive FalconX’s long term success.Before joining FalconX, Suzy was the Chief People Officer at Carta, a company revolutionizing the way founders, investors, and employees manage equity and ownership. Prior to joining Carta, Suzy was the Global Head of Talent for Bloomberg, L.P.  During her 22 years with Bloomberg, Suzy navigated progressive roles in sales and product, ultimately leading and growing multi-million dollar businesses (Bloomberg PORT, TOMS, and SSEOMS). Her extensive global operating experience gives her unique perspective in the development and execution of innovative talent strategies.

Tracie is formerly the Chief People Officer at The Granite Group, where she led transformative initiatives including technology advancements and the evolution of the HR department into a celebrated People Team. In 2024, she founded Tracie Sponenberg, LLC, where she serves as a Fractional Chief People Officer and Advisor, focusing on transforming HR in Distribution and beyond. She is also a  global speaker specializing in HR, leadership, technology, and business issues.  Tracie's approach has evolved from a paper-first to a people-first mindset, emphasizing the significance of understanding business dynamics, technology, relationship-building, and maintaining a growth mindset. She is dedicated to placing people before profits and is passionate about helping organizations unlock their full potential through strategic people management.